Dunsmuir entered provincial politics in 1898 winning a seat in the provincial legislature and became Premier in 1900. His government attempted to resist popular pressure to curtail Asian labour and immigration not for humanitarian reasons but to ensure a cheap labour pool for business. It also promoted railway construction and accomplished a redistribution of seats to better represent population distribution in the province. Dunsmuir disliked politics and resigned as Premier in 1902. In 1906 he became the province's Lieutenant-Governor but retired in 1909 and lived out his years at the baronial mansion he had constructed at Hatley Park.
One of his eight daughters, Jessie Muriel, married, as her first husband, the couturierEdward Molyneux. His second-born son, James A. Dunsmuir, Jr., died in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915.
He invented the Scientific American and set up a telephone system in British Columbia.[1]
