Sifton tried to accommodate many of their demands: his government constructed agricultural colleges, incorporated a farmer-run grain elevator cooperative, and implemented a municipal system of hail insurance.

Outside of agriculture, the UFA was instrumental in the Sifton government's implementation of some direct democracy measures (which resulted in prohibition) and the extension of the vote to women.

[2] In 1874[2] or 1875,[3] John Sifton won contracts for preliminary construction work on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and moved the family to Winnipeg, where Arthur completed high school at Wesley College.

[6] Sifton's first foray into politics was in 1878, when he campaigned for the introduction of prohibition under the auspices of the Canada Temperance Act in the Manitoba electoral districts of Lisgar and Marquette.

[3] When his brother Clifford became Wilfrid Laurier's Minister of the Interior in November 1896, Sifton advised him on Liberal Party affairs in western Canada.

[8] In 1901, Clifford Sifton appointed James Hamilton Ross, Northwest Territories Treasurer and Minister of Public Works, as Commissioner of Yukon.

It fell to Northwest Territories Premier Frederick William Gordon Haultain to fill the ensuing vacancy and, to preserve the delicate non-partisan balance of his administration, he had to pick a successor who was, like Ross, a Liberal.

Arthur declined on the basis of his recently assumed ministerial duties, but he made it clear that he was still interested in receiving the judicial post eventually.

[8] He was notoriously difficult for barristers to read: he generally heard arguments expressionlessly smoking a cigar, and it was as a judge that he first acquired his long-time nickname of the Sphinx for his inscrutability.

Much of his work was in criminal law, dealing especially with theft of livestock (in which cases he generally delivered a sentence of three years hard labour, severe by the standards of the day).

[9] Accusations of favouritism by the government towards the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway had split the Liberal Party, and Rutherford's ability to remain at its head was in doubt.

[21] Riley objected to the exclusion from cabinet of insurgency leader W. H. Cushing;[21] after his resignation he ran as an independent Liberal in the ensuing by-election, but was defeated by Sifton supporter Archibald J.

[23] The other new additions to cabinet—Malcolm McKenzie as Provincial Treasurer and Charles Stewart in the new position of Minister of Municipal Affairs[23]—had voted with the Rutherford government during the scandal.

[29] Even among this latter group there were divisions: some Liberals agreed with the Conservatives that the railway should be directly built by the government, while others, including Cross, favoured a partnership with a "responsible company".

[30] These divisions were not calmed by the release of the commission's report, whose majority condemned Rutherford and Cross for poor judgment even as it concluded that there was insufficient evidence to find that they had engaged in improper behaviour.

[30] Sifton, in his capacity as provincial treasurer, immediately tried to access the money; the Royal, Dominion, and Union banks, where the funds were deposited, refused payment.

[24] Attorney-General Mitchell sued the banks; on November 4, 1911, Justice Charles Allan Stuart of the Supreme Court of Alberta found in the government's favour.

[42] The Conservatives filibustered the legislation and moved a series of amendments (including one calling for the scheme to be put to referendum), but the Liberals voted unanimously in its favour.

"[50] Soon after, Sifton made a trip east and spoke on the subject of provincial resource control to the Canadian Club of Toronto, where his points were well received.

[50] In May 1910, Sifton and Saskatchewan Premier Walter Scott met with Laurier in Ottawa, where he was able to secure the Prime Minister's agreement that if the Liberals were re-elected in the 1911 federal election they would transfer to Alberta control over its resources.

[52] Initially, this did not appear to be a problem; Borden had long called for the transfer of resource control to the prairie provinces,[50] but when Sifton and Scott raised the issue with the new Prime Minister, little action resulted.

[50] Borden stalled for some time, and it emerged that he did not wish to buoy the fortunes of the provincial Liberal parties by giving them the political victory that would result from the transfer of resource control.

[58] In 1912, the government announced the creation of agricultural colleges in connection with three of these farms (all of them in the ridings of provincial cabinet ministers: Duncan Marshall's Olds, Claresholm in Archibald McLean's Lethbridge District, and Sifton's Vermilion).

[64] Perhaps the most important piece of farm legislation passed by Sifton's government was the incorporation of the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company (AFCEC).

[65] Though the UFA's first preference was for government ownership and operation of grain elevators, which Sifton refused,[66] it gladly accepted the AFCEC, in which only farmers could hold shares and which was supported by provincial startup loans.

[65] Hall writes that "the Sifton government in effect responded wholly or in part to practically every resolution from the 1913 UFA convention related to provincial powers.

[70] They knew the boon to government coffers that liquor sales represented, and were not eager to alienate either the UFA's moral reformers or the province's hoteliers and saloonkeepers.

[77] At that time, the Premier agreed that most traditional objections to extension of the franchise were "played out", but expressed concern at the increases that would result to the cost of elections and uncertainty at whether most of the province's women actually wanted suffrage.

[79] On September 17, 1915, he told UFA President James Speakman that he had given instructions for the preparation of a statute "placing men and women in Alberta on the basis of absolute equality so far as Provincial matters are concerned.

[80] He was authoritarian and, while he inspired respect, he was not loved; historian L. G. Thomas credits him with holding the Liberal Party together through his strength, but blames him for failing to heal its underlying divisions.