Social Credit Leader and Premier
Commencing with the 1952 provincial election, the province used an alternative vote system that had been designed to enable the Conservative and Liberal parties to keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation out of power. Unexpectedly, this enabled Social Credit to win the largest number of seats, arguably because of second-preference ballots from CCF voters. With only 19 seats out of a total of 48, Social Credit fell short of holding a majority. The Socreds succeeded in convincing an Independent Labour Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to support them and so were able to form a minority government. The party had no leader, however, and only three members had experience as an MLA. In a vote of the newly elected caucus, Bennett was voted into the position of party leader and premier-designate on July 15, 1952. Of the 19 votes cast, Bennett received 10, another received 2, and two more (including Philip Gaglardi) one vote each.
On August 1, he was sworn in as Premier of British Columbia, an office he went on to hold for 20 years, until 1972. Bennett engineered the defeat of his initial minority government with a school funding proposal, and forced an election in 1953. Social Credit was re-elected with a clear majority. Preferential voting was not used in BC again as Bennett, who had profited from the system, abandoned it following his 1953 victory.
The Social Credit Party won seven consecutive elections during W.A.C. Bennett's involvement and leadership: 1952, 1953, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1966, and 1969. The only election Bennett lost as a member of Social Credit was in 1972, the last election in which he was a candidate.
Read more about this topic: W. A. C. Bennett
Famous quotes containing the words social, credit and/or leader:
“Caprice, independence and rebellion, which are opposed to the social order, are essential to the good health of an ethnic group. We shall measure the good health of this group by the number of its delinquents. Nothing is more immobilizing than the spirit of deference.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)
“The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn’t order any credit cards! We don’t spend what we don’t have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”
—Sarah Louise Delany (b. 1889)
“Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who’s out in front of nobody?... Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)