Roper, Elmer Ernest

Elmer Ernest Roper was a Canadian businessman, trade unionist and politician. He was an elected member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, 1942-1955, as a representative of the Alberta Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party in the city of Edmonton and also served as mayor of Edmonton 1959-1963.

In 1922, Roper became secretary-treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour. He held the position for a decade. Roper edited the AF of L's official organ Alberta Labour News from 1921 to 1935 when he changed the newspaper's name to People's Weekly and made it the de facto house organ of the new Alberta Co-operative Commonwealth Federation with William Irvine as co-editor. On May 4, 1942 Conservative leader David Duggan died, and his Edmonton seat became vacant. Roper was nominated as the CCF's candidate in the ensuing by-election. The by-election was conducted using Alternative Voting and Roper came out on top of a five-person field. CCF leader Chester Ronning, who had been elected in 1932, quickly stepped aside to hand the leadership to the party's sole MLA.

Roper was leader of the CCF for thirteen years, but he did not have to sit as its lone MLA that long: after the 1944 election, he was joined in the legislature by Aylmer Liesemer of Calgary. Two seats were as large a caucus as the CCF had during Roper's tenure as its leader.

Both Liesemer and Roper were re-elected in the 1948 election. The party's share of the vote fell from 25% to 19%, but it was still due more than 10 MLAs. Roper did not add any new MLAs to his tiny caucus as Social Credit's stranglehold over the province remained intact. The CCF did elect a new MLA in the 1952 election - Willingdon's Nick Dushenski - but this gain was cancelled by Liesemer's defeat in the same election. Worse, the CCF's vote fell further, to 14%, and the Alberta Liberal Party doubled its seat count to four, making it the Official Opposition and leaving the CCF as the third party.

Things then got worse for the CCF. In the 1955 election, the CCF's share of the vote was only 8% and the previously dormant Conservatives passed it in the seat count. Moreover, Roper himself lost his seat in Edmonton (although two other CCF MLAs were elected - Dushenki in Whitford) and Stanley Ruzycki in Vegreville). Roper placed third of thirty candidates on the first ballot in the election held using Single transferable voting, but as Premier Ernest Manning's large number of surplus votes was redistributed to the city's other Social Credit candidates (and James Harper Prowse's only slightly smaller surplus was redistributed mostly to other Liberal candidates, Roper fell out of the top seven, where he needed to remain in order to be re-elected.

Roper served as mayor of Edmonton, 1959-1963.

In advance of the 1959 municipal election, the city's mayoralty was up for grabs. William Hawrelak had resigned in scandal, and the man that the Edmonton City Council had chosen to replace him, Frederick John Mitchell, had decided to return to his aldermanic post rather than contest the mayoral election. Roper chose to contest it, and defeated three candidates (most notably his former legislature colleague James Prowse).

He was re-elected in the 1961 election, handily defeating alderman Ed Leger. He did not seek re-election at the conclusion of his second term. At the age of seventy, he was finished with politics.