Provincial Politics

Provincial Politics

During the early years of the Province, Gleichen lent it’s name to an electoral district and this district sent the following individuals to represent it in the Provinces Legislative Assembly.

  • 1905 (there were only 25 seats in this first election) Charles A. Stuart (lib) with 667 votes to 640 votes he defeated John W. Hayes (cons).
  • 1906 by election (Charles Stuart was appointed to the Bench) Ezra Riley (lib) with 560 votes to 435 defeated W.L. Walsh (cons).
  • 1909 Ezra Riley (lib) was re-elected with 770 votes to 525 and defeated James Shouldice (cons).
  • 1910 Ezra Riley stepped down after the scandal rocked the liberal party, saying that he wanted the people to re-elect him if they had confidence in him. This by-election was marred by major scandal. Ezra was running as an independent liberal and the liberal party ran there own candidate Archibald J. McArthur who won with 1,119 votes to Ezra’s 919. The scandal involved accusations against McArthur that involved vote tampering, blocking polling stations, armed men blocking stations. Before all the evidence was finished being gathered Mr. McArthur died in office and a new by-election had to be called.
  • 1911 we held a by-election to replace A.J. McArthur(Lib) with Harold Riley (cons) brother of Ezra Riley won with 1,370 votes to 1,064 votes and defeated John Peter McArthur (lib) who was the brother of Archibald McArthur. This by-election is known in the Provincial history books as the brothers by-election.
  • 1913 the district where re-organized and Harold Riley no longer was able to run in the Gleichen District. J.P. McArthur (Lib) ran again against George McElroy (cons) and won this time with 641 to 576 votes.
  • 1917 saw three candidates running in the Gleichen riding for the first time. J.P McArthur (lib) incumbent ran against Fred Davis (cons) and John W. Leedy (ind). The seat went to Mr. Davis with 762 seats. Mr. McArthur had 712 votes and Mr. Leedy had 308 votes. Mr. Leedy was running as the candidate for the newly formed non-partisan league. Mr. Leedy was not a new comer to politics as he had previously (1897-1899) been the 14th Governor of the State of Kansas. Mr. Davis went on to win a seat in the 1925 federal elections.
  • 1921 saw a new party enter the political scene, The United Farmers Association. John Buckley(UFA) defeated H. Scott (lib) with 1,565 to 762 votes.
  • In 1926 John Buckley (1,585 votes) defended his seat against the conservative candidate Hugh Miller (722 votes) and the liberal candidate Frank Lount (478 votes).
  • 1930 was a narrow win by John Buckley (1,565 votes) against independent candidate H.S.B. Chamberlain (1,069 votes).
  • 1935 saw four candidates run in our riding. John Buckley of the UFA party lost his seat with 895 votes. The new representative was Isaac McCune of the Social Credit Party with 2,093 votes. The liberal candidate was Frank Lount (with 478 votes like he had in 1926) and the conservative candidate T.S. Hughes (439 votes).
  • 1940 saw Independent candidate Donnald McKinnon win with 2,255 votes; incumbent Isaac McCune (social credit) received 1,457 votes and J.H. Coldwell of  Co-operative Commonwealth Federation or CCF (they later became the Provincial NDP) received 670 votes.
  •  In 1944 incumbent Donnald McKinnon lost his seat with 1,072 votes; the winner was the Social Credit Party candidate George E. Bell with 2,032 votes. In third place was the CCF candidate B.C. Henricks with 942 votes.
  • 1948 saw George E. Bell elected for his 2nd term with 2,354 votes. His opponent was Jonathon Wheatley and independent with 1,303 votes.
  • 1952 George Bell won his 3rd term in office with 2,061 votes. Charles County (lib) had 675 votes and Aubrey Gibson (CCF) had 273 votes.
  • 1955 saw George Bell win a 4th term in office with 1,912 votes against 1,784 votes cast for the Liberal candidate Carman Ellis.
  • 1959 was a three way race which saw George Bell win his 5th and final term in office with a landslide 2,061 votes. Second place with 754 votes went to the Progressive Conservative candidate A. John van Wezel and third went to the Liberal candidate Carman Ellis with 752 votes. This election saw 50 ridings throughout Alberta.
  • 1963 saw the boundaries redrawn and the new district was called the Drumheller-Gleichen Electoral District.The riding went to Gordon Taylor of the Social Credit party who had held the Drumheller seat since 1940.
  • In 1967 Gordon Taylor again won the Drumheller-Gleichen riding.
  • 1971 saw the boundaries redrawn again and Gleichen and Drumheller where split into different districts with Gleichen joining the new Bow Valley riding. Fred Mandeville of the Social Credit Party won the seat.
  • 1975 saw Fred Mandeville win again.
  • 1979 saw Fred Mandeville win again. He resigned his seat in 1982.
  • 1982 election was called early and saw Tom Musgrove of the Progressive Conservative Party win the riding of Bow Valley. Tom held his seat till he retired in 1993.
  • 1993 saw Dr. Lyle Oberg win the riding for the Progressive Conservatives.
  • 1997 Gleichen became part of the new Strathmore-Brooks district. The seat was won by Dr. Lyle Oberg with 7,235 votes. The Liberal candidate Roger Nelson came in 2nd with 1,272 votes. The Social Credit Candidate Dan Borden had 862 votes and Richard Knutson of the NDP had 600 votes.
  • 2001 saw 5 candidates run in our riding. Dr. Oberg won with 8,585 votes; Liberal candidate Barry Morishita had 1,774 votes; Independent candidate Christopher Sutherland had 511 votes; Don Macfarlane of the NDP had 290 votes and Rudy Martens of the Social Credit had 273 votes.
  • The 2004 election saw Dr. Oberg returned to the legislature with 5,916 votes; Liberal candidate Carrol Jaques had 1,178 votes; Mark Ogden of the Alberta Alliance had 831 votes; Jay Kolody of the Separation Party had 576 votes; Don Macfarlane of the NDP had 416 votes and Rudy Martens of the Social Credit had 319 votes.
  • In 2008 Dr. Oberg retired from politics and the PC party ran a new candidate Arno Doerksen who won with 7,623 votes. Liberal candidate Gerry Hart had 991 votes; Amanda Shehata of the Wild Rose Party had 935 votes; Chris Bayford of the Greens had 362 votes and Brian Stokes of the NDP had 313 votes.
  • 2012 saw Jason Hale of the Wild Rose Party win our riding with 8,157 votes. Incumbent Arno Doerksen of the PC Party had 5,737; also running were Alex Wychopen of the Liberal Party of Alberta (297 votes) and Brad Bailey of the NDP with 409 votes.

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  1. Pingback: Provincial Election | Hamlet of Gleichen

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