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bertans supported Social Credit. Constitution. Douglas explained to Aberhart that Al-
The “United Farmers” party, in political power at berta could overcome this difficulty by establishing a
the time in Alberta, were interested in Social Credit provincial credit system of its own as the Constitution
but believed it could only be implemented on a na- granted the right to “raise loans upon the sole credit
tional, rather than on a provincial, level. of the province.” As Louis Even explained, money is
Notice, as long as Aberhart’s movement was limit- based on the country’s production, made by labor
ed to educating the people, all was well, much like the and natural resources, both under provincial jurisdic-
education movement launched by Louis Even around tion, according to the same Canadian constitution.
the same time in Quebec. Even, just like Aberhart, had Douglas wrote in The Social Crediter on Sep-
come across a book explaining Douglas tember 11, 1948: “When Mr. Aberhart
Social Credit, and stated, “It’s a light on won his first electoral victory in 1935,
my path, everyone needs to know it.” all he did was to recruit an army for a
Unfortunately, things turned sour in Al- war [against the monopoly of credit].
berta when Aberhart’s education move- That war has never been fought.”
ment morphed into a political party. Aberhart had learned from his mis-
Aberhart disagreed with the United takes during his first years in office
Farmers, and presented Social Credit and was ready, after World War II, to
candidates in the 1935 election, and take up the fight again, but he died in
won 56 of the 63 seats in the provin- May of 1943 (under suspicious circum-
cial legislature. In the 1935 election, stances; several spoke of poisoning
Aberhart did not even run as a candi- following an official dinner).
date. The newly-elected “social credit” His successor, Ernest Manning,
members, claiming the presence of declared, in 1947, that his government
their teacher, one of them resigned to would no longer attempt to implement
make way for him, and Aberhart had to Social Credit in Alberta. Incidentally,
take the office of prime minister, with William Aberhart after retiring from politics, Ernest Man-
the state coffers empty and civil ser- ning accepted a position on the Board
vants awaiting their pay, not to mention the creditors of Directors of a bank, and was appointed a senator
of the public debt. by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
All these 56 “social credit” MLAs were new to So those who say that “Social Credit is that failed
politics, and formed, to use Douglas’ expression, a ‘funny money’ scheme tried in Alberta” are incorrect.
“group of amateurs” who were no match for the Fi- Social Credit did not fail in Alberta, for the simple rea-
nanciers, falling into their trap and committing sev- son that it was never tried. All attempts to implement
eral errors which could have been avoided, had they Social Credit policies were opposed and defeated by
followed Douglas’s advice. a centralized power. Douglas said that if Social Credit
For example, when Aberhart took office, rather was absurd and without value as an effective answer
than listening to Douglas’ advice, he went to Ottawa to the Great Depression, that the best way to have this
seeking financial credits to implement Social Credit. demonstrated would have been allowing the govern-
The federal government provided instead an eco- ment of Alberta to implement Social Credit policy.
nomic adviser, Mr. Robert Magor, whose apparent But it seemed that the credit monopolists feared that
objective was to undermine Social Credit. Measures even a partial implementation of Social Credit would
were adopted that were the opposite of Social Credit prove so successful that every effort had to be made
principles. Douglas described what occurred as “a to prevent it.
policy of capitulation to orthodox finance. Almost We firmly believe that the Social Credit principles
every mistake of strategy which could be made in will be, when implemented, a very efficient way to
Alberta had been made.” eliminate poverty. However, the only effective way to
It must be noted that although Aberhart was sin- have the Social Credit proposals applied by govern-
cere, he had little knowledge of Social Credit and did ments is not to promote new parties, especially those
not understand its technical basis. This often led him called “social credit”, but to make the Social Credit
to simplify and thus distort Douglas’ ideas. In the fol- principles known among the population, in order to
lowing years, fifteen Social Credit bills were success- create public pressure that will be strong enough to
fully passed by the Alberta government, but were all get the government — of any party in power — to
vetoed by the federal government or ruled unconsti- issue its own currency, without debt, and to imple-
tutional by Canada’s Supreme Court. ment the principles of real Douglas social credit ...
The problem was that money and banking are and thus fight the false “social credit” of Communist
under federal jurisdiction, according to the Canadian China. v Alain Pilote

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