Mormons in Canada

I thought social credit was more of a mixed bag, with both left and right aspects? Or at least left and right advocates.

Under William Aberhart in Depresion-era Alberta, they were something like Huey Long, but with more thought-out economic theories, and a premillenial evangelical Christian worldview. After Aberhart died in the 1940s, Ernest Manning purged the radical economic faction(who were also the most anti-semitic faction), and made the party into basically a garden-variety pro-business conservative party which stayed in power until the early 70s by spending oil money on schools and hospitals. They finally got voted out just because people were sick of their hayseed image.

Social Credit in British Columbia was like Manning Social Credit(pro-business, no radical economics), but in Quebec they continued with the radical anti-banking stuff, and barely disguised anti-semitism, winning their last federal seats in that province in 1979.
 
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Were they mainstream, or polygamists?
My wife is former LDS (so am I, both met after leaving the Church but that's another story) and she has Canadian friends still active in the Church. They are just like the stereotypical LDS members you see on South Park. Her one friend recently ran for political office. Nice guy.
 
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You'd still get quite a bit of settlement in northern Idaho and Washington, I imagine, maybe into Montana also. The intermountain west states probably end up divided differently. Nevada and Utah might be all one blob, or Utah might be split between Nevada and Colorado. Not sure if there any close elections in the early 1900s where a couple of Senators or Electors less might have made a difference.

The OTL population of BC isn't too far from the OTL population of the Mormon Belt in the US, so BC probably ends up being pretty heavily Mormon-dominated the way Utah is.
 
Mormonism would probably be more far influential on Canada than it was on the US in OTL because of Canada's smaller population.
 
If it's before 1870 there are too many Indians and the Mormons won't dare move against the Blackfoot, Cree, Metis and Assiniboia for them to contend with. Any time after that the RNWMP send them home because they don't want supposed American influence taking over the northwest. The Canadians didn't mind when the Mormons were one group of many, but if they showed up in major numbers there would be a lot more push back against them.
 
They settle, what, around Lake Manitoba?

For all the folks expecting Mormons to mellow out here, ya'll forget part of the reason that happened is they were a small minoroty in a much larger USA.

Drop them in sparsely inhabited Western Canada, and they could very well be the tail wagging the Canadian dog, remolding everything west of Ontario in thier image.
 
Under William Aberhart in Depresion-era Alberta, they were something like Huey Long, but with more thought-out economic theories, and a premillenial evangelical Christian worldview. After Aberhart died in the 1940s, Ernest Manning purged the radical economic faction(who were also the most anti-semitic faction), and made the party into basically a garden-variety pro-business conservative party which stayed in power until the early 70s by spending oil money on schools and hospitals. They finally got voted out just because people were sick of their hayseed image.

Social Credit in British Columbia was like Manning Social Credit(pro-business, no radical economics), but in Quebec they continued with the radical anti-banking stuff, and barely disguised anti-semitism, winning their last federal seats in that province in 1979.

Persuant...

Carriers of the New Black Plague

Check out the shadings for Canada, in particular Alberta. (This was made at a time when the Socreds were trying to restrict the freedom of the press in the province.)
 
They settle, what, around Lake Manitoba?

For all the folks expecting Mormons to mellow out here, ya'll forget part of the reason that happened is they were a small minoroty in a much larger USA.

Drop them in sparsely inhabited Western Canada, and they could very well be the tail wagging the Canadian dog, remolding everything west of Ontario in thier image.

I don’t think so. They’d be swept aside by immigration (which will happen. Britain and Canada wanted to keep the US from settling the west first and an influx of American immigrants would increase such worries), and by the present day *Manitoba would merely be a Mormon-flavoured province.
 
I don’t think so. They’d be swept aside by immigration (which will happen. Britain and Canada wanted to keep the US from settling the west first and an influx of American immigrants would increase such worries), and by the present day *Manitoba would merely be a Mormon-flavoured province.

I mean, you say that, but the Mormons would beat the immigration waves to the Plains provinces by decades.

Plus, if Utah is any sign of things, getting there first can make a big difference.

So, Dominion of Deseret breaking off from Canada when?
 
I mean, you say that, but the Mormons would beat the immigration waves to the Plains provinces by decades.

Plus, if Utah is any sign of things, getting there first can make a big difference.

So, Dominion of Deseret breaking off from Canada when?

Why do the Canadians let the Mormons show up in force?
 
Why do the Canadians let the Mormons show up in force?

It's Western Canada in the 1840s. You didn't even have an established territorial government west of Ontario for another three decades.

Meanwhile, the Mormons in OTL Utah had population growth rates that neared 300%.

By the time talk of a Canadian Confederation might start post-ACW, you'd be looking at everything between the Great Lakes and the Rockies being either Mormon or Metis, possibly a hybrid of both.

Interesting setting by then - do we even get a united Canada at this point? Do we see Britain set up several dominions instead of just one Canadian one?
 
I think you could see a scenario where Brigham Young & co. head to Manitoba and are allowed to settle there in exchange for pledging allegiance to the British Crown in the 1840s. Polygamy would be an issue, but I could see the British looking the other way if the local authorities could be persuaded to see the Mormons as being fiercely anti-American and a bulwark against further American expansion in the region. That being said, it would still be an issue as things move forward and the Mormon population in Manitoba skyrockets. Perhaps Mormon converts from Northern Europe bring in Winter Wheat a bit earlier?

IMO the real interesting question is going to be how Young's relationship with the Metis evolves in TTL. The Canadian Prairies are more hospitable than the Great Basin, and both the Mormons and the Metis have a common enemy in the Anglo-Protestant settlers. Initially Brigham Young advocated for good relations with Native Americans is this enough to lead to a Mormon-Metis alliance in Manitoba? Does Louis Riel in TTL convert to Mormonism? Eventually I think this alliance, if it happens, breaks down, but in the 1870s they might decide that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". That could lead to a really interesting situation
 
It's Western Canada in the 1840s. You didn't even have an established territorial government west of Ontario for another three decades.

Meanwhile, the Mormons in OTL Utah had population growth rates that neared 300%.

By the time talk of a Canadian Confederation might start post-ACW, you'd be looking at everything between the Great Lakes and the Rockies being either Mormon or Metis, possibly a hybrid of both.

Interesting setting by then - do we even get a united Canada at this point? Do we see Britain set up several dominions instead of just one Canadian one?

It didn't need government because it was self governed... by the Indians. Where do the Mormons settle that the Sioux, Blackfoot, Assiniboia or Metis don't fall upon them? What do they grow for food? The Selkirk colony had an intensely difficult go of it in its early years. Why do they go to a hostile foreign country filled with angry locals? What's to stop the Canadians and the HBC to bitch to Britain and get them to turn the Mormons back?

There was an existing social fabric in the Canadian west that existed and the Mormons would be a massive wrench in a well oiled machine. Virtually every group in the region has a reason to not want them there.
 
That self-government sure worked out well for the Indians when the Anglo-Canadians moved west and completely respected the existing governments, huh?

That was the 1870s when the buffalo disappeared and their whole way of life had been shattered. In the 1840s it was a very different story. And after that, there was a Canadian presence there who would have asked the Mormons to leave and turned them around.
 
Since when did a little thing like Indians already living there stop folks from settling the West or the North?

We already have a possiblity for who would want them there - the British. Better the Mormons settle there than the Metis, or god forbid, the Yanks.
 
Since when did a little thing like Indians already living there stop folks from settling the West or the North?

We already have a possiblity for who would want them there - the British. Better the Mormons settle there than the Metis, or god forbid, the Yanks.

There's a strong correlation between when things got settled and the decline of the Plains Indians. None of that whole area saw any serious settlement until the decline of the buffalo. There was better land elsewhere with better weather and locals that weren't as likely to kill you.

And to the British and Upper Canadians the Mormons are Yanks. Anyone coming from America will be labeled as an American and an agitator.

The best bet to get them in Canada is if they arrive as refugees. Having endured massive hardship losing many of their number from the Mormon War in Missouri and the ensuing flight they show up with little more than the clothes on their backs as refugees then they might get taken in.

But any sort of voluntary migration is going to met with push back against what is perceived as American incursion.
 
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