1944 Alberta general election
The 1944 Alberta general election was the tenth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. The Assembly was dissolved on July 8, 1944, and the vote was held on August 8, 1944, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.
Overview
The election was the first contested by leader Ernest C. Manning. Previously Provincial Secretary, he became leader of the Social Credit Party and premier after party founder William Aberhart died in 1943. Manning steered the party down a more moderate path, largely dispensing with the party's social credit policies of monetary reform that it had been unable to implement.Manning led Social Credit to a third term in government with a resounding victory in the 1944 election, winning over 50% of the popular vote on the first count of ballots. The Conservative party and former United Farmers continued their strategy of running joint candidates as independents. They were not supported by the Liberals who left the coalition and lost a significant share of the popular vote.
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation entered the election with only one seat in the legislature belonging to party leader Elmer Roper who had won a 1942 by-election. Despite winning almost a quarter of the popular vote the party won only two seats in the general election.
Servicemen and veterans from World War II voted in the first phase of the election on August 4, 1944. There was also a second vote held to elect three Canadian Armed Forces representatives from amongst the Albertans who were in active service overseas, or those who missed the first vote.
Results
Notes:1 Compared to the Communist Party results from the previous election.
The campaign
The 1944 election, was the first general election contested by Premier Ernest Manning. Manning had taken over the Social Credit Party from William Aberhart who died unexpectedly a year earlier. Social Credit faced opposition from the Independents led by James Walker who had also just been elected leader and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation who had just managed to win a seat in a by-election in Edmonton and win a majority in the 1944 Saskatchewan general election. Like Social Credit and the Independents they were also contesting their first general election with new leader Elmer Roper.The stage for the general election was set when Social Credit won a critical by-election in Red Deer in December 1943. The by-election win gave momentum to Social Credit as they picked it up from the Independents. After the election they decided to speed up their plans and hold the election in the summer time.
Two major changes occurred this election with the way that votes were to be counted and who could vote. Ballots in single member electoral districts were now allowed to be marked with an "X" to indicate a first choice preference. Prior to this election high numbers of ballots had been declared as spoiled because they were not marked with a "1". Preferences beyond the first choice still had to be marked with a number indicating that preference. The 1944 election also marked the first time that Japanese Canadians were eligible to vote in a provincial election. There were two thousand Japanese who had previously been evacuated from British Columbia to Alberta under war time provisions who were qualified to vote under the eligibility rules.
After the writ was dropped the single biggest issue of the campaign turned out to be a referendum on the future of the Cooperative Commonwealth. The Independents and Social Credit were each asking their supporters to vote "1" and "2" for their respective parties to ensure the Commonwealth is defeated.
Social Credit
Social Credit had been re-elected to with a thin majority government in 1940 after failing to implement its monetary theory policy that had allowed it to sweep to power in the 1935 election. The party was also rebounding in popularity since Ernest Manning became Premier in 1943 after the death of William Aberhart. Manning steered the party away from its previous policies that included Social Credit monetary theory and media control.The centre piece of Social Credit's policy in this election was a plan on refunding Alberta's large debt that had been built up under the Liberal and United Farmer administrations.
Independents
The Independents led into the election by James Walker had been organized as a coalition of Conservatives, Liberals and United Farmers who grouped together to defeat the Social Credit government in 1937. The coalition which was organized under the parent group, the Independent Citizen's Association. Despite being an organized party all candidates ran and those who were elected did so as Independents. The coalition started falling apart when the Alberta Liberal Party left just before the 4th Legislative Session opened in February 1944.Walker was elected leader of the Independent Citizens Association at a convention held in Calgary on January 23, 1944. He defeated David Elton in a two-way contest. There was considerable interest in the convention as over 300 delegates from across Alberta showed up to vote. Walker was elected on the first ballot winning a decisive victory. This was the first time since the Association had been created that a permanent leader was selected.
Cooperative Commonwealth
The Cooperative Commonwealth federation had enjoyed tremendous growth over the past couple of years. In 1942 the provincial branch reorganized at a convention in Edmonton and merged the provincial branch of the Canadian Labor Party into the Cooperative Commonwealth. Prior to that date the two parties had been an affiliated but operated separately. After the merger the party won a by-election to elect their leader Elmer Roper to the Assembly in Edmonton on September 22, 1942. Shortly before the writs were dropped in this election the Saskatchewan CCF swept the 1944 Saskatchewan general election. Manning called the general election to defuse a possible surge in support for the CCF.The Cooperative Commonwealth provincially had struck a deal with the Labor Progressive Party to run fusion candidates in some electoral districts. The first time this agreement was put to work was in the December 1943 Red Deer by-election where James MacPherson, LPP leader, endorsed CCF candidate E.P. Johns. This was the first provincial election where the CCF fielded a full slate of candidates. They were the only other party in 1944 to do so other than Social Credit.
Labor Progressive Party
The LPP had contested elections previously under the Communist banner, but had changed its name to be in line with the federal party, after they had all been outlawed.The Labor Progressive Party, led by James MacPherson, aimed to run candidates in the major cities and in mining communities. They did run 30 candidates.
In some electoral districts where LPP candidates did not run, the LPP and the CCF ran fusion candidates. A proposal by the Labor Progressive Party to run fusion candidates with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation at the federal level was rejected by the national council.
Farmer-Labor
The Farmer-Labor election committee was a minor political party created by Victor Johanson. He was a farmer residing near the small town of Bentley, Alberta. Johanson was originally selected as a fusion candidate for the Labor Progressive Party and Cooperative Commonwealth Federation to contest the Rocky Mountain House electoral district.Shortly before the general election was called, the Rocky Mountain House CCF constituency association broke away and voted not to support Johanson and nominate its own candidate instead.
Johanson then created his own Farmer-Labor banner that he and his supporters operated under.
Johanson's Farmer-Labor banner was the least successful of the four single candidate banners that operated in the general election. Johanson finished last in his district and in the provincial standings, winning just 0.13% of the total popular vote in the province. After the election Johanson did not contest another provincial election, effectively ending the party.
Farmer-Labor's 1944 election platform had seven policy planks. These planks covered primarily local issues to appeal to coal miners working and living at Nordegg, Alberta. Crop insurance and raised commodity prices was also promised to appeal to area farmers. Other policy planks promised help to veterans returning from the war. Improvements for local transportation infrastructure rounded out the Farmer-Labor platform.
Farmer-Labor Platform
- Adequate prices for all farm produce.
- Better system for providing for crop losses and improvement in the Prairie Farmers' Assistance Act.
- More liberal grants for roads in rural areas, based on funds collected from car and truck licenses and taxes collected from gasoline sales in each district.
- A hard-surfaced road to the company town of Nordegg. Labor Legislation and a Labor Code of Rights to be administered by the Minister of Labor.
- Old age pensions at a younger age, regardless of property owned. A more liberal monthly pay so that the pensioners can enjoy a better life then at present.
- Rehabilitation of the Armed Forces in Peacetime Production and a higher standard of living than in the past.
- Better opportunities for the youth in the post-war years.
Election night
On election night Manning's Social Credit party won a landslide victory with 52 percent of the vote.Opposition MLAs were contained in Calgary and Edmonton as Social Credit swept the rural districts. Many rural districts were decided in SC's favour on the First Counts, the Alternative Voting system used at the time often often necessitating multiple counts in close races.
The anti-SC coalition Independents had failed to run a candidate in every riding and were seen by the voters as lacking credibility. Most of their voters swung to Social Credit as a strategic vote to prevent the Cooperative Commonwealth from electing members.
The anti-SC coalition had lost its whipping boy, William Aberhart. The 1944 election was fought mostly as a two-party contest between the conservative Ernest Manning government and the leftist CCF, running relatively high due to wartime anti-fascist sentiment.
The opposition conceded defeat just twenty six minutes after the polls closed.
Soldiers' vote
The second phase of the general election took place beginning in November 1944 and ending January 1945. Three members of the armed forces commissioned in World War II were elected to represent Alberta service men and women fighting or stationed overseas. In addition those who were in veterans hospitals at the time of the vote and retired service personnel who already returned from duty but missed the August 4, 1944, vote. This election was not run under the Elections Act and was instead run from an executive council order. This meant that the laws regarding eligibility by age and the Single Transferable Vote system did not apply to the soldiers' vote. Saskatchewan was the only other province or state to implement an election for service men in World War II.The service men vote had been pushed for by the Cooperative Commonwealth opposition. Elmer Roper harshly criticized the Social Credit government for having no plans to make voting options available for men serving overseas. The Social Credit government responded by announcing that there would be an election of the soldiers' representatives, but it had not decided the date of the vote prior to the first phase of general election being completed. The soldiers' Members of the Legislative Assembly were meant to be non-partisan and sat on the opposition side of the Assembly. The order in council forebode any candidate running in the election from contesting it along party lines. The vote also temporarily increased the number of seats in the Assembly from 57 to 60. One member represented each branch of the service: Army, Navy and Air Force. This was the second at-large soldiers' war time vote held in the province's history, the first being the soldiers' and nurses vote held as the second part of the 1917 Alberta general election.
The writ period began in late November 1944. A total of 32 candidates registered to run in the election. The seat provided for the Army was hotly contested with 22 candidates, the Navy had three candidates and the Air Force had 7 candidates. The polls were open a record length of time as the voting was conducted from January 8, 1945, to January 20, 1945. Polling stations were set up on the front lines and at army bases where Albertans were stationed around the world. Four Chief Returning Officers were appointed to conduct the vote, a record that stands to this day. The vote was conducted under First Past the Post rules with no ballot transfers. The official results from the vote conducted in Alberta were released on January 31, 1945. The votes for the rest of the world were released on January 6, 1945.
An oddity of this vote is that the Government of Alberta did not print an official document detailing the election results or expenses of operating the election for the general public as it did with the rest of the general election that year. This was because the executive council order made by the Social Credit government did not require it. Full printing of the official results did appear in both the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Albertan as they were announced by the Chief Electoral Officer at a press conference held in Edmonton on February 5, 1945. The Herald was the only newspaper to break down the results by counting station.
Turnout for this election was generally low; the election came during the closing months of World War II when Germany was on its heels and starting to collapse. In addition to the heavy fighting there were also large numbers of troops in transit during the voting period. Chief Returning Officer Robert Addison estimated that almost 3,300 Alberta soldiers eligible were unable to vote because of being in transit to various fronts. The returns themselves were counted in four places, voting conducted in Alberta was counted and released in Edmonton first, while voting conducted overseas was counted in London and sent to Edmonton by telegraph. The highest turnout came by Army soldiers fighting in Italy and the lowest turnout was in the Mediterranean with only five service-men voting. No statistics were released on how many service men and woman were eligible to vote in total.
Voters for this election were eligible to cast a ballot if they were residents of Alberta for one full calendar year prior to enlisting in the military. The only other eligibility requirement was that they missed casting a ballot in their home electoral district during the first phase of the election.
The Government of Alberta commissioned four Chief Electoral Officers to help run the election. The election proved to be a logistical challenge as no similar election had ever been conducted on a worldwide scale. Robert Addison was in charge of overseeing the election in Edmonton and coordination operations around the world. James Thompson was Chief Returning Office in charge of overseeing the vote in the Mediterranean and the Fighting Fronts. A.P. Van Buren was in charge of Canada, United States and Alaska, Newfoundland, Bermuda, Nassau and. L.P. Danis was the Chief Returning Officer for France, Belgium and Holland. The jobs of the Chief Electoral Officers included finding out where Albertans were stationed, setting up polling stations, and overseeing collection of ballots. In some cases polling stations were set up directly in the trenches causing delays to the election as election staff came under hostile fire.
Not much is known about the election campaigns, as there was very little information published in the press about the election. The results showed there were no clear front runners in all three races. The Navy vote saw Loftus Dudley Ward hold a lead when the first votes for Alberta were released by the Chief Electoral Officer on January 31, 1945. Ward managed to hang on to win despite getting very few overseas votes. In the Air Force vote, Joseph Roy Burton was marginally leading the field after the Alberta votes were released. On the final total Frederick Colbourne won with a surge of overseas votes. James Harper Prowse was the biggest surprise in the Army race as he had only 34 votes before surging to win with 1,050 after the final totals were released.