Réal Caouette

Réal Caouette
Caouette in 1945.

Leader of the Ralliement Créditiste
In office 1963–1971
Preceded by	position created
Succeeded by	position abolished, merged with the Social Credit Party of Canada
Leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada
In office October 9, 1971 – December 16, 1976
Preceded by	Alexander Bell Patterson
Succeeded by	André-Gilles Fortin
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Témiscamingue
In office 1968–1976
Preceded by	riding created
Succeeded by	Gilles Caouette
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Villeneuve
In office 1962–1968
Preceded by	Armand Dumas
Succeeded by	Oza Tétrault
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Pontiac
In office 1946–1949
Preceded by	Wallace McDonald
Succeeded by	riding abolished
Personal details
Born	David Réal Caouette (1917-09-26)September 26, 1917 Amos, Quebec, Canada
Died	December 16, 1976(1976-12-16) (aged 59) Ottawa, Ontario
Political party	Social Credit Party of Canada
Children	Gilles Caouette others unknown
Occupation	Automobile dealer Businessman Garage owner / operator Insurance agent Manager Journalist Member of Parliament Politician
Religion	Roman Catholic

David Réal Caouette (September 26, 1917 – December 16, 1976) was a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada and founder of the Ralliement des créditistes. Outside politics he worked as a car dealer.

His son, Gilles Caouette, was also a Social Credit MP and was briefly acting leader of the party.

Early political career

Born in Amos, in the Abitibi region of Quebec, Caouette was converted to the social credit philosophy in 1939. He was first elected to the House of Commons in a 1946 by-election in Pontiac for the Union des electeurs, a pro-Social Credit group in Quebec. He sat as a Social Credit MP once elected. In the 1949 election, his home was drawn into the newly created Villeneuve, and he was defeated as a Union des électeurs candidate.

Out of parliament

He ran again in the 1953, 1957 and 1958 elections, but was unsuccessful each time. He also ran provincially, for the Quebec Liberal Party, in the 1956 provincial election but was defeated. In 1958, he broke with Union des électeurs founders Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier, and joined Social Credit forming Ralliement des créditistes as the national party's Quebec wing of which he became the uncontested leader.

Leadership defeat

In 1961, he ran for leadership of the Social Credit Party, but lost to Robert N. Thompson, a Social Credit MP from Alberta. The totals were never released, leading to speculation that Caouette actually won, only to be vetoed by the party's Alberta wing. Alberta Premier Ernest Manning had previously said that his province would never accept a francophone Catholic as party leader.

Breakthrough

In the 1962 election, Social Credit won 26 seats in Quebec. Caouette himself returned to Parliament as the MP for Villeneuve. He held this seat until 1966, when he transferred to the newly created Témiscamingue, a riding he would hold for the rest of his life. The party won only four seats in the rest of Canada. Under the circumstances, Thompson was all but forced to name Caouette as the party's deputy leader. Holding the balance of power in the House of Commons, Social Credit helped bring down the Progressive Conservative minority government of John Diefenbaker. However, in the 1963 election, Social Credit was reduced to 24 seats nationwide, 20 of which were in Quebec.

Caouette fought for bilingualism in the House of Commons, winning a symbolic victory when he got the Parliament's restaurant to produce bilingual menus.^[1] In this, he anticipated the official bilingualism policy that would later be put into effect by Pierre Trudeau.

The Socred MPs from Quebec considered Caouette as their true leader. Over time, Caouette came to believe that since the party was most successful in Quebec, he should be leader of the party instead of Thompson. As well, Caouette and his followers remained true believers in the social credit monetary theories of C.H. Douglas while Thompson and the party's two most powerful branches—in Alberta and British Columbia—had largely abandoned the theory. Thompson refused to step aside, prompting Caouette and virtually all of the Socred MPs from Quebec to split from the party in 1963 and establish the Ralliement des créditistes as a separate political party.

Main article: Social Credit Party of Canada split, 1963

In the 1965 election, Caouette's Ralliement won nine seats, while Social Credit led by Thompson won five seats. In the 1968 election, Caouette's party won 14 seats while Social Credit won none.

The two parties were reunited under Caouette's leadership for the 1972 election. The reunited Socreds won 15 seats in that election, all in Quebec. It would never elect another MP from English Canada, though it continued to nominate candidates outside of Quebec.

Later political career

In the 1974 federal election, the Social Credit Party machine in Quebec was wracked by internal divisions. Caouette was suffering from a snowmobiling accident, and therefore the powerful voice that had carried Social Credit in prior elections was silenced. When he was able to speak, Caouette focussed his attacks on the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, instead of the Liberal Party, which was Social Credit's main competitor in Quebec. Two weeks before the election was called, Caouette had informed the parliamentary caucus that he would resign as leader in the fall. Despite the party infighting, they managed 11 seats. Though this was one seat short of official status, the Speaker of the House of Commons agreed to recognize them as a party.

The decline of the party accelerated after Caouette resigned from the party leadership in 1976. Caouette had announced in 1975 that he would step down from the leadership within a year. He was hospitalized after a stroke on September 16,^[2] and died later that year.

After his death in 1976, Social Credit in Quebec and at the federal Canadian level went into decline. The party fell to only six seats under Fabien Roy in the 1979 election. It was shut out of Parliament altogether in 1980, never to return. The party eventually folded in the 1990s.

Political views

Caouette mixed Social Credit's traditional social conservatism with ardent Quebec nationalism. A populist leader and charismatic speaker, Caouette appealed to those who felt left out and pushed aside by financial institutions, traditional politicians, and what they perceived as elitist intellectuals.

Throughout the course of his career, Caouette was known for making controversial and intemperate statements. Shortly after World War II, Caouette claimed that his economic theories were the same as those of Benito Mussolini's government in Italy, and said that Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were his political heroes.^[1] During the October Crisis of 1970, he also claimed that leaders of the Communist Front de libération du Québec, which precipitated the October Crisis, should be shot by a firing squad.^[3] While such statements may have resonated with Créditiste supporters, they impaired the party's popularity with the mainstream electorate.

"The disdain for outsiders always seemed to fit conveniently with the theory of conspiracy of the old parties. The Jews were another and equally convenient part of the Creditiste demonology and there was a continuing strain of anti-Semitism. After the 1962 triumph, Caouette revealed that his political heroes were Hitler and Mussolini. As late as a few years ago, his bookshelves contained The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ... If non-Creditisites were horrified, the loyalists did not seem to care."—John Gray^[1]

References

1 2 3 Montreal Gazette, "Real Caouette: Question now; can message survive?", John Gray, 9 November 1976, p.9
↑ Montreal Gazette, 6 November 1976, p. 11, “Socreds gather to elect leader Sunday”
↑ Ibid.

External links

Réal Caouette – Parliament of Canada biography

Preceded by none	Leader of Ralliement des créditistes 1958-1971	Succeeded by merged into Social Credit Party of Canada
Preceded by Alexander Bell Patterson	National Leaders of Social Credit 1971–1976	Succeeded by André-Gilles Fortin

Canadian Newsmaker of the Year

Igor Gouzenko 1946 Barbara Ann Scott 1947 William Lyon Mackenzie King 1948 Louis St. Laurent 1949 Lester B. Pearson 1950–1953 Marilyn Bell 1954 Lester B. Pearson 1955–1956 John Diefenbaker 1957–1960 Joey Smallwood 1959 James Coyne 1961 Réal Caouette 1962 Lester B. Pearson 1963–1964 Lucien Rivard 1965 John Diefenbaker 1966 Lester B. Pearson 1967 Pierre Trudeau 1968–1975 René Lévesque 1976–1977 Pierre Trudeau 1978 Joe Clark 1979 Terry Fox 1980–1981 Wayne Gretzky 1982 Brian Mulroney 1983–1984 Steve Fonyo 1985 Rick Hansen 1986–1987 Ben Johnson 1988 Michael Wilson 1989 Elijah Harper 1990 Brian Mulroney 1991 The referendum on the Charlottetown Accord 1992 Kim Campbell 1993 Jacques Parizeau 1994 Lucien Bouchard 1995 Donovan Bailey 1996 Sheldon Kennedy 1997 Jean Chrétien 1998 Pierre Trudeau 1999, as Newsmaker of the 20th Century Pierre Trudeau 2000 Stockwell Day 2001 Jean Chrétien 2002 Paul Martin 2003–2004 John Gomery 2005 The Canadian Soldier 2006 RCMP 2007 Stephen Harper 2008–2009 Russell Williams 2010 Jack Layton 2011 Luka Magnotta 2012 Rob Ford 2013 Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo 2014 Justin Trudeau 2015

Book:Canadian Newsmakers of the Year Portal:History of Canada

Social Credit

Movements

Canada	Abolitionist Party of Canada British Columbia Social Credit Party Canada Party Christian Credit Party Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform Les Démocrates Manitoba Social Credit Party New Democracy Pauper Party of Ontario Parti crédit social uni Pilgrims of Saint Michael Ralliement créditiste Ralliement créditiste du Québec Social Credit Board Alberta Social Credit Party Social Credit Party of Canada Social Credit Party of New Brunswick Social Credit Party of Ontario Social Credit Party of Saskatchewan

Oceania	Australian League of Rights Douglas Credit Party New Zealand Democratic Party for Social Credit Social Credit Party Solomon Islands Social Credit Party

United Kingdom	British People's Party Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

People

History

Category
Politics

Authority control	WorldCat Identities VIAF: 105144656 LCCN: n82083467 ISNI: 0000 0000 7900 0636 SUDOC: 050598368

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