Background
Halldorson was born to Halldor Halldorson and Kristin Palsdottir in Lundar, Manitoba.
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Salome Halldorson
Edit ProfileEducation
She was educated at Wesley College in Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Career
She was the second woman and the first woman of Icelandic origin to serve in the provincial legislature. She was elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1936 provincial election, defeating Liberal-Progressive incumbent Skuli Sigfusson by 156 votes in the constituency of Saint George. She was the first woman elected to the legislature since the resignation of Edith Rogers in 1932.
In 1940, the party formally entered an all-party coalition government with the Liberal-Progressives, Conservatives and Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
Social Cr split on the coalition issue, and Halldorson broke with the rest of her caucus to serve as the legislature"s second opposition member. The Social Cr League subsequently expelled the other four MLAs, although they continued to identify themselves as representatives of the party.
The reconstructed Social Cr League endorsed Halldorson"s decision, and Social Cr Premier of Alberta William Aberhart also supported her. All of the anti-coalition candidates were defeated, and Halldorson finished a distant second against Sigfusson in Street George.
In addition to her career in the legislature, Halldorson served as vice-president and president of the Manitoba Social Cr League in the 1930s and 1940s.
She came a very distant third, finishing almost 9,000 votes behind successful candidate William Bryce of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. She was re-nominated in the 1945 provincial election, but declined to stand. Halldorson later taught at Morden, Transcona and at Balmoral Hall.
In 1953, she wrote against proposed anti-discrimination legislation as unduly restricting the freedom of employers.
Her brother Christian also served in the Manitoba assembly.
Achievements
Politics
The 1941 election greatly reduced Social Cr as a political force in the province. In 1943, Halldorson contested a federal by-election in Selkirk as a candidate of the Social Cr Party of Canada.
Membership
She served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1936 to 1941 as a member of the Social Cr League. Independent Member of the Legislative Assembly (Modern Language Association) Lewis Saint George Stubbs was initially the only legislator not to join the government.
