Calgary was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return one to six members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1905 to 1913, and again from 1921 to 1959. The district largely encompassed the boundaries of the City of Calgary, and was revised accordingly as the city grew.
Calgary history
Boundary history
Electoral history
The first iteration of the Calgary provincial electoral district in Alberta was created in the 1905 provincial boundary distribution. The district was known in that first election as Calgary City. Prior to 1905 when Calgary was still part of the Northwest Territories there were two districts East Calgary and West Calgary, which were split from the original Calgary Northwest Territories district in 1894. Calgary district first came into existence when Calgary had a sufficiently large population to meet the requirements to elect members in the Northwest Territories in 1884.
The first election in the district was held with the provincial general election of 1905. The election saw Liberal Minister of Public Works William Cushing win election against Conservative leader Richard Bennett. Cushing was named to the Rutherford prior to the election.
The number of seats in Calgary was increased to two in 1909. In that election Bennett and Cushing both won election, each elector in Calgary had two votes to vote for each seat. Bennett resigned to run for federal office and a by-election was held in 1911 to replace him.
The district was abolished and broken up into three electoral districts in 1913. The riding's were South Calgary, Centre Calgary and North Calgary. In 1921 the Liberal government promised to bring in proportion representation. They did not and instead decided to combine the three Calgary districts and add two more seats. Voters had the option of casting up to five votes and the top five candidates were elected by plurality Block Voting). As previously under Block Voting, Calgary voters did not vote the straight party line and two Independent, two Labour and a Liberal MLA were elected.
The United Farmers of Alberta passed legislation in 1924 that changed both Edmonton and Calgary to Single Transferable Vote multi-member districts. The rest of the province had single member constituencies and used Alternative Vote, where vote transfers were conducted if the leading candidate did not have a clear majority of 50% on the first count.
The 1926 and 1930 elections saw Calgary elect all opposition candidates because the United Farmers government decided not to field any candidates there. Under Single Transferable Voting the number of spoiled ballots jumped sharply as a sizable number of electors continued marking ballots with an "X". Calgary's first STV election produced mixed representation with no party taking all the seats. The 1935 election saw Social Credit candidates sweep to power But Calgary again elected a mixture of SC and non-SC MLAs.
By the 1950s, Calgary and Edmonton had gone through significant growth. arriving at the final results in both cities would take days and was complicated in terms of counting the vote transfers. The length in terms of names on the ballots was causing long line-ups at polling stations, with electors taking as long as 15 minutes to mark their preferences. However, Calgary's ballot in 1955 held only 23 names and the voter was under no dictate to rank all the candidates on the list.
In 1957 the Social Credit government passed legislation standardizing the electoral system to First Past the Post across the province. The government passed a separate redistribution bill that divided Calgary and Edmonton into single member districts. In Calgary those districts were Calgary West, Calgary Glenmore, Calgary Bowness, Calgary North East, Calgary South East, Calgary Centre and Calgary North. The last election held in the district, a by-election in 1957, was conducted under the first past the post method.
Party composition by date 1905-1913
Party composition by date 1921-1959
Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs)
Election results
1905 general election
The Calgary electoral district was created when Alberta became a province independent of the Northwest Territories in 1905. Calgary had previously had two seats when it was represented in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. This change created controversy because Conservatives accused the Liberals of creating more seats in northern Alberta where their support and organization was stronger. The two riding's previously represented in the city were West Calgary and East Calgary.