Social Credit Party of Canada - Split Between Quebec and English Canadian Factions: 1963–1971

Split Between Quebec and English Canadian Factions: 1963–1971

Beginning in the early 1960s, there were serious tensions between the party's English and French wings. In 1961, Robert Thompson of Alberta defeated Caouette at the party's leadership convention. The vote totals were never announced. Years later, Caouette claimed that he would have won, but Manning told him to tell the Quebec delegates to vote for Thompson because the West would never accept a Francophone Catholic as party leader.

The party returned to Parliament in the 1962 election, electing 30 members. Caouette and 25 other créditistes were elected from Quebec, while the party won only four other seats in the rest of Canada, including Thompson's. As a result, Thompson was all but forced to name Caouette the party's deputy leader. The linguistic imbalance caused severe tensions in the Social Credit caucus, as the Quebec MPs regarded Caouette as their leader. Also, Caouette and the other Quebec MPs remained true believers in social credit theory, while the English branch had largely abandoned the theory. However, Thompson refused to stand down. Nonetheless, the party managed to pull itself together long enough to help bring down the Progressive Conservative government in 1963, forcing an election. The Socreds won 24 seats, all but four in Quebec.

On September 9, 1963, the party split into an English Canadian wing and a separate French Canadian party led by Caouette - the Ralliement des créditistes. Of the 20 Social Credit MPs from Quebec in 1963, 13 joined Caouette's Ralliement, five of the remaining seven ran in the next election as independents, and two joined the Progressive Conservatives.