James Cowan (September 5, 1914 – January 4, 1997)[1] was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1958 to 1969.
He first ran for public office in the 1941 provincial election, as a candidate of the Conservative Party of Manitoba in the electoral district of Winnipeg.
Winnipeg, at the time, elected ten members by preferential balloting in an at-large poll.
He ran for the House of Commons of Canada as a Progressive Conservative in the 1953 federal election, but lost to Liberal incumbent William Weir in the riding of Portage—Neepawa.
Cowan was married twice, first to Dorothy Jones in 1945 and then, after they divorced, to Rose Amy Cooper in 1956.