Ernest Charles Manning (September 20, 1908 – February 19, 1996) was a Canadian politician and the eighth premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He served for 25 years, longer than any other premier in the province's history and the second longest-serving provincial premier in Canadian history (after George Henry Murray of Nova Scotia).

Manning's years as premier were defined by strong social conservatism and fiscal conservatism. He was also the only member of the Social Credit Party of Canada to sit in the Senate and, with the party shut out of the House 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 the Reform Party of Canada who served as the federal leader of the Official Opposition from 1997 to 2000.

Early life and career

thumb|right|Ernest C. Manning, 1935

Manning was born in Carnduff, Saskatchewan, in 1908 to George Henry Manning (1872–1956) and Elizabeth Mara Dixon (1870–1949). George had immigrated from England in 1900 and was followed by his fiancé in 1903. Their Carnduff homestead being inadequate, they moved to a new one in Rosetown, Saskatchewan, in 1909. In his childhood, Ernest was not especially religious and only occasionally attended a Methodist church in town.

Over a radio broadcast, Manning heard of William Aberhart's Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (CPBI), which opened in 1927. He was its first graduate in April 1930,. 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 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." 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 entered politics. The broadcasts were carried on over 90 radio stations across Canada from Halifax to Vancouver and had a large listening audience.

In 1935, Manning went into the realm of provincial politics as Aberhart's right-hand man. Together, they created the Alberta Social Credit Party with the aim of bringing the benefits of social credit to Albertans, who were suffering, they said, due to the effects of poor banking policies made worse by the Great Depression.

Early provincial political career

"Manning followed Aberhart into politics, becoming a key Social Credit organizer, and platform speaker before the 1935 election."

Premier of Alberta

"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."

In 1935, Manning had famously entered the Alberta Cabinet as Provincial Secretary at only 26 years old. He was the youngest cabinet minister in all of British parliamentary history since William Pitt the Younger, who had served as the prime minister of Great Britain 152 years earlier. When he became premier at the age of 35, he was the youngest first 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.

Under Manning, Alberta became a virtual one-party province. He led Social Credit to seven consecutive election victories between 1944 and 1967, usually with more than 50% of the popular vote. His party's seat count increased when he cancelled the use of proportional representation in Edmonton and Calgary in 1956.

Only once did he face more than 10 opposition MLAs. The height of his popularity came in 1963, 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 (two Liberals and one running with the support of both the Liberals and Progressive 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 its good 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."

However, an ominous sign came during Manning's last victory (1967), when the once-moribund Progressive Conservatives, led by Peter Lougheed won six seats, mostly in Calgary and Edmonton. More seriously, the PCs, NDP and Liberals did well enough across the province to hold Social Credit to 45 percent of the vote, a mere minority of the votes and the SC party's lowest vote share since 1940. Manning resigned as MLA on December 11, 1968, and as premier a day after that. Social Credit was knocked out of office three years later. It never came within sight of power again, losing its remaining seats in 1982; since 2017, it has no longer existed under that name.

By the time Manning left the legislature in 1968, of the sitting Social Credit MLAs, only he, Alfred Hooke and William Tomyn had been in the original 1935 caucus. Of that trio, Hooke was the only one who would serve in the legislature without interruption for Social Credit's entire run in government from 1935 to 1971. (Tomyn had been in the original SC caucus but had not been in the Legislative Assembly from 1952 to 1959.)

Social Credit policy

Under Manning, the party largely abandoned social 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 the British North America Act. Manning, however, honoured Aberhart's 1935 promise to issue a Prosperity 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.

At the opening ceremonies for the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant, Pew repeated Manning's belief of the need for the oil 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."

Social conservatism and faith

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."

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." 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."

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.

In January 1948, a coal miners' strike broke out, with thousands of miners threatening the provincial electrical grid since most electricity was generated from coal. 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. 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 the Ralliement des créditistes and left behind a Social Credit rump in English 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."

Senate and death

After retirement from provincial politics in 1968, Manning established his own consulting 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 the Order of Canada. He retired from the Senate in 1983 since he had reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. He died in Calgary in 1996.

Personal life

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 from cerebral palsy. For stretches of time, he lived at a hospital in upstate New York, the Red Deer School Hospital, and a nursing home in Edmonton. He married fellow nursing home resident Marilyn Brownell, and died from cardiac arrest on June 29, 1986.

Their second son, Ernest Preston, commonly called Preston, was born on June 10, 1942. Preston went on to found the Reform Party of Canada, and was leader of the Official Opposition in parliament from 1997 to 2000. Manning was also invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada by Governor-General Michener in 1970.

A high school and a business park road in Calgary, a freeway road in Edmonton and town in Northern Alberta are named after Ernest Manning. A person with a similar name, Ernest Callaway Manning, is the namesake of E. C. Manning Provincial Park in British Columbia.

In 1980, the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation was created, and the Manning Innovation Awards were started in 1982, with the purpose of promoting and honouring Canadian innovation.

Works

References

Bibliography

  • Alberta legislative assembly
  • Ernest Manning's Order of Canada Citation
  • Ernest Manning's papers digitized at the University of Calgary Archives