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Arthur Lewis Sifton

The Right Honourable
Arthur Sifton
PC (UK), PC (Can), KC
Arthur Lewis Watkins Sifton.jpg
2nd Premier of Alberta
In office
May 26, 1910 – October 30, 1917
Monarch George V
Lieutenant Governor George H. V. Bulyea
Robert Brett
Preceded by Alexander Cameron Rutherford
Succeeded by Charles Stewart
Alberta provincial treasurer
In office
March 26, 1913 – November 28, 1913
Preceded by Malcolm MacKenzie
Succeeded by Charles R. Mitchell
In office
June 1, 1910 – May 4, 1912
Preceded by Alexander Cameron Rutherford
Succeeded by Malcolm MacKenzie
Alberta Minister of Public Works
In office
June 1, 1910 – May 4, 1912
Preceded by William Henry Cushing
Succeeded by Charles R. Mitchell
Alberta Minister of Railways and Telephones
In office
December 20, 1912 – October 30, 1917
Preceded by Alexander Cameron Rutherford1
Succeeded by Charles Stewart
Canadian Secretary of State
In office
December 31, 1919 – January 21, 1921
Preceded by Martin Burrell
Succeeded by Henry Lumley Drayton
Canadian Minister of Public Works
In office
September 3, 1919 – December 30, 1919
Preceded by John Dowsley Reid
Succeeded by John Dowsley Reid
Canadian Minister of Customs and Inland Revenue
In office
May 14, 1918 – September 1, 1919
Preceded by Albert Sévigny (as Minister of Inland Revenue)
Continuing (as Minister of Customs)
Succeeded by John Dowsley Reid
Canadian Minister of Customs
In office
October 12, 1917 – May 14, 1918
Preceded by John Dowsley Reid
Succeeded by Continuing
Northwest Territories Territorial Treasurer
In office
March 1, 1901 – January 14, 1903
Preceded by James Hamilton Ross
Succeeded by Frederick Haultain
Northwest Territories Minister of Public Works
In office
March 1, 1901 – January 14, 1903
Preceded by James Hamilton Ross
Succeeded by George Bulyea
Member of Parliament for Medicine Hat
In office
December 17, 1917 – January 21, 1921
Preceded by William Ashbury Buchanan
Succeeded by Robert Gardiner
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Vermilion
In office
June 29, 1910 – October 12, 1917
Preceded by Archibald Campbell
Succeeded by Arthur Ebbett
Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories for Banff
In office
June 27, 1899 – January 1903
Preceded by Robert Brett
Succeeded by Charles Wellington Fisher
Member of the Brandon City Council
In office
1882–1884
Personal details
Born Arthur Lewis Watkins Sifton
October 26, 1858
Middlesex County, Canada West
Died January 21, 1921(1921-01-21) (aged 62)
Ottawa, Ontario
Political party Alberta Liberal Party (1910–1917)
Other political
affiliations
Liberal-Conservative (1902–1903)
Unionist Party (1917–1921)
Spouse(s) Mary H. Deering
Children 2
Signature
1 Rutherford served as Minister of Railways until June 1, 1910, after which the position was vacant until Sifton took it. Minister of Telephones was a new position.

Arthur Lewis Watkins Sifton, PC (UK), PC (Can), KC (October 26, 1858 – January 21, 1921), was a Canadian politician who served as the second Premier of Alberta from 1910 until 1917. He became a minister in the Government of Canada thereafter. Born in Ontario, he grew up there and in Winnipeg, where he became a lawyer. He subsequently practised law with his brother Clifford Sifton in Brandon, Manitoba, 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 later served as a minister in the government of Premier Frederick W. A. G. Haultain. In 1903, the federal government, at the instigation of his brother who was now one of its ministers, made Arthur Sifton the Chief Justice of the Northwest Territories. When Alberta was created out of a portion of the Northwest Territories in 1905, Sifton became its first chief justice.

In 1910, the government of Alberta Premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford was embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal. The Liberal Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta, George Bulyea, determined that for the sake of the Liberal Party of Alberta, Rutherford had to be pushed aside in favour of a new Premier. When other prominent Liberals declined it, the position was offered to Sifton. As Premier, he 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.


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