Question on the Canadian SoCreds

Bulldoggus

Banned
If the SoCreds had managed to win a government, how would they have governed? Would they have followed SoCred fiscal dogma? Would they have governed as right-populists? And didn't one branch pass single-payer in Alberta? Would they have thus been of the left?
 
If the SoCreds had managed to win a government, how would they have governed? Would they have followed SoCred fiscal dogma? Would they have governed as right-populists? And didn't one branch pass single-payer in Alberta? Would they have thus been of the left?

The SoCreds did end up in power in Alberta and British Columbia. They tried to go with their dogma but where quickly put back in their place by the federal government (money is a federal area) and that was that. In reality, they mainly governed like evengelical christians would in the US: very conservative socially and laissez faire economicaly.

As of being in charge on the federal level, its pretty much ASB. The SoCreds where never significant outside the aforementionned tow provinces and Quebec (and the western branch and the Quebec wing had quite complicated relations).
 
There was some concern that Social Credit could overtake the PCs as Canada's main right-wing party before Dief took the reins in the 1950s, if they had actually gotten in power they would have governed as right-wing populists and probably not even touch Social Credit economic theories.
 

Bulldoggus

Banned
There was some concern that Social Credit could overtake the PCs as Canada's main right-wing party before Dief took the reins in the 1950s, if they had actually gotten in power they would have governed as right-wing populists and probably not even touch Social Credit economic theories.
Well, it would have been a mess if they tried those absurd theories.
The SoCreds did end up in power in Alberta and British Columbia. They tried to go with their dogma but where quickly put back in their place by the federal government (money is a federal area) and that was that. In reality, they mainly governed like evengelical christians would in the US: very conservative socially and laissez faire economicaly.
But didn't they pass socialized healthcare in AB?
 
Well, it would have been a mess if they tried those absurd theories.

But didn't they pass socialized healthcare in AB?

Yes and no (with heavy emphasis on the no): After public healtcare proved successfull in Saskatchewan (among others) the Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau (the father of the present PM) created a system of federal transfer to the province to help them pay for a public system with far more money to the poorest ones to keep some kind of equality of services and fairness throughout the federation. Public healtcare being very popular at the time, and still being, in Canada and the fact that most of the money would have comme from the federal aniway since Alberta was one of the less well off among the provinces at the time (they had already found some oil but the real boom only started some years latter in the 70's and oil wasn't what is today for an economy before the OPEP crisis aniway) it would have been extremely stupid politicaly to refuse so they pinched their noses and went along with it.
 
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Did the catholic church like social cred, because of its corporatist ideals?

I'm not sure, but the Creditisite and the White Berets(non-party) in Quebec certainly liked the Catholic Church.

The Pilgrims Of St. Michael

My guess would be that the more educated among the clergy saw this sorta stuff as hokey, but were happy to have the yokels voting creditiste instead of for the godless NDP or Liberals.

And at the federal level, from the 1963 schism, from wiki...

On the Saturday of the convention, Caouette had given a 90-minute speech in which he described Thompson as a “marionette” for Manning. He also dropped a bombshell: he claimed that in 1960, ten minutes before the leadership vote, Manning had instructed him to “tell your people to vote for Thompson because the West will never accept a Roman Catholic French Canadian leader”.[1]

Being from Alberta, I can imagine Manning was right that most western Socreds in the 60s would be unhappy with a Roman Catholic French Canadian leading their party. The Liberals under Louis St. Laurent had done not too badly in the west(including Alberta), but that would have been a somewhat different demographic than the kind of people who attended Social Credit conventions.
 
Thank you

You're welcome.

Just for interests' sake, Social Credit also had a following among the Mormons of southern Alberta, which continues to this day in what's left of the provincial party. Interesting that Manning supposedly thought his followers wouldn't like a French Catholic leader, even though they apparently had no problem with this guy...

Blackmore was the first Mormon to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons and was excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1947 for "teaching and advocating the doctrine of plural marriage" at secret meetings in southern Alberta. At such meetings, men debated whether Mormon leaders were wrong to have renounced Joseph Smith's revelation regarding polygamy. Though not a polygamist himself, Blackmore urged Parliament to repeal the anti-polygamy law and succeeded in removing specific references to Mormons in the law. His nephew, Winston Blackmore, is the leader of Canada's largest polygamist group and was charged by the RCMP with polygamy in 2009. He is currently challenging the law's constitutionality.[1]
 
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