Ashley Horace Cooper (February 6, 1905 – December 13, 1981) was a provincial politician from

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, 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. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected first past the post f ...

from 1959 to 1975 sitting with the Social Credit caucus in both government and opposition.

Political career

Cooper ran for a seat to the Alberta Legislature as a Social Credit candidate for the first time 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 ran in a hotly contested race in the electoral district of Vermilion against Liberal candidate Russell Whitson and two other candidates. Cooper initially lead the race on the first vote count, but fell behind in the third count losing to Whitson by 20 votes. Cooper and Whitson faced each other for the second time in the

1959 Alberta general election The 1959 Alberta general election was held on June 18, 1959, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Ernest C. Manning, in his fifth election as party leader and provincial premier, led the Social Credit Party to its seventh c ...

. This time Cooper won defeating Whitson and two other candidates by a wide margin. He ran for a second term in office in the 1963 general election and won a larger majority to keep his seat. Cooper ran for a third term in office in the 1967 general election. He defeated two other candidates polling another strong popular vote. Due to boundary redistribution in 1971, the electoral district of Vermilion became Vermilion-Viking. Cooper ran for his fourth term in the new district in the 1971 general election. He faced a tough fight to keep his seat from Progressive Conservative candidate Tom Newcomb who finished just 200 votes behind Cooper. Cooper retired from provincial politics at dissolution of the assembly in 1975.

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of Alberta Members Listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Ashley Alberta Social Credit Party MLAs 1905 births 1981 deaths 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta