Charles Ballantyne, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetCharles Ballantyne
Canadian politician
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Ontario, Canada
About Charles Ballantyne
- Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne, (August 9, 1867 – October 19, 1950) was a Canadian politician. A millionaire and one-time owner of Sherwin Williams Paints in Montreal, Ballantyne was president of the Canadian Manufacturer's Association and a member of the Montreal Harbour Board.
- He also raised and commanded the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards of Canada.
- He was appointed to Sir Robert Borden's World War I Union government.
- He held no parliamentary seat when Borden appointed him minister of public works, minister of marine and fisheries and minister of the naval service in October 1917.
- He became a Cabinet minister prior to being elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the December 1917 federal election; delayed for two weeks because of the Halifax Explosion.
- Ballantyne was one of a handful of Unionist Members of Parliament (MPs) elected from Quebec during the Conscription Crisis of 1917. Even before the inquiry into the Halifax disaster had completed its proceedings on 4 February 1918, Ballantyne initiated the formation of a Royal Commission to investigate the Halifax Pilotage.
- As a result of the commission's findings (unpublished), Prime Minister Borden invoked the War Measures Act in mid-March.
- Subsequently, the government took control over the port of Halifax until the end of the war.
- Ballantyne retained his Cabinet portfolios when Arthur Meighen succeeded Borden as Prime Minister of Canada, but was defeated as a Conservative candidate in the 1921 election that brought down the Meighen government. In 1932, Conservative Prime Minister R.
- B.
- Bennett appointed Ballantyne to the Senate of Canada.
- Ballantyne was appointed Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Senate in 1942, and served in that role until 1945.
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