1913 Alberta general election

Election to determine the members of the Legislature in Alberta, Canada October 2021 1913 Alberta general election Alberta 1905 legislative no no 1909 Alberta general election 1909 2nd Alberta Legislative Assembly 1913 03 25 yes 3rd Alberta Legislative Assembly 1917 Alberta general election 1917 56 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta 29 seats were needed for a majority x160px AB Liberal nohash Arthur Sifton AB Liberal name 1910 Vermilion 36 seats, 59.3% 33 39 6 47,748 49.23% 10.1 x160px AB Conservative nohash Edward Michener AB Conservative name 1910 Red Deer 2 seats, 31.7% 6 17 11 43,737 45.10% 13.4% x160px AB Socialist nohash Charles M. O'Brien AB Socialist name 1909 ran in Rocky Mountain (lost) 1 seat, 2.6% 1 0 1 1,814 1.87% 0.7% 1913ridingmap.png Map of 1913 Provincial electoral districts 270px Premier Premier after election Arthur Sifton AB Liberal name Arthur Sifton AB Liberal name No The 1913 Alberta general election was held in March 1913. The writ was dropped on 25 March 1913 and election day was held 17 April 1913 to elect 56 members to the 3rd Alberta Legislature. Elections in two northern districts took place on 30 July 1913 to compensate for the remote location of the riding. The method to elect members was under the First Past the Post voting system with the exception of the Edmonton district which returned two members under a plurality block vote. The election was unusual with the writ period for the general election being a very short period of 23 days. Premier Arthur Sifton led the Alberta Liberal Party into his first election as leader, after taking over from Alexander Rutherford. Premier Rutherford had resigned for his government's involvement in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Scandal but remained a sitting member. Sifton faced great criticism for calling the snap election, after ramming gerrymandered electoral boundaries through the legislature, running up the provincial debt and neglecting on promised railways. The Socialist Party carried the banner for labour- and farmer-minded voters in five constituencies; in others, Independent candidates were of distinctively leftist sentiment. Edward Michener, the official opposition leader of the Conservative Party, ended up capitalizing on anger toward the Sifton government. He would lead the largest opposition to date in Alberta history. The Liberals would win a comfortable majority of seats despite being almost even in the popular vote. The Socialist Party vote would collapse and lose their only seat as Charles M. O'Brien went down to defeat at the hands of a Conservative. Events leading to the election The campaign thumb|100px|right|Premier Arthur L. Sifton The writ of election was issued after a sitting of the house on the night of 25 March 1913. The premier dropped the election writ and dissolved the house after he ensured that the governments legislation on new electoral boundaries had been given Royal Assent.Thomas 1959 136 The new boundaries gave the Liberals an advantage, not only were they blatantly gerrymandered to their favour, but the opposition and even private citizens had a tough time figuring out what district they were in. thumb|100px|right|Edward Michener Leader of the official opposition. Day one of the campaign brought controversy as it was reported that Hotel organizers and Liquor establishments were being expected to donate generously to the Liberal campaign in order to get licence renewals for their establishments. Arthur Sifton, his lieutenant Charles Cross and Liberal candidate Alexander Grant MacKay each won nominations in two electoral districts. The Calgary Herald (a Conservative newspaper) surmised that Sifton and Cross were so scared of the electorate they felt they might not win if they ran in just one district. It accused Premier Sifton of having little confidence in his ability to return his government to power. The Liberal government in order to prevent possible vote splitting made promises of concessions to trade unions and labour organizations so that they would not publicly support leftist candidates. John McDougall, a member of the Methodist missionary family that founded Victoria settlement, ran in Calgary as a Liberal on a progressive platform.DCB: John Chantler McDougall The Conservative Party protested the snap election by filing a legal injunction in the Supreme Court, to prevent the election from being held on 17 April 1913. The grounds for the injunction were based on the date of nomination closure being in violation of statue. The writs were issued with nomination day being 10 April 1913. The Conservatives argued that this was 10 hours short of the 16 full days prescribed in the Elections Ordinance, and the election should be ruled invalid.injunc Election issues right|thumb|350px|Calgary Herald cartoon satirizing Premier Arthur Sifton's promised railroads. The big issues of the election centred on the Sifton government's lack of infrastructure building in Southern Alberta. The ballooning Alberta debt which in a few years had gone from C$2 million to C$27 million was talked about often. Gerrymandered boundaries Prior to the dropping of the writ the Sifton government forced a bill through the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The bill was entitled Bill 90: An Act to Amend an Act concerning members elected to the Legislative assembly of Alberta It was introduced in the assembly on 20 March 1913 and given Royal Assent on 25 March 1913.bill The bill increased the number of MLAs in the province by 15. Calgary was divided into two single-member districts; Edmonton continued as two-member district. The single-member districts did not contain equal population, with one riding Clearwater, north of Edmonton, only containing 74 people enumerated. Calgary Centre was the largest population wise with 20,000 people enumerated. The bill drew districts so that a line at the centre of the province's population (about in line with Red Deer), gave 30 seats to the people of the north half with 26 seats to the southern half. (The bill drew districts so that a line at the centre of the province (about in line with Edmonton), gave 19 seats to the north half of the province, up from the previous 13, with 37 seats in the south half, nine more than previously.)A Report on Alberta Elections, map p. 28 The Conservative and Socialist opposition vigorously opposed the bill, but failed to pass any amendments. The bill was jammed through third reading in the 25 March legislative sitting and given Royal Assent that evening, just shy of the writ of elections being dropped. Siftonism thumb|150px|right|A ad that appeared in the Nanton News 10 April 1913 effectively highlights campaign issues, the ad was run by Conservative J.T. Cooper to attack his opponent Liberal John Glendenning The Liberal campaign was dubbed "Siftonism" inferring that Sifton was a disease that needed to be cleaned from Alberta. The media at the time picked up on that, and roasted the Liberal party. The Conservative party attacked the Liberals on the Railway Scandal and Lack of provincial infrastructure. Electoral system First-past-the-post voting was used in the single-member districts. In Edmonton the seats were filled through Plurality block voting, where each voter could cast two votes. (Unusually for block voting, in Edmonton, candidates of two different parties were elected. Usually block voting produces a one-party sweep of a district's seats, as had been done in Edmonton in 1909 and was the case in Edmonton in 1921.) Results The final result was the Liberal Party, under its new leader, Arthur L. Sifton, won a third term in office, defeating the Conservative Party, which was once again led by Edward Michener. Liberal party candidates took 49 per cent of the vote and with the election of 38 members, the party took 68 per cent of the seats in the Legislature. The votes were split almost evenly between the Conservatives and Liberals with a difference of 4 per cent separating the two parties. The opposition Conservatives received a larger proportion of the votes than it had done in 1909 (45 per cent versus 32 in 1909) and increased its seat count to 17 from 2, while the Liberals again got more votes than any other party and won many of the new seats, allowing them to hang onto a majority of seats in the legislative assembly. In the Rocky Mountain constituency, the Socialist vote doubled but the vote for the Conservative candidate went up even more, to make that candidate the winner, and the Socialist Party lost its only seat in the Assembly. Oddly, the Assembly elected in 1913 never had its full complement of MLAs, as C.W. Cross was elected to two seats (one in Edmonton and the Edson seat). When this happened elsewhere, such as in 1896, when Laurier was elected as MP in both the riding of Saskatchewan, North-West Territories (including part of what would be Alberta) (the provisional district of Saskatchewan) and a seat in Quebec, the double winner resigned one of the seats. But in Alberta from 1913 to 1917, Cross held both seats. Summary March 2011 PartyParty Leader# ofcandidatesSeatsPopular Vote1909Elected% Change#%% Change AB Liberal row Liberal Arthur L. Sifton 51/541 2 36 38/391 +8.3% 47,748 49.23% -10.03% AB Conservative row Conservative Edward Michener56 2 17 +750% 43,737 45.10% +13.4% AB Independent rowIndependent 14 1 - -100% 3,639 3.75% +0.36% AB Socialist row-name Charles M. O'Brien51 - -100% 1,814 1.87% -0.73% AB Liberal row Liberal-Labor Arthur L. Sifton 23 * - *44 * AB Independent Liberal rowIndependent Liberal1 1 - -100% 47 0.05% -2.57%Total129/1324155/56+36.6%96,985 100%  Source: Elections Alberta Note Charles Cross ran in and won in two ridings. Arthur Sifton and Alexander G. MacKay ran for the Liberals in two districts but only won in 1 district. Liberal-Labor candidates were a result of the Liberal Labour coalition struck by Premier Sifton prior to the election, these candidates ran in place of Liberals. See also Liberal-Labour (Canada). Liberal-Labor popular vote is included in Liberal vote. Popular vote #ddd 600px 410px Liberal AB Liberal 49.23 Conservative AB Conservative 45.10 Others AB Inde 5.67 Seats summary #ddd 600px 410px Liberal AB Liberal 69.64 Conservative AB Conservative 30.36 Party nameCalgaryEdmonton1NorthCentralSouthTotalLiberal Seats:0111151138 Popular vote:32.1%40.3%37.9%32.5%19.8%Conservative Seats:3215718 Popular vote:50.5%31.5%38.3%44.1%55.5%Total seats: 3312201856Parties that won no seats: AB Socialist row-name Popular vote:5.5%1.0%3.1%1.2%2.8% AB Independent rowIndependent Popular vote:0.1%0.2%--0.1% AB Independent Liberal row-name Popular vote:0.1%0.2%--0.1% Members elected For complete electoral history, see individual districts AB Liberal Conservative Other |- |Acadia |AB Liberal background| |John A. McColl63756.27% | |W.D. Bentley49543.73% | | | |New District |- |Alexandra | |N.C. Lyster47040.69% |AB Conservative background| |James R. Lowery47841.39% | |W.H. Anderson20717.92% |AB Liberal background| |Alwyn Bramley-Moore |- |Athabasca |AB Liberal background| |Alexander Grant MacKay5,327838.90% | |J.H. Wood22134.80% | | |AB Liberal background| |Jean Léon Côté |- |Beaver River |AB Liberal background| |Wilfrid Gariepy45761.67% | |A. Grey28438.33% | | | |New District |- |Bow Valley |AB Liberal background| |George Lane39661.78% | |Harold William Hounsfield Riley24538.22% | | | |New District |- |Centre Calgary | |John Chantler McDougall72831.76% |AB Conservative background| |Thomas M.M. Tweedie1,56468.24% | | |AB Conservative background| |New District from CalgaryThomas M.M. Tweedie |- |North Calgary | |George Henry Ross82232.11% |AB Conservative background| |Samuel Bacon Hillocks1,48257.89% | |Harry Roderick Burge (Socialist)25610.00% | |New District from Calgary |- |South Calgary | |Clifford Teasdale Jones1,42328.03% |AB Conservative background| |Thomas H. Blow3,65471.97% | | | |New District from Calgary |- |Camrose |AB Liberal background| |George P. Smith1,65186.89% | |R.L. Rushton24913.11% | | |AB Liberal background| |George P. Smith |- |Cardston |AB Liberal background| |Martin Woolf51851.96% | |C. Jensen47948.04% | | |AB Liberal background| |John William Woolf |- |Claresholm |AB Liberal background| |William Moffat49651.08% | |D.S. McMillan34835.84% | |G. Malshow12713.08% |AB Liberal background| |Malcolm McKenzie |- |Clearwater |AB Liberal background| |Henry William McKenney4038.83% | |A. Williamson Taylor3937.86% | |Joseph Andrew Clarke (Socialist)2423.30% | |New District |- |Cochrane |AB Liberal background| |Charles Wellington Fisher47555.56% | |H.F. Jarrett38044.44% | | |AB Liberal background| |Charles Wellington Fisher |- |Coronation |AB Liberal background| |Frank H. Whiteside73951.61% | |William Wallace Wilson69348.39% | | | |New District |- |Didsbury |AB Liberal background| |Joseph E. Stauffer94859.32% | |G.B. Sexsmith65040.68% | | |AB Liberal background| |Joseph E. Stauffer |- |rowspan="2" |Edmonton |AB Liberal background| |Charles Wilson Cross5,40726.29% | |William Antrobus Griesbach4,49921.87% | |J.D. Blayney (Temperance)Edmonton Bulletin, April 29, 19136433.13% |AB Liberal background| |Charles Wilson Cross |- | |Alexander Grant MacKay4,91323.89% |AB Conservative background| |Albert Freeman Ewing5,10724.83% | | |AB Liberal background| |John Alexander McDougall |- |Edmonton-South | |Alexander Cameron Rutherford1,27545.57% |AB Conservative background| |Herbert Howard Crawford1,52354.43% | | |AB Liberal background| |Renamed from StrathconaAlexander Cameron Rutherford |- |Edson |AB Liberal background| |Charles Wilson Cross6,078462.21% | |H.H. Verge64448.97% | | | |New District |- |Gleichen |AB Liberal background| |John P. McArthur64152.67% | |George McElroy57647.33% | | |AB Liberal background| |Ezra H. Riley |- |Grouard |AB Liberal background| |Jean Léon Côté34763.32% | |O. Travers20136.68% | | | |New District |- |Hand Hills |AB Liberal background| |Robert Berry Eaton96253.36% | |Albert J. Robertson84146.64% | | | |New District |- |High River | |R.L. McMillan55847.53% |AB Conservative background| |George Douglas Stanley61652.47% | | |AB Liberal background| |Louis Melville Roberts |- |Innisfail | |John A. Simpson52649.58% |AB Conservative background| |Frederick William Archer53550.42% | | |AB Liberal background| |John A. Simpson |- |Lac Ste. Anne |AB Liberal background| |Peter Gunn51752.17% | |George R. Barker47447.83% | | |AB Liberal background| |Peter Gunn |- |Lacombe |AB Liberal background| |William Franklin Puffer87858.46% | |Angus MacDonald62441.54% | | |AB Liberal background| |William Franklin Puffer |- |Leduc |AB Liberal background| |Stanley G. Tobin58257.17% | |George Curry43642.83% | | |AB Liberal background| |Robert T. Telford |- |Lethbridge City | |J.O. Jones1,03338.46% |AB Conservative background| |John S. Stewart1,37151.04% | |Joseph R. Knight (Socialist)28210.50% |AB Conservative background| |John S. Stewart |- |Little Bow |AB Liberal background| |James McNaughton72152.02% | |John T. MacDonald33924.46% | |F.A. Bryant (Ind.)20214.57%Alfred Buddon (Socialist)1248.95% | |New District |- |Macleod | |Arthur L. Sifton56049.17% |AB Conservative background| |Robert Patterson57950.83% | | |AB Conservative background| |Robert Patterson |- |Medicine Hat | |Charles Richmond Mitchell1,82349.73% |AB Conservative background| |Nelson C. Spencer1,84350.27% | | |AB Liberal background| |William Thomas Finlay |- |Nanton |AB Liberal background| |John M. Glendenning46359.51% | |J.T. Cooper31540.49% | | |AB Liberal background| |John M. Glendenning |- |Okotoks | |John A. Turner38039.01% |AB Conservative background| |George Hoadley59460.99% | | |AB Conservative background| |George Hoadley |- |Olds |AB Liberal background| |Duncan Marshall70951.94% | |George H. Cloakey65648.06% | | |AB Liberal background| |Duncan Marshall |- |Peace River | |William A. Rae43745.57% |AB Conservative background| |Alphaeus Patterson47549.53% | |William Bredin (Ind. Liberal)474.90% |AB Liberal background| |James K. Cornwall |- |Pembina |AB Liberal background| |Gordon MacDonald43250.64% | |F.D. Armitage42149.36% | | |AB Liberal background| |Henry William McKenney |- |Pincher Creek | |A.N. Mount42646.66% |AB Conservative background| |John H.W.S. Kemmis48753.34% | | |AB Liberal background| |David Warnock |- |Ponoka |AB Liberal background| |William A. Campbell48551.65% | |George Gordon25727.37% | |P. Baker19720.98% |AB Liberal background| |William A. Campbell |- |Red Deer | |Robert B. Welliver78642.44% |AB Conservative background| |Edward Michener86946.92% | |George Patton19710.64% |AB Independent background| |Edward Michener |- |Redcliff |AB Liberal background| |Charles S. Pingle64560.11% | |H.S. Gerow42839.89% | | | |New District |- |Ribstone |AB Liberal background| |James Gray Turgeon66955.56% | |William John Blair53544.44% | | | |New District |- |Rocky Mountain | |William B. Powell51619.60% |AB Conservative background| |Robert E. Campbell1,09941.74% | |Charles M. O'Brien (Socialist)1,01838.66% |AB Socialist background| |Charles M. O'Brien |- |Sedgewick |AB Liberal background| |Charles Stewart88970.56% | |W. Watson37129.44% | | |AB Liberal background| |Charles Stewart |- |St. Albert |AB Liberal background| |Lucien Boudreau62060.55% | |Hector L. Landry40439.45% | | |AB Liberal background| |Lucien Boudreau |- |St. Paul |AB Liberal background| |Prosper-Edmond Lessard44155.75% | |L. Garneau35044.25% | | | |New District |- |Stettler |AB Liberal background| |Robert L. Shaw92845.65% | |George W. Morris90744.61% | |Malcolm McNeil1989.74% |AB Liberal background| |Robert L. Shaw |- |Stony Plain | |John A. McPherson36838.94% |AB Conservative background| |Conrad Weidenhammer57761.06% | | |AB Liberal background| |John A. McPherson |- |Sturgeon |AB Liberal background| |John Robert Boyle93662.73% | |James Duncan Hyndman55637.27% | | |AB Liberal background| |John Robert Boyle |- |Taber |AB Liberal background| |Archibald J. McLean1,23168.16% | |William C. Ives34118.88% | |Thomas E. Smith (Socialist)23412.96% | |New District |- |Vegreville |AB Liberal background| |Joseph S. McCallum81245.72% | |F.A. Morrison42023.65% | |Peter Savarich54430.63% |AB Liberal background| |James Bismark Holden |- |Vermilion |AB Liberal background| |Arthur L. Sifton77247.68% | |J. George Clark57135.27% | |Gregory Krikevsky27617.05% |AB Liberal background| |Archibald Campbell |- |Victoria |AB Liberal background| |Francis A. Walker77362.49% | |R.A. Bennett26821.67% | |M. Gowda19615.84% |AB Liberal background| |Francis A. Walker |- |Wainwright | |H.Y. Pawling61546.38% |AB Conservative background| |George LeRoy Hudson71153.62% | | | |New District |- |Warner |AB Liberal background| |Frank S. Leffingwell31443.67% | |W.H. Scott13719.05% | |William T. Patton26837.27% | |New District |- |Wetaskiwin |AB Liberal background| |Charles H. Olin78057.35% | |George B. Campbell58042.65% | | |AB Liberal background| |Charles H. Olin |- |Whitford |AB Liberal background| |Andrew S. Shandro49945.70% | |R.L. Hughson13312.18% | |Paul Rudyk (Ind.)31228.57%C. F. Connolly (Ind.)14813.55% | |New District |- |} See also List of Alberta political parties References Citations Bibliography Thomas Lewis Gwynne The Liberal Party in Alberta 1959 University of Toronto Press Toronto 0802050832 https://archive.org/stream/liberalpartyinal0000thom registration 18824816M injunc Application by law clerk to stop election Edmonton Daily Bulletin 5 April 1913 Further reading Hopkins J. Castell The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, 1913 1914 The Annual Review Publishing Company Toronto https://archive.org/details/canadianannualre0000unse_w8l1 Biographic books about members Campbell Robert E. I would do it again: reminiscences of the Rockies 1959 Ryerson Press Toronto https://archive.org/details/iwoulddoitagainr0000camp registration Category:1913 elections in Canada 1913 Category:March 1913 in Canada Category:1913 in Alberta