He led the Saskatchewan Liberal Party in three general elections, winning all three with majority governments before retiring.

[1] He moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, in 1885,[2] and then – at the age of 19 – to Regina, the capital of the North-West Territories, in 1886.

In 1900, Scott ran as a Liberal in the federal riding of Assiniboia West and was elected to the House of Commons.

During the discussions about creating provinces out of the North-West Territories, Scott initially supported territorial Premier Frederick Haultain's proposal to create one big province (to be named "Buffalo") out of what is today Alberta and Saskatchewan – but then converted to the two-province option favoured by Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal government.

In February 1905, the federal Government of Canada introduced legislation to create the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan effective July 1, 1905 (Dominion Day).

However, Haultain's opposition to the division of the Territories into two provinces, the denial of natural resources, and the Catholic school provisions had led the federal government to mistrust him.

Scott, who was the minister of public works in addition to serving as premier,[7] now began a search for a suitable location for the new Legislative Building.

In 1907, the government appointed telephone expert Francis Dagger to study the issue, and the result, in 1908, was Saskatchewan's famous solution of letting rural residents form mutual or co-operative companies to provide local phone services.

Scott was also very interested in higher education, having promised the creation of a provincial university during the 1905 election campaign.

In August 1908, Walter Murray, a philosophy professor from the Maritimes, was appointed as the first president of the new institution, although the site of the university had not yet been determined.

In April 1909, over the opposition of President Murray, the government decided to locate the new University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

In 1907, he appointed a commission to decide where to locate the provincial insane asylum, with it eventually being built in North Battleford in 1913.

[citation needed] In October 1909, the Governor General of Canada, the Earl Grey was on hand to lay the cornerstone of the Saskatchewan Legislature, which Premier Scott had recently decided should be made out of Tyndall stone.

Saskatchewan's importance in Confederation and the wider British Empire was confirmed in October 1912 when the Legislative Building was officially opened by Queen Victoria's favourite son Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, who was then the Governor General.

In 1913, he introduced legislation to require religious minority ratepayers (i.e. Catholics) to support their own separate schools.

Another development in 1913 was the creation of a provincial Board of Censors to deal with the corrupting influence of new-fangled motion pictures.

With the commencement of hostilities in World War I, Scott called an emergency session of the Saskatchewan Legislature on September 15, 1914.

He pledged that all government MLAs would contribute 10% of their salaries to the Canadian Patriotic Fund, and that the province would donate 1500 horses to the British war effort.

The Leader of the Opposition immediately rose to applaud these measures, and the session ended with Liberal and Conservative members joining in a rousing chorus of God Save the King.

Pressed on the matter in early 1914, he said that he didn't feel his government had a mandate from the people to enact such a major change as introducing female suffrage.

[11] Scott had longed opposed the prohibition of alcohol,[1] but the war made it all but impossible to resist the pressure of temperance advocates.

In a March 1915 speech in Oxbow, Scott announced that all drinking establishments in Saskatchewan would be closed as of July 1, to be replaced by provincially run liquor stores.

First, he had become increasingly prone to bouts of depression – with his outburst against his own pastor, Murdoch Mackinnon, during the debate about educational policy, serving as indication to his supporters that he was no longer entirely up for the job of premier.

Bradshaw alleged in the House that Liberals had been receiving kickbacks for highway work, liquor licences, and public building contracts.

Scott is one of only four Saskatchewan premiers to win three or more majority governments, the others being Tommy Douglas, Allan Blakeney, and Brad Wall.

The first general election matched Scott and the Liberals against Haultain, former Premier of the North-West Territories, and the Provincial Rights Party.

Scott stood for election to the House of Commons twice, in the riding of Assiniboia West, North-West Territories.

[2][1] The Walter Scott Memorial was unveiled in 2012 in Wascana Centre, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building.

In 2000, Gordon Barnhart, former Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, released the first detailed biography of Walter Scott.