The NWT, a HBC-dominated area, was granted to Canada in 1870, when the HBC gave up its royal charter. That was when the present-day provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan and the present NWT became part of Canada.
As a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, Canada left its foreign affairs in the hands of imperial authorities.
Oddly, a feather in its hat - as people used to say when they wore big hats - was the young Dominion's ability to suppress the 1885 Rebellion just with its own resources, using its permanent army forces and militia forces. The brains though could be said to be contributed by Britain - General Middleton, who led the main section of the government fores, was a British general who had had previous experience in colonial wars in New Zealand and India.
The suppression of the 1885 Rebellion went something like all such British wars - the British lost every fight but the last.
Defeats at Duck Lake and Fish Creek did not stop the push. The Metis did not hold their ground even if they had won each fight. And even if they had tried to do so, the soldiers would have just gone around them - the Metis could not hope to hold a solid line across the whole Prairies against the slow but steady advance by the Red Coats.
The fights each in turn grew closer to Batoche, which was really just a symbolic capital of the Resistance. The taking of Batoche saw the killing of fewer than 20 Metis fighters, a small portion of the fighters, and secured the capture of neither Riel nor his military commander, Dumont. But it signalled the end of organized resistance. If the Metis fighters could not even hold Batoche, it showed they had no strength.
There was no bitter-end guerrilla fighting as seen in the Boer War a decade later.
But also the government did not rely on military might to effect a peace. A commission of investigation was formed, and land scrip was issued to assuage the discontent.
And complaints of lack of representation was at least partially addressed. The NWT was given four federal seats. Alberta's seat at first was filled by former whiskey peddler D.W. Davis, running for the Conservative party, elected mostly by Calgary. Former Metis rebels and other unsettled old-timers in the Saskatchewan valley probably found little satisfaction with Davis's brand of representation - the fate of many groups under our geographical-district election scheme.
With elections up to five years apart, it would not be until 1896 that Edmonton and north-central Alberta sent its first local representative to the House of Commons - and a Liberal at that - Frank Oliver.
Oliver would be re-elected in 1900, 1904, 1908 and 1911. In 1917 he received the mostof the votes cast in Edmonton, but this lead was betrayed by the government's placing of the army vote, so he lost the seat.
Then the 1917 winner, "Unionist" Henry Mackie, could not hold on to the seat in 1921, with a United Farmers candidate taking the seat. This was the start of a persistent and powerful "third-party" presence in the House of Commons. In fact, for the next 50 years, a third party of one sort or another would dominate Alberta politics, among both its provincial members and its federal members.
The United Farmers would be the largest party in the Alberta Legislature from 1921 to 1935. Its power was augmented by support from the handful of Labour MLAs elected in this period. The 1921 federal election saw all of the elected Alberta MPs belong to the UFA or the Labour Party. This strong UFA domination of Alberta federal representation continued to 1935. Alberta's UFA MPs helped found the CCF party in 1932 in Calgary.
The UFA ran only one candidate in Edmonton in 1926 and 1930 although Edmonton elected five MLAs. The use of STV to elect Edmonton MLAs ensured that the city elected a mixed group of MLAs to the Legislature. The mixture each time included one or two Liberals, one or two Conservatives, a Labour and the one UFA candidate.
Calgary also elected its MLAs through STV starting in 1926. There, no UFA candidate ran but other than that, the result was similarly mixed and similar to the result in Edmonton. Liberals were still prominent there, Conservatives and Labour being stronger. The 1926 election saw two Conservatives, a Liberal, a Labour and an Independent-Labour. The 1930 election, also held using STV, saw three Conservatives, two Liberals and a Labour MLA elected in Calgary.
In 1935, hope for a better economic future through socialized credit was kindled and harnessed by William Aberhart. The Social Credit movement he led took a majority of seats in the Alberta Legislature in 1935 and almost all the federal seats in the federal election held that year. The UFA won no seats in 1935, despite taking 11 percent of the vote and being due 6 or 7 seats in the Legislature.
SC candidates captured all but one of Alberta's federal seats in 1935, despite taking less than 47 percent of the votes cast by Alberta voters.
Social Credit would dominate the Legislature until 1971. After the government discontinued the use of STV in the cities, its overwhelming grip on seats would become even more overwhelming. In 1960, the SC party took all but three seats in the Legislature with only 55 percent of the vote.
Social Credit would also take most of Alberta's federal seats until 1957. But even then a crack was starting, with 1957 seeing three Progressive Conservatives and one Liberal elected as well as 14 SC MPs This shift deepened the following year when every Alberta seat was filled by a Progressive Conservative. Two SC MPs were elected in 1962, sitting until 1968. But that would be it for the Social Credit party in federal politics - out of Alberta anyway.
The true power in the national SC movement shifted to Quebec, where 26 MPs were elected in 1962, putting Alberta's two SC MPs and BC's two SC MPs in deep shadow. A minority Liberal government was elected this year. When it went to the polls the next year, Alberta re-elected its two SC MPs. The other 15 Alberta seats were filled by P-Cs.
BC re-elected its two SC MPs in 1963. Quebec again elected the lion's share of the SC MPs, electing 20 this time.
Quebec proved to be not a firm base for the party. In 1965 it elected no SC MPs. Alberta re-elected its two and BC elected three. And western Canadian Social Credit representation became a joke in the House of Commons.
In Quebec the movement was re-born under the label Ralliement creditiste, electing 14 MPs in Quebec in 1968. The leader of the Ralliement creditiste, Raul Caouette, became leader of the Social Credit Party. Under his leadership, the Social Credit Party elected 15 MPs in 1972, 11 in 1974 and 6 in 1979, all in Quebec. The party elected no MPs anywhere in 1980.
By then the Social Credit government of Alberta had been replaced by the Progressive Conservative party. The P-C party had extended its already-mentioned strength in federal politics, into the Alberta Legislature.
After the discontinuation of STV in 1956, the fortunes for all but the Social Credit party dwindled. The SC consistently was over-represented by as much as 40 percent of the seats, such as 1963 referred to above.
The under-representation of opposition parties resulted in regional discrepancies. Edmonton's NDP-ers were not represented at all for decades. Edmonton would not elect a CCF or NDP MLA from 1955 until 1982. This happened despite more than 10 percent of city voters (sometimes as much as 21 percent) sending their votes to the NDP.
Edmontonians' support for NDP
1967 21 percent
1971 13 percent
1975 19 percent (source: Calderola (editor), Society and Politics in Alberta, p. 323)
The P-Cs at first a modernizing force, afer decades in office without break, eventually fossilized. They lost touch with voters, and cold afford to do so, consistently being gifted massive majority governments although seldom receiving more than 60 percent of the vote, and in a few elections not even receiving a majority of the votes.
P-Cs electoral support
1993 45 percent of the vote
1997 51 percent of the vote
2004 47 percent of the vote
The Conservative party repeatedly received a percentage of the seats 20 or so percent higher than its vote percentage.
In 2019, the United Conservative Party received 72 percent of the seats in the Alberta Legislature, with only 55 percent of the vote.
Without electoral reform giving us proportional representation, this unfair representation will probably continue.
Will it take another rebellion to effect this change, as well as so many others that are needed?
Or will electoral reform be achieved through peaceful means?
And how soon?
Thanks for reading.
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