Bankers' Toadies incident

The Bankers' Toadies incident occurred in 1937 in Alberta, Canada when a pamphlet was discovered advocating the "extermination" of nine men identified as "Bankers' Toadies". The men were opponents of the Social Credit government of Premier William Aberhart, which had been elected on a platform of giving all Albertans monthly dividends; Aberhart blamed the banking system for his failure to follow through on this pledge.

After David Duggan, leader of the Conservative Party and one of the men named, raised his concern over the pamphlet in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, police raided the Social Credit League's Edmonton headquarters. Social Credit whip Joe Unwin and Social Credit Board advisor George Frederick Powell were arrested and charged with criminal libel and counselling to murder. Both were convicted of the libel charge, and Justice William Carlos Ives sentenced them to hard labour.

William Aberhart's Social Credit League won a substantial victory in the 1935 Alberta provincial election on the strength of its promise to implement social credit, an economic theory proposed by British engineer C. H. Douglas. Social credit held that the poverty of the Great Depression was in part the fault of bankers, who kept the cost of credit, and by extension of production, high. Aberhart's solution involved, among other things, monthly "credit dividends" to Albertans in the amount of C$25.

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