Party politics, a betrayal of Social Credit

If the enemies of Social Credit wish to destroy the influence and prestige of the Social Credit school founded by the late Major C. H. Douglas, the quickest and most efficient means would be to convert the followers of the true Social Credit doctrine to the system of party politics as it exists today. Let them but persuade genuine Crediters to turn Social Credit into a political party and the end of this great philosophy's influence would soon follow.

The founder of Social Credit, Major Douglas, put himself on record as being against a Social Credit of party politics. He listed as among those systems incompatible with Social Credit, Collectivism, Dialectical Materialism, Totalitarianism, and the Judeo-Masonic philosophy. And he adds that all these incompatibles are to be found incorporated in "electoral box democracy".

Again, he remarked, during a conference delivered to a group of Crediters:

"If you elect a Social Credit party, supposing you could, I may say that I regard the election of a Social Credit party in this country as one of the greatest catastrophes that could happen."

The founder of the Social Credit School considered that the election of a Social Credit party would be a "catastrophe"; and surely here in Canada we have found that the mere forming of such parties has done very considerable harm to the propagation of the true doctrine by which Major Douglas hoped to initiate the beginning of a new civilization.

To make of Social Credit a tool for the formation of a political party constitutes a betrayal of Social Credit. It is the prostitution of a noble philosophy. This is what the politicians of Alberta have done in transforming into a party those organizations devoted to the study of social Credit doctrines and their propagation, which circles were born from the teaching and endeavors of William Aberhart.

Here in the province of Quebec a group of vain and ambitious men are seeking to accomplish the same deed among the men and women who have come to know Social Credit through the 25 years of work put forth by the Union of Electors under the guidance of Louis Even and Mrs. Gilberte Côté-Mercier. They call themselves, "Ralliement Créditiste" (the Rallying of Social Crediters). What a mockery! The most that they can hope to achieve if they are successful is not a "ralliement" but rather a dispersion.

A factor for division and confusion

Both of these groups are the very contradiction of the thought of Major Douglas. They mutilate the philosophy of Social Credit in making of a doctrine of association, a doctrine of division. They disfigure the face of truth in subjecting the beautiful truths of Social Credit to the cross manoeuvre of election balloting.

The existence in Canada of a political party bearing the name, Social Credit, has accustomed the people to considering Social Credit as just one more party to be judged according to the number of seats it holds in parliament. And in the federal field it has always ranked fourth during 23 years - even after the Socialist group - and since the elections of 1958 has ceased to exist altogether as far as parliament is concerned.

Among Canadians, especially among those of the English language, the expression, "Social Credit", especially as it is applied to a political party seeking votes, has completely lost any link with the great light and the fruitful message inspired by the genius of Major Douglas.

It signifies now nothing more than a fourth party, the least of all the parties, and the party which, on the night of elections, comes out with the most pitiful showing.

If, in French Canada, there is a better understanding of the true doctrine of Social Credit, the merit can be awarded to the unceasing work of education which was first begun through Cahiers du Crédit Social, a series of small pamphlets written by Mr. Even, then for 21 years by Vers Demain, the French-language publication of the Union of Electors, and through the devoted work of the Institute of Political Action and the labours of all the members of L'Union des Électeurs following the formula of uniting electors in action instead of dividing them through political parties.

Traitors and parasites

The Union of Electors, through years of unceasing endeavour, has succeeded in Quebec, in holding the clear and brilliant doctrine of Douglas above the confusion created by the party of Low, Manning and company. But in recent times there has arisen from among the French speaking Canadians of Quebec a small group of ambitious and unscrupulous men who are striving to infect with the election virus the movement which has been so laboriously built up by Vers Demain and L'Union des Électeurs.

For the record, let us set forth here their names so that they may be known. Réal Caouette, their chief and the leading "light" about which the so-called "rally" is to form. Gilles Grégoire, Laurent Legault, Gilbert Rondeau, Alexandre Bertrand, Roméo Gauthier, Antoine Bélanger, Gérard Perron, Roland Corbeil, Michel Migneault, Léopold Mercier, Robert Leblanc.

Who are these men? Are they politicians seeking to use the name of Social Credit? Are they men with no true understanding or no acquaintance with the doctrine of Social Credit? Are they the enemy from without?

These men, good reader, were once members, of the Union of Electors. They were once active workers in the great cause set on foot by Louis Even and Mrs. Côté-Mercier. They are genuine traitors to a movement which they once professed to uphold. They are contemptible parasites who use their former position and their knowledge of men and women who are still true members of the movement in order to feed their pride and further their ambitions for the power and profits they hope to gain from party politics.

These are the men who were chiefly responsible - they and others like them - for the disastrous foray into the election field which the movement, against the better judgement of the directors, made some years ago. And, learning nothing from this experience, they persisted in striving to persuade the direction of the movement to continue such attempts.

On April 21, 1957, the Institute of Political Action held a grand assembly in Quebec city. Present were some 400 active workers from all parts of the province of Quebec.

One of the principal points to be settled at the meeting was the question of our movement's policy, with regard to elections. It was firmly and definitely decided that the Union of Electors would henceforth abstain from presenting any candidates in elections and would take no part whatsoever in any activity pertaining to election campaigns.

At the conclusion of the final meeting, as the directors were leaving the hall, exhausted from the strain of hours of assembly following the work of preparing the assembly, Gilles Grégoire, whom we have mentioned above, asked the directors for an audience, immediately, concerning a matter of great importance — so he said. He wished to bring with him Réal Caouette.

The important matter which he wished to discuss could be summed up in two points:

Point 1: You, the directors, have been working without ceasing, for 20 years in the cause of Social Credit. And what have you accomplished? Absolutely nothing. Your time and efforts have been a complete waste.

Point 2: We believe that things have gone ahead far enough in the province to permit us to take part in an election with the certainty of having at least four or five candidates elected to the federal house.

We pass over without comment the obvious arrogance and bad manner. - not to say stupidity - of this man (whose work in the movement could be measured by the word, 'nil') in presuming to set his vanity against the very real accomplishments of two great people whose devotedness in the face of adversity, calumny, threats and even bodily assault, had made the movement a force to reckon with in the province of Quebec.

Needless to say, the directors promptly and definitely refused. They had only to point to the unanimous decision of the members of the assembly.

Five months later the movement held its grand annual congress at Three Rivers, Quebec. During the sessions of the congress, Réal Caouette and Gilles Grégoire, along with a certain Alphée Gagnon, stationed themselves outside the arena and spent their time trying to persuade members of the movement, active and solid members to deviate from the line laid down by the Institute and join them in the adventure of party politics.

Three weeks later, on September 21, lead by Gilles Grégoire, these promoters of a Social Credit political party, along with a few other individuals whom they had managed to hoodwink and win over, held a secret meeting in the Mount Royal hotel in Montreal for the purpose of drawing up the lines of activity of the budding party.

What followed was not so secret. The following Spring, Réal Caouette went down to inglorious defeat in the federal elections of March 31. Enraged at this humiliation, Caouette took to the airwaves to pour insults upon Mrs. Côté-Mercier, whom he considered to be the chief architect of his defeat, and to swear that he would destroy the Union of Electors.

Finally, on May 4 in the following Spring, Réal Caouette, Gilles Grégoire, Laurent Legault and some twenty other weak-spirited and weak-headed individuals, most of them former members of the movement, officially formed the Ralliement.

Since that time, they have been unable to win any following in Quebec. They have been unable to attract any proportion of the members of the movement into their ranks. And this in spite of the foot that they seem to have any amount of money for advertisement, propaganda, radio programs, television programs. lt would almost seem as if the hidden adversaries of true Social Credit, found in this group of traitors and parasites, a hoped for means of undermining the Union of Electors.

Caouette and company have not ceased to attack the movement, its directors and especially the vigorous and capable Directress-General, Mrs. Côté-Mercier. They have been aided and abetted by the anti-Union of Electors press, chiefly, the Montreal daily, La Presse. And these traitors to true Social Credit do not hesitate to use what they have learned from their brief sojourn in the movement. Caouette does not hesitate to speak piously of Social Credit principles and their realization through a political party. He must make at least some lip service to the true doctrine if he wishes to use the name "Social Credit". But how soon would such an adherence vanish once he had come to power and came under the influence of the true masters of political parties. The examples of Solon Low and Manning are evidence of how fragile is any relationship between the propagation and realization of Social Credit principles and a "Social Credit" party once it comes into power.

And let Caquette take a lesson from Solon Low. Low himself had promised to wipe out the Union of Electors. Low is gone and the - Union of Electors marches on. The so-called Social Credit parties of Alberta and British Columbia, as well as the defunct federal party of Low, have never done a thing for the realization of Social Credit principles or the application of Social Credit policies. Solon Low, advised his followers to stop talking about the dividend. Bennet warned Crediters to stop attacking the powers behind Finance. Manning publicly stated that the party in Alberta would not continue any work aimed at realising Social Credit monetary proposals.

This is the group of which Caouette is so proud to be an executive member. Let the facts be faced: Caouette and those with him have no other aim except to hoist themselves into position's of political power for their own profit and the satisfaction of their own vanity. In this they are of the same breed as those other politicians (so-called, Social Crediters) who, in the field of provincial and federal politics, have dragged the name of Social Credit down into the mud of electioneering and made of it a mockery among men.

To turn something from its true end is a perversion. The nobler the thing, the viler the perversion. To make of the great teachings of Social Credit a tool for the promotion of politicians and political parties is an abomination.

Réal Caouette and Gilles Grégoire - and the rest of their minions — can only be said to be the worst adversaries of Social Credit in the province of Quebec.

If this movement and its publications, Vers Demain and the Union of Electors occupy themselves with this band of traitors and perverters of the truth, it is with the view of protecting the members of the movement against their wiles; to let the light of the truth fall upon them so that the public may see them for what they are.

A true Crediter cannot be a party man. Party and Social Credit are terms which exclude one another; they are contradictory from the very nature of their definitions.

As long as such men continue to propagate their erroneous ideas, and seek to turn individuals from the truth to the false for the purpose of satisfying their own individual ambitions, just so long will our movement and our publications take up the cudgel against them.