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The Alberta general election of 1921 was the fifth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on July 18, 1921 to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly.
The Liberal Party of Charles Stewart, which had governed the province since its creation in 1905, was defeated by a surging United Farmers of Alberta, an agricultural lobby organization that was contesting its first general election. The UFA was led by president, Henry Wise Wood, who declined to take the leadership of the government and become Premier. The UFA's third choice, its vice president, Herbert Greenfield, agreed to do so, and sought election to the legislature in a by-election.
The popular vote in the election between the United Farmers and the Liberals and the minor parties was highly skewed. One voter in Edmonton and Calgary had the option of choosing up to five candidates, while Medicine Hat voters chose two candidates. All other districts remained one man one vote. The United Farmers swept most of the rural area while the opposition hung onto seats within the cities. No party ran a full slate of candidates.
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The Liberals which had governed the province since 1905 were lead into the election by their third Premier and leader Charles Stewart.
The Alberta Government Telephones scandal had broke before the election. It was learned that the Liberals spent money to have telephone polls created and shipped in big stacks to remote communities in which they had no intention of installing phone lines to in an effort to influence support and votes.
The United Farmers of Alberta was contesting its first general election under the leadership of President Henry Wise Wood. The party had come into being after the organization had decided to no longer be content with being a lobby group. They merged with the Non-partisan league of Alberta who had formed before the 1917 general election and elected a couple members. The non-partisan league became the political machinery of the United Farmers.
The merged party experienced a significant amount of growth in the run up to the general election. It won its first by-election with the election of candidate Alexander Moore in the electoral district of Cochrane in 1919 and achieved a coup when Conservative leader George Hoadley crossed the floor. The non-partisan MLA's despite not changing their affiliation caucused with the United Farmers.
Wise Wood knew well before the election was over that the party was going to form government. In a famous speech he gave at Medicine Hat on July 8, 1921 he was quoted as saying "Farmers may not be ready to take over government, but they are going to do it anyway". He also said in that speech that he only wanted his 20 best candidates to go to Edmonton to form the opposition, but knew there would be a lot more elected.[1]
The campaign was contested by two provincial labour parties. The main party styled Dominion Labor and a splinter group in Edmonton named Independent Labor.
Dominion Labor ran candidates in primarily urban riding's such as Calgary Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, the President Holmes Jowatt decided to help his candidates get elected declining to seek office himself.
At the beginning of the election Independent Labor offered to nominate Edmonton area candidates at a joint convention to prevent the splitting of the labour vote and use the cooperation to eventually unite the parties. Dominion Labor declined the offer stating that to cooperate stating that to do so would divide its own ticket.[2]
The Conservative Party which has been the primary opposition in the province since it was created in 1905 had seen a split in the ranks under the leadership of George Hoadley. The caucus divided into two separate Conservative caucuses. Hoadley left the Conservative party sitting as an Independent and than won the United Farmers nomination in Okotoks and crossed the floor. The party replaced Hoadley by selecting Albert Ewing an Edmonton area Member of the Legislative Assembly as leader.
The Conservatives spent the campaign criticizing the wasteful and extravagant spending of the Liberal government. They also reminded Alberta voters of the Alberta Government Telephones, telephone pole scandal. The Conservatives campaign for reforms to the provincial tax code as well as pressing for provincial resource rights and voter list reforms in the election act.[3]
Despite the split in the party the Conservative campaign did manage to attract some high profile support. Former Liberal Premier Alexander Rutherford a big supporter of Ewing, lead the campaign for the five Conservative candidates contesting for seats in Edmonton.[4]
The Conservative party never recovered from the split in the party, supporters of Hoadley and their rural base migrated to the United Farmers. The change of amalgamating the districts in Calgary and Edmonton to a block vote did not help Conservative candidates who found the vote fractured amongst dozens of choices. The only Conservative to return was Lethbridge MLA John Stewart. Albert Ewing went down to defeat in Edmonton.
The Socialist Party of Alberta which had been in decline since its leader got defeated in the 1913 general election had fielded two candidates. They were opposed to both the Dominion Labor and Independent Labor parties.
The Liberals had, in fact, won a larger share of the popular vote (about 34%, compared to 29% for the UFA). The popular vote numbers do not represent the actual amount of voters however as urban voters were allowed to vote 5 times in Calgary and Edmonton and 2 votes in Medicine Hat, as the districts contained 5 and 2 seats respectively, while rural voters only had 1 vote for all other districts under the first past the post electoral system. The United Farmers did not run in Calgary and only had a single candidate in Edmonton, thus they did not benefit from the higher weighted city vote.
The result of the election radically and forever altered the political landscape of the province. The United Farmers walked away with a majority government while the Liberals formed opposition with MLA's in the cities of Calgary and Edmonton and hung on to some northern strongholds.
President Henry Wise Wood was voted to lead the government as Premier unanimously from the 38 members who attended the first United Farmers caucus meeting. Wood declined becoming Premier because he was more interested in operating the machinery of the United Farmers movement rather than crafting government policy. He felt that based on past farmers movements in electoral politics had risen to power and destroyed themselves to quickly. He wanted to remain focused on the party.[5] The United Farmers caucus later chose Herbert Greenfield who also did not run in the election to become the Premier.
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates |
Seats | Popular Vote | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1917 | Elected | % Change | # | % | % Change | ||||
| United Farmers |
|
45 | * | 38 | * | 86,250 | 28.92% | * | |
| Liberal |
|
61 | 34 | 15 | -55.9% | 101,584 | 34.07% | -8.99% | |
| Dominion Labor |
|
10 | 1 | 4 | +300% | 33,987 | 11.40% | +8.56% | |
| Independent | 18 | 2 | 3 | +50.0% | 28,794 | 9.66% | +4.44% | ||
| Conservative |
|
13 | 19 | 1[6] | -94.7% | 32,734 | 10.98% | -26.4% | |
| Independent Labor | 7 | * | - | * | 10,733 | 3.60% | * | ||
| Socialist | 2 | - | - | 0.0% | 2,628 | 0.88% | +0.26% | ||
| Independent Liberal | 1 | * | - | * | 1,467 | 0.49% | * | ||
| Sub-total | 157 | 56 | 61 | +8.9% | 298,177 | 100% |
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Soldiers' vote (Province at large) | 0 | 2 | - | - | - | - | -20.33% | |
| Total | 157 | 58 | 61 | +5.2% | 298,177 | 100% |
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| Source: Elections Alberta | |||||||||
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