Francis Andrew Brewin (September 3, 1907 – September 21, 1983) was a lawyer and

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) 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 ...

politician and Member of Parliament. He was the grandson of Liberal cabinet minister

Andrew George Blair Andrew George Blair (March 7, 1844 – January 25, 1907) was a Canadian politician in New Brunswick, Canada. He served as the seventh premier of New Brunswick for 13 years and 136 days, the second-longest tenure in the province's history, behin ...

. His son

John Brewin John F. Brewin (born September 14, 1936) is a Canadian politician, who served as Member of Parliament for Victoria from 1988 to 1993. He is a member of the New Democratic Party, as was his father Andrew Brewin. He was married to Gretchen Br ...

also served in the House of Commons of Canada.

Biography

Born in Brighton, England, Brewin was a stalwart in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and ran numerous times at the federal and provincial levels in the 1940 and 1950s. As a lawyer in the 1940s, he was retained by the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians to contest the federal government's deportation orders affecting thousands of Japanese Canadians. Led by Brewin, the " Japanese Canadian Reference Case" was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada and later, on appeal, by the

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom. Established on 14 Aug ...

. Brewin was also retained by a committee of Japanese Canadians who had been detained during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

as "enemy aliens" in order to try to have their property restored. He succeeded in persuading the government to call a royal commission to investigate the question. In 1945, he was asked by

Ontario CCF The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) – The Farmer-Labor Party of Ontario, or more commonly known as the Ontario CCF, was a democratic socialist provincial political party in Ontario that existed from 1932 to 1961. It was the ...

leader

Ted Jolliffe Edward Bigelow JolliffeSmith, p. 195 (March 2, 1909 – March 18, 1998) was a Canadian social democratic politician and lawyer from Ontario. He was the first leader of the Ontario section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and ...

to be co-counsel during the infamous LeBel Royal Commission that was looking into whether or not Ontario's premier at the time was employing a secret political police force. He was, for a time, the President of the Ontario CCF and was a candidate for the leadership of the Ontario CCF at the party's 1953

leadership convention {{Politics of Canada In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader. Overview In Canada, leaders of a party generally rem ...

, but lost to Donald C. MacDonald. Brewin stood as a CCF candidate several times, starting with the 1945 Canadian federal election in the riding of Toronto—St. Paul's, but was unsuccessful. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada on behalf of the CCF's successor, the New Democratic Party. Brewin sat as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for the

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

riding of Greenwood from the 1962 election until his retirement in 1979. Coming from the theological tradition of figures such as

Richard Hooker Richard Hooker (25 March 1554 – 2 November 1600) was an English priest in the Church of England and an influential theologian.The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by F. L. Cross (Editor), E. A. Livingstone (Editor) Oxford University ...

, F. D. Maurice, and William Temple, Andrew Brewin considered himself a

Christian socialist Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe cap ...

and wrote a number of books and pamphlets on the topic. He was a member of the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order and the

League for Social Reconstruction The League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) was a circle of Canadian socialists officially formed in 1932. The group advocated for social and economic reformation as well as political education. The formation of the LSR was provoked by events such ...

. Andrew Brewin wrote the book ''Stand on Guard: The Search for a Canadian Defence Policy'', published by McClelland & Stewart in 1965, that explored Canada's military's changing role in the mid-twentieth century, including its participation in the then new concept of United Nations peacekeeping. Brewin died on 21 September 1983.

Electoral record

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brewin, Andrew 1907 births 1983 deaths 20th-century Anglicans 20th-century Canadian lawyers Anglican socialists Canadian Anglicans Canadian Christian socialists Canadian people of English descent Canadian people of Scottish descent Canadian King's Counsel Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario) Lawyers in Ontario Litigators Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario New Democratic Party candidates for the Canadian House of Commons New Democratic Party MPs Canadian democratic socialists Osgoode Hall Law School alumni People educated at Radley College People from Brighton Politicians from Toronto Co-operative Commonwealth Federation candidates for the Canadian House of Commons