Social Credit Party of Canada split, 1963

In 1963, the Quebec wing of the Social Credit Party of Canada split off from the national party as the Ralliement des créditistes. The split had its roots in a long-standing dispute between the de facto leader of the Ralliement, Réal Caouette, and the party’s national leader, Robert N. Thompson. At the party’s 1960 leadership convention, held two years after the party lost all of its seats in the Canadian House of Commons, Thompson defeated Caouette for the leadership. The party returned to Parliament in the 1962 federal election, but all but four of its 29 MPs came from Quebec. Under the circumstances, Thompson was all but forced to name Caouette as deputy leader of the party. The relationship was strained, however, and the strain was exacerbated when the party failed to make any gains in its old heartland of the Prairies in the 1963 federal election. Only Thompson and three others were elected outside of Quebec, while 20 Socreds were elected in Quebec. The two factions of the party were not re-united until October 1971.

The Social Credit Party had been represented in Parliament in one form or another from 1935 until the 1958 election, when the Progressive Conservatives under John Diefenbaker won the biggest majority government in Canadian history. All 19 Socred MPs lost their seats.

Caouette, a social credit adherent since 1939, did much to build a strong base for the movement in Quebec while it was out of Parliament. He founded the Ralliement des créditistes du Canada as the party's Quebec branch. By 1961, his following had grown to the point that he felt he should succeed Solon Earl Low as party leader. At the ensuing leadership convention, Caouette lost to Thompson, who had the support of the leader of the party's most powerful branch, Alberta Premier Ernest Manning. Whatever the case, when the party returned to Parliament Hill in the 1962 election, its dynamics were greatly altered. Of the 29 Social Credit MPs, only four--including Thompson--came from the party's traditional heartland in western Canada. The other 25 came from Quebec, including Caouette. More or less by default, Caouette became the party's deputy leader.

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