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Tom Monto

The time Albertans elected a Liberal PM

Updated: Feb 26, 2020


Some Albertans elected a Liberal Prime Minister before Alberta was a province!


At the time, much of old Northland was Liberal. In Southern Alberta, large ranches, owned by English investors and operated by cowboys from the U.S. west, and the CPR dominated. Voters there supported big business interests like the Lougheed family and the Galt family mining/railway/steamboat conglomerate and voted for Conservatives such as Sir James Lougheed.


But in the Northland the Liberal party dominated. Its Francophone base in Quebec, its support for Riel and the Metis peoples, its more liberal immigration policy, compared well with the Conservatives' pro-British xenophobic prejudices. The Conservatives' policies in general hurt working class families. it defended high tariffs which aided manufacturers but hurt consumers.


(Canada as it stands now is somewhere on the good side for families (after great advances made under Liberal governments since WWII) but why is it working families for so many years had to carry the burden when Canada wanted to grow a manufacturing base or engage in some other national pursuit? Why couldn't large manufacturers such as the Eaton's, Bombardier, the McCain's, the Molson's or the other big manufacturers (need I say Pocklington) pay some of the price of national success instead of bleeding the workers and consumers dry for the sake of a national dream?)


Conservative ties to the CPR were also a burden to the party in the Northland - the CPR until the 1890s cared little for the possibilities of the Saskatchewan valley. Even in the south country, the CPR proved itself as not kind to farmers shipping goods or small farmers struggling to operate isolated farms alongside large swathes of CPR-owned prairie left vacant as the CPR awaited higher prices for the land. (more on speculation and capital gains tax in other blog)


So voters in the Northland from Red Deer north supported the Liberal party. Frank Oliver although no friend of the Papaschase did work hard to represent the interests of small struggling farm families of the Northland. He was a member of the territorial council from 1883 to 1896, then a Liberal MP from 1896 to 1911 (and stood against conscription of men during WWI in the blighted 1917 federal election).


But perhaps more noteworthy when Laurier wanted to be sure to get a seat in the 1896 federal election he ran in two ridings -- one in Quebec and the other in the Northland - in the riding of Saskatchewan, which extended west past the current Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary. He was elected in both (and later resigned from his Alberta/Saskatchewan seat).


Thus Albertans helped elect a prime minister, demonstrating they were indeed part of Confederation even before Alberta became a province in 1905 (as elaborated on in another blog).

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