William Hawrelak - Out of Office and Federal Politics

Out of Office and Federal Politics

Hawrelak ran for mayor in the 1966 election, but was defeated by Vincent Dantzer, the man city council had chosen to replace him as mayor. This would be the only mayoral defeat Hawrelak would suffer in his career. After this defeat, he declared himself done with city politics. He turned his attention instead to the federal scene.

In the 1957 federal election, Hawrelak, still mayor and before his political troubles had started, had run as the Liberal Party of Canada candidate in Edmonton East. He had come within three hundred votes of unseating incumbent Social Credit Party of Canada MP Ambrose A. Holowach, but had not hitherto made any subsequent bids for federal election. This changed with the 1968 federal election. Hawrelak ran in Edmonton Centre. Denied the Liberal nomination, he ran instead as an "Independent Liberal". He finished third, behind Progressive Conservative Steve Paproski and official Liberal Donald Gray. He may have had some impact after all, however: the gap between the Conservative Paproski and the Liberal Gray was fewer than two hundred votes, while the independent Liberal Hawrelak won more than seven thousand.