Robert Archibald Simpson (April 5, 1910 – September 24, 1998) was a 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 was born in Toronto.

Political career

Simpson ran for a seat in 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 1962 federal election, as a

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 ...

candidate 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 ...

. He finished second to incumbent Douglas Scott Harkness by roughly 6,000 votes. Simpson challenged Harkness again a year later and lost by a wider margin. Shortly after his second defeat for federal office, Simpson ran for 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 ...

in the 1963 general election, as a

candidate in

. He defeated three other candidates by a wide margin. In the 1967 general election, he defeated Henry Beaumont of the Progressive Conservatives by about 400 votes. 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 The Alberta Legislature is the unicameral legislatur ...

, Calgary North had been abolished and Simpson sought re-election in the new riding of

Calgary North Hill Calgary-North Hill was a provincial electoral district in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting from 1971 to 2012. History The Calgary ...

. He was defeated by 67 votes by challenger

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 ...

of the Progressive Conservatives. Simpson attempted to regain the seat from Farran in the 1975 general election, but was defeated in a landslide. He was elected to the Calgary city council, serving from 1971 to 1980.

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of Alberta Members ListingMention of Robert A. Simpson's death
Politicians from Toronto Alberta Social Credit Party MLAs Alberta candidates for Member of Parliament Social Credit Party of Canada candidates in the 1962 Canadian federal election Calgary city councillors 1910 births 1998 deaths 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta {{Alberta-MLA-stub