Social Credit Party of Canada leadership elections
The
Aberhart and the Social Credit movement supported William Duncan Herridge as leader of the national New Democracy movement for the 1940 election – Herridge failed to win a seat in Parliament, however, and Blackmore remained leader of the group in parliament. In 1944, at its first national convention, the Social Credit Association of Canada was formed and elected its first official national leader.
1944 founding convention
The convention was held at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. The party leader was elected on April 6, 1944.
First Ballot
- Solon Earl Low acclaimed
Early in the convention MPs
1961 leadership convention
The convention was held in the Cow Palace in Ottawa, Ontario, July 4 to 7, 1961
First Ballot
Alexander Bell Patterson was also a candidate but withdrew before the first ballot.
Thompson, a chiropractor by profession, was the party's president and was a founding member of the Alberta party before moving to Africa to help re-establish the
The actual count was not revealed and the ballots were burned. Officials would only tell reporters that Thompson had won by a "very close" margin over runner up Caouette.
1971 leadership convention
The convention was held in Hull, Quebec on October 9, 1971.
- Réal Caouette 510 (73.7%)
- Phil Cossette 104 (15.0%)
- James McGillivray 69 (10.0%)
- Fernand Bouret 9 (1.3%)
At this convention the Social Credit Party of Canada and the Caouette-led Ralliement créditiste were reunited – healing a split that had occurred in 1963.[2]
Réal Caouette, the only MP from the 15-member caucus in the contest, won the leadership on the first ballot over Phil Cossette, an advertising businessman from
The convention attracted 979 delegates of which 655 (70%) were from Quebec, 149 from Ontario, 121 from Western Canada, 51 from the Atlantic provinces, and three from the United States.[3]
1976 leadership convention
The convention was held at the
First ballot:
- André-Gilles Fortin 532 (46.54%)
- René Matte 317 (27.73%)
- Martin Hattersley 194 (16.97%)
- Ralph Cameron 48 (4.2%)
- John H. Long 31 (2.71%)
- Philip Hele-Hambly 18 (1.58%)
- Alex Barker 3 (0.26%)
Barker was eliminated after the first ballot. Philip Hele-Hambly and John H. Long both withdrew before the second ballot. Another announced candidate, Patricia Métivier, a Montreal journalist and perennial candidate, was denied accreditation to the convention.
Second ballot:
- André-Gilles Fortin 610 (55.35%)
- René Matte 317 (28.77%)
- Martin Hattersley 165 (14.97%)
- Ralph Cameron 10 (0.91%)
André-Gilles Fortin, the 32-year-old MP for Lotbiniere won the convention on the second ballot. Fortin presented a young, dynamic image, but campaigned on traditional social credit economic theory and supporting small business. The other candidates were:[4]
- René Matte, MP for Champlain, who proposed splitting Canada into five sovereign regions within a loose confederation, and complained that the party executive had changed the rules for accrediting delegates to favour Fortin, leading to the disqualification of 150 party members, and the accreditation of extra delegates from some ridings;
- Edmonton, Alberta, the party’s national president;
- Alex Barker, a contractor from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan;
- Ralph Cameron, a contractor from Calgary, Alberta;
- Philp Hele-Hambly, a teacher from Montreal, Quebec;
- John R. Long, a manufacturer from Cambridge, Ontario:[5]
Fortin was killed in an automobile accident the next year.
1978 leadership convention
The convention was held in Winnipeg, May 6–7, 1978.
- Lorne Reznowski 356 (75.58%)
- Martin Hattersley 115 (24.42%)
Reznowski was an English Professor at the University of Manitoba and a former national secretary of the party and aide to former leader
The convention was controversial because it was held in Winnipeg rather than in Quebec where most party members, and the entire parliamentary caucus, resided. Réal Caouette's son, Gilles Caouette, who had been expected to be a candidate for the leadership resigned as interim party leader in protest over the party executive's decision to hold the convention outside of Quebec and before the federal election which was expected in 1978 (Caouette would have preferred to remain interim leader and lead the party through the election before having to face a convention). It was believed that the party executive wished to have an English Canadian leader in hopes of reviving the party's prospects in Western Canada while Caouette and much of the caucus, fearing the loss of their seats in an election, preferred to have a Quebec leader in hopes of retaining the party's existing support in that province.
Reznowski resigned as leader five months after being elected to the position after winning only 2.76% of the vote in an October 1978 federal by-election in
Leaderless, the party appointed independent
1982 leadership convention
The convention was held on July 3, 1982 in Regina, Saskatchewan.
- Martin Hattersley
- Ken Sweigard
- Anne McBride
- Poldi Meindl
Hattersley won on the first ballot; vote totals were not released.
Hattersley was an Edmonton lawyer, former party president and the party's interim leader since Roy's resignation. Sweigard of Alberta and McBride of Ontario were evangelical ministers. Meindl, of Vancouver, was a local activist who had run as a Socred candidate in the 1980 federal election and was known in the city for having campaigned against homosexuality. At the convention he distributed hundreds of copies of the
Hattersley resigned as leader in 1983 after the executive overturned his decision to expel
1986 leadership convention
The convention was held on June 21, 1986 in Toronto.[7]
- Harvey Lainson 67 (58.77%)
- Jim Keegstra38 (33.33%)
- Ken Sweigard 9 (7.9%)
A fourth candidate, retired grocer James Green of Bentley, Alberta, dropped out before the first ballot to support Keegstra.
Sweigard, an evangelical minister, had been the party's acting leader since Hattersley's resignation in 1983 and led the party through the
Lainson declared his victory a win for the party's moderates and Keegstra's supporters vowed to continue the fight. Green said of Lainson after his victory, "We're going to stonewall this guy. There's no way we're going to do business with him. As far as we're concerned, this bunch is part of the conspiracy."[9]
The party executive ousted Lainson as leader in July 1987 after he attempted to abandon the Social Credit name in favour of "Christian Freedom". The executive appointed Keegstra as leader. Lainson did not recognize the meeting as legitimate and refused to relinquish the leadership.[10][11]
After an internal fight Keegstra was expelled in September and the party was renamed the Christian Freedom Social Credit Party[12] though its nine candidates ran under its old name in the 1988 federal election. Lainson resigned as the near-moribund party's leader in 1990 and evangelist Ken Campbell was appointed leader by the party's national executive on February 16, 1990. The party was de-registered by Elections Canada in 1993 when it failed to nominate at least 50 candidates in the federal election.
References
- ^ "Socred Ballot Sure Was Secret", Toronto Star, July 7, 1961.
- ^ "Caouette retains leadership with ease on first ballot at Socred national rally", Globe and Mail, 11 October 1971
- ^ Globe and Mail, 11 October 1971, “Caouette retains leadership with ease on first ballot at Socred national rally”, Clair Ballone, p1.
- ^ Montreal Gazette, 4 November 1976, p. 11 “Matte sees fix of Socreds meet”
- ^ "Fortin takes over helm of Social Credit", Montreal Gazette, 8 November 1976, p. 1
- ^ "Monetary system not part of jet age, Socred leader says", Canadian Press, July 5, 1982
- ^ Oziewicz, Stanley (June 23, 1986). "Evangelist wins Socred leadership, attacked as a racist by Keegstra". Globe and Mail. p. A1.
- ^ "Minister to lead Socreds as Keegstra loses in vote", by Paul Bilodeau, Toronto Star, June 22, 1986
- ^ a b "The Socreds of '86", Globe and Mail, June 24, 1986.
- ^ "Keegstra's future in question as Socred chief refuses to quit", The Globe and Mail, July 30, 1987
- ^ "Socreds pick Keegstra as interim party leader", The Globe and Mail, July 28, 1987
- ^ "For the record Keegstra out of Socreds, leader says", Globe and Mail, September 12, 1987