A son of Cobourg, Edgar Benson left his mark on Canadian politics. His legacy affects our daily lives, even today.
Known as a no-nonsense taskmaster who always got the job done, Edgar Benson was a politician with a thick skin. As president of the treasury in Lester Pearson’s government in the mid- 60s, it was his job to institute nationalized health care in the face of persistent opposition from the medical profession. He was also the mastermind behind the infamous capital gains tax, which it seems everyone hated.
That thick skin came in handy.
Through his political career, from 1962 to his retirement ten years later, Benson represented Kingston in Parliament, but he had deep roots in Cobourg and Hamilton Township to the north: his mother was Julia Ann Minifie, whose surname is still seen on local mailboxes along farm roads east of Cold Springs. His father, Frank Benson, was descended from one of the most prolific farm families near Bewdley. Their story went back to three Benson brothers, who came on their own from Ireland as young lads in the wake of the potato famine and against the odds, made a go of farming on the sandy flats of the Oak Ridges Moraine. One of their descendants was none other than Mina Benson, who with similar dogged determination, earned international acclaim as an explorer, of all things, as the first non-Indigenous person to explore the wilderness of Labrador (see “Mina Benson’s Famous Trek Across Labrador” Watershed, Spring 2014). The Bensons were a determined breed, to be sure. Some of their spirit might just have rubbed off on Edgar.
Born in 1923, Edgar Benson was the youngest of three kids. He grew up poor and his family’s financial straits were made worse by his father’s chronic health problems. Frank was an epileptic and it was a constant struggle for the family to keep up with his medical bills. From a modest address on Henry Street in the east end of Cobourg, Frank worked as a “coal passer” – the unlucky guy who spent his entire day shoveling coal from ships for delivery to local customers. No doubt, all that coal dust made his health even worse. It wasn’t easy for young Edgar to watch his parents struggling, but out of his impoverished background, he found his own ambition and learned some valuable lessons that would influence his political policy in years to come.
At 17, Benson lied about his age and joined the army. After service in the Second World War, he returned home and put himself through Queen’s, earning a degree in commerce in 1949. He adopted Kingston as home, where he was soon established in a local accountancy firm and even bought the local radio station (CKLC, which is still on the air). Politics came calling in 1962 when he scooped the Liberal nomination and won his seat in an upset. “He wasn’t a dynamic speaker,” remembered fellow Kingston Liberal Ken Keyes, quoted in The Globe and Mail after Benson’s death in 2011. “He had the expertise but not the image. Nevertheless, he was a very clever man … a visionary.”
When Lester Pearson won a minority in 1963, he assigned Benson to work in finance, and when Trudeaumania swept the country five years later, Benson was promoted to finance minister. It was during these years that his true colours showed. His first budget cut federal spending and was designed to fight inflation. A firm believer in living within one’s means, his were the last balanced budgets until Paul Martin’s in the 1990s. But as one of the architects behind the RRSP, tax credits for working moms and supplements to the old age pension, Benson was way ahead of his time, perhaps thinking how such measures might have assisted his destitute parents back in the day. During his tenure, the Canadian tax system was completely overhauled, shifting the burden to the rich. His measures are still largely intact today. “He was that rarest of animals,” recalled Liberal colleague Tom Axworthy in that same Globe and Mail tribute, “a reform finance minister.”
Benson was married three times and had four children. For the rest of his life, Ottawa was home base. Outside political circles, he has been largely forgotten, but as the father of many of the social institutions that Canadians still hold dear, he deserves better recognition. Back in Northumberland, east of Cold Springs at the height of the Oak Ridges Moraine, the dirt road leading past the old Minifie farm – on which his mother grew up – has been officially named “Edgar Benson Road”. It’s a humble, yet poignant reminder of how far a local boy can rise.
Story by:
Tom Cruickshank
