1913 Alberta general election

Events leading to the election

The campaign

The writ of election was issued after a sitting of the house on the night of 25 March 1913. The premier dropped the election writ and dissolved the house after he ensured that the governments legislation on new electoral boundaries had been given Royal Assent. The new boundaries gave the Liberals an advantage, not only were they blatantly gerrymandered to their favour, but the opposition and even private citizens had a tough time figuring out what district they were in.

Day one of the campaign brought controversy as it was reported that Hotel organizers and Liquor establishments were being expected to donate generously to the Liberal campaign in order to get licence renewals for their establishments.

Arthur Sifton, his lieutenant Charles Cross and Liberal candidate Alexander Grant MacKay each won nominations in two electoral districts. The Calgary Herald (a Conservative newspaper) surmised that Sifton and Cross were so scared of the electorate they felt they might not win if they ran in just one district. It accused Premier Sifton of having little confidence in his ability to return his government to power.

The Liberal government in order to prevent possible vote splitting made promises of concessions to trade unions and labour organizations so that they would not publicly support leftist candidates. John McDougall, a member of the Methodist missionary family that founded Victoria settlement, ran in Calgary as a Liberal on a progressive platform.

The Conservative Party protested the snap election by filing a legal injunction in the Supreme Court, to prevent the election from being held on 17 April 1913. The grounds for the injunction were based on the date of nomination closure being in violation of statue. The writs were issued with nomination day being 10 April 1913. The Conservatives argued that this was 10 hours short of the 16 full days prescribed in the Elections Ordinance, and the election should be ruled invalid.

Election issues

The big issues of the election centred on the Sifton government's lack of infrastructure building in Southern Alberta.

The ballooning Alberta debt which in a few years had gone from C$2 million to C$27 million was talked about often.

Gerrymandered boundaries

Prior to the dropping of the writ the Sifton government forced a bill through the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The bill was entitled Bill 90: An Act to Amend an Act concerning members elected to the Legislative assembly of Alberta It was introduced in the assembly on 20 March 1913 and given Royal Assent on 25 March 1913.

The bill increased the number of MLAs in the province by 15. Calgary was divided into two single-member districts; Edmonton continued as two-member district. The single-member districts did not contain equal population, with one riding Clearwater, north of Edmonton, only containing 74 people enumerated. Calgary Centre was the largest population wise with 20,000 people enumerated. The bill drew districts so that a line at the centre of the province's population (about in line with Red Deer), gave 30 seats to the people of the north half with 26 seats to the southern half. (The bill drew districts so that a line at the centre of the province (about in line with Edmonton), gave 19 seats to the north half of the province, up from the previous 13, with 37 seats in the south half, nine more than previously.)

The Conservative and Socialist opposition vigorously opposed the bill, but failed to pass any amendments. The bill was jammed through third reading in the 25 March legislative sitting and given Royal Assent that evening, just shy of the writ of elections being dropped.

Siftonism

The Liberal campaign was dubbed "Siftonism" inferring that Sifton was a disease that needed to be cleaned from Alberta. The media at the time picked up on that, and roasted the Liberal party. The Conservative party attacked the Liberals on the Railway Scandal and Lack of provincial infrastructure.

Electoral system

First-past-the-post voting was used in the single-member districts.

In Edmonton the seats were filled through Plurality block voting, where each voter could cast two votes. (Unusually for block voting, in Edmonton, candidates of two different parties were elected. Usually block voting produces a one-party sweep of a district's seats, as had been done in Edmonton in 1909 and was the case in Edmonton in 1921.)

Results

The final result was the Liberal Party, under its new leader, Arthur L. Sifton, won a third term in office, defeating the Conservative Party, which was once again led by Edward Michener. Liberal party candidates took 49 percent of the vote and with the election of 38 members, the party took 68 percent of the seats in the Legislature.

The votes were split almost evenly between the Conservatives and Liberals with a difference of 4 percent separating the two parties. The opposition Conservatives received a larger proportion of the votes than it had done in 1909 (45 percent versus 32 in 1909) and increased its seat count to 17 from 2, while the Liberals again got more votes than any other party and won many of the new seats, allowing them to hang onto a majority of seats in the legislative assembly.

In the Rocky Mountain constituency, the Socialist vote doubled but the vote for the Conservative candidate went up even more, to make that candidate the winner, and the Socialist Party lost its only seat in the Assembly.

Oddly, the Assembly elected in 1913 never had its full complement of MLAs, as C.W. Cross was elected to two seats (one in Edmonton and the Edson seat). When this happened elsewhere, such as in 1896, when Laurier was elected as MP in both the riding of Saskatchewan, North-West Territories (including part of what would be Alberta) (the provisional district of Saskatchewan) and a seat in Quebec, the double winner resigned one of the seats. But in Alberta from 1913 to 1917, Cross held both seats.

Summary

Note

1. Charles Cross ran in and won in two ridings.
2. Arthur Sifton and Alexander G. MacKay ran for the Liberals in two districts but only won in 1 district.
3. Liberal-Labor candidates were a result of the Liberal Labour coalition struck by Premier Sifton prior to the election, these candidates ran in place of Liberals. See also Liberal-Labour (Canada).
4. Liberal-Labor popular vote is included in Liberal vote.

Members elected

For complete electoral history, see individual districts |- |Acadia || |John A. McColl 637 56.27% | |W.D. Bentley 495 43.73% | | |

| |N.C. Lyster 470 40.69% || |James R. Lowery 478 41.39% | |W.H. Anderson 207 17.92% ||

| |J.H. Wood 221 34.80% | | ||

| |A. Grey 284 38.33% | | |

| |Harold William Hounsfield Riley 245 38.22% | | |

| |John Chantler McDougall 728 31.76% || |Thomas M.M. Tweedie 1,564 68.24% | | || |New District from Calgary Thomas M.M. Tweedie |- |North Calgary | |George Henry Ross 822 32.11% || |Samuel Bacon Hillocks 1,482 57.89% | |Harry Roderick Burge (Socialist) 256 10.00% |

| |Clifford Teasdale Jones 1,423 28.03% || |Thomas H. Blow 3,654 71.97% | | |

| |R.L. Rushton 249 13.11% | | ||

| |C. Jensen 479 48.04% | | ||

| |D.S. McMillan 348 35.84% | |G. Malshow 127 13.08% ||

| |A. Williamson Taylor 39 37.86% | |Joseph Andrew Clarke (Socialist) 24 23.30% |

| |H.F. Jarrett 380 44.44% | | ||

| |William Wallace Wilson 693 48.39% | | |

| |G.B. Sexsmith 650 40.68% | | ||

| |William Antrobus Griesbach 4,499 21.87% | |J.D. Blayney (Temperance) 643 3.13% ||

| |Alexander Grant MacKay 4,913 23.89% || |Albert Freeman Ewing 5,107 24.83% | | ||

| |Alexander Cameron Rutherford 1,275 45.57% || |Herbert Howard Crawford 1,523 54.43% | | || |Renamed from Strathcona Alexander Cameron Rutherford |- |Edson || |Charles Wilson Cross 6,078 462.21% | |H.H. Verge 644 48.97% | | |

| |George McElroy 576 47.33% | | ||

| |O. Travers 201 36.68% | | |

| |Albert J. Robertson 841 46.64% | | |

| |R.L. McMillan 558 47.53% || |George Douglas Stanley 616 52.47% | | ||

| |John A. Simpson 526 49.58% || |Frederick William Archer 535 50.42% | | ||

| |George R. Barker 474 47.83% | | ||

| |Angus MacDonald 624 41.54% | | ||

| |George Curry 436 42.83% | | ||

| |J.O. Jones 1,033 38.46% || |John S. Stewart 1,371 51.04% | |Joseph R. Knight (Socialist) 282 10.50% ||

| |John T. MacDonald 339 24.46% | |F.A. Bryant (Ind.) 202 14.57% Alfred Buddon (Socialist) 124 8.95% |

| |Arthur L. Sifton 560 49.17% || |Robert Patterson 579 50.83% | | ||

| |Charles Richmond Mitchell 1,823 49.73% || |Nelson C. Spencer 1,843 50.27% | | ||

| |J.T. Cooper 315 40.49% | | ||

| |John A. Turner 380 39.01% || |George Hoadley 594 60.99% | | ||

| |George H. Cloakey 656 48.06% | | ||

| |William A. Rae 437 45.57% || |Alphaeus Patterson 475 49.53% | |William Bredin (Ind. Liberal) 47 4.90% ||

| |F.D. Armitage 421 49.36% | | ||

| |A.N. Mount 426 46.66% || |John H.W.S. Kemmis 487 53.34% | | ||

| |George Gordon 257 27.37% | |P. Baker 197 20.98% ||

| |Robert B. Welliver 786 42.44% || |Edward Michener 869 46.92% | |George Patton 197 10.64% ||

| |H.S. Gerow 428 39.89% | | |

| |William John Blair 535 44.44% | | |

| |William B. Powell 516 19.60% || |Robert E. Campbell 1,099 41.74% | |Charles M. O'Brien (Socialist) 1,018 38.66% ||

| |W. Watson 371 29.44% | | ||

| |Hector L. Landry 404 39.45% | | ||

| |L. Garneau 350 44.25% | | |

| |George W. Morris 907 44.61% | |Malcolm McNeil 198 9.74% ||

| |John A. McPherson 368 38.94% || |Conrad Weidenhammer 577 61.06% | | ||

| |James Duncan Hyndman 556 37.27% | | ||

| |William C. Ives 341 18.88% | |Thomas E. Smith (Socialist) 234 12.96% |

| |F.A. Morrison 420 23.65% | |Peter Savarich 544 30.63% ||

| |J. George Clark 571 35.27% | |Gregory Krikevsky 276 17.05% ||

| |R.A. Bennett 268 21.67% | |M. Gowda 196 15.84% ||

| |H.Y. Pawling 615 46.38% || |George LeRoy Hudson 711 53.62% | | |

| |W.H. Scott 137 19.05% | |William T. Patton 268 37.27% |

| |George B. Campbell 580 42.65% | | ||

| |R.L. Hughson 133 12.18% | |Paul Rudyk (Ind.) 312 28.57% C. F. Connolly (Ind.) 148 13.55% |

References

Citations

Bibliography

1. Application by law clerk to stop election Edmonton Daily Bulletin 5 April 1913

References

1. DCB: John Chantler McDougall
2. A Report on Alberta Elections, map p. 28
3. Edmonton Bulletin, April 29, 1913