Arthur Sifton
Premier of Alberta
Died when: 62 years 87 days (746 months)Star Sign: Scorpio
Arthur Lewis Watkins Sifton PC PC (Can) KC (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 thereafter.Born in Canada West (now Ontario), he grew up there and in Winnipeg, where he became a lawyer.
He subsequently practised law with his brother Clifford Sifton in Brandon, where he was also active in municipal politics.He moved west to Prince Albert in 1885 and to Calgary in 1889.
There, he was elected to the 4th and 5th North-West Legislative Assemblies; he served as a minister in the government of premier Frederick Haultain.
In 1903, the federal government, at the instigation of his brother (who was then one of its ministers), made Sifton the Chief Justice of the Northwest Territories.
After Alberta was created out of a portion of the Northwest Territories in 1905, Sifton became the first Chief Justice of Alberta in 1907 and served until 1910.
In 1910, the Liberal government of Alberta premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford was embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal.
The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, George Bulyea, was a Liberal and determined that for the sake of the Alberta Liberal Party, Rutherford had to be pushed aside in favour of a new premier.
When other prominent Liberals declined it, the position was offered to Sifton, who accepted it.As premier, Sifton smoothed over the divisions in the party that had caused and been exacerbated by the railway scandal.
He made attempts to break with the Rutherford railway policy; when these were rebuffed by the courts, he adopted a course similar to Rutherford's.
He unsuccessfully pursued the transfer of rights over Alberta's natural resources from the federal government, which had retained them by the terms of Alberta's provincehood.
While Sifton was premier, the United Farmers of Alberta rose as a political force.Sifton tried to accommodate many of their demands: his government constructed agricultural colleges, incorporated a farmer-run grain elevator cooperative, and implemented a municipal system of hail insurance.
Outside of agriculture, the UFA was instrumental in the Sifton government's implementation of some direct democracy measures (which resulted in prohibition) and the extension of the vote to women.
During the conscription crisis of 1917, Sifton supported the Conservative prime minister, Robert Borden, in his attempt to impose conscription to help win the First World War.
He backed the creation of a federal Union government composed of Conservatives and pro-conscription Liberals.In 1917, he left provincial politics and became a cabinet minister in the Union government.
Over the next three and a half years, he served briefly in four different ministries and was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
He died in Ottawa in January 1921 after a brief illness.
