Social Credit Party of Ontario
Encyclopedia
The Social Credit Party of Ontario (SCPO) (also known as the Ontario Social Credit League, Social Credit Association of Ontario and the Union of Electors) was a minor political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 at the provincial level in the Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 province of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 from the 1940s to the early 1970s. The party never won any seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...

. It was affiliated with the Social Credit Party of Canada
Social Credit Party of Canada
The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform...

 and espoused social credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...

 theories of monetary reform.

1940s and 1950s

Social Credit appears to have been inactive in Ontario until 1945 when eight candidates stood in the province for the federal party in the 1945 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1945
The Canadian federal election of 1945 was the 20th general election in Canadian history. It was held June 11, 1945 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 20th Parliament of Canada...

. The Ontario Social Credit Party ran three candidates in the 1945 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1945
The Ontario general election of 1945 was held on June 4, 1945, to elect the 90 members of the 22nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

.

In 1946, the Ontario Social Credit movement split as a result of Ernest Manning
Ernest Manning
Ernest Charles Manning, , a Canadian politician, was the eighth Premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He served longer than any premier in the province's history, and was the second longest serving provincial premier in Canadian history...

's growing hostility to Douglasites and anti-Semites in the movement.

The official Ontario Social Credit League was headed by John J. Fitzgerald and William Ovens. Ron Gostick
Ron Gostick
Ronald A. Gostick was a long-time figure on the Canadian far right and founder of the anti-Semitic Canadian League of Rights/ Gostick was involved in the Canadian social credit movement and later published far right and anti-Semitic material over the course of 50 years, including the Canadian...

, a far right propagandist, established the Union of Electors as a rival organization inspired by the more radical Quebec social credit organization, Union des electeurs led by Louis Even
Louis Even
Louis Even was a lay Christian leader and publisher who founded the social credit movement in Quebec. He co-founded and led the Pilgrims of Saint Michael, better known as the white berets, with Gilberte Côté-Mercier and was a founder of the Union of Electors, a predecessor of Réal Caouette's...

.

Like Even's group, the Union rejected the party system and ran not as a partisan political party but as a citizen's organization compelling their elected representatives to represent the will of the people. Like the Quebec-based Union, it also believed in a more orthodox application of social credit economic theory and was more openly anti-Semitic. In October 1947, the Ontario Social Credit League held an emergency convention which repudiated Gostick and the Union for infringing the League's rights.

In the 1948 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1948
The Ontario general election of 1948 was held on June 7, 1948, to elect the 90 members of the 23rd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 the official Social Credit League ran no candidates but the Union of Electors ran fifteen candidates. The Ontario Union of Electors was accused by the Toronto Labour Council of "disseminating racial hatred in its crudest form."

Both parties then went dormant running no candidates in the 1951 or 1955 provincial elections, although the federal party continued to run candidates in Ontario during federal elections throughout the 1950s. In the 1959 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1959
The Ontario general election of 1959 was held on June 11, 1959, to elect the 98 members of the 26th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 the Social Credit party ran five candidates under the leadership of Edgar Shipley Birrell. Birrell, a Toronto furrier, Social Credit member since 1944, and Leaside
Leaside
Leaside is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The area takes its name from William Lea and the Lea family, who settled there in the early years of the nineteenth century. The area first developed as farmland along with Toronto through the nineteenth century. It was incorporated as a...

 town councillor from 1955 to 1960 had been elected party leader in February 1959, and stood as the party's candidate in York East
York East
York East was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons at different times, and a provincial electoral district. It was located in the province of Ontario.-Federal electoral district :...

 Birrell remained party leader until March 1962.

1963 schism

In 1963, the party split into two factions. "Social Credit Action" was established by Neil Carmichael, a stamp and coin dealer, who was chosen the group's leader, Carmichael's membership in the Ontario Social Credit Party had not been renewed after he made anti-Semitic statements. Other founders of the splinter group were James Audy, an accountant, who became party president, and David Hartman of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. The group was formed when the official party refused to actively campaign in the 1963 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1963
The Ontario general election of 1963 was held on September 25, 1963, to elect the 108 members of the 27th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

. Audy had been the federal Social Credit Party's candidate in Spadina
Spadina (electoral district)
Spadina was a Canadian electoral district that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1935 to 1988. It covered a portion of the western-central Toronto. Its name comes from the Spadina Avenue, which runs through the heart of the riding....

 riding in the previous election.

Carmichael, 45, a five-time federal Socred candidate, had been the focus of controversy earlier that year when he was a federal Social Credit candidate in St. Paul's. He asserted at a public meeting that there was a Jewish conspiracy in which the Rothschilds were plotting to acquire all of Canada's mines
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 through non-Jewish third party operatives, and that the family was part of an international Jewish conspiracy to take over all of Canada's businesses. Carmichael was cautioned by the Social Credit Party of Ontario that he was "skating on thin ice" and would not be permitted to stand as a candidate again. His promise that a Social Credit government would pay each Canadian $5,000 worth of goods and services was derided by the Ontario party as "irresponsible". David Lewis
David Lewis (politician)
David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...

 of the New Democratic Party accused Social Credit of "harbouring anti-Semites" and stated that "Carmichael is only a symptom. The disease goes much deeper." Carmichael denied he was anti-Semitic saying "I am not anti-Semitic.... I have many Jewish friends.... Many of my customers are Jewish." At a subsequent meeting, he said that his comments were "indiscreet", that had he known he was going to be quoted he would have "cloaked them in nice phrases", and accused the Jews of persecuting him for his remarks, blaming a reporter with a Jewish sounding name for quoting him. In the same meeting Carmichael, declared that Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's economic system was "a very good and sound system of money" and that the Nazis "had it all figured out so that there was no unemployment." Carmichael's Social Credit membership was not renewed prior to his formation of Social Credit Action.

Social Credit Action supported Réal Caouette
Réal Caouette
David Réal Caouette was a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was a Member of Parliament and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada and founder of the Ralliement des créditistes...

 when he took his Ralliement des creditistes out of the Social Credit Party of Canada
Social Credit Party of Canada
The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform...

 in September 1963, while the official party remained loyal to federal party leader Robert N. Thompson
Robert N. Thompson
Robert Norman Thompson was a Canadian politician, chiropractor, and educator. He was born in Duluth, Minnesota, to Canadian parents and moved to Canada in 1918 with his family...

. Audy accused the Ontario Social Credit Association of being dominated by Protestant clergyman who were prejudiced against Caouette because he was a Catholic. Richard Day, a spokesperson for the official Social Credit League of Ontario derided the views of Social Credit Action as being "anti-Semitic, economic trash and hypocritical".
Social Credit Action nominated six candidates in ridings in Toronto in the 1963 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1963
The Ontario general election of 1963 was held on September 25, 1963, to elect the 108 members of the 27th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

, while the official party nominated only three candidates in rural ridings. The Social Credit Action candidates included Carmichael, Audy, Hartman and fascist John Ross Taylor
John Ross Taylor
John Ross Taylor was a Canadian fascist political activist and party leader prominent in white nationalist circles....

. However, when it was reported that "the former leader of the Canadian Union of Fascists
Canadian Union of Fascists
The Canadian Fascist Party was a fascist political party based in the Canadian city of Winnipeg. The formative core of the party was a splinter group from the Canadian Nationalist Party that found the principles of corporativism to be more important than the largely racial motivations of the...

 was running", the splinter group disassociated itself from Taylor on the eve of the election and he instead ran as a "Natural Order of Social Credit Organization" candidate. Audy was announced by Caouette as his Ontario lieutenant but did not end up running in the 1965 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1965
The Canadian federal election of 1965 was held on November 8 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 27th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson was re-elected with a larger number of seats in the House...

.

Subsequently, Carmichael was accused of allowing the Social Credit Action headquarters to become a meeting place and organizing centre for neo-Nazis disseminating anti-Semitic material, such as David Stanley and John Beattie
William John Beattie
William John Beattie was the founder and former leader of the Canadian Nazi Party. The establishment of the Canadian Nazi Party, re-named the National Socialist Party in 1967, marked a re-emergence of organized neo-Nazi activity in Canada that had been dormant since the days of Adrian Arcand...

. Carmichael denied the charge saying "we feel the Jews are trying to stir up hate this way to sell their Israel bonds." In October, the press reported that anti-Semitic leaflets were being distributed recruiting 14 to 21 year-olds to the right-wing "Canada Youth Corps" where they could be trained in explosives and weapons. The leaflets featured photographs of Carmichael and Stanley and promoted meetings at the Social Credit Action headquarters. Carmichael denied any knowledge of the leaflets or the Canada Youth Corps, and dissociated himself from Stanley. Carmichael and Beattie clashed in the press in April 1965 after Beattie announced the formation of the Canadian Nazi Party announcing that he intended to recruit the "snivelling cowards" in Carmichael's Social Credit movement. Carmichael accused Beattie of trying to discredit his party.

By the 1967 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1967
The Ontario general election of 1967 was held on October 17, 1967, to elect the 117 members of the 28th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 Social Credit Action had disappeared. The official Social Credit Party ran seven candidates.

Fascist takeover and split

In the early 1970s the radical Edmund Burke Society
Edmund Burke Society
The Edmund Burke Society was a far right organization formed by Paul Fromm, Don Andrews, Al Overfield and Leigh Smith in 1967 at the University of Toronto. The group was anti-communist and promoted conservative values...

 (EBS) infiltrated the party electing Paul Fromm as the party's president and other EBSers to the executive. In the 1971 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1971
The Ontario general election of 1971 was held on October 21, 1971, to elect the 117 members of the 29th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 three of five Social Credit candidates running in the election were avowed "Burkers". By 1972, the party had been taken over by the EBS which now called itself the Western Guard
Western Guard Party
The Western Guard Party was a white supremacist group based in Toronto, Canada. It evolved out of the far-right anti-Communist Edmund Burke Society that had been founded in 1967 by Don Andrews, Paul Fromm, Leigh Smith and Al Overfield.Andrews became the dominant figure in the EBS, and relaunched...

. As a result the party was put under trusteeship at the instigation of the federal party which declared membership in the Western Guard to be "incompatible" with membership in Social Credit. The federal Social Credit Party disavowed the Social Credit Association of Ontario led by John Ross Taylor of the Western Guard and instead recognized the "Ontario Social Credit League", established in 1973 under the leadership of Bruce Arnold.

In the 1975 Ontario election
Ontario general election, 1975
The Ontario general election of 1975 was held on September 18, 1975, to elect the 125 members of the 30th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 the "Ontario Social Credit League" fielded 10 candidates, mostly in rural areas, while the "Social Credit Association of Ontario" ran three candidates in Metro Toronto who were disavowed by the League as supporters of the Western Guard. In the 1974 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1974
The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term...

, the Ontario Social Credit Association endorsed Martin Weiche as a candidate in Trinity
Trinity (electoral district)
Trinity was an electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons 1935 to 1988. It covered a portion of the western Toronto. Its name comes from the Trinity-Bellwoods area that was once home to Trinity College....

 co-endorsed by the Western Guard though because the party was not officially registered with Elections Canada their federal candidates were officially listed as independents.

Neither Social Credit party ran candidates in the 1977 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1977
The Ontario general election of 1977 was held on June 9, 1977, to elect the 125 members of the 31st Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 though several candidates ran as "Independent Social Credit". Also in 1977, Western Guard leader Don Andrews
Don Andrews
Donald Clarke Andrews is a Canadian white supremacist. He is also the leader of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Party of Canada and a perennial candidate for mayor of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.-Early years:...

 was convicted of plotting to bomb the Israeli basketball team and was forced to sever his ties with the Western Guard freeing the way for John Ross Taylor to become the group's leader. He folded his Social Credit Association and became leader of the renamed Western Guard Party.

Later years

Reg Gervais was leader of the Ontario Social Credit Party in 1981 and announced prior to the March 1981 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1981
The Ontario general election of 1981 was held on March 19, 1981, to elect members of the 32nd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 that he planned to run in Nickel Belt, but did not follow through. John C. Turmel
John C. Turmel
John C. Turmel is a perennial candidate for election in Canada, and according to the Guinness Book of Records holds the records for the most elections contested and for the most elections lost having contested 75 elections and lost 74...

 claimed to be the leader of the Ontario Social Credit Party during the campaign but the party ran no official candidates though Turmel claimed to be an official Social Credit nominee.

In October 1981, the Ontario Social Credit Party conducted a leadership convention. The eleven delegates, who represented about 100 party members throughout the province, elected former Toronto mayoral candidate Anne McBride
Anne McBride
Anne C. McBride was a perennial candidate in Canadian federal and provincial elections and by-elections in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s...

 as their new leader in a vote of 7 to 1 with 3 spoiled ballots. McBride was a Christian fundamentalist minister who vowed to run the party "on Christian principles". However, the party failed to run candidates for the Ontario legislature in any subsequent election and eventually became inactive. By the 1985 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1985
The Ontario general election of 1985 was held on May 2, 1985, to elect members of the 33rd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada...

 the party was defunct though Turmel still claimed to be a "Social Credit" candidate in at least one provincial by-election in the late 1980s. Turmel attempted to create a new Social Credit Party of Ontario in the mid-1980s but was unable to meet the criteria in place by that time for the registration of new political parties which included filing a petition signed by 10,000 qualified voters.

See also

  • Canadian social credit movement
    Canadian social credit movement
    The Canadian social credit movement was a Canadian political movement originally based on the Social Credit theory of Major C. H. Douglas. Its supporters were colloquially known as Socreds...

  • Social Credit Party of Canada
    Social Credit Party of Canada
    The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform...

  • John C. Turmel
    John C. Turmel
    John C. Turmel is a perennial candidate for election in Canada, and according to the Guinness Book of Records holds the records for the most elections contested and for the most elections lost having contested 75 elections and lost 74...

  • List of Ontario political parties
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