Ralliement créditiste

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Historically in Quebec, Canada, there were a number of political parties that were part of the Canadian social credit movement. There were various parties at different times with different names at the provincial level, all broadly following the social credit philosophy; at various times they had varying degrees of affiliation with the Social Credit Party of Canada at the federal level.

The greatest success achieved by a provincial social credit party in Quebec was the Ralliement créditiste du Québec, which won 12 seats in the 1970 Quebec provincial election.

Union des électeurs

The Union des électeurs (UE) (in

under the national Social Credit banner and again in subsequent by-elections, by 1949 the Quebec créditistes were again running candidates under the Union des électeurs banner as they were also doing in the Quebec provincial elections.

The Union was accused of

The Union des électeurs' electoral philosophy was that it was not a partisan political party but an organization which marshals voters to enforce their wishes on their elected representatives.

.

With Réal Caouette and then P. Ernest Grégoire as leader, the Quebec provincial party contested seats in the 1944 provincial election but won no seats and the 1948 provincial election when it managed to get 9.25% of the popular vote, but again won no seats. It also ran candidates federally: Caouette was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in a 1946 by-election under the Social Credit banner. He failed to win re-election in the 1949 federal election as a Union des électeurs candidate, when the party ran a total of 56 candidates. None were successful.

The Union des électeurs faded away as a political party after 1949. In the 1950s, Caouette contested seats in various by-elections against the wishes of Even and Côté-Mercier. In 1958, Caouette broke with Even and Côté-Mercier and founded the Ralliement des créditistes, which ran candidates in federal elections in the 1950s and 1960s and was, at times, the Quebec branch of the Social Credit Party of Canada. In 1970, the federal Ralliement des créditistes founded a distinct provincial branch, the Ralliement créditiste du Québec.

In 1939, Even and Côté also founded a lay

", based in Rougemont, Quebec, that continues to promote social credit monetary policy coupled with conservative Catholicism. The Pilgrims publish The Michael Journal in English and Vers Demain in French. The group was founded in 1939 and is nicknamed "the White Berets" for the headgear worn by members.

Federal general election results

Election	# of candidates nominated	# of seats won	# of total votes	% of popular vote
1945	1	0	596	0.01%
1949	56	0	86,087	1.47%

Quebec provincial general election results

General election	# of candidates	# of seats won	% of popular vote
1944	11	0	1.44%
1948	91	0	9.24%

Candidats des électeurs

Réal Caouette ran under this label in the 1957 and 1958 federal elections, but failed to win a seat.

Candidats libéral des électeurs

In the 1962 and 1963 federal elections, a small breakaway from Social Credit ran a single candidate under the name Candidat libéral des électeurs without success. The 1962 candidate, J.-Edouard Pharon, received 1,800 votes – 500 more than the Social Credit candidate.

Ralliement des créditistes du Canada

Réal Caouette had been a social credit stalwart since the joining the movement in 1939, running as a candidate for the Union des électeurs. He won a seat in the House of Commons in a by-election, but lost it in the next general election. He was a true believer in social credit theory and a charismatic, almost evangelical speaker.

In 1958, he broke with Union des électeurs founders Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier, and formed the Ralliement des créditistes du Canada as the Quebec wing of the

.

Driven by Caouette's fiery oratory, the Social Credit Party achieved a breakthrough in the 1962 federal election, winning 26 seats in Quebec. Only four Social Credit MPs were elected in the rest of Canada.

Thompson insisted on remaining national party leader after 1962, even though the Social Credit caucus was overwhelmingly from Quebec and regarded Caouette as its leader. Thompson accepted Caouette as his deputy leader.

This tension led to a split: in 1963, the Quebec wing became independent from the party in the rest of country as the Ralliement des créditistes, or Social Credit Rally in English. Of the 20 Social Credit MPs elected in Quebec in the 1963 federal election, 13 followed Caouette into the Ralliement, five ran in the next election as independents and two joined the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

The Ralliement ran as a separate party in the

. Nine of its candidates were elected in Quebec in 1965. It went on to win 14 seats in Quebec in 1968, and then creditiste leader Caouette became leader of the Social Credit Party. The party took seats in Quebec in the 1970s.

In 1968, Thompson joined the Progressive Conservative Party.

General election results – Ralliement des créditistes

Election	# of candidates nominated	# of seats won	# of total votes	% of popular vote
1965	77	9	359,258	4.66%

Ralliement créditiste

In October 1967, the Ralliement des créditistes changed its name to Ralliement créditiste.

In the 1968 federal election, the Social Credit Party won no seats in the House of Commons, while Caouette's Ralliement créditiste returned 14 MPs.

In 1969, the federal Ralliement créditiste entered provincial politics by running candidates in four Quebec by-elections. The candidates appeared on the ballot without party designation, as the party did not run candidates in the last general election. All were defeated. A dissident group opposed to Caouette's leadership founded the Parti crédit social uni in this period.^[3]

The Ralliement créditiste du Québec was created in January 1970 and fielded candidates in the 1970 and 1973 provincial elections.

In 1971, Caouette and the Ralliement créditiste rejoined the Social Credit Party of Canada, and Caouette was

.

The Social Credit Party under Caouette's leadership won 15 seats in 1972 and 11 in 1974. Under Fabien Roy’s leadership it won 6 in 1979. It won no seats in 1980.

General election results - Ralliement créditiste

Election	# of candidates nominated	# of seats won	# of total votes	% of popular vote
1968	72	14	360,404	4.43%

See also

• List of political parties in Canada
• List of Social Credit/Creditistes MPs
• Politics of Quebec
• List of Quebec general elections
• Timeline of Quebec history

References

External links

• National Assembly historical information
• La Politique québécoise sur le Web