Davie Fulton

Edmund Davie Fulton PC OC QC (March 10, 1916 – May 22, 2000) was a Canadian Rhodes Scholar, politician and judge. He was born in Kamloops, British Columbia,^[1] the son of politician/lawyer Frederick John Fulton and Winnifred M. Davie, daughter of A. E. B. Davie. He was the youngest of 4 children.^[2]

The Honourable Davie Fulton PC OC QC
Minister of Public Works
In office August 9, 1962 – April 21, 1963
Prime Minister	John Diefenbaker
Preceded by	Howard Charles Green (acting)
Succeeded by	Jean-Paul Deschatelets
Minister of Justice Attorney General of Canada
In office June 21, 1957 – August 8, 1962
Prime Minister	John Diefenbaker
Preceded by	Stuart Garson
Succeeded by	Donald Fleming
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Acting June 21, 1957 – May 11, 1958
Prime Minister	John Diefenbaker
Preceded by	Jack Pickersgill
Succeeded by	Ellen Fairclough
Member of Parliament for Kamloops
In office November 8, 1965 – June 24, 1968
Preceded by	Charles Willoughby
Succeeded by	Riding dissolved
In office June 11, 1945 – April 7, 1963
Preceded by	Thomas O'Neill
Succeeded by	Charles Willoughby
Personal details
Born	Edmund Davie Fulton (1916-03-10)March 10, 1916 Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
Died	May 22, 2000(2000-05-22) (aged 84) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Political party	Progressive Conservative
Spouse	Patricia Mary MacRae ​ ​ (m. 1946)​
Children	3
Parent(s)	Frederick John Fulton Winnifred Mary Davie
Relatives	A. E. B. Davie (maternal grandfather) Theodore Davie (granduncle)
Profession	Barrister Solicitor

Military career

Davie Fulton served in the Second World War with the Canadian Army overseas as Platoon and Company Commander with Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, and as Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General with the 1st Canadian Infantry Division in the Italian and Northwestern Europe campaigns. His brother John "Moose" Fulton distinguished himself in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. He went missing in action in late 1942, and in 1943 Kamloops adopted the Moose Squadron in honour of its commander. In 1944 the Kamloops airport was dedicated as Fulton Field.^[3]

Political career

He was brought home from the war by the Conservative Party and won a seat by 100 votes in the House of Commons of Canada in the 1945 general election.

In 1949, he introduced legislation to criminalize the publication, distribution, and sale of crime comics, as the result of a murder by two Yukon teens that was blamed on the influence of the crime comics which the perpetrators had read.^[4]

He ran for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada at the 1956 leadership convention, placing third behind John Diefenbaker.

When Diefenbaker led the party to victory in the 1957 election, he appointed Fulton to Cabinet as Minister of Justice. As Minister, Fulton was involved in negotiations to patriate the Canadian Constitution, and developed the "Fulton–Favreau formula". In 1962, he became Minister of Public Works. His cousin, Albert McPhillips, was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries around this time.

He resigned from Cabinet in 1963, when he decided to leave federal politics and take the leadership of the British Columbia Progressive Conservative Party. His efforts to revive the provincial Tories in BC were a failure, and he returned to the House of Commons in the 1965 election.

Fulton stood as a candidate at the 1967 federal PC leadership convention, and placed third behind Robert Stanfield and Dufferin Roblin.

After losing his seat in the 1968 election, he retired from politics and returned to the law. In 1973, he became a justice on the British Columbia Supreme Court, and served until 1981, resigning as a result of impaired driving conviction.

Resigning from the B.C. Supreme Court

Fulton tenure ended in 1982 with his resignation to then Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. Issue relating to charges of drunk driving, as well as stress resulting from false allegation of his engaging in prostitution, known as the Wendy King Case caused him to resign.^[5] The ghost writer and publisher of The Wendy King Story, apologized in court, "saying it was a case of mistaken identity."^[5] King also admitted the same in court,

This libel action has its origin in the fact that I sincerely believed that the plaintiff, Justice E. Davie Fulton, was on one occasion a client of mine in my professional capacity as a prostitute,' King's statement read. As a result of evidence recently disclosed to me, I now realize that I was in error in believing that I had ever met Justice Fulton or that I had associated with him in any way.^[6]

Fulton stated that stress from these false allegation had caused his drinking,

Because of the strain and emotional turmoil of this libel action, my problem with alcohol has come back in concentrated form.^[7]

In February 1979, as a result drinking and driving incident and an automobile accident, Fulton had his license suspended.^[8] During the stop, Fulton "admitted he had used 'intemperate language',"^[9] telling the police to "Go to hell."^[10] He was involved in a hit-and-run incident, also in February 1979, where the "owner of the vehicle involved told police he had followed the hit-and-run car...to the judge's house."^[8] In March 1979, Fulton pled guilty to drinking and driving charges.^[11]

The 1981 drinking-and-driving incident was a second offence; he received a $700 fine and a mandatory 14 days in jail.^[12][13] He was also disbarred from the B.C. Law Society.^[14]

Later life

From 1986 to 1992, Fulton served as a commissioner on the International Joint Commission. In 1992, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

He died in Vancouver on May 22, 2000.^[15]

Election results

v t e 1945 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	4,401	33.09	+1.19
	Liberal	Thomas James O'Neill	4,229	31.80	-9.99
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Francis James McKenzie	4,003	30.10	+3.79
	Labor–Progressive	John Henry Codd	666	5.01	–
Total valid votes			13,299	100.0
	Progressive Conservative gain from Liberal		Swing		+5.59

v t e 1949 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	7,682	40.07	+6.98
	Liberal	Thomas James O'Neill	6,399	33.38	+1.58
	Co-operative Commonwealth	George Victor Larson	5,091	26.55	-3.55
Total valid votes			19,172	100.0
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		+2.70

v t e 1953 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	7,578	46.69	+5.92
	Social Credit	Clarence Aubrey Wright	3,780	23.29	–
	Liberal	Kenneth Durward Houghton	2,731	16.83	-16.55
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Austin Kenneth Greenway	2,140	13.19	-13.36
Total valid votes			16,229	100.0
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		-8.68

v t e 1957 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	10,029	47.24	+0.55
	Social Credit	Walter James Smith	5,858	27.59	+4.30
	Liberal	Arnold McIntyre Affleck	3,383	15.94	-0.89
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Austin Kenneth Greenway	1,959	9.23	-3.96
Total valid votes			21,229	100.0
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		-1.88

v t e 1958 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	13,858	63.83	+16.59
	Liberal	Arnold McIntyre Affleck	2,868	13.21	-2.73
	Co-operative Commonwealth	Austin Kenneth Greenway	2,777	12.79	+3.56
	Social Credit	Earl Victor Roy Merrick	2,390	11.01	-16.58
Total valid votes			21,893	100.0
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		+9.66

v t e 1962 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	11,312	43.13	-20.70
	Liberal	Jarl Whist	5,789	22.07	+8.86
	New Democratic	Walter D. Inglis	4,733	18.05	+5.26
	Social Credit	Clarence Aubrey Wright	4,393	16.75	+5.74
Total valid votes			26,227	100.0
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		-14.78
Change for the New Democrats is based on the Co-operative Commonwealth.

v t e 1963 British Columbia general election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%
	Social Credit	Philip Arthur Gaglardi	5,669	47.17%
	Progressive Conservative	Edmund Davie Fulton	4,473	37.22%
	New Democratic	Lance Randle	1,297	10.79%
	Liberal	Henry Maxwell Smith	580	4.83%
Total valid votes			12,019	100.00%
Total rejected ballots			71

v t e 1965 Canadian federal election: Kamloops
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Davie Fulton	11,731	37.39	+7.94
	New Democratic	Vernor Wilfred Jones	7,132	22.73	-0.75
	Liberal	Albert John Edward Chilton	6,757	21.54	-7.07
	Social Credit	Thomas Daly Sills	5,756	18.35	-0.11
Total valid votes			31,376	100.0
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		+4.34

v t e 1968 Canadian federal election: Kamloops—Cariboo
Party	Candidate	Votes	%
	Liberal	Leonard Stephen Marchand	13,000	40.48
	Progressive Conservative	Edmund Davie Fulton	9,704	30.22
	New Democratic	Vernor Wilfred Jones	7,566	23.56
	Social Credit	Peter Robert Gook	1,842	5.74
Total valid votes			32,112	100.0
This riding was created from Cariboo and Kamloops, which elected a Social Credit and a Progressive Conservative, respectively, in the last election. Davie Fulton was the incumbent from Kamloops.

Archives

There is a Davie Fulton fonds at Library and Archives Canada.^[16]

References

1. Williams, Patricia (13 February 2008). "Davie Fulton". The Canadian Encyclopedia.
2. "Names - B3". Archived from the original on 2009-11-02. Retrieved 2009-12-28.
3. "Names - B4". Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
4. Hadju, David (2008). The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 152–153. ISBN 9780312428235.
5. "Justice Davie Fulton quite Supreme Court". Nanaimo Daily News. July 31, 1982. p. 2.
6. "Former prostitute Wendy King admitted in B.C. Supreme Court... - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-11-12.
7. Still, Larry (May 12, 1981). "King was on legal aid in defending libel case". Vancouver Sun. p. 11.
8. "Fulton not asked to quit". Times Colonist. Feb 15, 1979. p. 1.
9. "Fulton makes public apology". Alberni Valley Times. February 15, 1979. p. 1.
10. Parton, Lorne (February 21, 1986). "A scoop, by George". The Province. p. 48.
11. "$500 fine for Fulton". Times Colonist. March 8, 1979. p. 1.
12. Henderickson, Bob (November 5, 1981). "Prison for drivers cases to continue". The Province. p. 4.
13. Bacchus, Lee (March 16, 1982). "Hooked on the Courts: Brisk march". Vancouver Sun. p. 2.
14. Still, Larry (February 5, 1982). "Dictionary played role in Fulton ruling". The Vancouver Sun. p. 10.
15. Downey, Donn (24 May 2000). "Former federal cabinet minister dead at 84". The Globe and Mail.
16. "E. Davie Fulton fonds, Library and Archives Canada". Retrieved 2020-09-03.

External links

• Davie Fulton – Parliament of Canada biography
• Order of Canada Citation

Political offices
Preceded by Stuart Garson	Minister of Justice 1957–1962	Succeeded by Donald Fleming
Preceded by Jack Pickersgill	Minister of Citizenship and Immigration 1957–1958	Succeeded by Ellen Fairclough
Preceded by Howard Charles Green	Minister of Public Works 1962–1963	Succeeded by Jean-Paul Deschatelets
Party political offices
Preceded by Deane Finlayson	Leader of the BC Conservative Party 1963–1965	Succeeded by John Anthony St. Etienne DeWolf