Early Political Career
Dent's first bid for office took place during the 1955 Alberta election, when he ran in Edmonton for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. He placed twenty-fifth of thirty candidates in the first ballot (the riding used a single transferable vote electoral system at the time) and was eliminated from contention on subsequent ballots.
Dent turned his attention to municipal politics; In the 1957 municipal election, he ran for alderman on Edmonton City Council. He finished seventh out of nineteen, falling short of the top five placing needed to be elected. Efforts during the 1959 and 1960 elections (in which he placed tenth of seventeen and eighth of fifteen, respectively) were similarly unsuccessful, and Dent took a two year hiatus from politics to earn his doctorate in educational administration from the University of Oregon.
Upon his return to Edmonton, he ran in the 1963 federal election in Edmonton East for the New Democratic Party. He finished fourth of five candidates, defeating only Communist W A Tuomi as incumbent Progressive Conservative William Skoreyko was handily re-elected.
Dent was finally elected to office in the 1963 municipal election, when he was one of six candidates elected to a one year aldermanic term (he placed fourth of sixteen). He was re-elected to a two year term in the 1964 municipal election, in which he placed fifth of forty-six candidates, and in the 1966 election, in which he placed second out of forty-four candidates.
Read more about this topic: Ivor Dent
Famous quotes containing the words early, political and/or career:
“It is not too much to say that next after the passion to learn there is no quality so indispensable to the successful prosecution of science as imagination. Find me a people whose early medicine is not mixed up with magic and incantations, and I will find you a people devoid of all scientific ability.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic State. It has always been put down in the book as a state that might be carried by a close and careful and perfect organization and a great deal of—[from audience: “soap”Ma reference to purchased votes, the word being followed by laughter].
I see reporters here, and therefore I will simply say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion, and distributed tracts and political documents all through the country.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)