He was born in Miami, Manitoba,[2] the son of the Reverend Richard Weir and Margaret Moir,[3] and was educated at McGill University and the University of Chicago. Weir was a professor of Education at the University of British Columbia. He served in the provincial cabinet as Minister of Education (1933 to 1941 and again from 1945 to 1947) and as Provincial Secretary (1933 to 1941). Weir introduced health insurance legislation in British Columbia in 1935 and 1936.[2] He was defeated when he ran for re-election in 1941.[4]
Weir wrote The responsible government decade in Canada (1914), Survey of nursing education in Canada (1932), The separate school question in Canada (1934) and Our faith in liberalism (1947).[5]