In the 1926 federal election, Alexander Jarvis McComber, a barrister, placed second in a field of three candidates in the north-western Ontario riding of Port Arthur – Thunder Bay, winning 2,990 votes, 26% of the total.
[1] Another unsuccessful "Liberal–Labour" candidate was Arthur Reaume, mayor of Windsor, who had been a long time Tory and had run for George Drew's Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in 1943 provincial election, but broke with his party to support UAW workers at Ford in their fight for the Rand Formula.
The other two Liberal–Labour MPPs elected were James Newman of Rainy River and Joseph Meinzinger of Waterloo North, defeating CCF incumbents George Lockhart and John Henry Cook, respectively.
The decision by the Liberals, UAW members and Communists to collaborate was ironic given Hepburn's vociferous opposition to both Communism and the Congress of Industrial Organizations during his term as Premier of Ontario.
Two pro-labour MPPs, David Croll and Arthur Roebuck, had resigned from Hepburn's cabinet in 1937 to protest his anti-labour actions during a UAW strike in Oshawa, Ontario.
He was re-elected in 1934 but was persuaded to resign a few weeks later in order to allow Heenan to run in the subsequent by-election, this time as a Liberal.
Heenan was later defeated by William Docker of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in the 1943 provincial election in which the Liberals were reduced to third party status.