Editing Liberal-Progressive (section)

==Ontario==

In Ontario, an electoral coalition was formed in 1934 between the [[Ontario Liberal Party|provincial Liberals]] under [[Mitchell Hepburn]], and the Progressive bloc of [[Member of the Legislative Assembly|Members of the Legislative Assembly]] (MLAs) under [[Harry Nixon]]. Nixon had been elected with the [[United Farmers of Ontario]] (UFO) and served in cabinet of [[E. C. Drury]] as [[Provincial Secretary and Registrar of Ontario]] when the party formed government in 1919. By the end of its term in 1923, the party had changed its name to the Progressives and after the 1926 election, Nixon was the sole former member of the Drury cabinet left in the Legislature.

In the coalition formed in 1934, the Progressive group ran as ''Liberal-Progressives''. They were eventually absorbed into the Ontario Liberal Party. Even before 1934, several candidates ran and were elected under the Liberal-Progressive banner:

:* [[Thomas Blakelock]] of [[Halton (provincial electoral district)|Halton]] was elected on that ticket in 1929,<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title= Ferguson Returned by Larger Majority|url= http://news.haltonhills.halinet.on.ca/89931/page/2?q=%22Liberal-Progressive%22&docid=OOI.89931|work= The Georgetown Herald|date= November 6, 1929|page= 2}}</ref> 1934 and 1937.
:* [[Frederick Sandy]] of [[Victoria South (federal electoral district)|Victoria South]] was elected as a UFO MLA in 1919, defeated in 1923 and returned to serve as a Liberal-Progressive from 1926-1929; 
:* [[Merton Elvin Scott]] of [[Oxford South (federal electoral district)|Oxford South]] served as a Liberal-Progressive MLA from 1926 to 1929; and 
:* UFO MLA [[David Munroe Ross]] of [[Oxford North (federal electoral district)|Oxford North]] was re-elected as a Liberal-Progressive in 1926 and 1929.

It was only in the [[1934 Ontario general election|1934 election]] that a formal alliance between the Progressives and Liberals began, returning four Liberal-Progressive MLAs (Nixon, Douglas Campbell of [[Kent East (provincial electoral district)|Kent East]], [[Roland Patterson]] of [[Grey North (federal electoral district)|Grey North]] and [[James Francis Kelly]] of [[Muskoka (provincial electoral district)|Muskoka]]).

Liberal-Progressive leader Harry Nixon was [[provincial secretary]] in Liberal Premier [[Mitchell Hepburn]]'s cabinet from its inception in 1934. He and Kelly ran for re-election as Liberals in the [[1937 Ontario general election|1937 provincial election]] and were returned to office. Nixon served as Leader of the Liberal Party from 1943 to 1944 and briefly as Premier on Ontario in 1943, until his government's defeat in the [[1943 Ontario general election|1943 election]],and would continue sitting as a Liberal until his death in 1961. Kelly would sit as a Liberal until leaving politics in 1945. Two remaining Liberal-Progressive MLAs were returned in that election, Campbell and Patterson. Campbell was not returned in the 1943 election while Patterson was re-elected as a straight Liberal.

While he never sat as a Liberal-Progressive, [[Farquhar Oliver]] was first elected as a UFO MLA in 1926 and sat informally with the Liberal caucus beginning in 1934, when Hepburn formed government, while remaining a UFO MLA until 1941 when he officially joined the Liberals and was appointed to cabinet as minister of public works. Oliver would serve as leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from 1945 to 1950 and again from 1954 to 1958 and would continue to sit in the legislature as a Liberal until 1967 when he retired from office.