Bulyea, George Hedley Vicars

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: David J. Hall, “BULYEA, GEORGE HEDLEY VICARS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bulyea_george_hedley_vicars_15E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman, politician, and lieutenant governor; b. 17 Feb. 1859 in Gagetown, N.B., son of James Albert Bulyea and Jane Blizzard, farmers; m. there 29 Jan. 1885 Annie Blanche Babbit; d. 22 July 1928 near Peachland, B.C.
    • G. H. V. Bulyea’s parents were both of loyalist descent. He was educated at the grammar school in Gagetown and at the University of New Brunswick, graduating in 1878 with a specialization in mathematics and French. He taught at the Sheffield Academy from 1878 to 1882, after which he went west to Winnipeg and then in 1883 to Qu’Appelle (Sask.). There he engaged in varied business enterprises, including selling furniture and insurance and dealing in grain, flour, and feed. By 1886 he was a school trustee, a founding member of the South Qu’Appelle Agricultural Association, and treasurer of the local council of the Royal Templars of Temperance; in 1888 he was president of the Northwest Prohibitory Alliance.
    • Bulyea ran for the South Qu’Appelle seat in the Legislative Assembly of the North-West Territories in 1891, but lost; he was, however, successful in 1894, and was re-elected in 1898 and 1902. He served in the government of Premier Frederick William Gordon Haultain from 7 Oct. 1897, first as a non-resident member (essentially a minister without portfolio) and then, from January 1898, as Yukon commissioner. He was appointed commissioner of agriculture and territorial secretary on 12 Jan. 1899, and on 4 Feb. 1903 he became commissioner of public works, a position he held, while remaining territorial secretary, until 1905. He was a partisan Liberal in federal politics and a strong advocate of territorial rights: as early as 1890 he had argued that a council responsible to the assembly should control spending both of the territorial revenues and of the annual federal grant. By 1897 responsible government had been achieved, but the territorial government faced rapidly growing demands for services as a result of national policies to settle the west. The size of the federal grant never kept pace with the pressures on the local government, and the resulting tension fuelled a popular demand for full provincial status.
    • Bulyea himself was in a stressful situation. On the one hand, he was loyal to the federal Liberals, was one of their principal organizers in the District of Assiniboia, and was anxious that the local government, officially non-partisan, not be in conflict with Ottawa. On the other hand, as a member of the territorial government he was acutely aware of the difficulties resulting from federal underfunding of the region, and he knew how popular the provincial rights cry of Premier Haultain was.
    • On 25 July the prime minister, having concluded that Haultain’s public antagonism to aspects of the settlement precluded his being given a position, offered the lieutenant governorship of the new province of Alberta to Bulyea. “Your long and faithful services to the party,” wrote Laurier, “entitle you to the best that may be in the gift of the party.” Bulyea accepted, and was sworn into office when the province came into being on 1 Sept. 1905; he was reappointed to a second five-year term on 5 Oct. 1910.
    • The duties of a lieutenant governor normally were largely ceremonial. On 24 Nov. 1905 Bulyea drove the last spike on the Canadian Northern railway to Edmonton; on 15 March 1906 he opened the first session of the first Alberta legislature in the Thistle Rink in Edmonton.
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1007
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65300015/george-hedley_vicars-bulyea