Claresholm was a

provincial Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Canad ...

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

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, mandated to return a single

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

to 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 ...

using the

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

method of voting from 1909 to 1929.

History

The Claresholm electoral district was formed prior to the

1909 Alberta general election The 1909 Alberta general election was the second general election held in the province of Alberta, Canada. It took place on March 22, 1909, to elect 41 members to the 2nd Alberta Legislature. The incumbent Alberta Liberal Party, Liberal Party led ...

from the northern portion of the

Macleod MacLeod, McLeod and Macleod ( ) are surnames in the English language. The names are anglicised forms of the Scottish Gaelic ', meaning "son of Leòd", derived from the Old Norse ''Liótr'' ("ugly"). One of the earliest occurrences of the surnam ...

electoral district. The electoral district was renamed Nanton-Claresholm prior to the

1930 Alberta general election The 1930 Alberta general election was held on June 19, 1930, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The United Farmers of Alberta won election to a third term in government, and John E. Brownlee continued as premier. This pro ...

. Malcolm McKenzie was elected the first MLA for Claresholm in the 1909 election, McKenzie was the incumbent, having been elected to the Macleod electoral district in

1905 As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony i ...

. McKenzie's margin of victory in Claresholm was much larger than he had achieved in 1905. Premier

Arthur Sifton Arthur Lewis Watkins Sifton (October 26, 1858 – January 21, 1921) was a Canadian lawyer, judge and politician who served as the second premier of Alberta from 1910 until 1917. He became a minister in the federal cabinet of Canada therea ...

appointed McKenzie Provincial Treasurer. In keeping with the era's custom, McKenzie responded to the cabinet appointment by resigning his seat in the legislature to contest it in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

. Despite his previous wide margins, in 1912 he carried Claresholm by only 14 votes. McKenzie's tenure as treasurer was not to last long: he caught a chill while attending the convention that nominated him as the Liberals' Claresholm candidate in the 1913 election, and by the time he returned to Edmonton on March 10, 1913, he was confine to bed. He had developed

peritonitis Peritonitis is inflammation of the localized or generalized peritoneum, the lining of the inner wall of the abdomen and covering of the abdominal organs. Symptoms may include severe pain, swelling of the abdomen, fever, or weight loss. One pa ...

, and died from it on March 15. In the

1917 Alberta general election The 1917 Alberta general election was held on 7 June 1917 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The Liberals won a fourth term in office, defeating the Conservative Party of Edward Michener. Because of World War I, eleven Me ...

Louise McKinney Louise McKinney (; 22 September 186810 July 1931) was a Canadian politician, Temperance movement, temperance advocate, and women's rights activist. She was the first woman elected into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the first woman to ...

was elected in Claresholm. She was the first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, and the first woman elected to a legislature in the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

. She served in the Alberta legislature from 1917 to 1921 as a member of the

Non-Partisan League The Nonpartisan League (NPL) was a left-wing political party founded in 1915 in North Dakota by Arthur C. Townley, a former organizer (party), organizer for the Socialist Party of America. On behalf of small farmers and merchants, the Nonpartisan ...

. McKinney defeated

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

incumbent and former Mayor of Claresholm William Moffat. She was one of two women elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1917, the other being

Roberta MacAdams Lt. Roberta Catherine Price née MacAdams (July 21, 1880 – December 16, 1959) was a provincial level politician and military dietitian from Alberta, Canada. She was the second woman elected to a legislative body in the British Empire and t ...

. Later McKinney was one of the

Famous Five ''The Famous Five'' is a series of children's adventure novels and short stories written by English author Enid Blyton. The first book, ''Five on a Treasure Island'', was published in 1942. The novels feature the adventures of a group of you ...

who campaigned successfully for the right of Canadian women to be appointed to the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. McKinney ran for re-election in the

1921 Alberta general election The 1921 Alberta general election was held on July 18, 1921, to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly. The Liberal government is replaced by the United Farmers of Alberta. It was one of only five times that Alberta has changed gov ...

as a member of the United Farmers. She was defeated by Independent Farmer candidate

Thomas Milnes Thomas Charles Milnes (March 11, 1870 – April 30, 1954) was a Canadian provincial politician from Alberta. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1921 to 1925 sitting as an Independent and as Mayor of Claresholm from ...

. The electoral district is named for the town of

Claresholm Claresholm is a town located within southern Alberta, Canada. It is located on Highway 2, approximately northwest of the City of Lethbridge and south of the City of Calgary. History The location was originally a watering stop for steam engin ...

, Alberta. In 1926, the district used

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV; ranked-choice voting (RCV), preferential voting, alternative vote) is a single-winner ranked voting election system where Sequential loser method, one or more eliminations are used to simulate Runoff (election), ...

to elect its MLA.A Report on Alberta Elections, 1905-1982

Election results

1900s

1910s

1920s

References

External links

Elections AlbertaThe Legislative Assembly of Alberta
{{coord missing, Alberta Former provincial electoral districts of Alberta 1909 establishments in Alberta