"Easier to believe than to reflect": the British Columbia Social Credit movement, 1932-1952
Historians and political scientists have explained the pre-eminence of Social Credit in British Columbia during the last half of this century as an institutionalized protest against the seeming inactivity of partisan governments and as a reaction to the strength of the social democratic element i...
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| Language: | English |
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2009
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5384 |
| Summary: | Historians and political scientists have explained the pre-eminence of Social
Credit in British Columbia during the last half of this century as an institutionalized
protest against the seeming inactivity of partisan governments and as a reaction to
the strength of the social democratic element in the province's political culture.
This thesis examines the period from 1932 up to and including the BC Social
Credit movement's electoral breakthrough in 1952 and suggests that economic
and political conditions during that time affected the way that Social Crediters
organized and changed the focus of Social Credit ideology in BC from monetary
reform to a call for good government and conservative values. It also suggests that
some previous conclusions about BC's Social Credit movement - that it was an
outgrowth of Alberta Social Credit, that it was a populist organization, that it was
too small to be intellectually significant - should be modified in the light of new
evidence. This thesis should serve as a starting point for more specialized studies
of the Social Credit movement in British Columbia. |
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