During this period King led a minority government that relied for its survival in the House of Commons of Canada on a block of Progressive and allied members of Parliament (MPs).

[17] When he made another attempt in 1929, Brownlee expressed interest, reasserting his support for the federal Liberals, but indicated that he was not politically ambitious and that he would expect the right to resign if he disagreed with government policy.

Brownlee took exception to this, less from any objection to funding Catholic schools than on the principle that education was a matter of provincial jurisdiction, but King would not allow him to rescind his agreement.

[3] This remained a point of contention until 1929, when Brownlee and King agreed on a new wording: "organized in accordance with the laws of the Province, but in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the constitution.

[29] When the federal Turgeon Commission recommended that Manitoba, in addition to a perpetual subsidy, receive a one-time payment of more than $4 million, Brownlee demanded the same for Alberta.

[44] This caution paid off later in the year when the province received and accepted a $25 million offer from CP (with CN holding an option to acquire 50% ownership) to purchase the remaining lines.

[53] Brownlee rejected such calls: "Unless we are to say that individuals or companies who lend money in this Province in good faith must wait indefinitely for repayment, whatever may be the contract or agreement at the time, there comes a limit to the extent to which the Government is justified in interfering".

The act also moved responsibility for teacher salaries and employment conditions from the school districts to the provincial government and standardized educational mill rates across the province.

[59] In 1928, Brownlee's government had to select a replacement for Henry Marshall Tory, the first President of the University of Alberta, who was leaving to become the first head of the National Research Council.

[60] The 1920s Progressive movement of which the Brownlee government was a part advocated eugenics, including the sexual sterilization of so-called "mental defectives" to improve the genetic quality of the human race.

Nor were the UFA members unanimous in the legislation's support: Maurice Conner abstained, and thirteen others—including Archibald Matheson, who had made early attempts to have the bill die on the order paper—were absent for the final vote.

The 1929 UFA convention saw vocal criticisms of Brownlee's failure to adopt the old age pension and his decision to withdraw the Debt Adjustment Act in the face of opposition from banks.

[76] In November he asked new Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, with whom he had practiced law in Calgary nearly twenty years previous, to stabilize wheat "at some reasonable price".

[73] Brownlee also sought assistance from Bennett in dealing with banks' increasing reluctance to lend money to farmers, many of whom would not be able to purchase seed for the 1931 crop without loans.

[82] Despite these minor successes, Brownlee's strategy of negotiation and relying on the reasonableness of all parties rather than imposing strong legislation left his popularity among farmers diminished.

[83] It was not enhanced when he supported unpopular federal legislation requiring farmers to plant less wheat, part of an international agreement aimed at addressing worldwide oversupply.

Falling prices and the attendant tightened credit conditions led the Pool, along with its counterparts in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to seek help from its provincial government in 1930.

[73] Brownlee and Premiers John Bracken of Manitoba and James Thomas Milton Anderson of Saskatchewan met in Ottawa with acting Prime Minister Sir George Perley, seeking direct federal aid to the Pools.

[88] Brownlee, who had long advocated curtailed immigration to the western provinces,[89][90] urged the federal government to prevent new migrants from swelling the ranks of Alberta's unemployed.

[98] In 1933 he joined Bracken and Anderson in protesting to Bennett that nothing more could be done: in Brownlee's view, the province's impoverished people could not pay more taxes, and yet expectations of provincial governments were constantly growing.

[100] Bennett replied by chastising the premiers for not doing enough to "work into a position of self-reliance" and decreed that federal support would be cut off unless budget deficits were limited to $1 million.

[91] Under Gardiner, the UFA moved increasingly to the left, well out of step with the Brownlee government, and passed resolutions calling for the nationalization of land, radio broadcasting, and hydroelectricity, along with the cancellation of interest payments as long as the price of agricultural commodities was less than the cost of their production.

[104] Though the theory required control of monetary policy, a federal responsibility, it became increasingly popular among former UFA supporters who, following Aberhart's instructions, began to form local social credit "study groups".

[108] In defending his conservatism, Brownlee emphasized that "history has yet to record a single instance of the revolutionary method that has not resulted in a welter of discord and misery" and mused that "if the results were not so tragical, [sic] I would like to see Canada put under the most extreme form of socialistic or communistic Government in order that our people could have the actual experience of what would happen and learn for themselves the lesson that in our present day world situation, one nation cannot fashion for itself any level of prosperity regardless of the position of the rest of the world".

[110] While Brownlee was viewed as an orthodox conservative in his approach to economic matters within Alberta, elsewhere in Canada he was still regarded as a leader of the country's radical farmer movement.

[105] Accordingly, when Bennett struck a royal commission to examine the government's role in economic and monetary management, he asked Brownlee to serve on it as a representative of Western and unorthodox views.

[111] Though he was concerned that the commission's other two Canadian members, Beaudry Leman and William Thomas White, were involved in the banking industry, Brownlee agreed to the appointment.

[118] This last recommendation came to pass in 1938, when the Bank of Canada, originally controlled by a mix of public and private interests, was reorganized as a federal Crown corporation.

He was aided in these attacks by the unabashedly Liberal Edmonton Bulletin, which distributed free copies of issues containing coverage of the divorce in McPherson's southern Little Bow riding.

[131] Trial judge William Carlos Ives disagreed with the jury's finding and ruled that even if Vivian MacMillan's story had been true, as a matter of law there could be no successful suit for seduction without damages being proved.