This Day in Canadian History

December 16, 1976 - Real Caouette passes away

Social Credit -- a political doctrine based on the teachings of Major CH Douglas -- tends to be more widely associated with Alberta. There, the Social Credit party governed for 36 years under the tenures of premiers William Aberhart, Ernest Manning and Harry Strom.

However, it's often overlooked that Social Credit also developed a strong following the province of Quebec.

Real Caouette, the charismatic force behind Ralliement des Creditistes, the Quebec wing of the Social Credit party, was born on September 26, 1917 in Amos, Quebec.

He would discover Douglas' political screed in 1939 and would win election to the House of Commons seven years later.

In 1962, Caouette led the Credistes to win 26 seats in the House of Commons. By contrast, the western wing of the Social Credit party elected only four members, even with the party governing in Alberta and British Columbia.

Interestingly, not only would Social Credit thrive in Quebec, but it would actually outlast its western counterparts.

According to Michael Stein, the Quebec voters who helped Social Credit attain its decisive emergence in Quebec were young and disaffected former Conservative and Liberal supporters, most of whom were voting in their first election.

Social Credit has always been distinguished by a paradoxical place in Canadian politics. Considering that Social Credit doctrine advocates turning loose what it describes as billions of dollars in untapped wealth being held by banks and the government, Social Credit would rely on a suspiciously high level of state intervention in the economy.

It really can't be considered a purely conservative ideology.

Yet Social Credit has, more often than not in Canada, proven to be little more than a haven for disaffected conservatives -- the obvious case is British Columbia's WAC Bennet.

In Quebec, Social Credit made a considerably greater deal of sense. Pre-1970s Quebec politics was often characterized by a preoccupation with English Canadian financial trusts that controlled a significant portion of Quebec's economy.

This is a historical political trend that would also, from time to time, benefit parties like Maurice Duplessis' Union Nationale and, obviously, Rene Levesque's Parti Quebecois.

Ralliement des Creditistes enjoyed the fervent support of its creditors. In 1973, Stein noted that not only were the Creditistes still active in Quebec, but its most active members were spending at least five nights a week on party activities.

Real Caouette, the face of Social Credit in Canada, would pass away in 1976. The movement would not survive him for long.

By 1980, the Fabian Roy-led Creditistes had been reduced to six seats in the House of Commons. The defection of Richard Janelle to Joe Clark's Progressive Conservative government would further reduce that number to five. At the conclusion of the 1980 federal election, they were gone.

While some still envision a Social Credit comeback, its clear that the SoCreds are a spent force in Canadian politics: an enigmatic vestige of Canada's political history long scattered to the four winds.

Conservatism is Not Alberta's Culture

Candidate’s intemperate remarks are cause for concern

A storm’s a brewin’ in Alberta. A fire storm.

With many Albertans looking toward the next provincial election (still presumably at least a couple of years away) with conversely optimism (for supporters of the provinces seemingly-resurgent opposition parties) or worry (for supporters of the incumbent Progressive Conservative government), it doesn’t take much of a comment to provoke a mini-controversy.

This has seemingly become the case with Craig Chandler, a nominee for the Progressive Conservative candidacy in Calgary-Edgmont.

In a recent op/ed piece, Graham Thomson seemingly provoked the ire of Chandler, when he quoted from an op/ed article that Chandler submitted for publishing.

“To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came here to our home and we vote conservative,” Chandler, in the article, insisted. “You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home, and if you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns, or leave. Conservatism is our culture.”

"Do not destroy what we have created,” he concludes.

Considering the success that the Albertan Progressive Conservative party has enjoyed in recent decades, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that his comments bear a striking resemblance to the kind of arrogance displayed by Liberals and their supporters when they insist that they are Canada’s natural governing party, and have some sort of monopoly on “Canadian values”.

Not only should Chandler’s comments be considered an indiscretion (toput it mildly), they should be considered altogether unwelcome.

It is true that Alberta has traditionally voted in favour of conservative movements, whether it was the Reform party, the Progressive Conservative Party, the Progressives, or the Social Credit (although, when one considers the sheer amount of government intervention necessary to implement a proper Social Credit program, one wonders whether or not it can legitimately be considered “conservative”). But this hardly means that the Progressive Conservative party is guaranteed to win the next election, nor are they entitled to.

Thomson is entirely right when he writes about “prairie fire storms” continually wiping out complacent governments in Alberta, when (usually new) parties wrestle the throne of long-term one-party rulership away from the incumbent. This isn’t even exclusively a risk borne by provincial governments – the same happened to the federal Progressive Conservative party in 1993, when the Reform party decimated the PCs Albertan holdings.

Many observers feel that a new prairie fire storm is approaching, ready to immolate the increasingly complacent Alberta PCs. Whomever will inherit Alberta’s government when the Tories are reduced to ash has yet to be determined.

Simply put, whomever wins the Tory nomination for Calgary-Edgmont is not guaranteed to be the next MLA for that riding. The recent Liberal victory in Calgary-Elbow is enough to remind Albertan Conservatives that they do, indeed, need to work in order to win the next election, and there’s no time like the present to start.

Simply put, no one in Alberta is obligated to vote for the Tories, no matter how long they have lived in Alberta, or how recently they’ve moved here. Conservatism is not our culture – it’s merely the political expression of our interests, but those interests can – and inevitably will – change.

Chandler will unfortunately have to take his lumps on this particular issue.

If he doesn’t learn from them, then he’ll be better off not joining the Ed "Stalemate" Stelmach election campaign in self-immolation.


Correction - The previously-mentioned Liberal by-election victory was indeed in Calgary-Elbow. My thanks go out to all of you who brought this error to my attention.