[1] After a brief career at ranching Skelding became a coal dealer within a couple years and continued with that business the rest of his life.
He defeated Conservative incumbent Robert Patterson in a hotly contested race winning the Macleod district by just 50 votes to pick it up for his party.
He lobbied the Liberal government for road improvements in the Macleod district and did most of his work as an MLA in legislature committee's.
[1] Skelding ran for a second term in the 1921 Alberta general election but was defeated by United Farmers candidate William Shield.
He required some surgeries and eventually became confined to his house as his health worsened and then was bed ridden for the last month before he died on July 18, 1927.