The 1948 Alberta referendum on public electrification was not a simple question of public versus private utility companies, and its supposed pro-free market result was ignored when you think of the 28 Rural Electrification Associations that still to this day sell electricity to farmers.
In a recent Alberta magazine, the debaters on both side of the debate on the issue of referendum got the result of the 1948 referendum wrong. Bothof them said that the choice was between nationalization or to allow them to continue in private hands.
One stated "the nationalization side lost by just 151 votes, and the Socreds emerged champions of the narrowly victorious free market movement." But in reality the question was whether the rural area would get electrification through a provincial public utility or attempt to get it through private power. As CCF MLA Elmer Roper interpreted the referendum question, the choice was did rural people want rural electricity by public ownership or did they want rural electricity by private ownership - the way they were not getting it. "If they answered yes to private ownership, they will go on not getting rural electricity in the way they were not getting it now."
And the government behaviour was contrary to the referendum result anyway. It encouraged Rural Electrification co-ops. A provincial electricity utility was too out there for the government, no matter what the referendum result. It was feared by many that the government would not have abided by a pro-public utility result, anyway.
And in the event the Manning government, to a degree, ignored the result - the government did not sit back after the result and leave power in private hands.
Instead it helped spawn a wave of farmer co-ops that carried electricity to many Alberta farms.
From the start the referendum was strangely handled. Manning's government set up the referendum in such a way as to allow city voters who already had electricity to vote on a question mostly about rural electrification.
Since then legend has grown that the referendum was a choice between private versus provincial public generation and transmission of electricity. On paper it looked that way but the reality was different.
In the rural areas, there was no power companies to nationalize. The referendum served the purpose of testing sentiment of Alberta farmers as to public or private rural electrification. The farmers sentiment had already been well known – three large Alberta farmer organizations had been calling for public power for years. But Premier Manning distrusted that evidence of popular opinion. (And then despite the overall referendum result, the government realized that farmers doubted the ability of private companies to electrify the province's farms and created a non-private alternative that gradually electrified the countryside.) (People's Weekly, April 10, 1948)
Already in the rural areas farmers had grown impatient with the rate of rural electrification. While Edmonton homes and businesses had had electricity since the 1890s, still in 1941 only 500 of Alberta's 100,000 farms were hooked up to power transmission lines. (5000 had power through their own farm power plants, gasoline-driven or wind-driven.)
Three reasons for the slow rate of rural electrification were:
1. High overhead cost per farm. The cost of the line and poles required to connect to the scattered farms
2. Irregular and uncertain incomes of farm families makes it likely that some may not pay their bills at one point or another.
3. The small consumption of energy per farm. (Farms often used less than 400 kilowatt/hours per year in those days, with some using 1700 kwhr per year. 30,00 electrified farms would be expected to use only about 7 percent of Alberta power usage. So a relatively small sale with high construction costs = little profit. One reason for the low consumption was that many farms had tractors with power take-off so farms did not use electric machines to drive power belts to drive machinery. In those days, other than few lights, a farm pretty much only used electricity for the hand iron, the radio, the washing machine and the toaster!)
These three factors together made extension of lines to isolated farms unprofitable for private power companies. (Farm and Ranch Review, Sept. 1, 1944)
The CCF, led by Edmonton MLA Elmer Roper, recognized the need for progress in that field. Manitoba and Ontario had created provincial utilities that were making great strides in electrifying their rural lands. The Saskatchewan government too was working directly to electrify its farms. Farm newspapers and magazines boasted of these successes to envious Alberta farmers. (The Farm and Ranch Review, March 1, 1948)
Under the post-war reconstruction scheme for rural electrification the Dominion government urged that several experimental projects be established. An area adjacent to Olds was selected for one of the projects. It was to be composed of a main line running 20 miles east-west with feeder lines running north and south. Each farmer was to pay $100 for construction and a minimum of $5 per month plus 2 cents per kilowatt consumed in excess of 20 kilowatts. (Didsbury Pioneer, July 6, 1944)
In the 1944 provincial election campaign, one of the major issues raised by the CCF was rural electrification. It promised that a CCF government would proceed immediately to establish a provincial power system under public ownership for the purpose of extending rural lines. The government could afford to ridicule the CCF at the time, but public demand for the reform soon grew.
Every farm organization in the province and the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts had by 1948 passed resolutions in favour of public-owned power system and rural electrification. (People's Weekly, July 24, 1948, p. 4)
By 1948, an election year, Premier Manning finally heard the calls for change. The Alberta government passed legislation allowing rural electrification associations that could arrange a source of electricity from a private power company and locally provide transmission and distribution as a co-operative. This concept was apparently copied from a federal U.S. program that started in 1936 - The Rural Electrification Act of 1936.
With at least this door open to them, Alberta farmers began to take matters into their own hands. Farmers in Didsbury and Wainwright worked to organize local electricity co-ops. (Didsbury Pioneer, Jan. 14, Feb. 4, Feb. 18, 1948; Wainwright Star, March 10, July 21, 1948)
One of the first REAs organized in Alberta, possibly the first, was the North Wainwright REA. it entered into negotiations with the Calgary Power. The negotiations were perhaps held up by waiting for the results of the referendum. For whatever reason they would only completed in early 1949. (Wainwright Star, April 6, 1949, p. 1)
With that type of delay and the amount of work required to found a REA and access electricity, farmers saw a provincial utility as preferable to REAs. They saw that a provincial public utility like the ones operating in Manitoba and Ontario would make faster progress.
MLA Roper noted in the Legislature that Alberta farmers were becoming very impatient about rural electrification. ("Time for A Change in Alberta. People are now showing impatience," People's Weekly, July 17, 1948)
Under that kind of pressure, the government decided to at least agree to hold a referendum on rural electrification, "to find out if the farmers want electricity in their homes." ("CCF forced Government's hand", People's Weekly, July 24, 1948)
CCF MLA A.J.E. Liesemer noted that Alberta's main farmer organizations (the Alberta Farm Union, the United Farmers of Alberta and the Alberta Farmers Association) had been demanding rural electrification for years, but still Premier Manning said he did not know whether or not the farmers wanted rural electrification. Liesemer said “Apparently Manning has no faith in the democratic processes. According to him, representatives do not really express the will of those that elect them. He must of course be confusing rural organization with the SC government!” (People’s Weekly, July 24, 1948)
(Thus Liesemer put forward the idea of using the farm organization as industrial councils, a fourth level of representation. The revolutionary government of Venezuela was big on industrial councils.)
Carl Stimpfle of the Alberta Farmers Union criticized the structure of the referendum itself. He pointed out the injustice of allowing all voters in the province to decide whether or not farmers were to have electrical power. (People’s Weekly, August 14, 1948)
As one of the writers in that recent magazine said "...the Socreds emerged champions of the narrowly victorious free market movement." This repeats the traditional mythological presentation of the referendum, and covers the fact that Manning's government was not leaving rural electrification in the hands of private business. REAs were not private. However, Manning presented himself as a free market-er while doing, at least to some degree, what was needed, ideology aside.
Premier Manning before the referendum repeatedly stated his position against public power. He said public power was socialism and communism and thus anathema. By thus instructing his party supporters how to vote, it seems to me, the government banked on the vote going against the public utility, after which the government could do what they wanted all along - leave it in the hands of private corporations and ad-hoc REAs. And if the vote went against them they could always ignore the result anyway.
(It is said governments use referendums as a way out of making difficult decisions. Such as in a deadlock. Manning kept a strong hand on the helm of his party so any debate that may have happened was behind closed doors. It is possible behind the scenes rural SC MLAs heard their constituents' call and pushed the government for action. It is possible holding the referendum was as much as Manning would do to address their cries.
The government's purpose in holding the 1948 referendum, it is said, was to use the referendum "as a way to pin accountability on the public." I personally don't get this. It would always have been the government's decision. The Manning government was expected to ignore a vote in favour of a public utility anyway. And when the result came down supposedly in favour of private enterprise, the government stepped up and helped organize electrification co-ops anyway.
In fact the CCF said it would overrule a province-wide vote against a public utility if the rural vote was in favour of a public utility.
In the end a government can do what it wants to - ignore the result or not - if it called for a referendum voluntarily. If the Alberta government had been forced by a large petition under its Direct Legislation law to either adopt a law or hold a referendum on it, then it would have been different. Alberta's Direct Legislation law would later be removed from the books after decades without use.
The magazine said citizens assemblies, consultations and commissions are "more thorough than referendums." Those too are often ignored. I say the most effective consultation is effective representation through proportional representation, where the legislature is a microcosm of the wider community.)
CCF MLAs said they expected that if the 1948 referendum result was in favour of public power the government would be slow to take action, to nationalize by taking profitable operations out of private hands. Liesemer said he doubted whether Manning’s government would bring in public rural electrification after recently condemning public rural electrification as socialism and communism. He called on progressive voters to vote for rural electrification under public ownership, but also to elect a CCF government "and get rural electrification under public ownership.” (People’s Weekly, July 24, 1948)
The choice in the 1948 referendum, according to the CCF newspaper The People's Weekly, was did the people want rural electricity by private ownership - the way they were not getting it now - or did they want it by public ownership. "If they answered yes to the first question, they will go on not getting rural electricity in the way they were not getting it now. But if they say yes to the second question they surely will not be foolish enough at the same time to re-elect a government that is bitterly opposed to public ownership and that will delay and sabotage any such measure in the way it has done with the whole question of rural electrification in the past four years." (People's Weekly, July 24, 1948, p. 4)
Looking forward to potential victory in the 1948 provincial election held in conjunction with the power referendum, the CCF promised that farm electrification would be guided by the rural vote on public ownership.” That if rural farmers voted for a public utility, a CCF government would create one. Thus it would split off the rural vote from the overall province-wide vote. This made sense as the city voter was voting on a whole different basis compared to the rural voter. (“CCF promises farm electrification will be guided by rural vote on public ownership” and “Rural electrification plebiscite an insult to Alberta farmers” (Robert Carlyle)”, People’s Weekly, July 31, 1948)
The Western Farm Leader, Farm and Ranch Review and other agricultural magazines backed public power. (Farm and Ranch Review, Sept. 1, 1948) The Edmonton Journal supported the retention of the existing power companies (as if the Manning government would nationalize a profitable private company). It pulled up CCF leader Elmer Roper for making a mistake while it parroted Manning’s clear lies in disparaging Manitoba's public electrification system. (The People’s Weekly, August 14, 1948)
Small town papers gave mixed reports. The Wainwright Star noted the confusion about whether the referendum if passed would mean government would run all electricity generation in the province or only take on rural electrification. It said despite claims made by the socialist-minded, costs to town and city consumers under public ownership would not necessarily be any lower or more dependable - Ontario Hydro had recently had a power black-out. (Wainwright Star, August 4, 1948)
Manning meanwhile was saying that town and city power consumers would pay more to cover the cost of rural electrification.
The People’s Weekly addressed Calgary voters to refute his claim. "Manning is telling city voters that their rates will increase if there is a public rural electrification program, but Roper said the choice is really between profits going to power monopoly or profits being used to extend rural lines.... Public ownership will benefit the employees of the power companies and improve life in the rural area. City votes should support rural electrification out of genuine Christianity. Why would you vote to keep from your country friends the conveniences you have in the city? By all means let all the country and city all alike vote in favour of public owned rural power - it will benefit us all. But let’s vote 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for the full slate of CCF candidates in Calgary and really get public owned rural light and power. (The People’s Weekly, August 7, 1948)
The "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" was a reference to the preferential voting used in Calgary provincial elections. All the city was a single district with five being elected under the Single Transferable Voting system.
The CCF boasted that it had set all the election issues - rural electrification, lower taxes on municipal homeowners, cheaper health care, etc. (People’s Weekly, Aug. 7, 1948)
The vote count of the referendum was not available for weeks and months after the referendum was held. Meantime at its 1948 CCF convention, the CCF passed a resolution in favour of the rapid extension of rural electrification in Alberta. (The People’s Weekly, November 27, 1948, p. 6)
Through November, the referendum vote count was stalled at a lead of several thousand against provincial ownership. Finally in December Vermilion's vote package was found and counted. The vote narrowed only to a 151-vote lead in favour of existing companies. This was a very minute difference – 151 votes out of 300,000.
The Farm and Ranch Review reported "With only a 151-vote difference between votes in favour of public ownership and the existing electricity industry, the Manning government now has less justification than ever for interpreting the result of the plebiscite as a mandate to deprive two-thirds of the people of Alberta of a minimum standard of decent living.” (Farm and Ranch Review, Jan 1, 1949)
The slight lead – just 151 votes out of 300,000 votes cast – meant public sentiment was evenly divided - and frankly still undetermined as 15,000 voters who had voted in the election held at the same time had not voted in the referendum and the voter turn-out in the election – only 63 percent – meant 37 percent of eligible voters had not voted at all. The lead could easily have been obliterated by a recount – or could have been properly confirmed. But the government refused to order a recount when CCF MLAs called for one. CCF MLA Liesemer said the government‘s refusal to hold a recount on such a slight difference in favour of existing power companies had shattered any confidence the people had in the government. (It would however be re-elected to power five more times.) (The People’s Weekly, March 19, 1949, p. 3)
The government saw the minute lead in favour of the status quo as defence of its natural position. But The People’s Weekly noted "Both because of the inconclusiveness of the plebiscite result and because the bulk of the adverse vote was piled up by people in urban areas who already have all the conveniences of electricity, the government does not necessarily have to commit itself to depending on private companies to do the job that the rural people are demanding should be done." The People’s Weekly editorialized "The government must do it if it is to be done... Experience everywhere has shown that rural electrification on anything like a useful scale will not be given by private companies....” (The People’s Weekly, December 25, 1948, p. 4)
And as slight as the 151-vote lead was, when broken down the referendum revealed mixed opinion.
In Edmonton the choice was not between free market electricity generation versus public electricity utility. It was between generation of electricity by city-owned Edmonton Power and nationalization by the provincial government. Edmonton voters narrowly voted to retain city ownership.
In Calgary there was a stark choice between private and public generation of electricity. Only there do we find strong opposition to provincial nationalization. In that city 70 percent voted in favour of the Calgary Power Corporation and other existing companies. Only 30 percent voted in favour of nationalization.
In the rural areas, the question was nothing to do with nationalization - there were no existing power companies to nationalize. A majority of rural residents favoured a provincial utility -- 106,000 in favour versus 92,000 in defence of private power.
Despite its rural base the government was slow to accede to demands for rural electrification. (Or perhaps the government was confident it would continue to get rural votes even if it did little to address the demand.) In the last half of 1948 only 162 farms were hooked up to electricity. This compared poorly with the 5,000 new farm connections per year achieved by Manitoba’s public utility. (“Inaction of government criticized,” The People’s Weekly, March 19, 1949, p. 1)
The Farm and Ranch Review, which backed rural electricity, said the referendum had made it clear that farmers wanted electricity. "This was the verdict of the plebiscite that no adverse majority rolled up in the city should be allowed to obscure. The terms of the referendum made it impossible for city residents who obtained cheap power from municipal systems and whose systems yielded the cities handsome profits to vote for public power.... but there is no reason that a public owned electricity system has to replace the city operations. They operate side by side in Manitoba and Ontario." (FRR, Sept. 1, 1948)
Henry Young, expecting the referendum to result in a setback for farmers, optimistically wrote "no war is ever lost in the first skirmish and no question is settled until it is settled right. In Ontario it took many years of effort against every kind of opposition that ignorance, greed and self-interest could put up, before the people triumphed and Ontario Hydro was born. In Alberta the Power companies will doubtless be prepared to spend millions to prevent the loss of their monopoly here, but informed people will disregard their propaganda." (The People’s Weekly, September 4, 1948, p. 6)
The 1948 referendum had been doomed to fail, Jack Sutherland later surmised, because the government itself and its expressed wish to its own supporters wanted to see public ownership defeated, thereby accomplishing two things, viz., absolving the Government from responsibility and meeting the desires of big interests. (Lukewarm support for a positive result from a referendum often allows a government to get what it wants. BC electoral reformers found that too in 2009.)
There was also opposition in the towns and cities. "Many people were confused and misled by Government and press propaganda with regard to rural electrification. Calgary is enjoying very substantial benefits in the distribution of its domestic supply of electricity, yet that same city by its overwhelming vote against public ownership for the rural area denied equal opportunity to the rural people. Only one of the four political parties came out foursquare for rural electrification. That of course was the CCF." (The People’s Weekly, September 4, 1948, p. 6)
The incongruity of rural residents voting for public power and also for the re-election of the SC government was examined after the fact. The People’s Weekly said while city voters voted against the only system that would see extensive rural electrification in the near future, rural voters made an important choice by voting for the present government, which was a vote against public ownership. (People’s Weekly, Sept. 4, 1948)
In fact as I have mentioned, the referendum was not on private versus public power, or if so the result was not what was official recorded. Taking both Edmonton votes as votes for public ownership (city or provincial public ownership), and adding the votes of the high proportion of rural voters who preferred nationalization, adding the significant but not dominant call for nationalization in Calgary, we see that in fact a majority of Albertans voted for public ownership of one sort or another of electricity generation.
The actual referendum result may have been un-important. Even with a majority vote in favour of public utility the government might not have launched such an ambitious government enterprise. It would not have been the first time that a government refused a referendum result or watered down its actions from what voters seemed to have voted for. That is why the result of the general election was pivotal. The future of rural electrification depended on whether re-election of the Social Credit government was re-elected or if the CCF was elected. It seems likely the CCF would have actually fulfilled its promise of public utility and pressed ahead speedily with rural electrification, a process that under Social Credit took far longer.
H.G. Sorenson of Edmonton blamed the SC re-election on three causes. Conservatives did not run candidates so SC got their votes. [Two Conservatives ran under the Independent Citizens' Association label in Edmonton but elsewhere Conservatives looked to the Social Credit, by then stripped of its Depression-era fire, for socially-conservative representation.] Liberals voted SC out of fear. Farmers voted SC out of confusion. Their organization despite being organized were non-political, so farmers did not know how far to push their unease with the government. (“Analyzes provincial vote”, The People’s Weekly, February 5, 1949, p. 3)
The election was seen as a setback for the common people of Alberta in another way as well. CCF activist J.E. Cook under the headline “What Happened?” said “the voter in Alberta, perhaps under the dishonest threat of Communism, cut himself off from much of the tremendous revenue from the immense natural resources of this province that could have provided immediate social services and ultimate social security.” (The People’s Weekly, September 9, 1948, p. 4)
In early 1949 two Alberta farm organizations merged to form the Farmers Union of Alberta. The new FUA issued a demand for rural electrification or the holding of another plebiscite on the issue.
Farm activist Henry Young also called for another plebiscite in a year or two, preceded by a proper campaign of education. (The People’s Weekly, September 4, 1948, p. 6)
Elmer Roper, speaking in the Legislature to the Speech from the Throne, repeated demands for rural electrification and passed on the FUA demand to the government. (The People’s Weekly, February 26, 1949, p. 1)
No further referendum was ever held on the issue. But through the spring of 1949 and periodically for many years, the CCF demanded quicker action on rural electrification.("CCF members demand action on rural elect. and insurance - motion for complete coverage" The People’s Weekly, March 19, 1949, p. 1)
Under Alberta's Rural Electrification Association law, the Government provided a government guarantee for loans to the REAs, so that the associations could finance the capital cost of constructing a distribution network and, following construction, take ownership of and operate the lines, transformers and substations.Farmers continued their local organization campaigns and private power companies learned how to organize providing electricity to the REAs. Farmers in Didsbury East and West, for example, were at the forefront of the REA movement in 1949. (Didsbury Pioneer, March 3, 1949, p. 4)
And Wainwight seems to have the been the first to get the ball rolling not long after the referendum. In April 1949 the North Wainwright REA finally finished its year-long negotiation with the Calgary Power Company. Supplies were finally being shipped and survey parties organized, to begin construction of the electrical distribution lines. (Wainwright Star, April 6, 1949, p. 1)
By November 1949 the Calgary Power Corp. listed 28 REAs where construction was underway or soon would be. (The People’s Weekly, November 1, 1949, p. 29)
A month later, Alberta Labour Minister J.L. Robinson said 8000 farms had been electrified. He said he expected 30,000 to have electricity by 1955. With two-thirds of the province living in the rural areas, and at least 100,000 farms in the province, 30,000 was not too many, especially when you consider that many Edmonton residents and businesses had had electricity since the 1890s. (Didsbury Pioneer, December 21, 1949, p. 3)
Today, there are 31 REAs operating in Alberta, the majority of which are members of the Alberta Federation of Rural Electrification Associations.
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