Calgary Alberta Information

Calgary (/?kæl?ri?/ ? KAL-gree[11]) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Alberta. It is the largest metro area within the three Prairie provinces region. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.[12] Calgary is situated at the confluence of the Bow River and the Elbow River in the southwest of the province, in the transitional area between the Rocky Mountain Foothills and the Canadian Prairies, about 80 km (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies, roughly 299 km (186 mi) south of the provincial capital of Edmonton and approximately 240 km (150 mi) north of the Canada–United States border. The city anchors the south end of the Statistics Canada-defined urban area, the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor.[13] Calgary’s economy includes activity in the energy, financial services, film and television, transportation, and logistics, technology, manufacturing, aerospace, health and wellness, retail, and tourism sectors.[14] The Calgary Metropolitan Region is home to Canada’s second-largest number of corporate head offices among the country’s 800 largest corporations.[15] In 2015, Calgary had the largest number of millionaires per capita of any major Canadian city.[16] In 2022, Calgary was ranked alongside Zürich as the third most livable city in the world, ranking first in Canada and in North America.[17] In 1988, it became the first Canadian city to host the Olympic Winter Games.[18] Calgary was named after Calgary Castle (in Scottish Gaelic, Caisteal Chalgairidh) on the Isle of Mull in Scotland.[19] Colonel James Macleod, the Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, had been a frequent summer guest there. In 1876, shortly after returning to Canada, he suggested its name for what became Fort Calgary. The Scottish Gaelic placename Calgairidh, in turn, possibly originates from a compound of kald and gart, Old Norse words, meaning “cold” and “garden”. If so, the placename is likely a relic of Norse settler-colonists who occupied the Inner Hebrides in the medieval period.[20] A competing etymology cites the Gaelic cala[dh] gàrraidh, which means “enclosed meadow (or pasture) harbour”, or, alternatively, cala[dh]-gheàrraidh, meaning “harbour pasture”.[19][21][22][23] The first of these two possibilities, arguably translatable as “meadow harbour”, has some relevance to local geography: the town of Calgary, such as it is, has a large meadow to its east, and this meadow leads to Calgary beach. The name of the city serves as a shibboleth, as residents correctly pronounce the name with two syllables, /?kæl?ri?/ KAL-gree, while others mistakenly pronounce it /?kæl??ri/ KAL-g?r-ee.[11][24] The Indigenous peoples of Southern Alberta refer to the Calgary area as “elbow”, in reference to the sharp bend made by the Bow River and the Elbow River. In some cases, the area was named after the reeds that grew along the riverbanks, reeds that had been used to fashion bows. In the Blackfoot language (Siksiká) the area is known as Mohkínstsis akápiyoyis, meaning “elbow many houses”, reflecting its strong settler presence. The shorter form of the Blackfoot name, Mohkínstsis, simply meaning “elbow”,[25][26][27] is the popular Indigenous term for the Calgary area.[28][29][30][31][32] In the Nakoda or Stoney language, the area is known as Wîchîspa Oyade or Wenchi Ispase, both meaning “elbow”.[25][27] In the Cree language, the area is known as otôskwanihk (??????) meaning “at the elbow”[33] or otôskwunee meaning “elbow”. In the Tsuut?ina language (Sarcee), the area is known as Guts’ists’i (older orthography, Kootsisáw) meaning “elbow”.[25][27] In Kutenai language, the city is referred to as ?aknuqtap?ik’.[34] In the Slavey language, the area is known as Klincho-tinay-indihay meaning “many horse town”, referring to the Calgary Stampede[25] and the city’s settler heritage.[27] There have been several attempts to revive the Indigenous names of Calgary. In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, local post-secondary institutions adopted “official acknowledgements” of Indigenous territory using the Blackfoot name of the city, Mohkínstsis.[30][31][35][36][37] In 2017, the Stoney Nakoda sent an application to the Government of Alberta, to rename Calgary as Wichispa Oyade meaning “elbow town”;[38] however, this was challenged by the Piikani Blackfoot.[39] The Calgary area was inhabited by pre-Clovis people whose presence traces back at least 11,000 years.[40] The area has been inhabited by multiple First Nations, the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy; Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), îyârhe Nakoda, the Tsuut?ina peoples and Métis Nation, Region 3. As Mayor Naheed Nenshi said in 2018, “There have always been people here. In Biblical times there were people here. For generations beyond number, people have come here to this land, drawn here by the water. They come here to hunt and fish; to trade; to live; to love; to have great victories; to taste bitter disappointment; but above all to engage in that very human act of building community.”[41] In 1787, David Thompson, a 17-year-old cartographer with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), spent the winter with a band of Piikani Nation encamped along the Bow River. He was also a fur trader and surveyor and the first recorded European to visit the area. John Glenn was the first documented European settler in the Calgary area, in 1873.[42] In spring 1875, three priests – Lacombe, Remus, and Scollen – built a small log cabin on the banks of the Elbow River.[43] In the fall of 1875, the site became a post of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) (now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP). The NWMP detachment was assigned to protect the western plains from US whisky traders, and to protect the fur trade, and Inspector Éphrem-A. Brisebois led fifty Mounties as part of F Troop north from Fort Macleod to establish the site.[43] The I. G. Baker Company of Fort Benton, Montana, was contracted to construct a suitable fort, and after its completion, the Baker company built a log store next to the fort.[44] The NWMP fort remained officially nameless until construction was complete, although it had been referred to as “The Mouth” by people at Fort Macleod.[45] At Christmas dinner NWMP Inspector Éphrem-A. Brisebois christened the unnamed Fort “Fort Brisebois”, a decision which caught the ire of his superiors Colonel James Macleod and Major Acheson Irvine.[45] Major Irvine cancelled the order by Brisebois and wrote Hewitt Bernard, the then Deputy Minister of Justice in Ottawa, describing the situation and suggesting the name “Calgary” put forward by Colonel Macleod. Edward Blake, at the time Minister of Justice, agreed with the name and in the spring of 1876, Fort Calgary was officially established.[46] In 1877, the First Nations ceded title to the Fort Calgary region through Treaty 7.[citation needed] In 1881 the federal government began to offer leases for cattle ranching in Alberta (up to 400 km2 (100,000 acres) for one cent per acre per year) under the Dominion Lands Act, which became a catalyst for immigration to the settlement. The I. G. Baker Company drove the first herd of cattle to the region in the same year for the Cochrane area by order of Major James Walker.[47] The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) reached the area in August 1883 and constructed a railway station on the CPR-owned Section 15, neighbouring the townsite across the Elbow River to the east on Section 14. The difficulty in crossing the river and the CPR’s efforts to persuade residents resulted in the core of the Calgary townsite moving onto Section 15, with the fate of the old townsite sealed when the post office was anonymously moved across the icy Elbow River during the night.[48] The CPR subdivided Section 15 and began selling lots surrounding the station, $450 for corner lots and $350 for all others; and pioneer Felix McHugh constructed the first private building on the site.[48] Earlier in the decade it was not expected that the railway would pass near Calgary; instead, the preferred route put forward by people concerned with the young nation’s defence was passing near Edmonton and through the Yellowhead Pass. However, in 1881 CPR changed the plans preferring the direct route through the prairies by way of Kicking Horse Pass.[49] Along with the CPR, August 1883 brought Calgary the first edition of the Calgary Herald published on the 31st under the title The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser by teacher Andrew M. Armour and printer Thomas B. Braden, a weekly newspaper with a subscription price of $1 per year.[50] Over a century later, the CPR headquarters moved to Calgary from Montreal in 1996.[51] Residents of the now-eight-year-old settlement sought to form a local government of their own. In the first weeks of 1884, James Reilly who was building the Royal Hotel east of the Elbow River circulated 200 handbills announcing a public meeting on January 7, 1884, at the Methodist Church.[52][53] At the full meeting Reilly advocated for a bridge across the Elbow River and a civic committee to watch over the interests of the public until Calgary could be incorporated. The attendees were enthusiastic about the committee and on the next evening a vote was held to elect the seven members. A total of 24 candidates were nominated, which equalled 10 per cent of Calgary’s male population. Major James Walker received 88 votes, the most amongst the candidates, the other six members were Dr. Andrew Henderson, George Clift King, Thomas Swan, George Murdoch, J. D. Moulton, and Captain John Stewart.[52] The civic committee met with Edgar Dewdney, Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, who happened to be in Calgary at the time,[53] to discuss an allowance for a school, an increase from $300 to $1,000 grant for a bridge over the Elbow River, incorporation as a town, and representation for Calgary in the Legislative Council of the North-West Territories.[54] The committee was successful in getting an additional $200 for the bridge,[54] In May, Major Walker, acting on instructions from the NWT Lieutenant-governor, organized a public meeting in the NWMP barracks room on the issue of getting a representative in the NWT Council. Walker wrote the clerk of the Council that he was prepared to produce evidence that Calgary and environs (an area of 1000 square miles) held 1000 residents, the requirement for having a Council member.[55] A by-election was held on June 28, 1884, where James Davidson Geddes defeated James Kidd Oswald to become the Calgary electoral district representative on the 1st Council of the North-West Territories.[56][57] As for education, Calgary moved quickly: the Citizen’s Committee raised $125 on February 6, 1884, and the first school opened for twelve children days later on February 18, led by teacher John William Costello.[58] The private school was not enough for the needs of the town and following a petition by James Walker the Calgary Protestant Public School District No. 19 was formed by the Legislature on March 2, 1885.[59] On November 27, 1884, Lieutenant Governor Dewdney proclaimed the incorporation of The Town of Calgary.[60] Shortly after on December 3, Calgarians went to the polls to elect their first mayor and four councillors. The North-West Municipal Ordinance of 1884 provided voting rights to any male British subject over 21 years of age who owned at minimum $300 of property. Each elector was able to cast one vote for the mayor and up to four votes for the councillors (plurality block voting).[61] George Murdoch won the mayoral race in a landslide victory with 202 votes over E. Redpath’s 16, while Simon Jackson Hogg, Neville James Lindsay, Joseph Henry Millward, and Simon John Clarke were elected councillors.[62] The next morning the Council met for the first time at Beaudoin and Clarke’s Saloon.[63] Law and order remained top of mind in the frontier town, in early 1884 Jack Campbell was appointed as a constable for the community, and in early 1885 the Town Council passed By-law Eleven creating the position of Chief Constable and assigning relevant duties, a precursor to the Calgary Police Service. The first chief constable, John (Jack) S. Ingram, who had previously served as the first police chief in Winnipeg, was empowered to arrest drunken and disorderly people, stop all fast riding in town, attend all fires and council meetings.[64][65] Calgary Town Council was eager to employ constables versus contracting the NWMP for town duty as the police force was seen as a money-making proposition. Constables received half of the fines from liquor cases, meaning Chief Constable Ingram could easily pay his $60 per month salary and the expense of a town jail.[65] For the Town of Calgary, 1884 turned out to be a success. However, two dark years lay ahead for the fledgling community. The turmoil started in late 1885, when Councillor Clarke was arrested for threatening a plain-clothes Mountie who entered his saloon to conduct a late-night search. When the officer failed to produce a search warrant, Clarke chased him off the premises; however, the Mountie returned with reinforcements and arrested Clarke.[66] Clarke found himself before Stipendiary Magistrate Jeremiah Travis, a proponent of the temperance movement who was appalled by the open traffic of liquor, gambling and prostitution in Calgary despite prohibition in the North-West Territories.[67] Travis’ view was accurate as the Royal Commission of Liquor Traffic of 1892 found liquor was sold openly, both day and night during prohibition.[65] Travis associated Clarke with the troubles he saw in Calgary and found him guilty, and sentenced Clarke to six months with hard labour.[67] Murdoch and the other members of Council were shocked, and a public meeting was held at Boynton’s Hall in which a decision was made to send a delegation to Ottawa to seek an overruling of Travis’ judgement by the Department of Justice. The community quickly raised $500, and Murdoch and a group of residents headed east.[67] The punishment of Clarke did not escape Hugh Cayley the editor of the Calgary Herald and Clerk of the District Court. Cayley published articles critical of Travis and his judgment, in which Travis responded by calling Cayley to court, dismissing him from his position as Clerk, ordering Cayley to apologize and pay a $100 fine.[68] Cayley refused to pay the fine, which Travis increased to $500, and on January 5, the day after the January 1886 Calgary town election, Cayley was imprisoned by Travis.[68] Murdoch returned to Calgary on December 27, 1885, only a week before the election to find the town in disarray.[68] Shortly before the 1886 election, G. E. Marsh brought a charge of corruption against Murdoch and council over irregularities in the voters’ list. Travis found Murdoch and the councillors guilty, disqualifying them from running in the 1886 election, barring them from municipal office for two years, and fining Murdoch $100, and the councillors $20. This was despite the fact Murdoch was visiting Eastern Canada while the alleged tampering was occurring.[69] Travis’ disqualification did not dissuade Calgary voters, and Murdoch defeated his opponent James Reilly by a significant margin in early January to be re-elected as mayor.[70] Travis accepted a petition from Reilly to unseat Murdoch and two of the elected councillors, and declare Reilly the mayor of Calgary.[71] Both Murdoch and Reilly claimed to be the lawful mayor of the growingly disorganized Town of Calgary, both holding council meetings and attempting to govern.[71] Word of the issues in Calgary reached the Minister of Justice John Sparrow David Thompson in Ottawa who ordered Justice Thomas Wardlaw Taylor of Winnipeg to conduct an inquiry into the “Case of Jeremiah Travis”. The federal government acted before receiving Taylor’s report, Jeremiah Travis was suspended, and the government waited for his official tenure to expire, after which he was pensioned off.[72] Justice Taylor’s report, which was released in June 1887, found Travis had exceeded his authority and erred in his judgements.[69][73] The Territorial Council called for a new municipal election to be held in Calgary on November 3, 1886. George Clift King defeated his opponent John Lineham for the office of Mayor of Calgary.[74][75] Calgary had only a couple days’ peace following the November election before the Calgary Fire of 1886 destroyed much of the community’s downtown. Part of the slow response to the fire can be attributed to the absence of functioning local government during 1886. As neither George Murdoch or James Reilly was capable of effectively governing the town, the newly ordered chemical engine for the recently organized Calgary Fire Department (Calgary Hook, Ladder and Bucket Corps) was held in the CPR’s storage yard due to lack of payment. Members of the Calgary Fire Department broke into the CPR storage yard on the day of the fire to retrieve the engine.[76] In total, fourteen buildings were destroyed with losses estimated at $103,200, although no one was killed or injured.[77] The new Town Council sprung into action, drafting a bylaw requiring all large downtown buildings to be built with sandstone, which was readily available nearby in the form of Paskapoo sandstone.[78] Following the fire several quarries were opened around the city by prominent local businessmen including Thomas Edworthy, Wesley Fletcher Orr, J. G. McCallum, and William Oliver. Prominent buildings built with sandstone following the fire include Knox Presbyterian Church (1887), Imperial Bank Building (1887), Calgary City Hall (1911), and Calgary Courthouse No. 2 (1914).[79][80] In February 1887, Donald Watson Davis, who was running the I.G. Baker store in Calgary, was elected MP for Alberta (Provisional District). A former whisky trader in southern Alberta, he had turned his hand to building Fort Macleod and Fort Calgary. The main other contender for the job, Frank Oliver, was a prominent Edmontonian, so Davis’s success was a sign that Calgary was surpassing Edmonton, previously the main centre on the western Prairies.[81] Calgary continued to expand when real estate speculation took hold of Calgary in 1889. Speculators began buying and building west of Centre Street, and Calgary quickly began to sprawl west to the ire of property owners on the east side of town.[82] Property owners on both sides of Centre Street sought to bring development to their side of Calgary, lost successfully[clarification needed] by eastsider James Walker who convinced the Town Council to purchase land on the east side to build a stockyard, guaranteeing meat packing and processing plants would be constructed on the east side.[83] By 1892 Calgary had reached present-day Seventeenth Avenue, east to the Elbow River and west to Eighth Street,[84] and the first federal census listed the boom town at 3,876 inhabitants.[85] The economic conditions in Calgary began to deteriorate in 1892,[86] as development in the downtown slowed, the streetcar system started in 1889 was put on hold[87] and smaller property owners began to sell.[88] The first step in connecting the District of Alberta happened in Calgary on July 21, 1890, as Minister of the Interior Edgar Dewdney turned the first sod for the Calgary and Edmonton Railway in front of two thousand residents.[89][90] The railway was completed in August 1891. Although its end-of-steel was on the south side of the river opposite Edmonton, it immensely shortened travel time between the two communities. Previously stagecoach passengers and mail could arrive in five days and animal pulled freight anywhere between two and three weeks,[91] the train was able to make the trip in only a few hours.[92] Smallpox arrived in Calgary in June 1892 when a Chinese resident was found with the disease, and by August nine people had contracted the disease with three deaths. Calgarians placed the blame for the disease on the local Chinese population, resulting in a riot on August 2, 1892.[93] Residents descended on the Town’s Chinese-owned laundries, smashing windows and attempting to burn the structures to the ground. The local police did not attempt to intervene. Mayor Alexander Lucas had inexplicably left town during the riot,[94] and when he returned home he called the NWMP in to patrol Calgary for three weeks to prevent further riots.[95][96] Finally on January 1, 1894, Calgary was granted a charter by the 2nd North-West Legislative Assembly, officially titled Ordinance 33 of 1894, the City of Calgary Charter elevated the frontier town to the status of a full-fledged city.[97] Calgary became the first city in the North-West Territories, receiving its charter a decade before Edmonton and Regina. The Calgary charter remained in force until it was repealed with the Cities Act in 1950. The charter came into effect in such a way as to prevent the regularly scheduled municipal election in December 1893, and recognizing the importance of the moment, the entire Town Council resigned to ensure the new city could choose the first Calgary City Council.[98] Calgary’s first municipal election as a city saw Wesley Fletcher Orr garner 244 votes, narrowly defeating his opponent William Henry Cushing’s 220 votes, and Orr was named the first mayor of the City of Calgary.[99] By late 19th century, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) expanded into the interior and established posts along rivers that later developed into the modern cities of Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton. In 1884, the HBC established a sales shop in Calgary. HBC also built the first of the grand “original six” department stores in Calgary in 1913; others that followed were Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg.[100][101] In October 1899 the Village of Rouleauville was incorporated by French Catholic residents south of Calgary’s city limits in what is now known as Mission.[102] The town did not remain independent for long, and became the first incorporated municipality to be amalgamated into Calgary eight years later in 1907. The turn of the century brought questions of provincehood the top of mind in Calgary. On September 1, 1905, Alberta was proclaimed a province with a provisional capital in Edmonton, it would be left up to the Legislature to choose the permanent location.[103] One of the first decisions of the new Alberta Legislature was the capital, and although William Henry Cushing advocated strongly for Calgary, the resulting vote saw Edmonton win the capital 16–8.[104] Calgarians were disappointed on the city not being named the capital, and focused their attention on the formation of the provincial university. However, the efforts by the community could not sway the government, and the University of Alberta was founded in the City of Strathcona, Premier Rutherford’s home, which was subsequently amalgamated into the City of Edmonton in 1912.[105] Calgary was not to be left without higher education facilities as the provincial Normal School opened in the McDougall School building in 1905. In 1910, R. B. Bennett introduced a bill in the Alberta Legislature to incorporate the “Calgary University”, however there was significant opposition to two degree-granting institutions in such a small province. A commission was appointed to evaluate the Calgary proposal which found the second university to be unnecessary, however, the commission did recommend the formation of the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary (SAIT), which was formed later in 1915.[106] Built-up areas of Calgary between 1905 and 1912 were serviced by power and water, the city continued a program of paving and sidewalk laying and with the CPR constructed a series of subways under the tracks to connect the town with streetcars. The first three motor buses hit Calgary streets in 1907, and two years later the municipally owned street railway system, fit with seven miles of track opened in Calgary. The immediately popular street railway system reached 250,000 passengers per month by 1910.[107] The privately owned MacArthur Bridge (precursor to the Centre Street Bridge over the Bow River) opened in 1907 which provided for residential expansion north of the Bow River.[108] The early-1910s saw real estate speculation hit Calgary once again, with property prices rising significantly with growing municipal investment, CPR’s decision to construct a car shop at Ogden set to employ over 5,000 people, the projected arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern Railways in the city and Calgary’s growing reputation as a growing economic hub.[109] The period between 1906 and 1911 was the largest population growth period in the city’s history, expanding from 11,967 to 43,704 inhabitants in the five-year period.[85][110][111] Several ambitious projects were started during this period including a new City Hall, the Hudson’s Bay Department Store, the Grain Exchange Building, and the Palliser Hotel, this period also corresponded to the end of the “Sandstone City” era as steel frames and terracotta facades such as the Burns Building (1913) which were prevalent in other North American cities overtook the unique sandstone character of Calgary.[112] The growing City and enthusiastic residents were rewarded in 1908 with the federally funded Dominion Exhibition. Seeking to take advantage of the opportunity to promote itself, the city spent CA$145,000 to build six new pavilions and a racetrack.[113] It held a lavish parade as well as rodeo, horse racing, and trick roping competitions as part of the event.[114] The exhibition was a success, drawing 100,000 people to the fairgrounds over seven days despite an economic recession that afflicted the city of 25,000.[113] Calgary had previously held a number of Agricultural exhibitions dating back to 1886, and recognizing the city’s enthusiasm, Guy Weadick, an American trick roper who participated in the Dominion Exhibition as part of the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show, returned to Calgary in 1912 to host the first Calgary Stampede in the hopes of establishing an event that more accurately represented the “wild west” than the shows he was a part of.[115] He initially failed to sell civic leaders and the Calgary Industrial Exhibition on his plans,[116] but with the assistance of local livestock agent H. C. McMullen, Weadick convinced businessmen Pat Burns, George Lane, A. J. McLean, and A. E. Cross to put up $100,000 to guarantee funding for the event.[114] The Big Four, as they came to be known, viewed the project as a final celebration of their life as cattlemen.[117] The city constructed a rodeo arena on the fairgrounds and over 100,000 people attended the six-day event in September 1912 to watch hundreds of cowboys from Western Canada, the United States, and Mexico compete for $20,000 in prizes.[118] The event generated $120,000 in revenue and was hailed as a success.[114] The Calgary Stampede has continued as a civic tradition for over 100 years, marketing itself as the “greatest outdoor show on earth”, with Calgarians sporting western wear for 10 days while attending the annual parade, daily pancake breakfasts. While agriculture and railway activities were the dominant aspects of Calgary’s early economy, the Turner Valley Discovery Well blew South-West of Calgary on May 14, 1914, marked the beginning of the oil and gas age in Calgary. Archibald Wayne Dingman and Calgary Petroleum Product’s discovery was heralded as the “biggest oil field in the British Empire” at around 19 million cubic metres, and in a three-week period an estimated 500 oil companies sprang into existence.[119] Calgarians were enthusiastic to invest in new oil companies, with many losing life savings during the short 1914 boom in hastily formed companies.[120] Outbreak of the First World War further dampened the oil craze as more men and resources left for Europe and agricultural prices for wheat and cattle increased.[120] Turner Valley’s oil fields would boom again in 1924 and 1936, and by the Second World War the Turner Valley oilfield was producing more than 95 per cent of the oil in Canada.[121] however the city would wait until 1947 for Leduc No. 1 to definitively shift Calgary to an oil and gas city. While Edmonton would see significant population and economic growth with the Leduc discovery, many corporate offices established in Calgary after Turner Valley refused to relocate north.[122] Consequently, by 1967, Calgary had more millionaires than any other city in Canada, and per capita, more cars than any city in the world.[123] Early-20th-century Calgary served as a hotbed for political activity. Historically Calgarians supported the provincial and federal conservative parties, the opposite of the Liberal-friendly City of Edmonton. However, Calgarians were sympathetic to the cause of workers and supported the development of labour organizations. In 1909, the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) formed in Edmonton through the merger of two earlier farm organizations as a non-partisan lobbying organization to represent the interests of farmers. The UFA eventually dropped its non-partisan stance when it contested the 1921 provincial election. It was elected to form the province’s first non-Liberal government.[124] By that time Calgary was using single transferable vote (STV), a form of proportional representation, to elect its city councillors. Calgary was the first city in Canada to adopt PR for its city elections. Councillors were elected in one at-large district. Each voter cast just a single vote using a ranked transferable ballot. The UFA government elected in 1921 changed the provincial election law so that Calgary could elect its MLAs through PR as well. Calgary elected its MLAs through PR until 1956 and its councillors through PR until 1971 (although mostly using instant-runoff voting, not STV, in the 1960s).[125][126] Calgary endured a six-year recession following the First World War. The high unemployment rate from reduced manufacturing demand, compounded with servicemen returning from Europe needing work, created economic and social unrest.[127] By 1921, over 2,000 men (representing 11 percent of the male workforce) were officially unemployed.[128] Labour organizations began endorsing candidates for Calgary City Council in the late 1910s and were quickly successful in electing sympathetic candidates to office, including Mayor Samuel Hunter Adams in 1920. As well the Industrial Workers of the World and its sequel, the One Big Union, found much support among Calgary workers. The city’s support of labour and agricultural groups made it a natural location for the founding meeting of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (precursor to the New Democratic Party). The organizational meeting was held in Calgary on July 31, 1932, with attendance exceeding 1,300 people.[129] Pat Lenihan was elected to the Calgary City Council in 1939, in part due to the use of Proportional Representation in city elections. He is the only Communist Party member elected to Calgary council. (He is the subject of the book Patrick Lenihan from Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism, edited by Gilbert Levine (Athabasca University Press).) In 1922, Civic Government Association formed in opposition to the power of labour groups, endorsing its own competing slate of candidates.[130] Labour’s influence was short-lived on the City Council, with Labour as a whole failing to receive substantial support after 1924.[131] Calgary gained further political prominence when R. B. Bennett’s Conservative Party won the 1930 federal election and formed government and became Canada’s 11th prime minister.[132] Bennett arrived in Calgary from New Brunswick in 1897, was previously the leader of the provincial Conservative Party, advocated for Calgary as the capital of Alberta, and championed the growing city.[133] Calgary had to wait another decade to have a sitting premier represent the city, when sitting Social Credit Premier William Aberhart moved from his Okotoks-High River to Calgary for the 1940 provincial election after his Okotoks-High River constituents began a recall campaign against him as their local MLA. Only a little over a decade after shuttering the municipal tram lines, Calgary City Council began investigating rapid transit. In 1966 a heavy rail transit proposal was developed, however the estimated costs continued to grow rapidly, and the plan was re-evaluated in 1975. I