Adolph Olaf Fimrite (February 16, 1913 – July 18, 1990) was a provincial politician from

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada. He served as a member of the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from sing ...

from 1952 to 1971 sitting with the Social Credit caucus in government. During his time in office he served as a cabinet minister in the government of Premier

Harry Strom Harry Edwin Strom (July 7, 1914 – October 2, 1984) was the ninth premier of Alberta, from 1968 to 1971. His two-and-a-half years as Premier were the last of the thirty-six-year Social Credit dynasty, as his defeat by Peter Lougheed saw its r ...

from 1968 to 1971. He grew up in an impoverished, fatherless family homesteading in the North country. During the 1960s, his sister, Olive Stickney (Fimrite), was the first and for eight years the only, woman to be elected as councillor of a rural municipality.

Political career

Fimrite ran for a seat for the first time in the

1952 Alberta general election The 1952 Alberta general election was held on August 5, 1952, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Ernest C. Manning in his third election as leader of the Social Credit Party, and its first election since the Social Credit ...

as a Social Credit candidate. He won the electoral district of Spirit River in a hotly contested race on vote transfers to hold it for the Social Credit party. Fimrite ran for a second term in office in the

1955 Alberta general election The 1955 Alberta general election was held on June 29, 1955, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Despite losing almost 10% of the popular vote (compared to its 1952 proportion of the vote) and 30% of its seats in the legisla ...

. He defeated two other candidates and was able to win over half the popular vote in his district. Fimrite increased his majority running for his third term in office in the

1959 Alberta general election Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity o ...

. He faced three other candidates and tripled the vote of runner up Progressive Conservative candidate Charles Stojan. The 1963 general election saw Fimrite win the largest majority of his career. He defeated two other candidates and won the district with nearly 70 percent of the popular vote. Fimrite ran for a fifth term in the 1967 general election. NDP candidate Bert Strand made a strong bid to defeat Fimrite, but Fimrite won a comfortable majority to hold the seat. A year after the election

was chosen as Premier. Strom invited Fimrite into his cabinet on December 12, 1968, as a Minister without Portfolio. He held that position until the end of his political career. Due to boundary redistribution the electoral district of Spirit River became Spirit River-Fairview. Fimrite ran for re-election in the new district in the

1971 Alberta general election The 1971 Alberta general election was the seventeenth general election held in the Province of Alberta, Canada on August 30, 1971, to elect seventy-five members of the Alberta Legislature to form the 17th Alberta Legislative Assembly. The Progr ...

. He was defeated by NDP leader

Grant Notley Walter Grant Notley (January 19, 1939 – October 19, 1984) was a Canadian politician. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1971 to 1984 and also served as leader of the Alberta NDP from 1968 to 1984. Early life Notl ...

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of Alberta Members Listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fimrite, Adolph 1990 deaths Alberta Social Credit Party MLAs 1913 births Members of the Executive Council of Alberta