Walter Ernest Clark (July 17, 1890 – March 26, 1987) was a politician in

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. He served in the

Legislative Assembly of Manitoba The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba (french: Assemblée législative du Manitoba) is the deliberative assembly of the Manitoba Legislature in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Fifty-seven members are elected to this assembly at provincial gener ...

from 1955 to 1958 as a

Liberal-Progressive Liberal-Progressive was a label used by a number of candidates in Canadian elections between 1925 and 1953. In federal and Ontario politics, there was no Liberal-Progressive party: it was an alliance between two parties. In Manitoba, a party existe ...

. He was 54 years old at the time of his election, and was a farmer and former municipal official in

Baldur Baldr (also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, Baldr (Old Norse: ) is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, and has numerous brothers, such as Thor and Váli. In wider Germanic mythology, the god was k ...

.''Winnipeg Free Press'', 28 June 1955, pp. 1-4. The son of John and Hanna Clark, he farmed and lived in the Rosehill district near Baldur, moving to the town in 1945 but continued to farm until the 1970s. In 1912, Clark married Teresa Caroline Porter. He was reeve of the

Rural Municipality of Argyle Argyle is a rural municipality in the province of Manitoba in Western Canada. It was incorporated on 15 August 1881 and is named after John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll who was the fourth Governor General of Canada. Baldur is the largest communi ...

for 18 years. Clark was elected to the Manitoba legislature in a

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 ...

called in the

Mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

constituency after the resignation of high-profile

cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, � ...

Ivan Schultz Ivan Schultz (November 22, 1891 in Baldur, Manitoba – March 5, 1974) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal-Progressive from 1930 to 1955, and was a prominent cabinet minister in th ...

. He defeated Progressive Conservative Marcel Boulic by 276 votes, and served for the next three years as a backbench supporter of Douglas Campbell's government. Many Liberal-Progressives were concerned with Clark's relatively narrow margin of victory, as Mountain had previously been considered one of the party's safest seats. Clark received support from the constituency's

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

majority and large

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

population, while Boulic did well among

French Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...

s, who made up one third of the electorate. The Liberal-Progressives were defeated in the 1958 provincial election, and Clark lost to Progressive Conservative

Abram Harrison Abram William Harrison (July 15, 1898 in Holmfield, Manitoba – November 14, 1979) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1943 to 1966, initially as a Conservative and later as a Pro ...

by 238 votes in the redistributed constituency of Rock Lake. He tried to return to the legislature in the 1959 provincial election, but lost to Harrison by an increased margin. He died in Baldur in 1987.

Electoral record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Walter 1987 deaths Manitoba Liberal Party MLAs 1890 births