Gordon Taylor

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For the president of the Professional Footballers Association see Gordon Taylor (footballer)

Gordon Edward Taylor (July 20, 1910 - July 26, 2003) was a Canadian politician, businessman and teacher.

He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1940 provincial election representing Drumheller for Social Credit and continued to sit in the legislature for 39 years. He survived the 1971 defeat of the Social Credit government and remained in the legislature until 1979. Taylor was Social Credit's parliamentary whip from 1943 to 1950. From 1951 to 1971, he served as Minister of Highways in the governments of Ernest Manning and Harry Strom. During his tenure, 8,401 kilometres of highways were paved, and Highway 2 between Calgary and Edmonton was planned[1]. He was also minister of telephones from 1950 to 1959. While a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) during World War II, he also served with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

As an opposition MLA in the 1970s, Taylor broke with Social Credit over his support for the Lougheed government's plan to provide gasoline to farmers, a measure the Social Credit party opposed. Taylor also felt the Social Credit caucus was "moving to the left" and was supporting the federal Liberals. As a result, Taylor sat as an Independent Social Credit MLA supporting Peter Lougheed, and was re-elected as such in the 1975 provincial election. He supported the Lougheed government during his last term in the legislature, planned to cross the floor to sit join the Alberta Progressive Conservatives on the last day before the legislature was dissolved in 1979, and then run as a Progressive Conservative in the 1979 provincial election.^[1]

Early in 1979, however, Taylor was approached to run federally. Taylor was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative in the 1979 federal election representing Bow River, Alberta. He remained in parliament until he retired at the 1988 federal election.