Canadian social credit movement
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The Canadian social credit movement is a
Federal politics
The Western Social Credit League, an outgrowth of Alberta Social Credit, ran candidates in the
In the 1960s, the Québécois wing of the party split off to form the Ralliement créditiste. The two wings reunited in 1971. The party was left without any parliamentary seats following the 1980 federal election, and thereafter declined into irrelevance, though it nominally continued to exist until 1993.
Alberta
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The ideology was embraced by the Reverend
Aberhart died in office in 1943, and was replaced by Ernest Manning. Although Manning had been an early supporter of Social Credit, he largely abandoned the theory while keeping the Social Credit name. He also purged the party of anti-Semites; although antisemitism had long been part of the party's populist rhetoric, it fell out of fashion after World War II.
The Alberta Socreds formed nine consecutive majority governments spanning 36 years, the longest unbroken run in government at the provincial level at the time. Largely due to Manning's ledership and to Alberta's powerful influence within the Canadian Social Credit movement, the Canadian social credit movement developed a strong social conservative tint.
The party lost its last MLAs in 1982 and never elected a member again. Although the party was no longer a significant force in Alberta politics, it had some support and briefly experienced a revival around 2005. However, in 2008, the party collapsed to only 0.2 percent of the vote, its worst showing since its founding in 1934. In 2017 it was renamed to the Pro-Life Alberta Political Association, which has only tenuous connections to its social credit heritage.
British Columbia
In the 1930s and 1940s, the social credit movement in British Columbia was largely fractious, and made up of various small groups, the largest of which being the Social Credit League. The British Columbian movement was largely at odds with the Albertan wing and sought to distance itself from William Aberhart's religious preaching.
The effective death of the movement came when former Tory
Social Credit's first government in British Columbia was a very small
The Social Credit government was defeated by the NDP in the
The party quickly dwindled into fringe status, and now only exists in desultory fashion. It ran only two candidates in the 2001 election. The strongest candidate of the two, Grant Mitton, a former radio talk show host who received 17% of the vote in his riding, later left the party to form the British Columbia Party. It only ran two candidates in 2005, none in 2009, and one in 2013. The party was de-registered shortly afterward. It regained its registration in 2016, but ran only two candidates in the 2017 provincial election.
Quebec
The movement also caught on in Quebec in part because of the work of Louis Even who translated social credit literature into French, wrote his own articles on the subject and published and circulated periodicals to promote social credit theories. He and Gilberte Côté-Mercier founded a lay Christian group called the "Pilgrims of Saint Michael", based in Rougemont, Quebec, that promotes social credit monetary policy coupled with conservative Catholicism. The Pilgrims publish The Michael Journal in English and Vers Demain in French. The group is nicknamed "the White Berets" for the headgear worn by members.
Even and Côté-Mercier also founded the
Caouette ran for re-election as a union des electeurs candidate and lost his seat in the
Social Credit was never able to form a provincial government in Quebec due to the near dominance of social conservative votes by the Union Nationale party from the 1930s into the 1960s. The Social Credit Party, however, soon became a major contender in Quebec for seats to the federal Parliament in the 1960s. Although BC and Alberta would elect a few Social Credit Members of Parliament (MPs) in that decade, it would be Quebec that maintained the party's national presence after 1962. Social Credit remained dominant in the other two provinces in provincial elections.
In the 1962 election, Social Credit won 26 of 75 seats in Quebec, beating the Progressive Conservative Party. They continued to finish in second place in terms of federal seats from Quebec until their last MPs fell with the minority government of Joe Clark in 1980. The most Social Credit ever captured in terms of the Quebec popular vote was 27.3% federally, and 11.2% provincially.
The Quebec wing of the movement broke from the rest of the party in 1963 to form its own Quebec-only federal Social Credit party, the
The party formed a provincial wing in 1970, the
The growth of
In the 1970 provincial election, the Liberals took 72 seats, followed by the Union Nationale with 17, and Ralliement créditiste du Québec with 12. The party was riven by internal dissent for the remainder of its history, capturing two seats in the 1973 election, and only one in the 1976 election, the last time a créditiste was elected to the Quebec National Assembly.
New Brunswick
While Social Credit never won any seats in the New Brunswick Legislature, it won 3.1% of the vote in the 1948 provincial election, the party's first. Social Credit also ran candidates in 1952 and 1956 winning 0.5% and 1.6% of the vote respectively.
Manitoba
In
Of the ten elections from 1936–1973, the party won seats in seven. In the 1936 provincial election, Social Credit finished third, and in the 1941 provincial election, it tied for third. However, Social Credit never won more than 14% of the popular vote.
Saskatchewan
In
Ontario
In Ontario, the party unsuccessfully ran candidates in most provincial elections from 1945 until 1975, never obtaining electoral support beyond a negligible level.
The party faced serious divisions in the 1940s, 1960s and early 1970s due to attempted takeovers by fascist groups and was put in trusteeship by the federal party in 1972 when the fascist Western Guard succeeded in taking control.
The party continued as a registered party into the 1980s, not running candidates in the 1977 election and running only 5 candidates with interim leader John Turmel in the 1981 election. It was defunct by 1985.
Other parties
Other political parties have also promoted social credit principles, including
The western reform movement largely replaced the socreds, and used the Reform Party of Canada as its political vehicle. Stephen Harper's insistence on targeted tax credits, including the idea of handouts to pay for child care, may have some roots in the Social Credit's monetary policies.
The Canadian Action Party had monetary reform policies in its platform, but was not considered to be a social credit party.
See also
- List of Social Credit/Creditistes MPs
- Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER)
- Canadian Action Party
- Pilgrims of Saint Michael
- Australian League of Rights
- Social Credit Party (New Zealand)
- Reform Party of Canada
References
- ^ Mardon. Who's Who in Federal Politics from Alberta.