out to centre-left voters previously alienated from the CCF. He was also a skilled networker, soliciting support from Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas in designing his election platform. He could not, however, bring the CCF above third-party status in the election of 1953. The Liberal-Conservative coalition which governed the province from 1940 to 1950 had dissolved, and most of the electorate was polarized between these two parties. The Liberal-Progressives (or Liberals) won 32 seats and a majority; the CCF were reduced to only five. Stinson fell to third place on Winnipeg South's first count, and had to wait for a later count to be re-elected. The Liberal-Progressive government of Douglas Campbell grew unpopular between 1953 and 1958, and the CCF made some gains at Campbell's expense. They climbed to eleven seats in the 1958 election, and Stinson was elected in the new Winnipeg riding of Osborne. (Winnipeg's multi-member constituencies were replaced by single-seat ridings for this election; Osborne is located in the city's centre.) The 1958 election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Progressive Conservatives winning 26 seats and the Liberal-Progressives 19. Campbell initially tried to form an alliance with the CCF (Stinson would have served as Minister of Welfare), but these plans came to nothing. The CCF allowed the Tories under Dufferin Roblin to form government. Roblin's government placed the CCF in a paradoxical situation. His Progressive Conservative party was actually to the left of Campbell's Liberals, and introduced many significant reforms. The CCF had little choice but to support Roblin's legislation, thereby giving the Tories the record they needed to win another election the following year. The CCF fell to ten seats in the 1959 election, and Stinson was personally defeated by Tory candidate Obie Baizley. He resigned as party leader in 1960, and was replaced by Russell Paulley. During Stinson's time as party leader, the CCF was unable to make significant inroads beyond its urban support base (though future Premier Ed Schreyer was elected in a rural constituency). The party made limited gains in the late 1950s, however, and was poised to become the official opposition (if Liberal support continued to decline). In the late 1950s, Stinson supported the call to transform the national CCF into a broader party. He campaigned for its merger with the Canadian Labour Congress to create the New Democratic Party. In 1962, Stinson ran as an NDP candidate in Wellington (north-west Winnipeg),