What feud, begun in Muskoka’s backwoods, came to its dramatic climax in the nation’s capital? Liberal candidate Alex Cockburn, Muskoka steamship and lumber mogul, had most votes at the end of a rancorous campaign. Voting was by open declaration of one’s support for a candidate, aloud at a public polling station, before everyone present – democracy not for the faint of heart. The poll book reporting Morrison Township’s results then mysteriously disappeared before it could be delivered to Returning Officer Bell. The Election Act says all polls have to be accounted for before a candidate can be declared elected. Even if all Morrison’s missing votes were for Cockburn’s opponent, Conservative D’Arcy Boulton, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
Richard Bell had been appointed by the party in power, Sir John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives. Every seat mattered for who formed a government. Ottawa Conservatives hoped Cockburn could remain at home and so, privately, did vengeful Bell, while opposition Liberals wanted Muskoka’s biggest employer among their ranks in the Commons. Bell held out. There never was an 1872 election return from Muskoka.
Many “firsts” began entering the record books.
For the first and only time, a returning officer refused to return an election writ. Bell was legally obligated to do so, but the law also required him to account for all votes first. He argued it was therefore unlawful to declare Cockburn MP.
Second, parliament was more than a legislature enacting laws. It was also “highest court in the land.” The Commons convened as a court and summoned Muskoka’s returning officer to appear before the bar of the House. (As in other courts, a brass bar separates judges from lawyers. That’s why a lawyer qualifying to practice is “called to the bar,” and a brass rail still appears at a Canadian legislature’s entrance, despite that judicial role having been abolished.) When Richard Bell of Bracebridge appeared to answer for his actions, he became first of only 14 Canadians ever summoned before Parliament as its members adjudicated an issue.
Third, following questioning of Bell by leading Liberal parliamentarians, the MPs themselves voted Alex Cockburn to the Commons – the first and only time in Canadian history an MP was elected to Parliament by anyone other than his or her own constituents.
Fourth, the “Muskoka Scandal,” exposed in the Commons and across front pages, became catalyst for needed reforms in Canadian election law, including introduction of the secret ballot.
As we of Parry Sound-Muskoka prepare to cast secret ballots for a new representative in Canada’s 43rd Parliament, odds today favour the focus remaining on our chosen worthy, not backwoods and backroom shenanigans.
