Уильям Аберхарт: Премьер Альберты и основатель партии социального кредита.

Premier of Alberta (1935–1943)

William Aberhart (December 30, 1878 – May 23, 1943), also known as "Bible Bill" for his radio sermons about the Bible, was a Canadian politician and the seventh premier of Alberta from 1935 to his death in 1943. He was the founder and first leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party, which believed the Great Depression was caused by ordinary people not having enough to spend. Therefore, Aberhart argued that the government should give each Albertan $25 per month to spend to stimulate the economy, by providing needed purchasing power to allow needy customers to buy from waiting businesses. During his premiership, Aberhart campaigned for and instituted several anti poverty and debt relief programs, and other governmental reforms, such as consolidation of Alberta's numerous small school districts into centralized school divisions, and natural resources conservation. His attempts at banking reform met with less success, facing strong opposition from the federal government, the courts, privately owned newspapers and a coalition of the Liberal and Conservative parties. Aberhart's government did successfully establish the Alberta Treasury Branches (now ATB Financial), a government owned financial institution to provide an alternative to existing banks, which continues to operate as a Crown corporation of the Alberta government.

William Aberhart was born December 30, 1878, in Kippen, Ontario (now part of Bluewater, Ontario) to William (c. 1844 – 1910) and Louisa (c. 1850–1944) (née Pepper) Aberhart. The fourth of eight children, William Aberhart Jr. delivered milk to his father's customers before school each day. Mathematics was one of his strengths, though his approach involved more rote learning than reasoning. Elliott and Miller suggest that this tendency stayed with him his entire life, and that he "never really acquired an appreciation for inductive intellectual analysis". In 1911, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

The Social Credit Party won the 1935 provincial election by a landslide with over 54% of the popular vote and all but seven of the 63 seats in the legislature. Not even the Socreds had expected to win the election. Indeed, its expectations were so low that it had not named a formal leader during the campaign. The party was now tasked with selecting a leader who would become the province's new premier. Aberhart was the obvious choice, as he had been the party's founder and guiding force. He initially said he did not want the job, but was finally prevailed to accept it. He was sworn in as premier on September 3 (11 days after his August 22 victory). However, he was not yet a member of the legislature. The Social Credit MLA for Okotoks High River, William Morrison, resigned to give Aberhart a chance to get a seat, per standard practice in the Westminster system when a leader or cabinet minister does not have a seat. Aberhart won the November 4 by election, held prior to the first sitting of the new legislature after the general election. Aberhart was elected by acclamation. Aberhart served as premier and as his own minister of education and, starting in 1937, Attorney General. Aberhart's government was re elected in the 1940 election with a somewhat reduced mandate, with Aberhart being elected to a Calgary seat.

Aberhart's government did not implement much of the Social Credit policies promised in the party's election platform, because of the province's very poor financial position in the depths of the Depression. The federal government's opposition to Social Credit was a significant block to Aberhart's policy goals. The federal government has jurisdiction over Canadian currency and banks, under the British North America Act, 1867. However, there was no constitutional barrier to Alberta producing its own currency, which Aberhart's government did to a limited degree with its prosperity certificates. Aberhart did threaten the power of private banks with his government's extension of the UFA government's foreclosure moratorium and mandatory debt adjustment. But a law to tax banks was overturned on constitutional grounds. Later, the government started its own banks, which carry on as the Alberta Treasury Branch (ATB Financial). Aberhart instituted a variety of relief programs to help people out of poverty, as well as public works programs and a debt relief program that froze some debt collections and mortgage foreclosures. This, like Tommy Douglas' similar program in Saskatchewan, was later overturned in the mid 1940s by the Supreme Court, although it aided people for a number of years during and (for a short time) after the Great Depression. Alberta's Social Credit government brought in legislation under which an MLA could be recalled by a portion of their constituents. Aberhart's own constituents, including out of power UFA farmers and many oilworkers working for U. S. oil companies threatened by Aberhart's Natural Resources Conservation legislation, gathered signatures for Aberhart's own recall. He thus became the first Canadian politician to be threatened with recall from office. Aberhart's government retroactively repealed the recall legislation rather than have Aberhart forced to give up his seat. In keeping with his evangelical views, Aberhart added a heavy dose of social conservatism to Major Douglas's ideas. Most notably, he enacted very tight restrictions on the sale of alcohol. Indeed, the only stricter law in Canada at the time was in Prince Edward Island, where the sale of alcohol remained completely banned until 1948. Well into the 1960s, commercial airlines could not serve alcohol while flying over Alberta. Although Aberhart was unable to gain control of Alberta's banks, his government gained a foothold in the province's financial industry by creating the Alberta Treasury Branches in 1938. Its operations included special credit given for those who bought made in Alberta goods. ATB has become Aberhart's legacy, operating as an orthodox financial institution and Crown corporation.

Lieutenant Governor John C. Bowen refused to give royal assent to three government bills in 1937. Two of the bills would have put the province's banks under the control of the provincial government, while a third, the Accurate News and Information Act, would have forced newspapers to print government rebuttals to stories the provincial cabinet deemed "inaccurate". All three bills were later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. For its leadership in the fight against the latter act, in 1938 the Edmonton Journal was awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation and bronze plaque, the first time a special citation was awarded outside the United States, while 95 other newspapers including the Calgary Herald, the Red Deer News, Lethbridge Herald and the province's weekly newspapers were recognized with engraved certificates. By late 1937, relations with the lieutenant governor became so strained that Bowen even threatened to dismiss Aberhart's government, which would have been an extraordinary use of his reserve powers. An analogous situation occurred in 1932 in Australia between Jack Lang and Sir Philip Game, the premier and governor, respectively, of New South Wales. However, Bowen did not follow through on his threat due in part to Social Credit's immense popularity with the people. Had he dismissed Aberhart, it would have triggered a fresh election that Social Credit would have almost certainly won.

Aberhart died unexpectedly on May 23, 1943, during a visit to his adult daughters in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Burnaby as his widow intended to move to Vancouver to be close to her children. He was succeeded as the Premier of Alberta by his lifelong disciple, Ernest C. Manning, who gradually moved away from Douglas' monetary theories. Social Credit would remain in office until its defeat in the 1971 election—one of the longest serving provincial governments in Canadian history, and one of the longest serving in the Commonwealth. The Aberhart Centre, a long term medical care centre at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, is named in his honour, as is William Aberhart High School in Calgary. In 1974, he was named a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada. A plaque commemorating this sits inside Crescent Heights High School at 1019 1st NW, Calgary, Alberta.

Elliott (1978) argues that the Aberhart's Social Credit ideology was clearly antithetical to his previous theology, which was highly sectarian, separatist, apolitical, other worldly, and eschatologically oriented. Elliott challenges the arguments of Mann (1955) and Irving (1959) that there was a definite connection between Aberhart's theology and political program. Elliott reports that Aberhart's political support did not come from the sectarian groups as Mann and Irving suggest, but rather it came from the members of established churches and those with marginal religious commitment. In his 1978 article published in the Canadian Historical Review, David R. Elliot examined Aberhart's theological and political beliefs. Elliot and Iris Miller published Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart in 1987. A 2004 edited book —Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, devoted a chapter to Aberhart. A June 2020 in depth article in Alberta Views magazine, compared Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to Aberhart. Bruce Allen Powe in 1983 published a novel entitled The Aberhart Summer based on the events of 1935 when Aberhart swept into power. The novel was adapted as a stage play in 1999 by Conni Massing.