General election albertaine of 1971

The general election albertaine of 1971 is the 17th general election in the Canadian province of the Alberta since its creation in 1905. It is held the August 30th 1971 in order to elect the Député S of the 17th legislature to the legislative Assemblée of Alberta.

The Parti progressist-conservative carried out by Peter Lougheed breaks the 36 years hegemony on the policy albertaine of the Parti social Credit.

Context

Ernest Manning had resigned as a creditist chief and a Prime Minister in 1968, one year after having led the social Credit to their ninth consecutive majority government. Its successor, Harry Strom, is unable to reinvigorate a government perceived as being exhausted. During this time, Lougheed has an important momentum while entering the electoral campaign; before the election, its caucus had passed from six deputies to ten after two defections and two victories to the bys-election. The collapse of the other opposition parties makes that the conservatives are the only credible alternative with the creditists. Lougheed, with 46% of the voices, gains 49 seats out of 75 with the legislative Parliament and form a majority Gouvernement extremely.

Roof of the irony, the social Credit collects a record number of votes to this election. Although they lost only one small portion of their share of the votes of 1967, their support in the two big cities of the province, Edmonton and Calgary, evaporates literally. The party loses all its seats with Edmonton, and all except five in Calgary. Because of the eccentricity inherent in the majority Uninominal system with a turn, these losses decimate the caucus creditist, reducing them to 25 seats.

The defeat sounds the beginning of the decline of the Party social Credit. Although present at the legislative Parliament until in 1982, it succeeds in never again becoming an important political clout in Alberta.

The Liberal party is excluded from the legislative Parliament. Before the election, one of its deputies had made defection with the Party progressist-conservative and all the others had resigned well before the release of the election. Grant Notley is the only deputy elected for the Nouveau Democratic party and remains the single néo-democrat with the legislative Parliament until in 1982.

Results

Note:

* did not introduce candidates at the time of the preceding election.

Referendum immediately of summer

Jointly with the general election, Alberta holds its fourth provincial Référendum. The voters must answer a question whether yes asking or not they support a proposal for the adoption of the Summer-time. The proposal had been disallowed by a very mean margin in 1967. This time, it is adopted by a very great margin with 61,37% of the voices.

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