James Edward Phipps Snedker

  Notes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Edward_Phipps_Snedker;

(March 11, 1911 – March 31, 1981) was an English (Northants) born farmer, business owner and political figure in Saskatchewan, Canada. He represented Saltcoats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan from 1960 to 1971 as a Liberal.

He came to Saskatchewan with his family at a young age but returned to England for his education. In the late 1920s, he returned to Saskatchewan and settled on a farm near Saltcoats. Snedker also owned the Saltcoats Seed Company. He was a member of the local school board and of hospital boards in the area. Snedker was also a judge for the Canadian Trotting Association. He served as speaker for the Saskatchewan assembly from 1965 to 1971. Snedker was defeated when he ran for reelection in 1971.

Picture of grave here; http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Snedker&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=55968446&
... actually it's a memorial ; http://www.townofsaltcoats.ca/index.php?docID=34;
"A marker remembers James Snedker, speaker of the Provincial Legislature (1965-71). He was an ardent student of parliamentary procedure and a strong supporter of the Speakership. On his death in 1981 his body was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Bahamas."

Canadian Parliamentary Guide ".... England. Son of Edward James Snedker and Ada Phipps, both British. Ed. at Can. Elementary and British Public Schools. M Dec 1934 to Beryl Gibson at Saltcoats, Sask. Two children Frederick and Margaret Anne. A farmer. Pres. Saltcoats Seed Co Ltd. School Trustee 1932-42. Bd.Dir. Saltcoats Agric. Soc. 1939-40....."

Canadian Hansard, after his death;
HON. MR. BLAKENEY: — Mr. Speaker, I have been advised of the death of a former member of this
Assembly. I would like to take this opportunity to move a condolence motion. I would move the formal
condolence motion in the following terms. I move, seconded by Mr. Taylor, the hon. member for Indian
Head-Wolseley:
That this Assembly records with sorrow and regret the passing of a former member of this Assembly, and expresses its grateful appreciation of the contribution he made to his community, his constituency and to this
province:
James Edward Phipps Snedker, who died on March 31, 1981, was a member of this legislature for the constituency of Saltcoats from 1960 to 1971 and served as speaker from 1965 to 1971. He was born in England in 1911 and came to Canada and Saskatchewan with his parents as a very young boy. He returned to England to attend a British public school for much of his education. In the late 1920s he returned to Saskatchewan where he took up farming near Saltcoats and also operated the Saltcoats Seed Company Ltd.
In community affairs he served at various times as a school trustee and a member of hospital boards in Saltcoats and Yorkton. He was active in the Saltcoats Agricultural Society, the Bredenbury Board United Grain Growers Ltd., the Saltcoats Board of Trade, Curling Club and Elks Lodge. He had a lifelong interest in horses and harness racing, and served as presiding judge of the Canadian Trotting Association from 1956 to 1964. During his term as a member, he served as chairman of the 1969 special committee on rules and procedures, and took great interest in the development of the Speakership. He was a very active and dedicated supporter of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association at all levels, and was also a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society. In recording its own deep sense of loss and bereavement, this Assembly expresses its most sincere sympathy with members of the bereaved family.
Mr. Speaker, if I may, I’d like to add a few less formal comments. I served in this legislature with Jim Snedker
for 11 years. We were on opposite sides of the House so I didn’t come to know him as well as one does some
members in one’s own caucus, but over the years I came to know him pretty well, particularly during the period when he served in the speaker’s chair, 1965 to 1971. I was opposition financial critic. I tried to be an active member of the opposition. As all members will know, when you attempt to be an active member of the
opposition, you get to know the speaker fairly well.
I have a number of colorful recollections of Mr. Jim Snedker, the member (as he was) for Saltcoats, debating
when he was in opposition. He was most forthright in the manner of the presentation of his views, and sometimes gave little credence to the views of those who opposed him. None the less, he was an interesting person to listen to since he always couched his remarks in clear, forthright prose. He had a good command of the English language and he knew how to use it in debate.
When he was speaker, he was certainly a speaker who retained command of the Assembly. He would express his displeasure with members on both sides of the House in no uncertain terms. I can remember a number of those occasions. At that time, the Speaker’s chair did not have in front of it the massive built-in desk which it now has; it had a removable table. It seemed sometimes not enough to contain Mr. Speaker when he leaped from his chair and was about, it seemed, to pounce upon some erring member. It mattered not which side you were on. I remember one occasion when the then premier, Mr. Thatcher, earned his displeasure and Mr. Snedker almost came out fighting. He certainly made it very clear that he was displeased with the manner in which the premier was dealing with the rules.
I will not mention names, but on another occasion I can remember his being displeased with the manner in which another member referred to a three-cornered hat. I can remember a further occasion when he leaped from his chair and took off his glasses (they were half glasses) and put them down the table, as he frequently did. This time he did not aim them properly and they skidded off the table and onto the floor, over where the clerk was. All of us, I think, got the idea that he was not pleased at that moment with one of the hon. members. I can recall on one occasion, I had a difference of view with him as to how he was interpreting the rules. Following a small discussion here in the Chamber, I went around to his office in the back, which was then just behind the door which is to your right, Mr. Speaker, and had a long discussion. It was not very fruitful, from my point of view, but it was necessary, as it seemed to me, to terminate it on a note less abrasive than that on which it commenced. We then took to talking about harness racing and about the record of a fair number of the horses which had raced in my boyhood days around the Maritimes, all of which he knew and whose records he could very nearly recall to mind.
He took a great deal of interest in the House. I served with him on the rules committee when the rules were
revamped in a major way (perhaps the greatest revamping of the rules that has been done since 1905, I would suspect), and I think much of it was because Mr. Speaker Snedker had done a good deal of research on the project and had brought to the rules committee his thoughts and his research on how we could improve the operations of the House.
I think it’s fair to say that during his years in the House, Mr. Speaker Snedker and Mr. Snedker, as a member
prior to that, contributed a great deal to the vitality of the House and to the whole political process. He brought
energy, dedication, and high principle to his work in this Assembly. He was a man with clearly defined ideals and goals, who pursued them with intelligence, honesty and sincerity.
I know that all members would wish to extend to Mrs. Snedker, the family and to all others who knew him, our sincere condolences on the occasion of his passing.
MR. LANE: — I’d like to join with the Premier and other members of the Assembly in extending condolences to Mrs. Snedker and the former speaker’s family. I did not have the pleasure, and I’m sure it was that, of serving in the Assembly when Jim Snedker was the speaker. I remember after the 1971 election (he was defeated at that election) being invited out to Saltcoats to speak, at which point I was thoroughly briefed on the role of the speaker and how much he loved not only the role of the speaker, but the office of the speaker. He made it quite clear to me at that time how much he loved and respected parliament.
I had been told many stories prior to becoming elected, about Mr. Snedker, and the Premier has struck on one of them in recounting when he took great umbrage at statements being made by the then Premier, the Hon. Ross Thatcher, and in no uncertain terms let it be known as to who was running the Assembly here. The premier might be running the government but when he was in here this was Mr. Snedker’s jurisdiction and there was no mistake about that. And it was made clear. There were some comments made considering reassessing the position after that, but those died very, very quickly.
Mr. Speaker, he loved as I say, the office, the Chair, the position and the role of speaker. And he brought credit to each of those functions. I think, as well, to those that participated in the Assembly, he ruled with a fair hand, a reasonable hand, and allowed very free participation and debate, and allowed vigor of debate for which those that served thank him. I thank him very much again on behalf of the opposition. We extend condolences to Mrs.Snedker and the family.
HON. MR. KAEDING: — Mr. Speaker, I’m honored as well to join with the Premier and members of the
opposition in paying tribute to the late James Snedker who died on March 31. As has already been stated, James, or Jimmy Snedker, as he was called by those who knew him well, held the distinguished position of speaker of the legislature from 1964 to ’71, and was a member for the constituency of Saltcoats, which I now represent, from 1960 to 1971.
Jimmy spent the better part of his lifetime as a farmer in the Pelly district south of Saltcoats in my onstituency,
and I made his acquaintance fairly early in life during the mid-1930s when I was still a teenager.
My father was one of the old tough CCFers of the early days and because of his involvement in that, our home
often became a meeting place for people of all ages who were prepared to do battle with what was seen then as the free enterprise economy and the old line parties. One of the people who showed up at these meetings, more and more frequently in the late 1930s, was James E.Snedker. Many people will not know of his socialist background. He was a very dynamic young man and he had very strong opinions. He was very aggressive; he had a no-nonsense approach; he saw inequity and injustice in society and he wanted to be part of the radical change which was being proposed at that time. Few people really knew very much about Jimmy in his earlier years because he had returned to England for his education in the public school system there. While there, he obviously absorbed much of the radicalism which was a part of that period of British history, and when he returned to Canada to start farming, he brought with him a strong socialist commitment.
During the early years of the CCF, he became very interested in the movement and spent many hours organizing and campaigning for such people as Louise Lucas and Joe Phelps. I often wondered how he and Joe Phelps got along in the same room, but they managed to. On many occasions he shared the platform at school house and town hall meetings with my father, and they had a very deep respect for one another. Jimmy was very outspoken as has been mentioned. I can assure you that as a young man sitting at some of those meetings, the atmosphere crackled substantially when he was responding to some of the criticisms which he received.
I suppose I remember him best for those years which he spent with us in the youth movement of the party, the
CCYM (Canadian Commonwealth Youth Movement), as we called it at that time. During his years at school in
England, he had obviously been an ardent student of agrarian reform and he had many books on the development of the socialist movement in Europe. He started the series of meetings with us in this group of which I was a part (and usually these meetings were in our home) by reading from these books. After, we would have a very interesting and challenging discussion. He certainly left his mark on all those of us who dared to challenge what he had to say. He was a rather dour young man at that time, not given much to small talk or compliments and his responses were often abrasive and sarcastic.
He used to drive all the way from Saltcoats with a team and cutter, a distance of about 20 miles, to come to these meetings. I guess most of all, I remember seeing him in the kitchen of our home. He would sit there with his feet up in the oven. He always wore felt socks and a pair of bib overalls and his old jumbo knit sweater; it was a huge sweater with pockets sagging a long way down. He was very much at home in that kind of an atmosphere.
I recall a time during the Joe Phelps era, when Joe was running. There was an urgent need for an executive
meeting and it was called at our place. My mother had to prepare a meal for them and she cooked some steaks. Since she cooked them in a hurry, they obviously weren’t done in the best possible manner. Mrs. Lena Phelps, who was then campaigning with Joe, tried to soothe my mother a bit and said, "Well, Mrs. Kaeding, you know those steaks were really lovely, they were really good." And Jimmy got up and he said, "Mrs. Phelps, you know they were tough and they were damn tough!" He never minced his words; he called a spade a spade and that’s the way he was.
Following the war years, Jimmy disappeared from the CCF executive without much explanation and much to our surprise he turned up later as the Liberal candidate in the 1960 election. I never knew why he made the change although I tried to find out from him. I think at first it was because the people in our own party did not recognize his ambition in the political field. I recall my father saying on a number of occasions that Jimmy would make a good candidate if he wasn’t so damn radical.
He won the election in 1960 for the Liberals and when Ross Thatcher took over the government in 1964, he was appointed speaker of the House. I was never privileged to see him operate as a speaker. But the Premier has outlined, and I am sure that Gordon Snyder and some of these other fellows can tell, some great stories about those years. I understand that he had lost none of his abrasive wit during that period of time.
It is rather ironic that Jimmy’s political career should come to an end when he and I met as opponents in the 1971 election. I can assure you that Jimmy was a formidable opponent but he fought a clean and a fair campaign, never believing that he could possibly lose. However, as so many other Liberals in that 1971 campaign, he fell victim to the determination of the people for change. He was deeply hurt, I believe, by his defeat in 1971. He did love the House and he did love the job of speaker. After the defeat he retired from any effective activity in politics and we didn’t see very much of him in the political arena after that.
Jimmy was a very aggressive farmer who could never be mediocre at anything. He raised registered seed and beef cattle but his first love was always his race horses. He was known far and wide on the racing circuit as a very strong competitor. He was recognized for this by being appointed as presiding judge of the Canadian Trotting Association for many years. He maintained his interest in the horse-racing field right to the end. I am told that even at the time of his death he still had a number of brood mares in stables in Ontario and down in Kentucky where he used to wander during his later years.
Mr. and Mrs. Snedker sold their large farm shortly after 1971 but they continued to live in the town of Saltcoats. Mr. Snedker spent considerable time with his horses in Ontario and other places but retained his home base in Saltcoats. He also continued his interests in his beef cattle operation and I understand was an ardent gardener as well.
During the years that he served the constituency of Saltcoats, he was well respected by all of us who knew him. Even now, as I meet with some of my constituents, particularly the older ones, I hear stories of the help which they received as a result of his work. He will be long remembered by many of those people with whom he came in touch. I was proud to call him a friend. Even as our paths diverged in the later years, we retained, I think, a mutual respect for each other. I have often wondered, Mr. Speaker, what the future would have held for both of us had the majority of 69 votes in 1979, which I received, been reversed. I want to express on behalf of me and my constituents, and on behalf of the Clerk of the legislature, because they were close friends, the Barnhart and the Snedker families, our sympathies to Mrs. Snedker and to their daughter Margaret. I am certainly pleased to have had this opportunity to say a few words to his memory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. PEPPER: — Mr. Speaker, may I add my words of condolence to those who have spoken before me
regarding the passing of the late Mr. Snedker, the former speaker of this Assembly. When I was first elected to
this House in 1964, the speaker chosen was James Snedker. There are many things that one could say regarding Mr. Snedker. His statesmanlike qualities and the manner in which he performed his duties certainly will never be forgotten by we who had the privilege of being in the House at that time. Never did he hesitate in explaining his reasons, sometimes in no uncertain terms, for making each decision which he was called on to make. And his manner, I suppose you could say, always left you with the feeling that he was in total command. His fairness to all members was seldom questioned. Sometimes his decisions were delivered in a rather abrupt manner, but always in a manner which commanded respect from all members. He was available to meet any member to explain the rules and the regulations governing his position, and this he did in his private office. This was greatly appreciated and I remember attending two or three times myself.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly join with other members of the Assembly in extending my sincere sympathy to his
family. I commend them and thank them for the contribution which their loved one made to this Assembly and to the government of this province. His contribution will always be remembered. I would say that this Assembly is better because Speaker James Snedker once served here, and during that period of time served well.
MR. ALLEN: — Mr. Speaker, I just want to say a few brief words about Mr. Speaker Snedker, for who I had the honor to work as a page in this legislature back in the mid-60s. I am sure I speak for Gordon, Bev Koester,
Vivian Doan, Mr. Huckerby (who used to carry the mail around), the sergeant at arms at that time, Donald
George Scott Calder, and all of us who had the opportunity to work closely with Mr. Speaker in the Legislative
Assembly office. I am sure we speak for all of them when we express our sorrow at his passing.
Speaker Snedker was a big man or he seemed big to me at the time. He had a big spirit as well, as has been
attested by other members of the House. He was a person who commanded respect from everyone he
encountered. But for many of us and for me in particular, he commanded a lot of affection and love. Behind his gruff facade, as the member for Saltcoats put it, there was a very warm and thoughtful person.
At that time, I was a university student and had taken off a semester to learn something about the House as a
page. I can recall vividly many times being in Mr. Snedker’s office, when I was delivering something or getting
his lunch. He would sit me down and talk to me at length (something he didn’t have to do) about my future, about my studies and about history, particularly parliamentary history, in which he was very interested. He was an undisputed expert on the subject of parliamentary history. He also encouraged me as an individual person to take an active part in public life, which I thought was kind of interesting because, as everyone knows, he was an ardent Liberal at that time and I was an ardent young CCFer. I used to have long conversations with him about that, as well as with Donald George Scott Calder, who was anything but a CCFer. Both of them encouraged me to take a part in public life.
I can also recall at the end of that session getting a really nice letter from Mr. Snedker, thanking me for serving as a page and recommending me, if I had gone somewhere else for a job, as being a totally trustworthy person. It shows how you can fool some people.
Mr. Speaker Snedker was a great parliamentarian and a great speaker. The Premier has alluded to the fact, as has the member for Saltcoats. I can remember as well, many times Mr. Snedker jumping to his feet, glasses flying,books crashing down on the desk bringing some errant member back to order. I was here on one occasion when he got into a bit of a kafuffle with the member for Thunder Creek’s father, who also was a very strong-willed individual. I can tell you the atmosphere in this place was absolutely electric.
I think the reason Mr. Snedker was so respected by everyone was that it didn’t make any difference whether the person who was the premier or the lowliest member on the opposition back bench. He treated both with the same rough justice and he meted it out in the same gruff way. I can recall an altercation with Bill Berezowsky when I was a member here as well. There was no difference in the way he treated Mr.
Berezowsky than the way he treated the premier. I think, for this, he was respected by everyone.
One of the truly great figures in the history of this institution, Mr. Speaker, has passed on, and I want to join with other members in expressing my sincere sympathy to his family and his many friends.
Motion agreed.
HON. MR. BLAKENEY: — Mr. Speaker, with leave, may I move, seconded by the hon. member for Indian
Head-Wolseley:
That the resolution just passed, together with the transcripts of oral tributes to the memory of the deceased
member, be communicated to the bereaved family on behalf of this Assembly by Mr. Speaker.
Motion agreed.

James married Beryl Gibson in 1934 in Saltcoats, Saskatchewan, Canada.