Social Credit Board
The Social Credit Board was a committee in
After requiring all Social Credit Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) to sign loyalty oaths to it, the Social Credit Board proceeded to recommend radical legislation regulating banking, taxing banks, and restricting freedom of the press and access to courts. Most of this legislation was either
Beginnings
The Social Credit Board was tasked with the appointment of a Social Credit commission, composed of experts on social credit, to advise on the implementation of social credit in Alberta.[4] Most Social Crediters hoped that C. H. Douglas, the British founder of the social credit movement, would agree to head this commission. Douglas refused MacLachlan's entreaties to do so, but sent two representatives, George Frederick Powell and L. Dennis Byrne, in his stead.[5] One of Powell's first acts was to demand that all Social Credit MLAs sign an oath of loyalty to the Social Credit Board, which almost all did.[5]
Proposals, disallowance, and judicial defeat (1937–1938)
The first round of legislation recommended by the commission and subsequently passed by the legislature included the Credit of Alberta Regulation Act, which required every bank and all their employees to be licensed by the provincial government and to be overseen by a Social Credit Board-appointed directorate, the Bank Employees Civil Rights Act, which prohibited unlicensed banks and their employees from initiating legal proceedings, and amendments to the Judicature Act prohibiting court actions alleging that any of Alberta's legislation was unconstitutional.
In 1937's
Decline and dissolution (1939–1948)
World War II further reduced the Social Credit Board's importance, as implementation of social credit took a backseat to the war effort. Instead of proposing new policy, the board devoted itself to propaganda;[11] its members spoke across the province about social credit, and it distributed vast numbers of pamphlets and leaflets (272,900 in 1939).[12] When Aberhart died in 1943, he was replaced by Ernest Manning, who was by this time considerably less open to radical social credit proposals than Aberhart had been.[13][14][15][16][17] He soon transferred many of the Social Credit Board's responsibilities to the new department of Economic Affairs, of which L. D. Byrne was the deputy minister.[11]
Byrne, the remaining Douglas lieutenant after Powell's deportation, shared both Douglas's economic theories and his
Despite its beginnings as a vehicle of intended economic revolution, the board achieved nothing of lasting importance. Once its early efforts were foiled by the federal government and the courts, it ceased to have much influence. By 1948, the dire conditions that had sparked Albertans' enthusiasm for radical economic reform had vanished, and with it their interest in social credit.[21] While the Social Crediters remained in government until 1971, the revolutionary spirit of the 1930s was all but forgotten: as Athabasca University historian Alvin Finkel notes, post-war Social Credit "had been transformed from a mass, eclectic movement for social reform led by monetary reformers to a relatively small government party that enjoyed considerable support from various sectors of the Alberta population for its judicious combination of right-wing rhetoric and social service and road-building programs."[22] The Social Credit Board, with its reform mandate and its direct pipeline to Douglas, was no longer needed.
Notes
- ^ Elliott 257
- ^ MacPherson 171
- ISSN 0008-3755.
- ^ MacPherson 172
- ^ a b Elliott 264
- ^ MacPherson 177
- ^ Elliott 268
- ^ Barr 109–110
- ^ Barr 109
- ^ Barr 112
- ^ a b c Brennan 94
- ^ Barr 127
- ^ Barr 121
- ^ Bell 160
- ^ a b Brennan 93
- ^ Finkel 90
- ^ MacPherson 212
- ^ a b Barr 128
- ^ a b Brennan 95
- ^ Brennan 96
- ^ Byrne 159
- ^ Finkel 99
References
- Barr, John J. (1974). The Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of Social Credit in Alberta. ISBN 0-7710-1015-X.
- Bell, Edward (2004). "Ernest Manning". In Bradford J. Rennie (ed.). Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century. ISBN 0-88977-151-0.
- ISBN 978-1-897252-16-1.
- ISBN 1-55059-024-3.
- Elliott, David R.; Miller, Iris (1987). Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart. Edmonton: Reidmore Books. ISBN 0-919091-44-X.
- Finkel, Alvin (1989). The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta. Toronto: ISBN 0-8020-6731-X.
- ISBN 0-8020-6009-9.