Edmonton municipal election, 1907

The 1907 municipal election was held December 9, 1907, for the purpose of electing a mayor and five aldermen to sit on the Edmonton City Council, as well as five public school trustees and six separate school trustees. There were also four proposed bylaws put to a vote of the electorate concurrently with the election.

There were eight aldermen on city council, but three of the positions were already filled: Cameron Anderson and Wilfrid Gariépy had been elected to two-year terms in 1906, and were still in office. James Walker had also been elected to a two-year term, but resigned, and had been replaced by Daniel Fraser, who was also still in office.

Thomas Daly had been elected to a two-year term in 1906, but resigned and hadn't been replaced. Accordingly, the fifth place aldermanic candidate in the 1907 election - Herman McInnis - was elected only to serve out the remaining year of Daly's term.

The candidates for mayor were former mayor John Alexander McDougall and incumbent councillor Joseph Henri Picard. McDougall was nominated by William Short, Arthur Cushing, J C Dowsett, W R West, A E Jackson, and J W Huff. Picard was nominated by William Antrobus Griesbach, Thomas Bellamy, George Manuel, William Thomas Henry, W J Graves, T P Hobson, and G K Allen.

The election showed some signs of nastiness, as an anonymous letter (signed by a Mr. "Graybrook") attacking mayoral candidate McDougall was published in the Edmonton Journal. The letter accused McDougall of demanding an unfairly inflated price for land the city intended to buy from him, and of making pledges to reduce municipal taxes without being sufficiently familiar with the city's financial situation. The letter's writer was eventually exposed as being incumbent mayor William Antrobus Griesbach, who was not seeking re-election but who was supporting McDougall's opponent, Picard.

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