Charles Stewart

Charles Stewart (1868-1946) was premier of Alberta from 1917 until 1921. His association with Bitumount was indirect, and he did not live to see the final success of the oil sands project, but his contribution was nonetheless significant. In 1919, Stewart approved the establishment of the Alberta Industrial Development Association (AIDA). The purpose of this committee was to design a research agency that could study ways to expand Alberta’s economic base beyond agriculture. Prominent among the members of this group was Henry Marshall Tory, the president of the University of Alberta from 1908 to 1928. It was on the recommendation of AIDA that the Scientific and Industrial Research Council of Alberta (SIRCA)—renamed the Research Council of Alberta in 1930—was formally established by Order-in-Council on January 6, 1921. Three areas were targeted for research: roads, fuels and geology. Karl Clark, who eventually devised the first commercially practical process for separating the oil sands, demonstrated at Bitumount, was hired as the first head of the Roads Section.

Stewart’s Liberal government was defeated in the August 1921 provincial election, but his role in Alberta’s resource development did not come to an end. He was quickly appointed to position of Minister of the Interior and Mines in the cabinet of Canada’s Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, and he held this position until 1930 (except for July through September 1926). Several events during his tenure in this post are of significance to the Bitumount story. Perhaps the most momentous of these was the signing, on December 14, 1929, of an agreement transferring control of natural resources from the federal government to the provincial government of Alberta. By late 1930, both Alberta and the federal government had signed this arrangement into law, and jurisdiction of the oil sands passed to the Alberta government.

As federal minister of the interior and mines, Stewart was responsible for the Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (HAC). This group was formed in 1916 to distribute funds for research that supported the development of industry in Canada. Under Stewart, H.M. Tory—still president of the University of Alberta—was appointed to the HAC in 1923. Tory became chairman in short order, and was the moving force behind the Research Council Act of 1924.

As president of the new National Research Council (NRC), Tory was in a position to influence the oil sands research of the federal government, and in 1929, Stewart mandated the formation of a committee to coordinate the bituminous sands work of the federal Mines Branch with SIRCA. It was as a result of these actions that Karl Clark’s Dunvegan test plant was disassembled and moved to the Clearwater River.