Alberta general election, 1971
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39
30Peter Lougheed
Progressive Conservative
The Alberta general election of 1971 was the seventeenth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 30, 1971 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.
The Progressive Conservative Party, led by Peter Lougheed, broke the 36-year hegemony on Alberta politics of the Social Credit Party. Ernest C. Manning had resigned as Social Credit leader and premier in 1968, a year after leading the Socreds to their ninth consecutive majority government. His successor, Harry E. Strom, had been unable to revive what was seen as a tired regime; the party had been in government for almost two generations and was seen as old-fashioned, being first elected before oil was found in a big way in Alberta.
Lougheed, on the other hand, had significant momentum going into the 1971 election, increasing his caucus from the six members elected in 1967 to ten, after two floor crossings and two by-election wins (one of which was Manning's riding). The collapse of the other opposition parties made the PCs the only credible challenger to the Socreds. Lougheed, with 46% of the popular vote, won 49 of the 75 seats in the legislature and formed a strong majority government. This would be the first of 12 consecutive victories for the PCs; they would remain in government without interruption until their defeat in 2015, making them the longest serving political dynasty in Canadian history. Thus, the 1971 election is considered to be a classic example of a realigning election.
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