“Join This Great Movement for the Release of Humanity from Oppression and Deceit”: Social Credit and Conspiratorial Thinking, 1945-1958

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social Credit was a constant presence in Canadian politics at the federal level from the mid-1930s until the late 1970s. Yet, the federal Social Credit Party has often been dismissed as the “lunatic fringe.” This article will contextualize the federal Social Credit Party as part of the political right in the early Cold War. By analyzing the statements of several Social Credit MPs, as well as text from the Canadian Social Crediter, this article seeks to better understand the nature of conspiratorial thinking within Social Credit and how it was interwoven into broader, more “mainstream,” postwar concerns, such as international Communism, the perceived decline of Britishness and Christianity, and the growing welfare state. The federal Social Credit Party pushed against the permeable barriers between “fringe” and “mainstream” by pairing conspiratorial thought with widespread concerns and operating within the center of political respectability in Canada.