so, his appointment to the Senate on 10 December 1889 (replacing Richard Hardisty, his wife's uncle, who had died) came as a surprise to many, as Lougheed was only 35 years old at the time. However, he gained the respect of both his fellow senators and his fellow Westerners due to his staunch support of Western interests and his political abilities. Lougheed spent the next 30 years living both in Ottawa and in Calgary. In order to protect his legal interests, he brought a young lawyer from New Brunswick named R. B. Bennett — later to become Prime Minister of Canada — to Calgary in 1897. Bennett and Lougheed worked together for over 20 years until an acrimonious dispute between the senator and the future prime minister caused each to go his own way. In the 1890s Lougheed emerged as the West's strongest voice in the Senate. He was constantly in the position of having to remind members of the Upper Chamber of the realities of life in the western provinces and territories (Alberta at the time being part of the Northwest Territories). He spoke out fiercely against certain provisions in the act creating the province of Alberta, and declared that it would be better to remain a territory than to have what he called archaic education statutes forced on the province. In 1906, he became Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. The Conservatives were in opposition for many of Lougheed's early years as a senator. When the Conservatives took power following the 1911 election, he became Leader of the Government in the Senate and minister without portfolio in the government of Sir Robert Borden. He was made Chairman of the Military Hospitals Commission in 1915, and, as a reward for this service, was knighted by George V in 1916 (Order of St Michael and St George), becoming the only Albertan to ever earn the honour. After Borden formed his wartime Union government, he appointed Lougheed as Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment in 1918. From 1920 until the Conservative Party's defeat in the 1921 election, Lougheed also served as Minister of Mines, Minister of the Interior and Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs in the government of Prime Minister Arthur Meighen. With the Liberals in power, Lougheed resumed his position as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate until his death in 1925, aged 71. Lougheed was a strict conservative in