Stuart first sought political office when he ran in West Calgary, a district in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, in a by-election variously identified as taking place in March 1900[REF][REF] or on March 22, 1901 [REF].
Stuart's time in the legislature came to a close after less than a year, when in October 1906 he resigned to take up a judgeship on the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories; when Alberta created its own court the following year, he became one of its first judges [REF].