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Alberta Elections: 1936 William Aberhart?s Social Credit Topples UFA as Alberta Suffers from Great Depression

As mass unemployment took hold in Alberta in the early 1930?s, people began to look seriously at doing away with the economic system that brought on the worldwide Depression. One idea that took hold in Alberta was that of Social Credit. As historian David Leonard explains, it was based on the premise that the Great Depression was caused by the world?s bankers:

These world banks held vast sums of money, which was not being let out to circulate amongst the people like it was intended to. And if only the banks were all disbanded and the governments of the world took over the banks and started spreading the capital out amongst the people, the economy would begin to flow.

And this was the tenet of Major C. Douglas in England. And it was latched onto by William Aberhart, who conducted the Prophetic Bible Institute in Calgary. And he combined good old fundamentalist religion with this new cause he had, one preaching Social Credit.

And with his lieutenants, Lucien Maynard and young Ernest Manning, they began traveling the province, preaching the gospel of Social Credit: let?s do away with the banks, circulate capital amongst the people. And with the new phenomenon of radio at the mass level now most households at this time did not have radios his message got through.

And when the election was held on the 22nd of August 1935, the governing UFA Party was wiped out totally. They didn?t return one single member.

In the 1935 election, an amazing eighty-two percent of the electorate went to the polls. And with fifty-six percent of the popular vote, the Social Credit Party took sixty of sixty-five ridings. The other five seats were spread out amongst Independents. Some more popular UFA members had left the party and run as Independents. The Conservatives and the Liberals were totally discredited because they seemed to represent the interests of eastern Canada and, in particular, the bankers to whom all farmers were in debt. And one little added incentive too was a promise that was not kept, but a promise that was made. On the eve of the 1935 election, William Aberhart promised that if elected, he would give every single household in the province a dividend of twenty-five dollars.

Of course, once the election fever subsided, Albertans then started asking themselves, what exactly does Social Credit mean? They were about to find out.

On the Heritage Trail, I?m Cheryl Croucher.

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