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An assistant locomotive foreman from Edson and his only daughter alleged the premier of Alberta seduced her, launching a sex scandal.

The legal claim, filed in an Edmonton courtroom on behalf of Allan D. MacMillan and Vivian MacMillan, stated John Edward Brownlee, then 50 and married with two teenage sons, had forced himself on the young woman in the fall of 1930, several months after her 18th birthday.

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Before the seduction, Brownlee had “laughed at her old fashioned scruples,” and told her he was “lonely and unhappy,” the statement said.

Up to and including the month of July 1930, Vivian was living with her parents.

Brownlee came to Edson on political business that month, and as mayor, it was Allan MacMillan’s duty to entertain the premier.

The defendant proceeded to pay marked attention “Vivian MacMillan and persuaded her to leave her father’s home and to go to Edmonton, promising to procure for her a position with the provincial government and promising to look after her well-being and that he, the defendant, would act as guardian to her while she was in Edmonton,” the Journal reported.