Social Credit Board – daveberta.ca – Alberta Politics and Elections

Episode 76: Radical Alberta politics and propaganda in the 1930s

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Andrea Hasenbank joins the Daveberta Podcast to discuss radical politics and propaganda in 1930s Alberta, one of Dave Cournoyer’s favourite periods in Alberta politics. From the rise of Communist organizations and publications to the election of William Aberhart‘s Social Credit Party, the 1930s was a wild period in Alberta politics as our province became a testing ground for radical political, social and economic theories.

Andrea Hasenbank holds a PhD in English from the University of Alberta, focusing on the circulation of print and the reading publics that formed the leftist pamphleteering culture of 1930s Canada. Between 2015 and 2019, she worked as a political advisor within the Notley government in Alberta. She teaches courses on media history and the news and consults on learning design. Her new research continues to examine the intersection of print, readers, propaganda, and the state in interwar Canada.

The Daveberta Podcast is hosted by Dave Cournoyer and produced by Adam Rozenhart.

The Daveberta Podcast is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network: Locally grown. Community supported.

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This is our last podcast of the season, so we will be taking a break over the next few months to enjoy the Alberta summer. We may pop in with an odd episode or two if there are any big developments over the summer, but otherwise we will return to our regular podcast schedule in the fall.

Thanks for listening. Have a safe and fun summer.

Recommended reading:

In Blunderland (Andrea Hasenbank, June 13, 2021)
Police swing billy clubs to break up hunger march on Legislature (Edmonton Journal, December 20, 1932)
Social Credit Board
What is Social Credit? (Published by the Social Credit Board, 1945)
Bankers’ Toadies Incident
1937 Social Credit Backbenchers’ Revolt
Accurate News and Information Act
Before David Suzuki there was the William Aberhart honorary degree scandal at the University of Alberta (Daveberta.ca, April 25, 2018)
Nothing new under the Prairie Sun: Alberta’s Social Credit Invasion of Saskatchewan (Daveberta.ca, November 1, 2016)
Once upon a time Alberta had a Provincial Sales Tax (Daveberta.ca, January, 14, 2015)
The Social Credit Phenomenon (Alvin Finkel, University of Toronto Press, 1989)

Social Credit Party renamed the Alberta Pro-Life Political Association

The Alberta Social Credit Party is no more. Taken over by a group of anti-abortion activists in 2016, the party has officially changed its name to the Alberta Pro-Life Political Association. According to Elections Alberta, the name change became official on May 3, 2017.

While the Social Credit Party has sat on the conservative fringe of Alberta politics for much of the past four decades, the party fundamentally reshaped the politics of our province when it formed government from 1935 to 1971.

Inspired by the Social Credit teachings of British Major CH Douglas, William Aberhart‘s Social Credit Party swept the 1935 Alberta election in a populist wave, going from zero to 56 seats during the height of the Great Depression.

Upon learning of the election victory in 1935, the Social Credit Greenshirts in London were reported to have marched around the Bank of England Building holding torches and blowing their trumpets – no doubt inspired by the Battle of Jericho. (this was a period in western history when it was not uncommon for political parties to have official uniforms).

During its first decade in government, Aberhart’s radical administration tried to print its own currency, legislate control over the media, nationalize the banking system and ban alcohol sales. The Social Credit Party also introduced the province’s short-lived MLA recall law and a provincial sales tax.

In response to what they claimed to be a “world plot” by “socialists and world finance” (which is coded language for Jewish) the Alberta government-funded Social Credit Board proposed in 1947 that the secret ballot and political parties be abolished. “The obvious remedy for the evils of party politics is the abolition of political parties dominated at the top as we know them today,” the report argued.

Ernest Manning abolished the Social Credit Board in 1948.

It really was a bizarre time in Alberta politics.

Under Manning’s leadership from 1943 to 1968, the Social Credit Party evolved into a generic conservative governing party, albeit with a social conservative bent.

Perhaps the most important lasting legacy of the Social Credit government today is the continued existence of the Alberta Treasury Branches, which was founded in 1938 after the federal government thwarted attempts by Aberhart to impose government control over banks operating in Alberta.

The party was defeated in 1971 and last elected an MLA to the Legislature in 1979. Leader Randy Thorsteinson, led the party to win 6.8 percent of the vote in the 1997 election and later formed the Alberta Alliance Party (which later became the Wildrose Party). He is now the leader of the Reform Party of Alberta.

The Social Credit Party ran six candidates in the 2015 election, earning a total 832 votes.