British Columbia Social Credit Party
| British Columbia Social Credit Party | |
|---|---|
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| founding | 1937 |
| resolution | June 7, 2013 |
| Alignment |
Conservatism , populism , social credit |
| Website | www.bcsocialcredit.bc.ca |
The British Columbia Social Credit Party (French Parti Crédit social de la Colombie-Britannique ), whose members are known as Socreds , was a political party in the Canadian province of British Columbia , which existed from 1935 to 2013. From 1952 to 1991 it dominated provincial politics and only did not form the government in the early 1970s. Although it was founded to reform the capitalist economic system based on the theory of social credit (and thus was partly socialist), the Social Credit Party moved to conservatism within a few years and gave up the original ideology entirely. After a severe election defeat in 1991, the party lost almost its entire electoral base.
history
Before 1952, British Columbia's social credit movement was divided. The Social Credit League of British Columbia first ran candidates in the 1937 elections, but did not run it in 1941. In 1945 various groups formed an alliance. In 1949 the Social Credit Party , the Social Credit League and the Union of Electors competed separately.
The conservative-liberal coalition government introduced instant run-off voting as an electoral system in 1952 , in the expectation that conservative voters would give the liberals as a second preference, and vice versa. This should prevent the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) from winning the election . However, it was not the governing parties that benefited from this electoral system, but the Social Credit Party, which was able to form a minority government. In the same year, Prime Minister WAC Bennett was elected as the new party leader. In 1953 he won early elections and received an absolute majority.
The party was originally founded to implement the theories of social credit . However, this was not possible at the provincial level alone, which is why WAC Bennett gave up the old ideology and turned the Socreds into a conservative party with populist features. By repeatedly warning of the “red danger” and “socialist hordes”, his party managed to keep the CCF (later the British Columbia New Democratic Party ) out of the government for 20 years. After the election defeat in 1972 Bennett resigned the chairmanship to his son Bill Bennett . This turned away from populism and formed an insecure alliance of supporters of the Liberal Party of Canada , rural social conservatives and urban business circles.
In 1975 the Socreds came back to power and Bill Bennett became the new Prime Minister. In 1986 Bennett resigned. He was followed by Bill Vander Zalm , who won the elections with a large majority. Under his leadership, business representatives increasingly lost influence to the social conservatives, and the new right-wing populist course drove moderate Socreds to join the British Columbia Liberal Party . This process was accelerated by Vander Zalm's eccentricity and numerous scandals. In 1991, Vander Zalm had to resign due to a conflict of interest and was replaced by Rita Johnston . In the elections in the same year, the proportion of voters was halved.
In 1994 four of the six remaining MPs left the party. The British Columbia Social Credit Party collapsed completely and did not even reach half a percent in the 1996 election; the original electoral base had turned almost entirely to the Liberal Party. The party had no official chairman since 2000 and sank into complete insignificance. In the 2009 elections she did not run with a single candidate. After she was only able to nominate one candidate in 2013, she was deleted from the list of parties by law on June 7, 2013 by the electoral authority.
Election results
Results of the British Columbia Social Credit Party and its predecessors in the legislative assembly elections:
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Party leader
| Surname | Chair | premier |
|---|---|---|
| Arthur H. Jukes | 1937-1948 | |
| vacant | 1949-1952 | |
| Ernest George Hansell | 1952 | |
| WAC Bennett | 1952-1973 | 1952-1972 |
| Bill Bennett | 1973-1986 | 1975-1986 |
| Bill Vander Zalm | 1986-1991 | 1986-1991 |
| Rita Johnston | 1991-1992 | 1991 |
| Jack Weisgerber | 1992-1993 | |
| Grace McCarthy | 1993-1994 | |
| Cliff Serwa | 1994 | |
| Larry Gillanders | 1994-1996 | |
| Ken Endean | 1996-1997 | |
| Mike Culos | 1997-2000 | |
| Eric Buckley | 2000 | |
| vacant | 2000-2013 |
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Elections in British Columbia - Elections BC