Robert Edward Sommers (January 3, 1911 – October 28, 2000) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

elementary school principal and a politician. Sommers served as a

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

Member of the

Legislative Assembly of British Columbia The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia () is the deliberative assembly of the Legislature of British Columbia, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The other component of the Legislature is the lieutenant governor of British Columbi ...

from 1952 to 1958, representing the riding of

Rossland-Trail Rossland-Trail was the name of a provincial electoral district in the Canadian province of British Columbia centred on the towns of Rossland and Trail, in the West Kootenay. The riding first appeared in the 1924 election as the result of a redistr ...

in the province of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. He served as Minister of Lands and Forests and as Minister of Mines until his resignation February 27, 1956. He was tried and in 1958 was convicted of bribery and conspiracy making him the first

cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ' prime minister', ' p ...

in the

British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire The B ...

to serve a term of imprisonment for accepting bribes in connection with his office.

Early life

Born in

Leduc, Alberta Leduc ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is south of the provincial capital of Edmonton and is part of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region. History Leduc was established in 1891 by Robert Telford, a settler who had bought la ...

in 1911, Sommers was the son of J. L. Sommers and Elsie Armonies, both natives of

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who came to Canada in 1889. Before entering politics, Sommers was an elementary school principal in Castlegar, BC. He was a trumpet player, a local band leader, a part-time insurance broker, a

Kiwanis Kiwanis International ( ) is an international service club founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and is found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. In 1987, the organization ...

club president and a

volunteer firefighter A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond ...

. He was married twice: first to Marion Henry in 1930 and then to Nona Samson in 1940.

Political career

He was first elected as an MLA under the banner of the

British Columbia Social Credit League The British Columbia Social Credit Party was a conservative political party in British Columbia, Canada. It was the governing party of British Columbia for all but three years between the 1952 provincial election and the 1991 election. For fou ...

as the member for Rossland-Trail in

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, ...

. He was re-elected in

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito ...

, and

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan after 57 years. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, E ...

. In each election, against several opponents, his popular vote exceeded 50% of the votes cast including his last after he lost his cabinet position. Sommers resigned his seat automatically upon his conviction on November 7, 1958, for bribery and conspiracy.

Scandal and trial

Sommers downfall began when the Liberal opposition, particularly MLA

Gordon Gibson Gordon Gibson may refer to: * Gordon Gibson Jr (1937–2023), political columnist, author, and former leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party in British Columbia, Canada * Gordon Gibson Sr. (1904–1986), his father, Canadian business leader ...

accused Sommers of impropriety in the granting of a forest management licence to

E. P. Taylor Edward Plunket Taylor, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, CMG (January 29, 1901 – May 14, 1989), was a Canadians, Canadian business tycoon, investor, and philanthropist. He was a famous breeder of Thoroughbred horse racing, r ...

British Columbia Forest Products Catalyst Paper Corporation is a Pulp and paper industry in Canada, pulp and paper company based in Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 million tonnes of paper and 491,000 tonnes of ma ...

(BCFP). These licences were a new form of tenure in the forests of British Columbia introduced in 1948 based on the 1944 recommendations of the Sloan Commission. Large companies were given cutting rights over

Crown land Crown land, also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. Today, in Commonwealth realm ...

in perpetuity and in exchange were responsible for forest management, construction of access roads and

fire fighting Firefighting is a profession aimed at controlling and extinguishing fire. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter or fireman. Firefighters typically undergo a high degree of technical training. This involves structural fir ...

. The goal was to provide a sustained yield to supply mills over the long term by giving the licence holder a long-term interest in the productivity of the land. Forest management licences were extremely valuable. There were accusations that companies made huge profits selling shares issued after a licence was granted before a single tree had been cut. E. P. Taylor's

Argus Corporation The Argus Corporation was an investment holding company based in Toronto, Ontario. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was the most powerful and best known conglomerate in Canada, at one time controlling the companies making up 10 percent of all shar ...

, which incorporated British Columbia Forest Products to run its BC forest operations in 1946, had been turned down for a forest management licence in 1948. After he became the cabinet minister in charge of granting forest management licences, Sommers, who was then in awkward financial circumstances personally, had meetings with Taylor and the management of Argus at which BCFP sought a licence. Taylor, BC premier

W. A. C. Bennett William Andrew Cecil Bennett (September 6, 1900 – February 23, 1979) was a Canadian politician who served as the 25th premier of British Columbia from 1952 to 1972. With just over 20 years in office, Bennett remains the longest-serving premier ...

and Sommers met at the Empress Hotel in January 1955. Afterwards, Bennett directed Sommers to make the deal. The result was that BCFP was granted FML #22 which covered between

Port Renfrew Port Renfrew is a small unincorporated community located on the south shore of Port San Juan, an inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Port Renfrew has a population of 262 (as of the 2021 Canadian census) and ...

and

Estevan Point Estevan Point Lighthouse is located on the headland of the same name in the Hesquiat Peninsula Provincial Park on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. During the Second World War, in 1942, the Estevan Point lighthouse was fired upon by ...

along the west coast of

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

. A commission led by Justice Arthur Lord found no basis for the charges and Sommers responded to the accusations by suing Vancouver lawyer David Sturdy for libel. The Bennett government stonewalled in the legislature on the basis that the matter was before the courts until Sommers was dropped from cabinet in 1956. In November 1957 he was arrested and charged with bribery. The next year, he and Wick Gray were convicted. BCFP was acquitted. Sommers was sentenced to 5 years in prison but was released after 28 months. While imprisoned, he learned the piano tuning trade. He established a piano business on Vancouver Island after his release in 1961. Sommers was convicted on five of seven charges of receiving bribes. He was found to have received $607 worth of rugs, $3,000 in bonds, $1,000 in cash and $2,500 sent by telegraph making him the first person in the Commonwealth found guilty of conspiring to accept bribes while serving as a Minister.

Aftermath

During his time in prison, Sommers learned the trade of

piano tuning Piano tuning is the process of adjusting the tension of the strings of an acoustic piano so that the musical intervals between strings are in tune. The meaning of the term 'in tune', in the context of piano tuning, is not simply a particular fi ...

and restoration from a fellow inmate. He took up residence on Vancouver Island after his release and established a business in that field. Sommers died at the age of 89 at a hospital in

Nanaimo Nanaimo ( ) is a city of about 100,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. "The Harbour City" was previously known as the "Hub City", which was attributed to its original layout design with streets radiating fr ...

on October 28, 2000.

Early life

Political career

Scandal and trial

Aftermath

References

Further reading