David Milwyn Duggan - Provincial Politics

Provincial Politics

His attentions turned to provincial politics, and he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1926 election as a Conservative in the riding of Edmonton. Duggan succeeded Alexander McGillivray as leader in 1930, and led the party into that year's election. In this election, the Conservatives picked up a seat in Edmonton (taking three of the city's six seats), but were shut out of seats outside of Edmonton and Calgary, as they had been in 1926. Moreover, they lost ground to the rival Alberta Liberal Party in the race to form the official opposition to the governing United Farmers of Alberta. Duggan easily retained his own seat.

The situation worsened in the 1935 election, when the Social Credit Party of Alberta swept the province, reducing the Conservatives to two members, Duggan and Calgary MLA John Irwin (the other parties fared no better - the Liberals lost six of the eleven seats they had won in 1930, while the UFA, owners of a majority government before the writ was dropped, were eliminated from the legislature completely). In response to this catastrophe, Duggan's Conservatives formed an alliance with the Liberals, whereby candidates for both parties would run as independents and would not run against each other. In the 1940 election, there were nineteen independents elected, including Duggan.

During his last full term in the legislature, Duggan brought to the house's attention a government-sponsored leaflet that named him and eight other men (William Antrobus Griesbach among them) as "Banker's Toadies" and urged readers to "exterminate them". This incident saw two men, including Social Credit MLA Joseph Unwin, prosecuted for libel and counseling murder.