Harry Strom

Harry Edwin Strom (born July 7, 1914 in Burdett , Alberta , † October 2, 1984 in Edmonton ) was a Canadian politician and farmer . From December 12, 1968 to September 10, 1971, he was Prime Minister of the Province of Alberta and Chairman of the Social Credit Party of Alberta . He was also the first head of government born in this province.

biography

The son of Swedish immigrants took over his parents' farm after his father's death in 1938 and was active in local politics, as a city councilor for Burdett and as a member of various regional commissions. He was also a teacher in a Sunday school . In June 1955 he ran for membership in the Social Credit Party of Alberta in the Cypress constituency and was elected to the Alberta Legislative Assembly. From 1962 to 1968 he was Minister of Agriculture in Ernest Manning's cabinet, and in the second half of 1968 he was also Minister for Municipalities.

After Manning had led the Socreds to the ninth consecutive election victory, he resigned and handed over the business of government to Harry Strom on December 12, 1968. Under his leadership, Alberta received a ministry for the environment. Like his predecessors Ernest Manning and William Aberhart , Strom was an evangelical Christian and extremely conservative on social issues. After more than three decades in power, the Socreds had become complacent and barely responded to the growing importance of the rapidly growing cities of Calgary and Edmonton . The party, which was rooted in the country, lost more and more influence to the progressive conservatives under Peter Lougheed, which had an emphatically urban style .

In the August 1971 elections, the Socreds lost an absolute majority. Strom resigned the office of prime minister on September 10th to Lougheed and became opposition leader. However, the party was not in the least prepared to take on the role of the opposition, and a disintegration began that could no longer be stopped. In 1973, Strom gave up the chairmanship of the party, he was not re-elected in the March 1975 elections and withdrew from politics.

Web links

• Harry Edwin Strom ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• Biography on the Alberta Legislative Assembly website