Richard Gavin Reid

Richard Gavin Reid (born 17 January 1879 in Glasgow, Scotland, † October 17, 1980 in Edmonton ) was a Canadian politician and farmer. He was on 10 July 1934 to the September 3, 1935 Prime Minister of the Province of Alberta and leader of the political wing of the farmers' cooperative United Farmers of Alberta ( UFA). Under Reid's leadership, the movement lost its support among the rural population and was politically insignificant after the provincial elections of 1935.

Reid served from 1900 to 1902 during the Boer War in South Africa as a medic in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1903 he emigrated to Canada and worked on a farm in Manitoba and in a lumber camp in Ontario. In 1904 he built in Mannville in the eastern part of Alberta on a farm and was politically active at the local level. In July 1921 Reid was chosen as the candidate of the UFA in elections to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the constituency Vermilion. He had several ministerial posts: Health (1921-1923), municipalities (1921-1923 and 1925-1934), Treasurer (1923-1934) as well as land and mining ( 1930-1934 ).

After John Edward Brownlee was forced to resign because of a scandal, Reid was appointed by Lieutenant Governor William Walsh as the new prime minister on 10 July 1934. At the time of Reid's office, the UFA government had become very conservative and was thus contrary to the leadership of the cooperative part of the UFA, which supported the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. A large part of the conservative rural electorate sympathized due to the effects of the global economic crisis with the ideas of Social Credit. In the elections in August 1935, the UFA lost nearly three-quarters of their constituents and all seats. Reid had to deliver to William Aberhart of the Social Credit Party of Alberta office on September 3, 1935.

Reid retired from politics and worked as a commercial agent. During the Second World War he worked for the mobilization authority of the Canadian Army in a managerial capacity. Later he was also Head of the Archives of the energy company Canadian Utilities.