Timeline of Edmonton's progressive history - Farmer, labour, socialist, utopian and more (a work in progress)

A miscellany of advances and attempts to make social progress in our history.

1895 Count Kropotkin visited Edmonton area.

possibly got some ideas about mutual-aid while here.

see Montopedia blog

1905 first provincial election

Rutherford, a fair-minded Liberal, was Strathcona's MLA and Alberta's premier.

owner of union factory Great Western Garment.

passed an eight-hour law.

1907 Edmonton municipal election John Galbraith

John Galbraith was a labour-activist lawyer. He ran for an aldermanic seat in 1907 Edmonton municipal election and also was author of the futuristic utopian-socialist novel In the New Capital (originally 1897; Penumbra Press reprint 1999).

Galbraith had had experience fighting aggressive businessmen in Ontario.

(Edmonton Bulletin, Dec. 7, 1907, p. 10)

see Montopedia blog

December 1907  Galbraith ran in one of Edmonton's few municipal by-elections in December 1907, to replace James Walker who resigned.

D.R. Fraser took the seat.

(Edmonton Bulletin, Dec. 23, 1907; Dec. 31, 1907)

1909 UFA formed in Edmonton by merger of two Edmonton-based farmer groups - the Alberta Farmers association and the local branches of the Society of Equity. mer ger organized by Rice Sheppard and John Ball.

Old Man Owens also on the amalgamation committee.

1909   prov. election John Galbraith

"George Brown" Liberal. (Edmonton Bulletin, March 3, 1909) I assume this means a socially progressive Liberal with an interest in labour and social concerns.

Galbraith and a Conservative shared the opposition slate against two Liberals

Edmonton was a two-seat district at that time.

1912 provincial by-election

Joe Knight of the Socialist Party of Canada

1912 Edmonton municipal election

James East, Rice Sheppard elected

Jame and his brother served together on council in the 1930s, the only time two brothers served in city hall at same time.

Elisha East was a Social Credit-er, and James East also expressed an interest in monetary reform.

1912 Edmonton public school board election

Frank Crang and S.A.G. Barnes - and others - elected.

Barnes was later a Social Credit MLA, then thrown out of party.

Frank Crang was father of Margaret Crang, born about this time who grew up to be a Labour city councillor.

1913 prov. election Blayney

Blayney was a temperance candidate. Edmonton Bulletin, April 18, 1913, p. 1

1914 home rule movement to get elective commission form of city government.

that came with Proportional Representation (STV).

Elmer Roper, alderman James East were backers.

elected mayor McNamara

but McNamara and East got on trouble and resigned, and that crippled the movement.

Encyclopedia of Social Reform "municipal reform" talks about how in Europe cities are given responsibility and elect good politicians,

in North America cities are stunted and denied scope, and weak politicians are elected.

1916 John Whitnah Leedy author of What’s the Matter with Canada?, A discussion of the credit situation in Canada, published in Edmonton in 1916

Leedy was former governor of Kansas and mayor of Valdez, Alaska.

1919 debated with a bank official at the UFA convention and helped prepare ground for social credit debates of the 1920s and the election of SC in 1935.

he died in 1935, just a couple months before Aberhart's SC breakthrough.

1921 provincial election Block Voting used in Edmonton -- Liberals took all five seats.

27 candidates ran in Edmonton including two labour parties and:

"Labour Socialist" Marie Mellard

Independent Labour Party slate included Ernest Brown, William Ball, Mary Cantin

Independents included John Cornwall, Alfred L. Marks (husband of Rice Sheppard's daughter) and William Short.

the elected included Nellie McClung, who worked with UFA cabinet minster Irene Parlby in the Legislature.

1921 Communist Party founded.

Philip Christophers (AB MLA) was expected at CP meeting but never showed.

later he publicly stated he was not a Communist.

1924 UFA government brought in STV in cities and Instant-Runoff Voting elsewhere.

1924 H.M Bartholomew Communist Party

first by-election where Instant-Runoff Voting used to determine winner

on second round of counting, Bartholomew came in a close third to a Conservative, but Liberal took the seat.

1925 school board election - Elmer Roper elected,

He served as trustee 1926-1929.

He would go on to be MLA, 1942-1955, and mayor, 1959-1963.

1926 provincial election -

the first Labour MLA and the first farmer MLA elected in Edmonton, likely due to STV.

Labour Lionel Gibbs

Farmer J.F. Lymburn

many candidates ran in Edmonton

At the age of 77, John Whitnah Leedy ran as an Independent on a bank-reform platform.

1920s Scott Nearing spoke in Edmonton.

befriends Margaret Crang

1929 Persons Case

Emily Murphy, an Edmontonian, got the ball rolling.

invited four other women to a meeting at her house on 88th Avenue.

former Edmontonian Nellie McClung, Irene PArlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards and Louise McKinney signed the petition.

1935 provincial election

Social Credit took two seats, electing S.A. G. Barnes and D.B. Mullen.

meanwhile elsewhere, SC took vast majority of seats.

1936 Edmonton prov. by-election

Margaret Crang

1936 Edmonton prov. by-election

Margaret Crang

1937 Norman Bethune speaks in Edmonton on need to support Spanish government against fascist rebels.

city alderman Margaret Crang went touring with him.

1941 June federal by-election

Communist Alexander MacLeod (Warren Beatty's and Shirley Maclaine's uncle)

1942 provincial by-election Roper CCF MLA elected

he was not front runner in first count but came up from behind to win seat.

perhaps this was when Aberhart and his sidekick Manning began to lose interest in ranked voting.

1942 federal by-election

1944 provincial election Roper CCF MLA elected

1948 provincial election Roper CCF MLA elected

1952 provincial election Elmer Roper CCF MLA re-elected.

1955 provincial election Elmer Roper CCF MLA not re-elected.

Roper later said that government dropped STV to prevent him getting back in.

1956 SC government dropped ranked voting.

1959 provincial election - Social Credit won all the Edmonton seats mostly due to the SC government ending the use of STV.

no CCF or NDP MLA elected in Edmonton until 1982.

1964? man crept into aircraft repair shop at municipal airport to damage planes being repaired to go to the Vietnam War.

killed the security guard.

1973 Terry Pettit and Ronald Yakimchuk, editor of the UofA's alternative newspaper Poundmaker, travel to Ontario. Somewhere they went missing - their bodies were never found.

A gravestone in Ron's home town -- Andrew Alberta -- gives his death date as "June 1973".

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/a-mystery-unsolved-former-journal-writer-remembers-colleagues-who-vanished-50-years-ago

1986 12 NDP MLAs elected in Edmonton

1988 Ross Harvey elected MP, the only NDP MP in Alberta until 2004?

1989 - 12 NDP re-elected in Edmonton

1993 provincial districts re-drawn and all NDP MLAs lost their seats.

2015 NDP, led by Strathcona MLA Rachel Notley, elected.

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