Jimmy Gardiner was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan in 1914, and served as Minister of Highways (1922-26) in the government of Premier Charles A. Dunning from 1922 until succeeding Dunning as Premier in 1926. A highly partisan Liberal, his government lost its majority in the legislature in the 1929 election due to patronage scandals. Although the Conservative Party had won fewer seats, it was able to form a "co-operative government" with the support of some Progressive Party and independent Members of the Legislative Assmbly.
As Leader of the opposition, Gardiner railed against the bigotry of James Anderson's Conservative government, alleging that it was linked with the Ku Klux Klan. Gardiner defeated Anderson in the 1934 election, and became Premier a second time.
Gardiner left provincial politics the next year to join the federal cabinet of LiberalPrime MinisterWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King as Minister of Agriculture. He held that portfolio for twenty-two years until the 1957 federal election when the Liberal government was defeated.