Timeline of progressive history of Alberta -- farmers, workers, socialists, reformers

work in progress

Report of second days' proceedngs of the Convention of U.F.A. Secretaries for the southern half of the province, held at Paget Hall, Calgary, on Wednesday, July 3rd, 1918...

Published 1918

Author United Farmers of Alberta. Secretaries. Convention (1918)

Internet Archives online

Annual report ...

Published

1913

Author

Edmonton Public Library.

Patrol, Edmonton to Jasper House, Athabasca district [electronic resource] / by A.E. Snyder.

Published

1898

Author

Snyder, A. E.

Patrol, Edmonton to Yukon district, 1897 [electronic resource] / by J.D. Moodie.

Published

1898

Author

Moodie, J. D.

Report on an exploration from Port Simpson on the Pacific coast, to Edmonton on the Saskatchewan [electronic resource] : embracing a portion of the northern part of British...

Published

1881

Author

Dawson, George M., 1849-1901

Canada on the Pacific : being an account of a journey from Edmonton to the Pacific by the Peace River Valley, and of a winter voyage along the western coast of the dominion :...

Published

1874

Author

Horetzky, Charles, 1838-1900.

1890s

Patrons of Industry lobbied on behalf of Edmonton area farmers

(see Montopedia blog: https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/patrons-of-industry-early-farmer-assocation-in-edmonton-area)

1904 federal election

Colonel J.J. Gregory ran on socialist platform in the Strathcona riding.

(see Monto Old Strathcona Edmonton's Southside Roots)

1908 federal election

miners' union leader Frank Sherman of the Socialist Party was put forward as a candidate in this election. (Edmonton Bulletin, October 19, 1908)

As well, J. George Anderson ran on a strongly-socialist platform when he ran in this election as an Independent (farmers) candidate in the riding of Strathcona.

His platform included this statement:

"railroads, mines, forests, factories and such other public utilities and necessities that cannot be operated individually [by one person] must be taken over and operated by the state in the best interests of the people. We would have this but for the fact that the corporate interests control the big papers and thus queer public opinion."

(Strathcona Chronicle, October 9, 1909)

1909 Jan. 8 provincial by-election in Lethbridge City -- Labour candidate Donald McNabb elected by acclamation.

1909 provincial election

SPC Charles M. O'Brien was elected to the Alberta legislature by coal miners in the Rocky Mountain district. (McKay, ''Reasoning Otherwise,'' p. 167-68)

A speech on socialism he gave in the Legislature was transcribed and published as The Proletarian in Politics (1910). (Vancouver: Socialist Party of Canada. OCLC 1083877116)

Also George Howell ran as a Socialist in the city of Calgary; however, his run was unsuccessful. (Saturday News, March 20, 1909)

(Calgary was a two-seat district, and for the first time since Alberta had become a province, a district produced mixed representation - a Liberal and Conservative were both elected. Of the 9500 voters who voted, all but 747 saw someone elected of a party to whom their vote was cast.)

As well, Daniel McNab ran for re-election in Lethbridge City., unsuccessfully. (He had been elected in a Jan 8, 1909 by-election by acclamation.)

Donald McClure ran as a Socialist in Red Deer but came in last. (Saturday Night, March 20, 1909)

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1909 by-election (Olds) -- Socialist S.W. Welsh of Red Lodge (near Bowden) ran against Duncan Marshall in a ministerial by-election. Marshall had experience himself of being active in the Patrons of Industry in Ontario and PEI.

1910 -- Alberta and Great Waterways scandal brought down Premier Rutherford but not the Liberal machine.

SPC MLA Charlie O'Brien said the working class did not particularly care whether the Liberals and their pet railway, the Canadian Northern Railway, or the Conservatives and their pet railway the CPR, won the debate. Either way workers would have to worry about getting their wages owed. (or something like that )

Gleichen MLA Ezra Riley resigned due to Sifton's leadership (Sifton had pushed aside insurgency leader Cushing)

Riley ran in the ensuing by-election (October 31, 1911) saying he was pursuing noble goals. Explaining his resignation in a memorable stump speech on September 30, 1910, Riley was quoted as saying

"I tell you, I am a Liberal, but I believe in the brand of Liberalism by and for the people. I am not afraid of the people and I could not continue to sit in the house at Edmonton without giving the people a chance to express themselves."

===

October 31, 1911 four by-elections held the same day. Three of them due to MLAs resigning to run for federal seat in the 1911 federal election.

All four seats, only one of which had been held by a Liberal previously, were taken by Conservatives.

(all were two-way battles -- Liberals versus Conservatives.)

1912-1913 economic crash

often blamed on European capital staying home as countries geared up for the expected war (WWI)

But Elizabeth Mitchell in Western Canada Before the War (1915) (internet Archives online) theorized that the crash was bound to happen -- inflationary and speculative profits had to crash sometime -- but the seriousness of the crash indicated "how fancifully much of the capital had been employed and how comparatively little there was to go on with when outside supplies were temporarily withdrawn." (ca. p. 183)

Farmland was purchased and staked out for house-lots well out on the edges of Alberta cities, on land that would not have suburban houses until the 1940s. If the land had been put into housing closer in, the investment would have been more productive. (The land where the Bonnie Doon mall sits, not more than 3 kilometres from downtown Edmonton, was farmland up to time the mall was built in the 1960s.)

Mitchell wrote farmers in the Saskatchewan valley had suffered poor harvest for a few years and now financial worry spread to towns and cities.

Mitchell: "Was all the West just one huge horrible Bubble, ready now for pricking?"

But the 1913 harvest was good. "Money came into the country and prevented a catastrophe," or at least not a worse one. Townsmen turned their attention to the local farmers as new sources of money, but farmers looked askance at this new show of affection. Mitchell wrote that she feared that a new wave of speculation or discovery of an oilfield would again push farmers into obscurity and Alberta would find itself with its economy based again on an undependable foundation. (Such may have happened, in fact, since the discovery of oil at Leduc in 1946.)

With the 1912/1913 crash, many families moved out to the countryside to eke out a living from the soil. Even houses in "developed" areas had so few houses on each block that many families had room to keep cows, chickens, rabbits and pigs, which provided the families with needed food.

Businesses failed. Factories and workshops, especially in construction sector, closed up.

The Pollard brothers' brickyard under the High Level Bridge ceased operation. One brother went off to war, while the other brother stayed home to struggle to support the two families. "Red" Pollard grew up underfed and later was a jockey, riding racehorse "Seabiscuit" to victory.

(Alberta 's economy would not bounce back in a big way until the 1940s. No wonder in the 1920s a writer described it as "vampireland".)

1913

In the 1913 provincial election, five socialists ran as candidates. Incumbent SPC MLA Charlie O'Brien and SPC members Alf Budden (author of two publications entitled The Slave of the Farm), Joe Knight, H.R. Burge, and Thomas Smith ran as candidates, all unsuccessfully. (''A Century of Democracy, Alberta Centennial series'', p. 55-61)

O'Brien doubled his vote from the previous election, but the collapse of the Liberal vote in the constituency allowed the Conservative to win. (O'Brien went on to play important role in the U.S. Communist Party.)

The other socialist candidates barely made a showing.

also George Paton ran as Socialist in Red Deer.

1910s -- in effort to get control of the government Albertans called for Direct Legislation (initiative, referendum and recall). Initiative was obtained but it was ineffective (Prohibition being only legislation achieved this way). Instead farmers and workers then called for Proportional Representation.

1915 Prohibition referendum -- the only result of citizen-initiated legislation (Direct Legislation) in Alberta history (barring a citizens' referndum on separation in 2026?)

1917

In the 1917 Alberta general election, Joe Knight (Stettler), J. Reid (Edson), G. Paton (Red Deer), S.R. Keeling (Edm-East) and H. Thomas (Little Bow) ran as SPC candidates. None of them were elected.

(Milne, History of the Socialist Party of Canada.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/historym.pdf)

William Irvine (later an MP) ran in Calgary-South as a Labour candidate.

As well, leftist Farmer-oriented "Non-Partisan League" candidates ran:

Louise McKinney elected in Claresholm, James Weir elected in Nanton, J.W. Leedy in Gleichen, Proudfoot in Acadia.

Miss Roberta McAdams was elected as one of the two MLAs representing soldiers and nurses overseas. She was a people-oriented MLA.

following this election, a ministerial by-election was held in Camrose --

J. Miner ran as a candidate of the Non-Partisan League

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1919 - One Big Union founded in Calgary (carrying on anarcho-syndicalist radical-labour philosophy after the government's banning of the Industrial Workers of the World)

1919 - General strikes in Edmonton and Calgary

1919 November provincial by-election in Cochrane -- A. Moore of the UFA elected, becoming UFA's first MLA.

1921 Robert Gardiner of the UFA won a seat in a federal by-election, becoming UFA's first Member of Parliament.

1921 provincial election - United Farmers of Alberta elected, in part on promise of electoral reform.

38 UFA MLAs and 4 Labour MLAs elected.

with the party president Henry Wise Wood unwilling to serve as premier,

and with only two members (Moore and George Hoadley (formerly a Conservative) having previous legislature experience in Alberta,

the government had problems but Greenfield eventually agreed to be premier and the farmers MLAs soon learned how to pass laws.

Alex Ross (Calgary-Labour) appointed to cabinet as Minister of Labour (making it a sort of coalition government. (see 1924)

With Liberals out, a new UFA cabinet was appointed - seven ministerial by-elections were held on Dec. 9., 1921. the people appointed to cabinet post were all elected by acclamation.

Irene Parlby was also appointed but did not have to survive a ministerial by-election as she did not have a portfolio. (Her being appointed "Minister without Portfolio" may have been way to make it easier for her, she having said that the election experience was among the most harrowing she had had in her lifetime, or something like that.)

1921 federal election - Liberals and Conservatives won no seats in Alberta. (first time third parties made a clean sweep of all the province's seats - of course only possible due to use of the flawed first past the post election system.) Most Alberta seats went to UFA candidates; Calgary's two seats went to Labour candidates - William Irvine and

1922 July 10 -- Michael Chornohus was elected in Whitford by-election after Shandro's victory in 1921 overturned. (Shandro would likely have retained the seat if Liberals had won but under UFA government, the old electioneering shenanigans were outlawed.)

1922 UFA back benchers' revolt - UFA cabinet blindsided when UFA back benchers refused to vote for government's Dairymen's Act. Government survived only by support of Labour MLAs. Cabinet thereafter made sure proposed legislation had support from enough of the UFA caucus.

1923 Prohibition referendum used instant-runoff voting. The end of Prohibition -- government-owned liquor stores and tightly-regulated beer parlours replaced Prohibition.

1924 - the UFA government fulfilled its promise of electoral reform by adopting STV in city-wide multi-seat districts in Edmonton, Calgary and Medicine Hat, and a single-winner majoritarian election system (Instant-Runoff Voting) was put into use everywhere else.

1932 - CCF founded in Calgary.

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

The object of this new party as reported at its founding meeting was "the federation of organizations whose purpose is the establishment in Canada of a co-operative commonwealth, in which the basic principle of regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs instead of the making of profit."

The goal of the CCF was defined as a "community freed from the domination of irresponsible financial and economic power in which all social means of production and distribution, including land, are socially owned and controlled either by voluntarily organized groups of producers and consumers or – in the case of major public services and utilities and such productive and distributive enterprises as can be conducted most efficiently when owned in common – by public corporations responsible to the people's elected representatives" (Laurence Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, An Exposition of Socialism (1884), p. 36 as quoted in Monto, Protest and Progress, Three Labour Radicals in Early Edmonton, Crang Publishing/Alhambra Books, p. 156)

(The question of public ownership of land (land-bank) became a sticking point in later years. D.C. McTavish (country scribbler in Ft. McMurray) discussed land reform in his book Individualism versus socialism.)

That Calgary was the place of the founding of the first Canada-wide democratic socialist party may now seem odd. Pat Lenihan though points out that at that time Alberta had a Farmers government, four elected Labour MLAs, and several? Labour aldermen on Calgary council - two anyway - Fred White and Edith Patterson; I don't know the others he meant)

1932/1933 - the UFA joined the CCF.

1932 by-election - Chester Ronning elected in Wetaskiwin -- could be seen as the first CCF MLA elected.

1935 provincial election -- Pat Lenihan, Communist, ran in Calgary, not elected despite use of PR.

Lenihan later recalled that although CPC was still outlawed, enforcement had weakened enough that Lenihan felt safe in having Communist as his label, not "Communist Party" though.

"I ran in Calgary. Six were to be elected from Calgary. It was an overall city vote. We had the preferential system of voting, where you vote one, two, three, four, five, six, in the order of your choice. There may be twenty candidates, but you can vote for the number to be elected — six." [He (or his transcriber) got this wrong - voter could mark as many rankings as he wanted (not just 6) but the voter only had one vote. ]

He said they established "a form of unity" between himself and the CCF people, mostly old-time Labour Party people (later of CCF) Bob Parkyn, Fred White and, I think, [high school teacher A.J.E. Liesemer]. They ran as Labour-CCF. And the Communists ran separately. We had our own headquarters. As a result of the joint campaign, I was able for the first time in history to get in to speak to the workers in the Ogden shops.

"with Fred White and the other CCF candidates, I went in with them and we all spoke. The workers would be all brought together and we'd all speak to them at one time. There were election meetings to hear the voice of labour. The CPR allowed this because they had about the strongest union structure of any organization in Calgary. We conducted a good independent campaign of our own, using the radio, press advertisements, leaflets, posters. And on election night, I finished up with slightly over a thousand votes for the whole city of Calgary. [he was not elected - with only about 1000 votes in Calgary where 42,000 votes were cast, Lenihan did not have quota.]

Labour got annihilated. We used to have six or seven labour people in the government before that. [I don't know what he is talking about - the Alberta Legislature never had more than five Labour MLAs anywhere. Calgary at most had two in 1917, then only one each time in 1926 and 1930 under STV. Social Credit elected four in Calgary in 1935 so that destroyed the Labour rep. Finkel says SC drew on labour for its support.]

He went on to say Liesemer and Roper were elected, but this did not happen until 1942 and 1944, respectively.

(Gilbert Levine (editor), Patrick Lenihan From Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism. Univ. of Athabasca Press, (available for downloading online)

1938 November: Pat Lenihan, Communist and labour union leader, is elected to Calgary City Council.

Calgary still had strong support for Social Credit, and Rose Wilkinson (later a MLA) was a SC city councillor from 1936 to 1955. Lenihan recalls that Wilkinson accompanied him when he worked to organize the unemployed in the Calgary working-class neighbourhoods. Lenihan also credits SC alderman George Brown with working-class credentials - he was a machinist in the Ogden shops. Brown was on Calgary city council 1938-1950.

(Calgary Alderman Cunnington was a Conservative MP 1939-1940. He was not re-elected MP in 1940. No Conservative (nor Farmer/Labour) was elected in Alberta in 1940 federal election - only Social Credit-ers and Liberals. The impact of the Depression, made worse by Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's policies, apparently affected Conservatives' chances of success even in Calgary. Labour and CCF support was for a time mostly subsumed by the SC excitement.)

Although Aberhart was mostly baffled by opposition during his first wave of radical legislation 1936-1938, SC politicians still had fire in their belly

such as Eric Poole (of Poole Construction, Edmonton?), Red Deer MP who in 1939 called for reforestation at government expense and for monetary reform:

"Urge Monetary Reform Action Without Delay". The Citizen. 30 January 1939. p. 7.

"Reforestation Advocated". Vol. CLXVIII No. 90. The Montreal Gazette. 15 April 1939. p. 9

The SC Advisory board rejected him in 1940 as a candidate for some reason - not radical enough or too radical? Another example of Aberhart's dictatorial approach to politics.

===

1941 Edmonton provincial by-election - Elmer Roper elected. In the Legislature he was voice for workers from 1941 to 1952.

1942 Edmonton federal by-election - A.A. Macleod, of the LPP, ran as "People's Movement" candidate. Got 18 percent of the vote. (He was an uncle of actors Warren Beatty and Shirley Maclaine.)

1944 provincial election - CCF leader Elmer Roper campaigned on a socialist agenda - he said he expected if the CCF was elected to government, it would take over Calgary Power.

This was not as faint hope as it sounds now - just prior to the Alberta election, Tommy Douglas's CCF was elected in Saskatchewan. During the campaign, Tommy Douglas came to Alberta to speak in Calgary and Edmonton. ("CCF plans tax on interest...", Edmonton Bulletin, August 5. 1944, p. 1)

1948 electrification referendum

see Montopedia blog

1956 - The Social Credit government, in a fit of anti-democratic sentiment, cancelled STV that was used in Edmonton and Calgary and also the single-winner majoritarian system used outside the two main cities. Denied the fairness of PR, the CCF, and then the NDP after 1961, would not elect anyone in the cities until the 1980s - Edmonton in 1982, Calgary in 1986.

1957 provincial liquor plebiscite

1959 - CCF not win any seats in Edmonton and Calgary, and never would again until the 1980s.

1961 - NDP founded. would elect only three MLAs between 1961 and 1986, but importantly the three included Grant Notley who occupied a seat from 1971 to 1984. From 1961 to 1982 the NDP never had more than one MLA at any one time, despite receiving about 10 percent of Alberta's votes.

Garth Turcott elected in Pincher Creek in 1966, ran for re-election in 1967 but was unsuccessful.

Ray Martin elected in 1982., he was re-elected in 1986 and 1989. (later again taking a seat in 1990s.)

1984 - Grant Notley died in plane crash. NDP candidate Jim Gurnett won the by-election.

1986 - NDP made a (temporary) breakthrough by electing 16 MLAs, 12 in Edmonton area, two in Calgary, two in rural areas.

Brian Mason was MLA among the 16 - he went on serve as cabinet minister in Rachel Notley's cabinet.

1988 - Ross Harvey elected to House of Commons, the first NDP MP in Alberta. (next would not be until 2008)

1989 - NDP again elected to 16 seats. (but in 1993 all of them lost seats, partly due to changing economics but also due to gerrymandering (made possible by the 87 micro-districts used in Alberta, particularly small in the cities.)

2008 - Linda Duncan elected in the riding of Edmonton Strathcona. She was only the second NDP MP elected in Alberta, despite the NDP repeatedly taking more than ten percent of the Alberta vote.

Edmonton-Strathcona would elect an NDP MP from 2008 to the present (2025).

2015 - NDP elected to majority government but unstable government as the NDP had received less than 42 percent of the votes. The Alberta election system - first past the post - is prone to mis-representation due to vote splitting, and Notley was victorious at least in part due to the right wing being split between a radical rightist party, the Wild Rose, and the older Conservative Party.

2019 - NDP candidate across the province took more votes than even their winning 2015 total, but this time right-wing voters were not deeply divided among two or more parties. The so-called United Conservative Party took 72 percent of Alberta's 87 seats with just 54 percent of the votes.

As well as the seat windfall to the most-popular party, FPTP also artificially created regionalized unbalanced representation - NDP won most seats in Edmonton, UCP won almost all rural seats.

Due to the disproportional First Past the Post election system that is used in Alberta, in 2019 the NDP swept all but one of the Edmonton seats, while the UCP swept almost all the seats in Calgary and 39 of the 41 seats in rural Alberta.

NDP MLAs were elected in 20 of the 21 Edmonton districts, 3 of the 26 Calgary districts, and 2 of the 41 districts outside the major cities: suburban St. Albert and Lethbridge-West (Shannon Phillips).

2010s-2020s

The provincial government's revenue, although it is often described as predominantly coming from the province's resource base, actually is derived from a variety of sources. Nonrenewable resource revenue provided the government with 24 percent of its revenue in 2010–11, with about the same coming from individual income tax, 14 per cent from grants from the federal government, and about eight percent coming from both corporations and the government's own business activities.

Alberta is the only province in Canada without a provincial sales tax.

2025 - Strathcona MP Heather Macpherson running for leadership of the federal NDP.

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See also multi-part Montopedia blog "Radical and reform-minded books ... in Alberta and Saskatchewan"

Montopedia: "Timeline of Riots and disturbances in Canadian history"

Montopedia: "Intentional communities in Canada"

See also Wikipedia "Timeline of labour issues and events in Canada"

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Also, check out the many fine books available at Alhambra Books, Edmonton.

a listing of many of the books there can be seen on ABEbooks.com.