James Aubrey Simmons (July 8, 1897 – November 30, 1979) was a Canadian politician,

notary A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems. A notary, while a legal professional, is disti ...

and

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judic ...

. Born in

Revelstoke, British Columbia Revelstoke () is a city in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, with a census population of 8,275 in 2021. Revelstoke is located east of Vancouver, and west of Calgary, Alberta. The city is situated on the banks of the Columbia River just sout ...

, Simmons would go on to sit many times in the House of Commons of Canada representing the

Yukon Territory Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

. A member of the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

, his first win came in 1949 when he represented the federal constituency of Yukon-Mackenzie River, an electoral district newly crafted out of the Yukon electoral district in 1947. Simmons easily won the election. His rival,

Arthur Massey Berry Arthur Massey "Matt" Berry (June 19, 1888 – May 12, 1970) was a pioneering Canadian bush pilot. Early years Born on a farm in March, Ontario, near Ottawa, on June 19, 1888, Arthur Massey (Matt) Berry entered the First World War as a Capt ...

, an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, lost by over 1,000 votes. By 1953, at the next federal election, the riding of Yukon-Mackenzie River was abolished and transformed again into the Yukon electoral district. Running again for a seat in the House, Simmons won the 1953 election for the Yukon. In parliament, Simmons sponsored a bill for the creation of an Alaska-Yukon

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

. He was re-elected in 1957 federal election, but his election was declared void and he lost the subsequent

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

. He tried in the 1958 federal election to regain his seat but was again defeated and he never again went for a seat in the House of Commons. He died in 1979 following a stroke.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Simmons, James 1897 births 1979 deaths People from Revelstoke, British Columbia Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Yukon Members of the House of Commons of Canada from the Northwest Territories Liberal Party of Canada MPs