Socialist Party of Alberta

The Socialist Party of Alberta was a provincial branch of the Socialist Party of Canada. The party formed out of a socialist movement that began with miners in the District of Alberta, Northwest Territories.

1909 election

Socialist Party of Canada activists in Alberta came together with various Labor groups in the province of Alberta and ran two candidates for the first time under the Socialist banner in the 1909 Alberta general election. Despite the two candidates being up against a popular Liberal government under Alexander Rutherford the party was able to make a breakthrough by returning leader Charles M. O'Brien to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the electoral district of Rocky Mountain.^[1]

O'Brien won a tight race based on the strength of voter turnout in the mining camps.

Defeat and decline

The party was not very well organized or funded and ran only six candidates in the 1913 Alberta general election and elected none of them. Sitting MLA Charles O'Brien was defeated by Conservative candidate Robert Campbell. O'Brien doubled his vote from the previous election, but the collapse of the Liberal vote in the constituency allowed the Conservative to win. The other candidates barely made a showing.

The party also ran candidates in 1917 but made little impact.

References

External links

• History of the Socialist Party of Canada