[1] He was educated at Upper Canada College and graduated from the University of Toronto, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Alpha Phi chapter).

Drew ran again for the Conservative leadership in 1938, this time successfully, and entered the Legislative Assembly of Ontario at a 1939 by-election as the Member of Provincial Parliament for Simcoe East.

[citation needed] In the 1943 provincial election, the Tories, now called the "Progressive Conservatives", won a minority government, narrowly beating the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) led by Ted Jolliffe.

[5] Drew won by responding to the mood of the times and running on a relatively left-wing platform, promising such radical reforms as free dental care and Medicare.

His government did not implement much of its promised platform (including Medicare or free dental care), but it established the basis for the Tory regimes that followed by trying to steer a moderate course.

His government introduced the Drew Regulation in 1944, which made it compulsory for Ontario schools to provide one hour of religious instruction a week.

[6] Rabbi Abraham Feinberg led the opposition to the Drew regulation and said that it was "undemocratic, imperiling the separation of Church and State, and leading to disunity in society.

[8] Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J.

[19] The "Gestapo" claims against Drew seemed to do little, if any damage, and the CCF got nearly the same percentage in the popular vote as had been predicted by a Gallup poll one month earlier.

[20] Drew's government insisted on spending $400 million in a ten-year program to convert Ontario's electricity system from 25 cycles per second (hertz) to 60, which would standardize it with the rest of North America.

[21] While the Tories won a majority in the legislature in the 1948 election, Drew himself was defeated in his High Park electoral district, in west-end Toronto, by the CCFer and temperance crusader William "Temperance Willie" Temple, who had targeted Drew over his softening of Ontario's liquour laws by legalizing cocktail bars in Ontario.

"Colonel Drew" (as he liked to be called) won the 1948 federal Progressive Conservative leadership convention, defeating John Diefenbaker on the first ballot.

[citation needed] Progressive Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) George Russell Boucher resigned his Carleton seat so that Drew could then contest it in a by-election in order to enter the House of Commons.

[26] Bill Temple was brought up from Toronto to appear at a political meeting in Richmond, Ontario's Town Hall, where Forsey and Drew were speaking.

[27] On December 20, 1948, Drew soundly defeated Forsey by over 8,000 votes — forcing the CCF candidate to lose his deposit — and went on to sit in Parliament.

As a federal politician, Drew alienated potential supporters in Quebec when it was remembered that he had called French-Canadians a "defeated race".

In poor health following a nearly fatal attack of meningitis, Drew resigned as Progressive Conservative leader on September 21 1956, and was succeeded by John Diefenbaker.