Richard Gavin Reid
Encyclopedia
Richard Gavin "Dick" Reid (17 January 1879 – 17 October 1980) was a Canadian politician who served as the sixth Premier
of Alberta
from 1934 to 1935. He was the last member of the United Farmers of Alberta
(UFA) to hold the office, and that party's defeat at the hands of the upstart Social Credit League
in the 1935 election
made him the second shortest-serving Premier in Alberta history. The incumbent, Alison Redford
, has the shortest term until December 1, 2012.
Born near Glasgow
, Reid worked a number of jobs as a young adult—including wholesaler, army medic (during the Second Boer War
), farmhand, lumberjack, and dentist—and immigrated to Canada in 1903. He involved himself in local politics and joined the recently formed UFA, which nominated him to run in the 1921 provincial election
as its candidate in Vermilion. The UFA won the election, and Reid served in several capacities in the cabinets of Premiers Herbert Greenfield
and John E. Brownlee, where he established a reputation for competence and fiscal conservatism. When a sex scandal
forced Brownlee from office in 1934, Reid was the caucus' unanimous choice to succeed him as Premier.
When Reid took office, Alberta was experiencing the Great Depression
. Reid took measures to ease Albertans' suffering, but believed that inducing a full economic recovery was beyond the capacity of the provincial government. In this climate, Alberta voters were attracted to the economic theories of evangelical preacher William Aberhart
, who advocated a version of social credit
. Despite Reid's claims that Aberhart's proposals were economically and constitutionally unfeasible, Social Credit routed the UFA in the 1935 election; Reid's party did not retain a single seat. Reid lived forty-five years after his defeat, but these years were spent in obscurity; he never returned to political life.
. He served in South Africa as a Lance-Sergeant from 1900 to 1902 during the Second Boer War
, doing hospital duty, before returning to Scotland. There he began to plan his future, considering returning to South Africa to live before deciding on Canada.
He arrived in Killarney
, Manitoba
, in 1903, where he worked as a farmhand during the harvest. When winter came, he found work as a lumberjack in Fort William, Ontario
. A voyage west followed, and he set up a homestead in east-central Alberta. Once there, he began to practice dentistry, drawing on his army experience. On 9 September 1919, he married Marion Stuart. They had three sons and two daughters.
. He spent two of these as Reeve. He was instrumental in founding the Vermilion municipal hospital district, on whose board he served for many years. Federally, he was active with the United Farmers of Alberta
Battle River Political Association, of which he became president.
Reid was nominated as the UFA candidate in Vermilion during the 1921 provincial election
, the first in which the UFA ran candidates. The Legislative Assembly of Alberta
was dominated by the Liberals
, who had governed Alberta since its creation in 1905. To Reid's great surprise, he defeated his Liberal opponent and was elected to the legislature, along with 37 of his fellow UFA candidates—enough to form a majority government
. He chaired the first meeting of the new UFA caucus, at which it selected Herbert Greenfield
as Premier. Reid was re-elected in the 1926
and 1930 elections
.
. Greenfield appointed him Minister of Health and Minister of Municipal Affairs in 1921. In the former capacity, he drew on his past experience with the Vermilion board in establishing new municipal health boards. He also proposed a program of eugenics
through the sterilisation of the mentally handicapped, which in 1928 led to the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta
. As an advocate of government-wide economy, he laid off all school inspection nurses and many public health nurses. This inclination towards thrift was also evident in his performance as Minister of Municipal Affairs, in which he resisted a 1926 call from several municipalities to transfer a greater proportion of the responsibility for caring for indigents to the province. In 1929, he disagreed with them again when he insisted that they be responsible for 10% of the old age pensions paid to their residents.
In 1923 Greenfield moved Reid out of both of his portfolios and made him Provincial Treasurer, where he perpetuated his fiscal conservatism across the government. Early in his tenure, he presented a brief to cabinet recommending that ministers reduce their budgets and that the government create a purchasing department tasked with coordinating spending on supplies. In these proposals he found a close ally in Brownlee, Greenfield's Attorney-General, and when Brownlee succeeded Greenfield as Premier in 1925 he kept Reid as Provincial Treasurer and re-appointed him as Minister of Municipal Affairs. Brownlee and Reid had a history of working closely not only on fiscal issues, but also on agricultural ones: in July 1923, they had travelled together to investigate the creation of a wheat pool
in Alberta. This trip included a meeting with cooperative pioneer Aaron Sapiro
in San Francisco and a visit to Chicago
's commodity market. Both Reid and Brownlee concluded that a pool ought to be proceeded with cautiously, if at all, though this view was overruled when a later visit by Sapiro to Alberta generated sufficient enthusiasm that the government had little choice but to go along with the creation of the Alberta Wheat Pool
.
With Brownlee as premier and Reid as Provincial Treasurer, government deficits ceased: the budget showed a surplus in every year from 1925 until 1930, except for 1927. In 1929, Reid predicted that Alberta was on the cusp of a period of economic expansion; instead, he was soon confronted with the Great Depression. He drastically cut provincial spending and raised taxes, in part by creating a new income tax
. He reluctantly accepted that these measures could not prevent a return to deficit spending. His willingness to outspend revenues was due less to any Keynesian desire to stimulate the economy than to a belief that there was no further spending to be cut or further taxes that could reasonably be raised. Conversely, he rejected calls from the opposition Liberals to cut taxes as a stimulus measure.
Though Brownlee was no more enthusiastic than Reid about deficits, his continued confidence in his Provincial Treasurer was evidenced by his decision to give him yet another ministerial portfolio. In 1930 Brownlee secured Alberta's long-sought control over its natural resources from the federal government, and he appointed Reid Alberta's first Minister of Lands and Mines on 10 October 1930. In this capacity, Reid favoured private over public ownership. He opposed calls from his own party to promote government-developed hydroelectricity
projects, and viewed the provincially owned railways as a burden to the government, though they finally turned a profit in 1927. He was a leading advocate of selling them to private interests, a course that was eventually followed in 1929.
, as a young family friend and her father sued him for seduction. By Reid's account, he had to convince his premier not to quit "hundreds of times". When the jury found in favour of the plaintiffs, however, Brownlee had no choice, and resigned effective 10 July 1934. Reid was the most prominent minister in the cabinet and among the most popular, and was the UFA caucus' unanimous choice to take over. He also replaced Brownlee as Provincial Secretary
and installed himself in the newly created position of Treasury Board
President.
The UFA was in an uncertain position when Reid became Premier; besides Brownlee's resignation, longtime Minister of Public Works Oran McPherson
was in the midst of a scandalous divorce and had also left cabinet, and UFA MLAs Peter Miskew and Omer St. Germain
had crossed the floor
to the Liberals. Additionally, the province's economic condition remained poor. Liberal leader William R. Howson
tried to take advantage of this to undermine the government and position himself as the province's next Premier; he attacked Reid relentlessly for what he alleged were spendthrift habits, and suggested the province's tax rates were causing the confiscation of family homes. Reid asserted in response that Alberta's taxes had decreased since 1921, and criticised Howson for simultaneously attacking government spending and demanding new infrastructure projects.
In the meantime, Reid's government took a number of policy initiatives. It passed legislation authorizing the government purchase of cattle from farmers who could no longer afford feed, and worked out a cost-sharing agreement with the federal government and the railways to relocate farmers fleeing the province's dust belt. Reid also called for the creation of a federal wheat marketing board
, and proposed legislation—the Agricultural Industry Stabilisation Act—that protected from creditors any portion of a farmer's revenue that was used on operating costs for his farm or living expenses for his family. Despite these measures, Reid found himself at odds with his party's membership, which was reacting to the Great Depression by following an increasingly socialist
path. He found UFA President Robert Gardiner
to be of the "far left", and considered the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, in whose founding many UFA members had participated, to be an "unholy amalgamation". Even so, his government experimented with a form of universal health insurance
, to be jointly funded by government, employers, and employees, that would provide Albertans with free medical, dental, and hospital care; the project was to be launched as a pilot project in Camrose
, but was never begun because of the intervention of the 1935 election
. More controversially, Reid's government reacted to McPherson's divorce and its attendant coverage by proposing to ban newspapers from covering divorce proceedings, a proposal that prompted Liberal MLA Joseph Miville Dechene
to compare Reid to Hitler
, Mussolini
, and Stalin
.
A more dangerous opponent than Howson was William Aberhart
, the Calgary
preacher who was proposing a form of social credit
to cure the province's ills. Social credit, the brainchild of British engineer C. H. Douglas
, purported to bridge the gap between a society's production and its purchasing power
; Aberhart maintained that this gap was the source of Alberta's economic hardships. Reid was leery of Aberhart though he, like most politicians of the era, pronounced himself in favour of Douglas's philosophy. T. C. Byrne
suggests that this expressed support was dishonest, that Reid considered social credit in all of its forms to be "complete nonsense", and paid it lip service to it only because of its popularity among voters.
Though he was gaining adherents, Aberhart insisted that his aim was not to enter politics, but to persuade existing parties to adopt social credit in their platforms. To this end, he appeared at the UFA convention of 15 January 1935. The night before, he organised a reception for delegates. Besides Aberhart, it featured actors portraying two characters of whom Aberhart had been making considerable use in presentations around the province: the Man from Mars, who expressed bewilderment that poverty could exist in the midst of plenty and that governments were doing nothing about it, and Kant B. Dunn, who brought up straw man
arguments against social credit for Aberhart to dismantle. Another of Aberhart's characters, the bumbling socialist C. C. Heifer, did not make an appearance; Aberhart biographers David Elliott and Iris Miller suggest that this was to avoid alienating the many UFA members who supported socialism.
The next day, the UFA began debate on a resolution that read
Debate was vigorous. One delegate said that UFA members wanted social credit, and if they could not get it through the UFA they would find other means. After three hours, UFA Vice President Norman Priestly noted in frustration that delegates were debating the merits of "a system of social credit as outlined by" Aberhart without ever having heard Aberhart outline his proposed system. It was agreed to invite Aberhart to appear. Using the analogy of blood flowing through the human body, he argued that the 4 quarts (4.5 l) of blood contained in the human body were sufficient for the heart to pump much more than that per day; so it was, he argued, with currency, whose circulation needed to be accelerated to enhance Albertans' purchasing power. He closed by expressing pessimism that the delegates would choose to support social credit, and this pessimism proved well-founded: though sources are inconsistent on the precise outcome—journalist John Barr reports that the exact vote was not recorded, while historian Bradford Rennie states there were 30 affirmative votes out of 400 delegates present—there is agreement that the resolution was handily defeated. While the vote appeared to be a decisive victory for Reid and his fellow traditionalists, Byrne suggests that many members abstained.
The threat from within apparently defeated, Reid and his government turned their attention to the threat from without: the convention's repudiation had convinced Aberhart that his Social Credit League
must run candidates in the next election. Reid's defence took two forms. The first was an overt attack on Aberhart and his policies. He insisted that Aberhart's proposed "monthly credit dividends" of C$25 could not be issued unless taxes increased tenfold. He argued that Aberhart's proposed means of raising revenue—"unearned increments" and "production levies"—were actually disguised taxes, which would paid primarily by farmers, and that his claims that the necessary credit could be created "at the stroke of a fountain pen" on an accounting ledger were absurd. He further pointed out that elements of Aberhart's plan, including the provincial government's entry into banking and the creation of a provincial tariff
, were ultra vires
the province under the Canadian constitution. These themes were expounded on by Priestly and Brownlee, both of whom undertook speaking tours and radio addresses, and by legal and economic experts commissioned by the government.
The second element of Reid's approach was to call into question Aberhart's understanding of social credit by exposing inconsistencies between his statements and the theories advanced by Douglas. Douglas and Aberhart did not like each other, and Douglas did not believe that Aberhart fully understood his theories; though he declined to comment publicly, one of his deputies once called one of Aberhart's pamphlets "fallacious from start to finish". Hoping to capitalize on this rift, Reid invited Douglas to come to Alberta and serve as "Economic Reconstruction Advisor" at an annual fee of $2,500 plus a $2,000 expense allowance for each of his annual three week trips to the province. Douglas accepted. Angered that the government had incurred this sizable expense without consulting the legislature, Conservative
leader David Duggan introduced a motion calling on Aberhart to be hired in a similar capacity. This suited Reid, who hoped that by inducing both men to submit detailed plans he would at last have something concrete from Aberhart to attack, and something equally concrete from Douglas with which to contrast it. Aberhart confounded Reid's plan by declining his offer. Douglas, for his part, provided mixed results: on his way to Edmonton he publicly repudiated Aberhart's impugned pamphlet and also pronounced himself against the creation of a provincial social credit political vehicle. On the other hand, shortly after his arrival he sent Aberhart a letter, gleefully released by Aberhart, asserting that there was no conflict between the "Douglas" and "Aberhart" versions of social credit. Moreover, his interim report to the government concerned itself primarily with political and legal, rather than economic, realities: he recommended setting up a provincially controlled media outlet to counter the anti-social credit propaganda he anticipated from the privately owned press, organizing a provincial government credit institution, and accumulating a stockpile of currency, stocks, and bonds. He also suggested that the UFA might need to form a coalition government
to implement social credit. The report was of little use to Reid's government, so he had his Attorney-General, John Lymburn
ask Douglas to critique one of Aberhart's radio broadcasts. Douglas demurred, and made only vague comments about minor technical errors in the transcript.
Reid's approach to combating Aberhart's influence had failed. The first element, attacking the validity of Aberhart's ideas directly, had failed because much of the Alberta public, in abject poverty, was not interested in hearing economic and legal arguments against social credit, especially when the UFA had no alternative plan. This state of mind was illustrated by a voter's comments to Brownlee on Aberhart's proposals:
The second part of the strategy, contrasting Aberhart's proposals with Douglas's, failed largely because both men were too evasive in their statements to make any kind of direct comparison of their views. Lakeland College
historian Franklin Foster offers an additional explanation: when Albertans were exposed to the charismatic evangelist Aberhart and the dry technocrat Douglas, they preferred the former, irrespective of credentials or economic expertise.
(predicting that "the near future will witness the greatest explorations for oil which this province has ever known"). Most of the campaign was conducted around Social Credit's promise to pull the province out of depression with its monetary theories. Reid alleged that Aberhart's policies would destroy the province's credit and leave it unable to borrow the money it needed to carry on, but voters—even those sceptical of Social Credit's promises—saw no alternative hopes offered by the UFA. On 11 August, election day, every UFA MLA was defeated; Reid himself finished third in his riding, barely ahead of the Communist
candidate, and resigned as Premier effective 22 August.
Time would prove Reid correct in most of his criticisms of Aberhart: he did lack a specific economic agenda, much of his legislation was struck down by the courts, and the depression did continue for several more years in Alberta. This was of cold comfort to Reid, whose defeat was total: at 408 days, his time as Premier was and remains the shortest in the province's history.
, and he wanted to re-establish stability as quickly as possible. Moreover, the province needed to borrow a large sum of money to meet even its short-term obligations, and the UFA, as a lame duck
government, was unable to make promises to would-be creditors. Once in office, confronted with a dire financial situation, Aberhart accused the UFA government of mismanagement. Reid responded in January 1936 that there had been no such mismanagement, that the province's financial problems were due to Social Credit's policies, both real and promised, and that had the UFA won re-election in 1935 it could have continued governing without serious difficulty. He also resisted insinuations that it had been too restrained in helping impoverished farmers: as late as 1969 he was offering the view that shrinking sources of provincial revenue made further assistance impossible.
Apart from these occasional forays defending his record, Reid withdrew from politics. He became a commission agent, and later the librarian for Canadian Utilities Limited
. For this latter role, he was made an honorary member of the Edmonton Library Association. During World War II
, he served on the Canadian government's mobilisation board. Richard Reid died in Edmonton
17 October 1980 at the age of 101. He was cremated
, and his ashes buried in Edmonton.
Historians generally view Reid as a victim of circumstance: like many governments across Canada, his was defeated by the Great Depression. Rennie argues that Reid's approach to government, frugal and non-interventionist, was well-suited to the prosperous 1920s but less so to the 1930s, and highlights his lack of charisma. But he also writes that virtually nobody could have won the 1935 election for the UFA. Foster agrees, assessing Reid as "a quietly competent, gentle man" who "merited the confidence of his colleagues", but who was in 1935 "distinctly out of his element". As Rennie closes, "In 1935 Albertans wanted a saviour. Richard Gavin Reid was a mere mortal."
Premier of Alberta
The Premier of Alberta is the first minister for the Canadian province of Alberta. He or she is the province's head of government and de facto chief executive. The current Premier of Alberta is Alison Redford. She became Premier by winning the Progressive Conservative leadership elections on...
of Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
from 1934 to 1935. He was the last member of the United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
(UFA) to hold the office, and that party's defeat at the hands of the upstart Social Credit League
Social Credit Party of Alberta
The Alberta Social Credit Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on the social credit monetary policy and conservative Christian social values....
in the 1935 election
Alberta general election, 1935
The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22, 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
made him the second shortest-serving Premier in Alberta history. The incumbent, Alison Redford
Alison Redford
Alison Merrilla Redford Q.C., MLA, is a Canadian politician, and the 14th and current Premier of Alberta, Canada. Upon winning the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, in October 2011, she became the first female premier in Alberta...
, has the shortest term until December 1, 2012.
Born near Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Reid worked a number of jobs as a young adult—including wholesaler, army medic (during the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
), farmhand, lumberjack, and dentist—and immigrated to Canada in 1903. He involved himself in local politics and joined the recently formed UFA, which nominated him to run in the 1921 provincial election
Alberta general election, 1921
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....
as its candidate in Vermilion. The UFA won the election, and Reid served in several capacities in the cabinets of Premiers Herbert Greenfield
Herbert Greenfield
Herbert W. Greenfield was a Canadian politician who served as the fourth Premier of Alberta from 1921 until 1925. Born in Winchester, Hampshire, in England, he immigrated to Canada in his late twenties, settling first in Ontario and then in Alberta, where he farmed...
and John E. Brownlee, where he established a reputation for competence and fiscal conservatism. When a sex scandal
John Brownlee sex scandal
The John Brownlee sex scandal occurred in 1934 in Alberta, Canada, and forced the resignation of the provincial Premier, John Edward Brownlee. Brownlee was accused of seducing Vivian MacMillan, a family friend and a secretary for Brownlee's attorney-general in 1930, when she was 18 years old, and...
forced Brownlee from office in 1934, Reid was the caucus' unanimous choice to succeed him as Premier.
When Reid took office, Alberta was experiencing the Great Depression
Great Depression in Canada
Canada was hit hard by the Great Depression. Between 1929 and 1939, the gross national product dropped 40% . Unemployment reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933...
. Reid took measures to ease Albertans' suffering, but believed that inducing a full economic recovery was beyond the capacity of the provincial government. In this climate, Alberta voters were attracted to the economic theories of evangelical preacher William Aberhart
William Aberhart
William Aberhart , also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943. The Social Credit party believed the reason for the depression was that people did not have enough money to spend, so the government...
, who advocated a version of social credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...
. Despite Reid's claims that Aberhart's proposals were economically and constitutionally unfeasible, Social Credit routed the UFA in the 1935 election; Reid's party did not retain a single seat. Reid lived forty-five years after his defeat, but these years were spent in obscurity; he never returned to political life.
Early life
Reid was born 17 January 1879 near Glasgow, Scotland, to George (1843–1913) and Margaret (Ogston) Reid (1850–1928). He attended school in Glasgow and worked for several years in the wholesale provisions business before enlisting in the Royal Army Medical CorpsRoyal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
. He served in South Africa as a Lance-Sergeant from 1900 to 1902 during the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
, doing hospital duty, before returning to Scotland. There he began to plan his future, considering returning to South Africa to live before deciding on Canada.
He arrived in Killarney
Killarney, Manitoba
Killarney is a town in Southwestern Manitoba, Canada, at the corner of Manitoba Provincial Trunk Highways 3 & 18. , its population was approximately 2300. The incorporated town is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Turtle Mountain. It is well known for its lake, situated within the town proper...
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, in 1903, where he worked as a farmhand during the harvest. When winter came, he found work as a lumberjack in Fort William, Ontario
Fort William, Ontario
Fort William was a city in Northern Ontario, located on the Kaministiquia River, at its entrance to Lake Superior. It amalgamated with Port Arthur and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Ever since then it has been the largest city in Northwestern...
. A voyage west followed, and he set up a homestead in east-central Alberta. Once there, he began to practice dentistry, drawing on his army experience. On 9 September 1919, he married Marion Stuart. They had three sons and two daughters.
Entry into politics
Reid's political career began with four years on the municipal council of Buffalo Coulee, around present-day VermilionVermilion, Alberta
Vermilion is a town in Vermilion River County, central Alberta, Canada. It is located along Highway 41 and Highway 16 .The economy is largely service industry to agriculture....
. He spent two of these as Reeve. He was instrumental in founding the Vermilion municipal hospital district, on whose board he served for many years. Federally, he was active with the United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
Battle River Political Association, of which he became president.
Alberta general election, 1921
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 first in which the UFA ran candidates. The Legislative Assembly of Alberta
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is one of two components of the Legislature of Alberta, the other being the Queen, represented by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. The Alberta legislature meets in the Alberta Legislature Building in the provincial capital, Edmonton...
was dominated by the Liberals
Alberta Liberal Party
The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time...
, who had governed Alberta since its creation in 1905. To Reid's great surprise, he defeated his Liberal opponent and was elected to the legislature, along with 37 of his fellow UFA candidates—enough to form a majority government
Majority government
A majority government is when the governing party has an absolute majority of seats in the legislature or parliament in a parliamentary system. This is as opposed to a minority government, where even the largest party wins only a plurality of seats and thus must constantly bargain for support from...
. He chaired the first meeting of the new UFA caucus, at which it selected Herbert Greenfield
Herbert Greenfield
Herbert W. Greenfield was a Canadian politician who served as the fourth Premier of Alberta from 1921 until 1925. Born in Winchester, Hampshire, in England, he immigrated to Canada in his late twenties, settling first in Ontario and then in Alberta, where he farmed...
as Premier. Reid was re-elected in the 1926
Alberta general election, 1926
The Alberta general election of 1926 was the sixth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 28, 1926 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The writs of election were issued on May 10, 1926 allowing for an election period of 40 days.After Herbert...
and 1930 elections
Alberta general election, 1930
The Alberta general election of 1930 was the seventh general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 19, 1930 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
.
Cabinet career
Reid occupied high-ranking cabinet positions in Greenfield's government and that of his successor, John Edward BrownleeJohn Edward Brownlee
John Edward Brownlee was the fifth Premier of Alberta, Canada, serving from 1925 until 1934. Born in Port Ryerse, Ontario, he studied history and political science at the University of Toronto's Victoria College before moving west to Calgary to become a lawyer...
. Greenfield appointed him Minister of Health and Minister of Municipal Affairs in 1921. In the former capacity, he drew on his past experience with the Vermilion board in establishing new municipal health boards. He also proposed a program of eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
through the sterilisation of the mentally handicapped, which in 1928 led to the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta
Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta
In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. The Act, drafted to protect the gene pool, allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled persons in order to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits to offspring.At that time, eugenicists argued that...
. As an advocate of government-wide economy, he laid off all school inspection nurses and many public health nurses. This inclination towards thrift was also evident in his performance as Minister of Municipal Affairs, in which he resisted a 1926 call from several municipalities to transfer a greater proportion of the responsibility for caring for indigents to the province. In 1929, he disagreed with them again when he insisted that they be responsible for 10% of the old age pensions paid to their residents.
In 1923 Greenfield moved Reid out of both of his portfolios and made him Provincial Treasurer, where he perpetuated his fiscal conservatism across the government. Early in his tenure, he presented a brief to cabinet recommending that ministers reduce their budgets and that the government create a purchasing department tasked with coordinating spending on supplies. In these proposals he found a close ally in Brownlee, Greenfield's Attorney-General, and when Brownlee succeeded Greenfield as Premier in 1925 he kept Reid as Provincial Treasurer and re-appointed him as Minister of Municipal Affairs. Brownlee and Reid had a history of working closely not only on fiscal issues, but also on agricultural ones: in July 1923, they had travelled together to investigate the creation of a wheat pool
Wheat pool
A wheat pool is a co-operative that buys grain from farmers.In Canada in 1923 and 24, three wheat pools were created. They were farmer-owned co-operatives, created to break the power of the large for-profit corporations, that had dominated the grain trade in Western Canada since the late 19th...
in Alberta. This trip included a meeting with cooperative pioneer Aaron Sapiro
Aaron Sapiro
Aaron Leland Sapiro was a Jewish American cooperative activist and lawyer and major leader of the farmers' movement during the 1920s...
in San Francisco and a visit to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's commodity market. Both Reid and Brownlee concluded that a pool ought to be proceeded with cautiously, if at all, though this view was overruled when a later visit by Sapiro to Alberta generated sufficient enthusiasm that the government had little choice but to go along with the creation of the Alberta Wheat Pool
Alberta Wheat Pool
The Alberta Wheat Pool was the first of Canada's wheat farmer co-operatives.-Early years:In 1923, the United Farmers of Alberta met with then Attorney General John Edward Brownlee to consider setting up a Wheat Pool just in Alberta...
.
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
. He reluctantly accepted that these measures could not prevent a return to deficit spending. His willingness to outspend revenues was due less to any Keynesian desire to stimulate the economy than to a belief that there was no further spending to be cut or further taxes that could reasonably be raised. Conversely, he rejected calls from the opposition Liberals to cut taxes as a stimulus measure.
Though Brownlee was no more enthusiastic than Reid about deficits, his continued confidence in his Provincial Treasurer was evidenced by his decision to give him yet another ministerial portfolio. In 1930 Brownlee secured Alberta's long-sought control over its natural resources from the federal government, and he appointed Reid Alberta's first Minister of Lands and Mines on 10 October 1930. In this capacity, Reid favoured private over public ownership. He opposed calls from his own party to promote government-developed hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...
projects, and viewed the provincially owned railways as a burden to the government, though they finally turned a profit in 1927. He was a leading advocate of selling them to private interests, a course that was eventually followed in 1929.
Premier
In 1934, Brownlee was implicated in a sex scandalJohn Brownlee sex scandal
The John Brownlee sex scandal occurred in 1934 in Alberta, Canada, and forced the resignation of the provincial Premier, John Edward Brownlee. Brownlee was accused of seducing Vivian MacMillan, a family friend and a secretary for Brownlee's attorney-general in 1930, when she was 18 years old, and...
, as a young family friend and her father sued him for seduction. By Reid's account, he had to convince his premier not to quit "hundreds of times". When the jury found in favour of the plaintiffs, however, Brownlee had no choice, and resigned effective 10 July 1934. Reid was the most prominent minister in the cabinet and among the most popular, and was the UFA caucus' unanimous choice to take over. He also replaced Brownlee as Provincial Secretary
Provincial Secretary
The Provincial Secretary was a senior position in the executive councils of British North America's colonial governments, and was retained by the Canadian provincial governments for at least a century after Canadian Confederation was proclaimed in 1867...
and installed himself in the newly created position of Treasury Board
Treasury Board
The Treasury Board is the Government of Canada's only statutory Cabinet committee and is responsible for the federal civil service much of the operation of the Canadian government. Among its specific duties are negotiating labour agreements with the public service unions and serving as Comptroller...
President.
The UFA was in an uncertain position when Reid became Premier; besides Brownlee's resignation, longtime Minister of Public Works Oran McPherson
Oran McPherson
Oran Leo "Tony" McPherson was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Little Bow from 1921 to 1935 as a member of the United Farmers of Alberta.-Early life:...
was in the midst of a scandalous divorce and had also left cabinet, and UFA MLAs Peter Miskew and Omer St. Germain
Omer St. Germain
Omer St. Germain was a barrister, solicitor, notary, publisher and a provincial politician from Canada. He served as the first mayor of Morinville, Alberta, and became a perennial candidate in Alberta elections hold office as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1930 to 1935...
had crossed the floor
Crossing the floor
In politics, crossing the floor has two meanings referring to a change of allegiance in a Westminster system parliament.The term originates from the British House of Commons, which is configured with the Government and Opposition facing each other on rows of benches...
to the Liberals. Additionally, the province's economic condition remained poor. Liberal leader William R. Howson
William R. Howson
William Robinson Howson was an politician, judge, debt collector, soldier banker and real estate agent from Alberta, Canada.. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1930 to 1936 sitting with the Liberal caucus in opposition...
tried to take advantage of this to undermine the government and position himself as the province's next Premier; he attacked Reid relentlessly for what he alleged were spendthrift habits, and suggested the province's tax rates were causing the confiscation of family homes. Reid asserted in response that Alberta's taxes had decreased since 1921, and criticised Howson for simultaneously attacking government spending and demanding new infrastructure projects.
In the meantime, Reid's government took a number of policy initiatives. It passed legislation authorizing the government purchase of cattle from farmers who could no longer afford feed, and worked out a cost-sharing agreement with the federal government and the railways to relocate farmers fleeing the province's dust belt. Reid also called for the creation of a federal wheat marketing board
Canadian Wheat Board
The Canadian Wheat Board was established by the Parliament of Canada on 5 July 1935 as a mandatory producer marketing system for wheat and barley in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and a small part of British Columbia...
, and proposed legislation—the Agricultural Industry Stabilisation Act—that protected from creditors any portion of a farmer's revenue that was used on operating costs for his farm or living expenses for his family. Despite these measures, Reid found himself at odds with his party's membership, which was reacting to the Great Depression by following an increasingly socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
path. He found UFA President Robert Gardiner
Robert Gardiner (Canadian politician)
Robert Gardiner was a farmer and federal Member of Parliament from Canada.Gardiner first ran for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons for the Progressive Party of Canada in a by-election on June 27, 1921...
to be of the "far left", and considered the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, in whose founding many UFA members had participated, to be an "unholy amalgamation". Even so, his government experimented with a form of universal health insurance
Health insurance
Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is...
, to be jointly funded by government, employers, and employees, that would provide Albertans with free medical, dental, and hospital care; the project was to be launched as a pilot project in Camrose
Camrose (provincial electoral district)
-1944 general election:-1957 liquor plebiscite:On October 30, 1957 a stand alone plebiscite was held province wide in all 50 of the then current provincial electoral districts in Alberta. The government decided to consult Alberta voters to decide on liquor sales and mixed drinking after a divisive...
, but was never begun because of the intervention of the 1935 election
Alberta general election, 1935
The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22, 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
. More controversially, Reid's government reacted to McPherson's divorce and its attendant coverage by proposing to ban newspapers from covering divorce proceedings, a proposal that prompted Liberal MLA Joseph Miville Dechene
Joseph Miville Dechene
Joseph Miville Dechêne was Canadian farmer and politician who served in all three levels of government during his career. He served as a councilor of the town of Bonnyville from 1928 to 1934. He also served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1921 to 1926 and again from 1930 to...
to compare Reid to Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, and Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
.
Social credit
William Aberhart
William Aberhart , also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943. The Social Credit party believed the reason for the depression was that people did not have enough money to spend, so the government...
, the Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
preacher who was proposing a form of social credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...
to cure the province's ills. Social credit, the brainchild of British engineer C. H. Douglas
C. H. Douglas
Major C. H. Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, , was a British engineer and pioneer of the Social Credit economic reform movement.-Education and engineering career:...
, purported to bridge the gap between a society's production and its purchasing power
Purchasing power
Purchasing power is the number of goods/services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if you had taken one dollar to a store in the 1950s, you would have been able to buy a greater number of items than you would today, indicating that you would have had a greater purchasing...
; Aberhart maintained that this gap was the source of Alberta's economic hardships. Reid was leery of Aberhart though he, like most politicians of the era, pronounced himself in favour of Douglas's philosophy. T. C. Byrne
Tim Byrne
Tim Clarke Byrne was the first President of Athabasca University. He grew up in Warspite, Alberta. He is author of the book Athabasca University: The Evolution of Distance Education. He's a former Deputy Minister of Education for Alberta from 1966 - 1971...
suggests that this expressed support was dishonest, that Reid considered social credit in all of its forms to be "complete nonsense", and paid it lip service to it only because of its popularity among voters.
Though he was gaining adherents, Aberhart insisted that his aim was not to enter politics, but to persuade existing parties to adopt social credit in their platforms. To this end, he appeared at the UFA convention of 15 January 1935. The night before, he organised a reception for delegates. Besides Aberhart, it featured actors portraying two characters of whom Aberhart had been making considerable use in presentations around the province: the Man from Mars, who expressed bewilderment that poverty could exist in the midst of plenty and that governments were doing nothing about it, and Kant B. Dunn, who brought up straw man
Straw man
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions...
arguments against social credit for Aberhart to dismantle. Another of Aberhart's characters, the bumbling socialist C. C. Heifer, did not make an appearance; Aberhart biographers David Elliott and Iris Miller suggest that this was to avoid alienating the many UFA members who supported socialism.
The next day, the UFA began debate on a resolution that read
Resolved that a system of social credit as outlined by William Aberhart, Calgary, be put in as a plank in the UFA provincial platform to be brought before the electorate at the next provincial election.
Debate was vigorous. One delegate said that UFA members wanted social credit, and if they could not get it through the UFA they would find other means. After three hours, UFA Vice President Norman Priestly noted in frustration that delegates were debating the merits of "a system of social credit as outlined by" Aberhart without ever having heard Aberhart outline his proposed system. It was agreed to invite Aberhart to appear. Using the analogy of blood flowing through the human body, he argued that the 4 quarts (4.5 l) of blood contained in the human body were sufficient for the heart to pump much more than that per day; so it was, he argued, with currency, whose circulation needed to be accelerated to enhance Albertans' purchasing power. He closed by expressing pessimism that the delegates would choose to support social credit, and this pessimism proved well-founded: though sources are inconsistent on the precise outcome—journalist John Barr reports that the exact vote was not recorded, while historian Bradford Rennie states there were 30 affirmative votes out of 400 delegates present—there is agreement that the resolution was handily defeated. While the vote appeared to be a decisive victory for Reid and his fellow traditionalists, Byrne suggests that many members abstained.
The threat from within apparently defeated, Reid and his government turned their attention to the threat from without: the convention's repudiation had convinced Aberhart that his Social Credit League
Social Credit Party of Alberta
The Alberta Social Credit Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on the social credit monetary policy and conservative Christian social values....
must run candidates in the next election. Reid's defence took two forms. The first was an overt attack on Aberhart and his policies. He insisted that Aberhart's proposed "monthly credit dividends" of C$25 could not be issued unless taxes increased tenfold. He argued that Aberhart's proposed means of raising revenue—"unearned increments" and "production levies"—were actually disguised taxes, which would paid primarily by farmers, and that his claims that the necessary credit could be created "at the stroke of a fountain pen" on an accounting ledger were absurd. He further pointed out that elements of Aberhart's plan, including the provincial government's entry into banking and the creation of a provincial tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
, were ultra vires
Ultra vires
Ultra vires is a Latin phrase meaning literally "beyond the powers", although its standard legal translation and substitute is "beyond power". If an act requires legal authority and it is done with such authority, it is...
the province under the Canadian constitution. These themes were expounded on by Priestly and Brownlee, both of whom undertook speaking tours and radio addresses, and by legal and economic experts commissioned by the government.
The second element of Reid's approach was to call into question Aberhart's understanding of social credit by exposing inconsistencies between his statements and the theories advanced by Douglas. Douglas and Aberhart did not like each other, and Douglas did not believe that Aberhart fully understood his theories; though he declined to comment publicly, one of his deputies once called one of Aberhart's pamphlets "fallacious from start to finish". Hoping to capitalize on this rift, Reid invited Douglas to come to Alberta and serve as "Economic Reconstruction Advisor" at an annual fee of $2,500 plus a $2,000 expense allowance for each of his annual three week trips to the province. Douglas accepted. Angered that the government had incurred this sizable expense without consulting the legislature, Conservative
Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta
The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta is a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta...
leader David Duggan introduced a motion calling on Aberhart to be hired in a similar capacity. This suited Reid, who hoped that by inducing both men to submit detailed plans he would at last have something concrete from Aberhart to attack, and something equally concrete from Douglas with which to contrast it. Aberhart confounded Reid's plan by declining his offer. Douglas, for his part, provided mixed results: on his way to Edmonton he publicly repudiated Aberhart's impugned pamphlet and also pronounced himself against the creation of a provincial social credit political vehicle. On the other hand, shortly after his arrival he sent Aberhart a letter, gleefully released by Aberhart, asserting that there was no conflict between the "Douglas" and "Aberhart" versions of social credit. Moreover, his interim report to the government concerned itself primarily with political and legal, rather than economic, realities: he recommended setting up a provincially controlled media outlet to counter the anti-social credit propaganda he anticipated from the privately owned press, organizing a provincial government credit institution, and accumulating a stockpile of currency, stocks, and bonds. He also suggested that the UFA might need to form a coalition government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
to implement social credit. The report was of little use to Reid's government, so he had his Attorney-General, John Lymburn
John Lymburn
John Farquhar Lymburn was a Canadian politician who served as Attorney-General of Alberta from 1926 until 1935. Born and educated in Scotland, he came to Canada in 1911 and practiced law in Edmonton. In 1925, John Edward Brownlee became Premier of Alberta, and sought a lawyer without partisan...
ask Douglas to critique one of Aberhart's radio broadcasts. Douglas demurred, and made only vague comments about minor technical errors in the transcript.
Reid's approach to combating Aberhart's influence had failed. The first element, attacking the validity of Aberhart's ideas directly, had failed because much of the Alberta public, in abject poverty, was not interested in hearing economic and legal arguments against social credit, especially when the UFA had no alternative plan. This state of mind was illustrated by a voter's comments to Brownlee on Aberhart's proposals:
Mr. Brownlee, we have listened to you with a great deal of attention and the answers you have given seem pretty hard to meet. But I have one more question ... I'm selling my wheat at 25 cents a bushel. If I tried to sell a steer tomorrow I'd probably hardly get enough to pay the freight. I get three cents a dozen for eggs. I'm lucky to get a dollar for a can of cream. Will you tell me what I've got to lose?
The second part of the strategy, contrasting Aberhart's proposals with Douglas's, failed largely because both men were too evasive in their statements to make any kind of direct comparison of their views. Lakeland College
Lakeland College (Alberta)
Lakeland College is a post-secondary college in Alberta. It is publicly funded, and maintains two campuses in Vermilion and Lloydminster. Lakeland serves about 7,500 full- and part-time students....
historian Franklin Foster offers an additional explanation: when Albertans were exposed to the charismatic evangelist Aberhart and the dry technocrat Douglas, they preferred the former, irrespective of credentials or economic expertise.
Electoral defeat
When the election came in August 1935, Aberhart offered economic recovery while Reid offered criticisms. Highlighting the UFA's record of clean government, low taxes, and fiscal responsibility, Reid committed himself and his government to bringing a sense of security. More tangibly, he promised to build a government oil refineryOil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
(predicting that "the near future will witness the greatest explorations for oil which this province has ever known"). Most of the campaign was conducted around Social Credit's promise to pull the province out of depression with its monetary theories. Reid alleged that Aberhart's policies would destroy the province's credit and leave it unable to borrow the money it needed to carry on, but voters—even those sceptical of Social Credit's promises—saw no alternative hopes offered by the UFA. On 11 August, election day, every UFA MLA was defeated; Reid himself finished third in his riding, barely ahead of the Communist
Communist Party (Alberta)
Communist Party – Alberta is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. It is a provincial branch of the Communist Party of Canada.-History:...
candidate, and resigned as Premier effective 22 August.
Time would prove Reid correct in most of his criticisms of Aberhart: he did lack a specific economic agenda, much of his legislation was struck down by the courts, and the depression did continue for several more years in Alberta. This was of cold comfort to Reid, whose defeat was total: at 408 days, his time as Premier was and remains the shortest in the province's history.
Life after politics
After the election, Reid orchestrated a quick transfer of power. The Social Credit victory had provoked a bank runBank run
A bank run occurs when a large number of bank customers withdraw their deposits because they believe the bank is, or might become, insolvent...
, and he wanted to re-establish stability as quickly as possible. Moreover, the province needed to borrow a large sum of money to meet even its short-term obligations, and the UFA, as a lame duck
Lame duck (politics)
A lame duck is an elected official who is approaching the end of his or her tenure, and especially an official whose successor has already been elected.-Description:The status can be due to*having lost a re-election bid...
government, was unable to make promises to would-be creditors. Once in office, confronted with a dire financial situation, Aberhart accused the UFA government of mismanagement. Reid responded in January 1936 that there had been no such mismanagement, that the province's financial problems were due to Social Credit's policies, both real and promised, and that had the UFA won re-election in 1935 it could have continued governing without serious difficulty. He also resisted insinuations that it had been too restrained in helping impoverished farmers: as late as 1969 he was offering the view that shrinking sources of provincial revenue made further assistance impossible.
Apart from these occasional forays defending his record, Reid withdrew from politics. He became a commission agent, and later the librarian for Canadian Utilities Limited
Canadian Utilities
Canadian Utilities Limited is a member of the ATCO Group of companies. Canadian Utilities Limited is a Canada-based worldwide organization of companies with assets of approximately $7.3 billion and more than 6,500 employees, actively engaged in three main business divisions: Power Generation,...
. For this latter role, he was made an honorary member of the Edmonton Library Association. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he served on the Canadian government's mobilisation board. Richard Reid died in Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
17 October 1980 at the age of 101. He was cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
, and his ashes buried in Edmonton.
Historians generally view Reid as a victim of circumstance: like many governments across Canada, his was defeated by the Great Depression. Rennie argues that Reid's approach to government, frugal and non-interventionist, was well-suited to the prosperous 1920s but less so to the 1930s, and highlights his lack of charisma. But he also writes that virtually nobody could have won the 1935 election for the UFA. Foster agrees, assessing Reid as "a quietly competent, gentle man" who "merited the confidence of his colleagues", but who was in 1935 "distinctly out of his element". As Rennie closes, "In 1935 Albertans wanted a saviour. Richard Gavin Reid was a mere mortal."
As party leader
| Alberta general election, 1935 Alberta general election, 1935 The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22, 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Party leader | # of candidates |
Seats | Popular vote | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1930 Alberta general election, 1930 The Alberta general election of 1930 was the seventh general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 19, 1930 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... |
1935 Alberta general election, 1935 The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22, 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... |
% Change | # | % | % Change |
Social Credit Social Credit Party of Alberta The Alberta Social Credit Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on the social credit monetary policy and conservative Christian social values.... |
William Aberhart William Aberhart , also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943. The Social Credit party believed the reason for the depression was that people did not have enough money to spend, so the government... |
63 | 56 | 163,700 | 54.25% | |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
|
61 | 11 | 5 | −54.5% | 69,845 | 23.14% | −1.45% |
Conservative | David Milwyn Duggan David Milwyn Duggan was a politician in Alberta, Canada, a mayor of Edmonton, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, and a leader of the Conservative Party of Alberta.-Early life:... |
39 | 6 | 2 | −66.7% | 19,358 | 6.41% | −8.44% |
United Farmers United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
|
45 | 39 | −100% | 33,063 | 11.00% | −28.41% |
Communist Communist Party (Alberta) Communist Party – Alberta is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. It is a provincial branch of the Communist Party of Canada.-History:... |
Jan Lakeman John "Jan" Lakeman was a mid 20th century Labour rights activist, perennial election candidate and former leader of the provincial Communist Party in Alberta, Canada.-Political career:... |
9 | 5,771 | 1.91% | |
Labour | Fred J. White Frederic "Fred" James White was a provincial level politician and labour activist in Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1921 to 1935 holding a seat in the electoral district of Calgary.... |
11 | 4 | — | −100% | 5,086 | 1.68% | −5.95% |
Independent | 7 | 3 | — | −100% | 2,740 | 0.90% | −12.62% |
Independent Liberal | 1 | — | 955 | 0.31% | |
United Front | |
1 | — | 560 | 0.19% | |
Independent Conservative | 1 | — | 258 | 0.08% | |
Independent Labour | 1 | — | 224 | 0.07% | |
Economic Reconstruction Reconstruction Party of Canada The Reconstruction Party was a Canadian political party founded by Henry Herbert Stevens, a long-time Conservative Member of Parliament . Stevens served as Minister of Trade in the Arthur Meighen government of 1921, and as Minister of Trade and Commerce from 1930 to 1934 in the Depression-era... |
|
1 | — | 192 | 0.06% | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | 240 | 63 | 63 | 301,752 | 100% | |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As MLA
| 1935 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1935 The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22, 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... results (Vermilion) |
font style="font-size: 90%;">Turnout 82.8% | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Second count | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
Social Credit Social Credit Party of Alberta The Alberta Social Credit Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on the social credit monetary policy and conservative Christian social values.... |
William Fallow | 2,664 | 65.0% |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Arthur P. Hunter | 1,437 | 35.0% | |||||||||||||
| First count | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
Social Credit Social Credit Party of Alberta The Alberta Social Credit Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on the social credit monetary policy and conservative Christian social values.... |
William Fallow | 2,452 | 44.8% |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Arthur P. Hunter | 1,062 | 19.4% |
United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
Richard Gavin Reid | 876 | 16.0% |
Communist | William Halina | 838 | 15.3% |
Conservative | Albert E. Williams | 244 | 4.5% | |
| 1930 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1930 The Alberta general election of 1930 was the seventh general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 19, 1930 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... results (Vermilion) |
font style="font-size: 90%;">Turnout 62.3% | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
Richard Gavin Reid | 2,551 | 75.79% |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Robert B. Hall | 815 | 24.21% | |||||||||||||
| 1926 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1926 The Alberta general election of 1926 was the sixth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on June 28, 1926 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The writs of election were issued on May 10, 1926 allowing for an election period of 40 days.After Herbert... results (Vermilion) |
font style="font-size: 90%;">Turnout 67.5% | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
Richard G. Reid | 1,981 | 64.6% |
Conservative | W. J. McNab | 592 | 19.3% |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Arthur W. Ebbett | 492 | 16.1% | |||||||||
| 1921 by-election results (Vermilion) | font style="font-size: 90%;">Turnout N/A | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
Richard Gavin Reid | Acclaimed | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1921 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1921 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.... results (Vermilion) |
font style="font-size: 90%;">Turnout N.A. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
Richard Gavin Reid | 2,955 | 75.9% |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Arthur W. Ebbett | 939 | 24.1% | |||||||||||||