Unlike what some people appear to think, Strathconians - and Albertans in a wider sense - had elections before Alberta became a province.
Territorial elections had been held since 1888. Those elected in Alberta to serve in the NWT Assembly included such noteworthies as R.B. Bennet (later Canadian prime minister), A.C. Rutherford (later premier of Alberta), A.E. Cross (one of founders of the Calgary Stampede), Matthew McCauley (Edmonton's first mayor) and Frederick W.G. Haultain (later a Saskatchewan MLA).
Frank Oliver (Liberal) had been elected to represent Edmonton in Regina, the capital of the NWT. Rutherford (Liberal) had been elected to represent Strathcona in Regina.
Also, Alberta had been electing MPs since 1887. This included former whiskey peddlar D.W. Davis and Edmonton newspaperman Frank Oliver. The riding of Strathcona elected Peter Talbot in 1904. As the elected MP, he held the seat until his resignation in 1906, as we see below.
(Those who think Alberta was not even part of Canada until 1905 - the date when it is said to have "entered Confederation" - should know that not only did Alberta send MPs to Ottawa prior to the 1905 granting of province-hood but it also sent senators there, starting in 1888. HBC official Richard Hardisty and businessman James Lougheed (Peter Lougheed's grandfather) were Alberta senators in that distant period.
Strathcona became a town in 1899, and elections were held every year - yes every year! How democratic! (As well, consider that Strathcona had eight town councillors for a population of only 3500. Now Edmonton with about a million people, has only 12 councillors, a much much steeper voter-per-councillor ratio.)
Elections did not start when Alberta became a province -- but they did continue after that point. (Unfortunately of course, they were conducted using First Past the Post in winner-take-all elections where many, sometimes most, of the voters in a district were ignored.)
Alberta became a province on September 1, 1905.
The first provincial election was held November 9, 1905.
The provincial district of Strathcona, centred on the town of Strathcona, elected A.C. Rutherford, at the time living on 104th Street near Saskatchewan Drive.
The vote tally for the two candidates showed how small-grained was the representation in those early days. Rutherford received 577 votes to Conservative candidate Nelson Mills. (Mills later took up a farm outside Strathcona (but inside the later County of Strathcona). The neighbourhood of Mills Haven in Sherwood Park is named after him.)
The low vote count in the 1905 provincial election showed how representation was very personal in those days, not like today when 22,000 votes are cast in a district on the average to elect an MLA.
Alberta was granted an increased number of senators after province-hood. (But likely this was also due to increased population totals achieved during this hectic settlement period).
Strathcona MP Talbot (Liberal) was named to fill one of the new seats.
He resigned his House of Commons Strathcona riding seat.
In the resulting by-election, the first election held at the federal level after Alberta achieved province-hood, the now-much-heralded Dr. McIntyre was elected.
But to say as the following historical bit states, that
McIntyre "was Strathcona’s first elected representative in the new Province of Alberta." is obviously incorrect.
"Dr. Wilbert McIntyre Park
8303 104 St NW, Edmonton
Dr. Wilbert McIntyre was born on July 15, 1867, at Rosedale, Victoria County, Ontario. He first traveled west in 1891, where he taught briefly at Winnipeg Commercial College, White Fish Lake residential school, and worked on a ranch near Calgary. Returning to Ontario he graduated from the University of Toronto Medical School in 1898. However, he returned west to Strathcona in 1902, and spent the remainder of his life here. McIntyre was Secretary-Treasurer of the Strathcona Liberal Association (1902-1906).
In 1906 Peter Talbot, Liberal M.P. for Strathcona, was offered one of three new Alberta Senate seats. [This raised the number of Alberta Senators to four.*]
[Talbot resigned as MP]
In the resultant by-election on April 5 McIntyre was elected overwhelmingly to represent the constituency, which at that time extended south to Innisfail and east to Lloydminster. He was therefore Strathcona’s first elected representative in the new Province of Alberta"
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*Alberta was given two more Senator seats in 1915, first filled in 1918, bringing up its number of Senators to six.
Currently (April 2021) though Alberta only has four real-life sitting Senators.
Apparently there are many vacant seats in the Senate -- Alberta (2), British Columbia (1), Manitoba (1), New Brunswick (1), Newfoundland and Labrador (1), Nova Scotia (1), Ontario (2), Quebec (3), Saskatchewan (2) (as of April 2021).
We would do better if we had no appointed un-elected government members!
Abolish the Senate!
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Saying that McIntyre is "Strathcona’s first elected representative in the new Province of Alberta" is inaccurate for many reasons.
For one, McIntyre was elected at the federal level, which had little to do with the new province of Alberta. Except that at the time of province-hood Alberta was given an increased number of Senate seats, and the appointment of Talbot to one of them opened a seat, causing a federal by-election, in which McIntyre was elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa.
For two, by the time this federal by-election was held, Strathcona had participated in a provincial election and had held a town election since province-hood had been granted in September.
Rutherford was elected in the provincial election in November 1905, as mentioned above.
And a month later in the town election, William Sheppard was elected mayor. Elected to the Strathcona council were George Elliot, John McFarland (later a grain magnate) and J.J. McKenzie (Rutherford's neighbour on 104th Street). (McKenzie's house (said to be haunted) still stands on 104th Street.)
Rutherford, Sheppard, Elliot, McFarland and McKenzie each have more right to be described as "Strathcona’s first elected representative in the new Province of Alberta" than McIntyre.
For three, what is so important about McIntyre anyway - he was not even popular among Strathcona town voters. He did win the 1906 by-election, with a majority (68 percent) of the votes in a two-way race, 2800 votes to 1300 votes. But this win was mostly produced by the support of farmers in the far-flung riding, not by town voters.
Many voters in the town in 1906 hearkened to their mostly-Ontario and Maritime province roots and voted for Conservative candidate Frank Crang. 286 voters in Strathcona voted for McIntyre; 229 for Crang. (Edmonton Bulletin, April 14, 1906)
Frank Crang, like McIntyre, was a doctor in town. He lived on the same street as Rutherford and McKenzie, on the site of a funeral home today.
Crang's campaign was described as a fight of the "People versus the Machine" (the Liberal party machine, fronted by Mcintyre). Crang later was a Labour Party school board trustee. He was father of Margaret Crang, a Depression-era Labour city councillor, one of the first women to serve on the city council and still the youngest ever to be elected to Edmonton's city council.
But Frank Crang was mostly unknown outside Strathcona. (The riding was extremely large taking in a great swathe of rural land outside the town.) The Conservative Party was not in power provincially nor federally, so it was not as well organized as the Liberal party. At the time, the Liberal party machine was even accused of buying support from local newspapers.
Due it seems to the Conservative banner that Crang ran under, he received votes from party supporters in railway centres along CPR-operated Calgary and Edmonton Railway. The fortunes of the CPR were seen to be strongly tied to the fortunes of the federal Conservative Party. In Wetaskiwin, Camrose and Red Deer, each located on the C&E line, more voted for Crang than voted for McIntyre. (Edmonton Bulletin, April 17, 1906).
The Liberal machine seems to have been effective at bringing out the votes in farming areas. McIntyre received a majority of votes cast in such far-flung farming communities as Lloydminster, Vermilion, Vegreville, Calmar and Dinwoodie (named after local leader and farmer activist (see upcoming blog). (Note that none of these were located along the C&E line.) (Edmonton Bulletin, April 14, 1906)
The proclamation of the victory of the man sometimes (inaccurately) described as Strathcona's first MP was made at Wetaskiwin by the district returning official. McIntyre took the morning train to Wetaskiwin to be on location to hear the official pronouncement. (Edmonton Bulletin, April 17, 1906)
(In 1906, McIntyre had to admit that he had been unsuccessful in getting the Grand Trunk Pacific to move its planned crossing of the Saskatchewan River at Clover Bar to Strathcona. During the election campaign, Conservative candidate Bush had criticized the Liberal government's subsidy to the GTP for being "a gigantic steal, an extravagant expenditure of $150M of the people's money with no control on rates" charged farmers and other shippers. And apparently the government had little control over the railway line's route. (Edmonton Bulletin, July 29, 1904, Aug. 14, 1906))
When the next federal election was held, in 1908, it was a three-way race between Liberal McIntyre, Conservative Day and socialistic farmer candidate J. George Anderson.
Anderson's platform included a call for "railways, mines forests factories and such other public utilities and necessities that could not be be operated individually to be taken over and operated by the state in the best interests of the people."
Anderson and his radical platform received more than 16 percent of the vote.
(Note that the Edmonton Bulletin in its coverage of a candidate's meeting awarded great applause to McIntyre, only four cries of support for Conservative candidate Day -- and no mention at all of Anderson. The Edmonton Bulletin made no pretense of being other than a Liberal newspaper. This campaign meeting was held in the "Strathcona Opera House," the meeting hall located upstairs in the Ross Block that still stands at 10309 Whyte Avenue. (EB, Oct. 26, 1908))
The source quoted above (Edmonton Map Heritage ) states "During the October 1908 federal election [McIntyre] won a large majority, second only to Frank Oliver, Laurier’s western lieutenant and Minister of the Interior."
But the reality is not like this at all.
McIntyre was re-elected in 1908 with just 50.014 percent of the vote, a majority of 18 votes.
McIntyre took barely more than half the votes, only 16 votes more than the combined vote tallies of the other two.
But sure, McIntyre's 1000-vote lead over his nearest contender - not majority - his lead over his nearest contender -- was the largest in the seven Alberta ridings.
(I have not been ale to determine if McIntyre actually took the most votes in the City of Strathcona itself.)
McIntyre died the following year.
That same source quoted above (Edmonton Map Heritage online) states that McIntyre's "immense popularity was reflected by a commemorative fountain that was built in 1913 through popular subscription among his former constituents."
Of course, we have already seen that McIntyre was not actually that popular.
And note that the fountain mentioned here is not the one that currently stands in the park.
The 1913 fountain was built in the median north of 83rd Avenue. It was demolished by a drunk driver in the 1950s (or about that time).
The fountain that now stands in the park was built in the 1980s on a different location than the original.
It seems to me anyway, that McIntyre should not be honoured with the naming of the McIntyre Park at 83rd Avenue and 104th Street. As it is located on the site of the old Strathcona City Hall, it should be named Strathcona Park.
Or the park could be named after Frank Crang, who lived just across the street during the time Strathcona was a separate municipality from Edmonton. Living just down the block from the Strathcona firehall he could hear the fire bell ring to summon the volunteer firemen from their homes and often ran himself to join the crew and see if medical care was required. (I have seen no mention of McIntyre doing this sort of service.)
Either of these would be more fitting in my opinion.
Thanks for reading.
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