He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1936 to 1949 as an Independent,[1] He promoted left-wing and socially progressive causes including Henry George's Single Tax (Georgism).
His family were wealthy colonial settlers whose ancestors had abandoned Georgia during the American Revolution; Stubbs later described them as "real Tories, the old-fashioned kind".
In 1898, he enrolled to study medicine at Christ's College, Cambridge University,[4] and intended to become a medical missionary in Africa.
He became a law student,[5] and struck up a friendship with Fred Dixon, later a prominent labourist politician in the city.
During the federal election of 1917, Stubbs was one of the few public figures in the community to oppose conscription and the government of Robert Borden.
In the 1921 federal election, Stubbs ran as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Marquette against Thomas Crerar, leader of the Progressive Party.
[6] He was rewarded for his services by Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King on May 20, 1922, being appointed a County Court Judge in the Eastern Judicial District of Manitoba.
He also rendered several judgments that excoriated the capitalist system, lamenting the punishment of petty criminals while corrupt plutocrats operated above the law.
He ran in the riding of Winnipeg,[1] which at the time elected ten members by Single transferable voting.
He received a record 24,815 votes on the first count, more than three times what was needed to be declared elected and almost 20,000 more than his nearest opponent, Communist James Litterick.
There were rumours that Stubbs would run in the 1940 federal election against CCF incumbent MP Abraham Albert Heaps, but he declined in the interests of unity among "progressive" politicians.
He was a strong supporter of the full mobilization for Canadian forces in World War II, and condemned the Communist Party's volte-face on the issue following the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of October 7, 1939.
The remaining political parties in the Manitoba Legislature (Liberal-Progressive, Conservative, CCF and Social Credit) formed a united coalition ministry.