Lorne Lee Leavitt (December 6, 1906 – January 13, 1984) was a teacher and a provincial level 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 1952 to 1955 and a second stint from 1963 to 1971 sitting both times with the governing Social Credit caucus.

Political career

Leavitt would run for a seat 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 ...

. He ran as a Social Credit candidate in the electoral district of

Banff-Cochrane Banff-Cochrane was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1940 to 1975, and again from 1979 to 2019. The Banff-Cochrane electoral district is home to th ...

. Leavitt easily won the district defeating two other candidates, including Independent Social Credit incumbent

Arthur Wray Arthur Henry Wray (September 13, 1906 – December 1, 1993) was a provincial level politician from Alberta, Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1944 to 1952. He first sat with the governing Social Credit cau ...

. Leavitt ran for a second term 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 was defeated in a hotly contested fight by Frank Gainer. Gainer ran under the Coalition banner as he was jointly nominated by the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. Leavitt would try and run for a seat to the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada () is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Monarchy of Canada#Parliament (King-in-Parliament), Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Ca ...

in the electoral district of

Calgary North Calgary North was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1953 to 1997. This riding was created in 1952 from parts of the Bow River, Calgary West, and East Calgary ridings. T ...

as a candidate for federal

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

in the 1958 federal election. He finished a very distant second place to incumbent

Douglas Harkness Douglas Scott Harkness (29 March 1903 – 2 May 1999) was a Canadian politician. Early life and military service He was born in Toronto, Ontario, and moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1929. He graduated from the University of Alberta, then farmed ...

. Leavitt would run again provincially for Social Credit in the

1963 Alberta general election The 1963 Alberta general election was held on June 17, 1963, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The Social Credit Party, led by Ernest C. Manning, won its eighth consecutive term in government, winning roughly the same nu ...

in the electoral district of Calgary Queens Park. He won the district with just under half the popular vote defeating five candidates including future MLA

Roy Farran Major Roy Alexander Farran (2 January 1921 – 2 June 2006) was a British-Canadian soldier, politician, farmer, author and journalist. He was highly decorated for his exploits with the Special Air Service (SAS) during the Second World War. Farr ...

. He stood for his third term in office in the

1967 Alberta general election The 1967 Alberta general election was held on May 23, 1967, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta to the 16th Alberta Legislature. The election was called after the 15th Alberta Legislature was prorogued on April 11, 1967, an ...

. His margin of victory dropped as he only took 42% of the vote. He defeated future MLA Eric Musgreave and two other candidates. Leavitt retired from provincial politics at dissolution of the assembly in 1971.

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of Alberta Members Listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leavitt, Lee Alberta Social Credit Party MLAs Candidates in the 1958 Canadian federal election 1984 deaths 1906 births 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta