An Attorney General of Nova Scotia, J.S.D. Thompson, 1878-1882: Disparate Aspects of Law and Society in Provincial Canada

Historians are apt to be omnivorous animals, and they can be nourished by all kinds of research. This cheerful eclecticism has the disadvantage of being dangerously subject to naivet6, a disposition which greets as discovery what to others is obvious. Lack of legal training might further lead to some crashing legal solecism; certainly the temerity of this adventure resembles that of a celebrated premier of Alberta who, in 1937, took on the portfolio of attorney general-not only without being a lawyer, but without one iota of legal education whatever. Perhaps, since he had once been head of the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, it can be assumed William Aberhart needed no law; in any case, his legal talents were known to the Almighty, and that was all that mattered.