Ernest Manning | |
|---|---|
 Manning in 1943 | |
| 8th Premier of Alberta | |
| In office May 31, 1943 – December 12, 1968 | |
| Monarchs | George VI Elizabeth II |
| Lieutenant Governor | John C. Bowen John J. Bowlen John Percy Page Grant MacEwan |
| Preceded by | William Aberhart |
| Succeeded by | Harry E. Strom |
| Senator for Edmonton West | |
| In office October 7, 1970 – September 20, 1983 | |
| Appointed by | Pierre Trudeau |
| Member of theLegislative Assembly of Alberta | |
| In office June 18, 1959 – December 11, 1968 | |
| Preceded by | District established |
| Succeeded by | William Yurko |
| Constituency | Strathcona East |
| In office March 21, 1940 – June 18, 1959 | |
| Preceded by | William Howson |
| Succeeded by | District abolished |
| Constituency | Edmonton |
| In office November 4, 1935 – March 21, 1940 | |
| Preceded by | William Ross Hugh Farthing Norman Hindsley |
| Succeeded by | Andrew Davison William Aberhart James Mahaffey |
| Constituency | Calgary |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ernest Charles Manning (1908-09-20)September 20, 1908 Carnduff,Saskatchewan, Canada |
| Died | February 19, 1996(1996-02-19) (aged 87) Calgary,Alberta, Canada |
| Political party | Social Credit Party of Canada (federal) Social Credit Party of Alberta (provincial) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, includingPreston |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Canada |
| Branch/service | Canadian Militia |
| Years of service | 1939–1943 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | Edmonton Regiment |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Ernest Charles ManningPC CC AOE (September 20, 1908 – February 19, 1996) was aCanadian politician and the eighthpremier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for theSocial Credit Party of Alberta. He served longer than any other premier in the province's history and was the second longest-serving provincial premier inCanadian history (afterGeorge Henry Murray ofNova Scotia).
Manning's 25 consecutive years as premier were defined by strongsocial conservatism andfiscal conservatism. He was also the only member of theSocial Credit Party of Canada to sit in theSenate and, with the party shut out of theHouse of Commons in 1980, was its last representative in Parliament when he retired from the Senate in 1983.
Manning's son,Preston Manning, was the founder and leader of theReform Party of Canada who served as the federalleader of the Official Opposition from 1997 to 2000.[1]
Manning was born inCarnduff, Saskatchewan, in 1908 to George Henry Manning (1872–1956) and Elizabeth Mara Dixon (1870–1949). George had immigrated fromEngland in 1900 and was followed by his fiancé in 1903. Their Carnduff homestead being inadequate, they moved to a new one inRosetown, Saskatchewan, in 1909.[2] In his childhood, Ernest was not especially religious and only occasionally attended aMethodist church in town.[3]
Manning was among the first students ofWilliam Aberhart's Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (CPBI), which opened in 1927, and became its first graduate in April 1930,[4] having heard of it over a radio broadcast. There he met his future wife, Muriel Preston, who was the institute's pianist and later served as the National Bible Hour's musical coordinator. As a student, Manning soon caught the attention of Aberhart and quickly became his assistant at CPBI. "During his second and third years at the institute, Manning lived in the Aberhart home. After graduation, the Aberhart devotee became a teacher at the institute and played a role in the management of the organization's business affairs."[5] In 1930, he began preaching on Aberhart's weekly "Back to the Bible Hour" radio program, a practice that he continued throughout his life, even after he had entered politics. The broadcasts were eventually aired on over 90radio stations acrossCanada fromHalifax toVancouver and had a large listening audience.[6]
In 1935, Manning went into the realm of provincial politics as Aberhart's right-hand man. Together, they created the Social Credit Party with the aim of bringing financial relief to Albertans, who were suffering because of theGreat Depression.
"Manning followed Aberhart into politics, becoming a key Social Credit organizer, and platform speaker before the 1935 election."[5] In the1935 provincial election, he was elected to theLegislative Assembly of Alberta as a Social Credit MLA fromCalgary. The Socreds won an unexpected landslide victory in that election by winning 56 of the 62 seats in theLegislative Assembly. TheUnited Farmers of Alberta, which had governed the province for fourteen years, lost every one of its seats and would never return to the legislature. Manning was named to the provincial cabinet at just 26 years old, becoming Alberta'sprovincial secretary and minister of trade and industry. Manning devoted himself wholly to his work, to such an extent that his health began to suffer. He eventually developed a bout oftuberculosis in November 1936, returning to work after just three month's convalescence.[5] At the1940 election, he switched seats and was elected fromEdmonton, where he would remain for the rest of his political career. In 1943, he became Socred leader.
At the outbreak ofWorld War II, Manning joined theEdmonton Regiment of theNon-Permanent Active Militia, qualifying as a lieutenant. In 1943, he was promoted to the rank of captain. He had to discontinue his military duties when he was appointed Premier of Alberta.[7]
"Manning's take-over of the premiership at Aberhart's sudden death in May 1943 was a foregone conclusion. He had been Aberhart's religious protege and his closest associate in cabinet. He was regarded by Aberhart, who had two daughters, almost as a son."[5] Manning twice honoured Aberhart's 1935 promise to issue aProsperity Certificate to Albertans. In 1957, his government announced a $20 Alberta Oil Royalty Dividend and issued a $17 dividend the next year. The policy was widely criticized, and the next year, Manning agreed to use oil royalties on public works and social programs instead.[8]
In 1935, Manning had famously entered theAlberta Cabinet asProvincial Secretary at only 26 years old. He was the youngestcabinet minister in all of British parliamentary history sinceWilliam Pitt the Younger, who had served as the prime minister ofGreat Britain 152 years earlier. When he became premier at the age of 35, he was the youngestfirst minister since Pitt. Besides serving as premier, he also held numerous other positions including Provincial Treasurer from 1944 to 1954, Minister of Mines and Minerals from 1952 to 1962, minister of trade and industry,attorney general from 1955 to 1968, and president of the executive council.[9][10]
Under Manning, Alberta became a virtual one-party province. He led Social Credit to an incredible seven consecutive election victories between1944 and1967, usually with more than 50% of the popular vote, and only once had to face more than 10 opposition MLAs. The height of his popularity came in1963, when the Socreds campaigned under the slogan "63 in '63," a clean sweep of the then 63-seat legislature. They fell short of that goal, but still reduced the opposition to only three MLAs, twoLiberals and one running with the support of both the Liberals andProgressive Conservatives, in total. It is still the biggest majority government, in terms of percentage of seats won, in Alberta's history. Social Credit's electoral success was based in part on what was viewed as itsgood government of the province. Manning himself always held the view that "both God and the people had some say in how long he would be premier — and he was not about to argue with either."[11]
However, an ominous sign came during Manning's last victory, when the once-moribund Progressive Conservatives, led byPeter Lougheed won six seats, mostly in Calgary and Edmonton. More seriously, the PCs did well enough across the rest of the province to hold Social Credit to 45 percent of the vote, its lowest vote share since 1940. Manning retired in 1968, and Social Credit was knocked out of office three years later. It has never come within sight of power again. By the time Manning left the legislature, only he,Alfred Hooke, andWilliam Tomyn were left from the original 1935 caucus. Of that trio, Hooke was the only MLA to see the government right through from its beginning to its very end in 1971 (Tomyn served a break from 1952 to 1959).
Under Manning, the party largely abandonedsocial credit theories. He had been a devoutly loyal supporter of Aberhart from the very beginning and so it is not clear why he was so willing to abandon his party's traditional ideology. One likely explanation may have been pragmatic; many of Social Credit's policy goals infringed on responsibilities reserved to the federal government under theBritish North America Act. Manning, however, honoured Aberhart's 1935 promise to issue aProsperity Certificate to Albertans twice. In 1957, his government announced a $20 Alberta Oil Royalty Dividend and issued a $17 dividend the next year. The policy was widely criticized, and the next year, Manning agreed to use oil royalties on public works and social programs instead.[8]
In 1945 the Abasand plant again burned down; this time, it was not rebuilt. The huge discoveries of conventional oil at Leduc andRedwater cast even more doubt upon the development of the oil sands because of the difficulty in accessing and processing the bitumen and the numerous technical problems. Manning, however, was not dissuaded since he was convinced that the oil sands would grant the province incredible wealth. He even went so far as to convince the entire Alberta Legislature to visit the Bitumount plant in 1949 since he believed that they would agree to continue development after it had witnessed the success in separating the oil sands. Manning also commissioned apetroleum engineer by the name ofSidney Robert Blair to prepare a report on the economic feasibility of the separation process. With Pew's support, Sun Oil's majority-owned subsidiary,Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS), filed an application for a commercial oil sands project in Canada in 1962, the first-ever constructed.[12]
At the opening ceremonies for the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant, Pew repeated Manning's belief of the need for theoil sands. Telling his audience, "No nation can long be secure in this atomic age unless it be amply supplied with petroleum.... It is the considered opinion of our group that if the North American continent is to produce the oil to meet its requirements in the years ahead, oil from the Athabasca area must of necessity play an important role."[12]
Around the time of the upcoming centennial celebration ofCanadian Confederation, petitions were submitted in November 1966 to Manning by the Social Credit Women's Auxiliaries of theAlberta Social Credit League to give Alberta its own unique flag. The flag was designed and approved as the official provincial flag by the Alberta legislature on June 1, 1968.[13]
Manning's deep Christian faith gave him a sense of charity to the poor and needy, but unlike the longtime premier of neighbouring Saskatchewan,Tommy Douglas, Manning was an outspoken critic of government involvement in society. Manning remained a staunch anti-communist, and encouraged strong religious, individual, and corporate initiatives in addressing and solving social issues. Manning believed that the "government was there to motivate and give direction, not to intervene and carry the load."[11]
His views on health care and social issues were heavily shaped by his elder son, Keith, who suffered fromcerebral palsy. "He and his wife Muriel lovingly raised. Keith had sufferedoxygen deprivation at birth."[11] Manning improved health services in his province but opposed universal public health insurance. Alberta only signed on to the national medicare system after Manning's retirement as premier.[14]
Mannings's faith also heavily influenced his approach to politics. He was always prudent and careful in practicing politics by "always practicing Christian-based reconciliation and conflict resolution."[11]
For the1944 election, Manning campaigned on the labour protections that the party had implemented and used support from theAlberta Federation of Labour to fend off left-wing challenges from thesocialistCo-operative Commonwealth Federation and thecommunistLabour-Progressive Party.[15]: 128–129 Though other unions, particularly those affiliated with theCanadian Congress of Labour, took issue with the Social Credit Party's workers' protections, divisions within the unions and their leadership prevented any effective endorsement of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.[15]: 130 During the campaign, Manning likened the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to "the socialism ofGermany."[15]: 131 Saying in one "letter to a CCFer, who... had naively written to suggest CCF-Social Credit electoral co-operation: 'it's an insult to suggest to the Canadian people who are sacrificing their sons to remove the curse which the socialism of Germany has brought in the world that their own social and economical security can be attained only by introducing some form of socialism in Canada. the premise embodied in your proposed resolution, namely, that there is such a thing asdemocratic socialism, contradicts itself in that it attempts to associate two concepts of life which are diametrically opposed and opposite.'"[16] He also said that socialists were trying to "enslave the ordinary people of the world, whose only real salvation lay in the issuance of Social Credit."[16]
Manning argued the media and education system was sympathetic to the communist cause. He stated that it is "evident, in my view, in the news media, which are very heavily slanted, as a general rule favorably slanted, to socialist philosophy. This isn't by chance, it's becausecommunism has been smart enough to see... that there are always a goodly number of men in that field who are sympathetic to the socialistic and even communistic philosophy. You even have the same thing, to varying degrees, in the field of education. It isn't by chance that you find these agitations of Marxism and so forth in many of our universities. It isn't by chance."[17]
The Manning administration, now re-elected with a resounding majority of seats as a result of the 1944 election, devoted itself to an antisocialist crusade.[15]: 131 In 1946, Manning's government extended censorship to included 16mm films in the hopes of "eliminating communist thought from Alberta-shown movies."[15]: 131
In January 1948, acoal miners' strike broke out, with thousands of miners threatening the provincialelectrical grid since most electricity was generated fromcoal.[18] That strike alone accounted for 30% of all of the time that was lost to strikes in Canada in 1948. In Alberta, the time lost was even worse since it was responsible for well over 99% of all of the time lost by strikes for the entire year.[15]: 133 Manning acted swiftly to avert the crisis by rewriting the province's labour laws in March to allow the government to shut down the strike. Labour was greatly weakened by the charges of communism, and Manning's stalwart defiance of union threats caused the unions to attempt to persuade legislators, instead of protesting using strikes or violence, and halted the rise of militant unionism in Alberta.[15]: 134–135
Manning also used his strong provincial standing to influence thefederal Socreds. He told the 1961 federalleadership convention that Alberta would never accept francophone CatholicRéal Caouette ofQuebec as the party's leader even though Caouette led the party's strongest branch east ofManitoba.Robert N. Thompson of Alberta won the election, but Manning's objections to Caouette led to suspicions that the vote was fixed. Indeed, Caouette later claimed that he had enough support to win, but all of the Quebec delegates voted for Thompson after Manning told him, "Tell your people to vote for Thompson because the West will never accept a Roman Catholic French Canadian leader."[19] By then, however, all but four members of the Social Credit federal caucus came from Quebec. In 1963, virtually all of the Socred MPs from Quebec followed Caouette into theRalliement des créditistes and left behind a Social Credit rump inEnglish Canada.
"In 1967, Manning's book Political Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians was published. This book is an outline of his views regarding the reorganization of the Canadian federal party system."[20]
After retirement from provincial politics in 1968, Manning established his ownconsulting firm, Manning Consultants Limited, with his son Preston. In 1970, Ernest was appointed to the Senate, the only Socred ever to serve in that body. The same year, he was made a Companion of theOrder of Canada. He retired from the Senate in 1983 since he had reached themandatory retirement age of 75. He died in Calgary in 1996.
In 1936, Manning married Muriel Aileen Preston, the pianist at the Prophetic Bible Institute. They had two sons.
Their first son, William Keith, commonly called Keith, was born on May 2, 1939. Keith suffered fromcerebral palsy. For stretches of time, he lived at a hospital inupstate New York, theRed Deer School Hospital, and a nursing home inEdmonton. He married fellow nursing home resident Marilyn Brownell, and died fromcardiac arrest on June 29, 1986.[21][22][23]
Their second son,Ernest Preston, commonly called Preston, was born on June 10, 1942. Preston went on to found theReform Party of Canada, and wasleader of the Official Opposition inparliament from 1997 to 2000.[1]
Manning was appointed as the first member ofAlberta Order of Excellence on September 23, 1981.[24] Manning was also invested as aCompanion of the Order of Canada by Governor-GeneralMichener in 1970.[25]
A high school and a business park road in Calgary, afreeway road in Edmonton andtown in Northern Alberta are named after Ernest Manning. A person with a similar name, Ernest Callaway Manning, is the namesake ofE. C. Manning Provincial Park in British Columbia.
In 1980, the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation was created, and theManning Innovation Awards were started in 1982, with the purpose of promoting and honouring Canadian innovation.
In 2013, the federal riding ofEdmonton Manning was established in Manning's name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | MLACalgary #1 1935–1940 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | MLAEdmonton #1 1940–1959 | Succeeded by District Abolished |
| Preceded by New District | MLAStrathcona East 1959–1968 | Succeeded by |
 | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
