Taras Demeter Ferley (October 14, 1882—July 27, 1947) was a publisher and politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1915 to 1920 as a supporter of the Liberal Party, and is notable as the first Ukrainian Canadian to be elected to Manitoba's legislature. Ferley was born in

Austro-Hungarian Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

controlled Ukraine, and educated at the Kolomyja Gymnasium and

Lemberg University The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

. In the Ukraine, he was a member of the Radical Party. He moved to San Francisco, California in 1903, and took part in a communal living experiment which ended in failure after a few months. He arrived Canada in 1905 and worked as a publisher and real estate broker. He became the director of the Ukrainian Publishing Company of Canada, and also taught at the Ruthenian Training School at Brandon for a period beginning in 1907 till 1910. He first ran for the Manitoba legislature in the 1914 provincial election, contesting the constituency of Gimli as an Independent-Liberal. He lost, finishing third against Conservative Sveinn Thorvaldson and official Liberal candidate

Einar Jonasson Einar Sigurjon Jonasson (17 June 1887 – 8 July 1935) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1932 to 1935, as a member of the Manitoba Liberal Party. Jonasson was born in Mountain, ...

. Ferley ran again as an Independent-Liberal in the 1915 provincial election, and became the constituency's ''de facto'' Liberal candidate after Jonasson withdrew from the race. Ferley defeated Thorvaldson by 610 votes, and supported

Tobias Norris Tobias Crawford Norris (September 5, 1861 – October 29, 1936) was a Canadian politician who served as the tenth premier of Manitoba from 1915 to 1922. Norris was a member of the Liberal Party.J. M. Bumsted"Tobias Crawford Norris" ''The Cana ...

's Liberal administration for the next five years. In his parliamentary biography, Ferley emphasized his loyalty to Canada and to the British Empire. As the sole Ukrainian member of the legislature, Ferley protested against the federal government's treatment of Ukrainian-Canadians during World War I. Unlike others in the Liberal Party, he also defended Manitoba's bilingual education system of state funding for Anglophone and Francophone schools. He was defeated in the 1920 provincial election, losing to Farmer candidate Gudmundur Fjelsted by 117 votes.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferley, Taras 1882 births 1947 deaths Politicians from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Politicians from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Ukrainian Austro-Hungarians Emigrants from Austria-Hungary to Canada Manitoba Liberal Party MLAs