Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning

David E. Smith is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan and the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents and The Invisible Crown.

Religion matters in Canadian politics: that is the thesis of this
unusual “double” biography. Using what he calls “the
faith–politics matrix” to explore the complexities of the
relationship between Mannings “senior” and “junior,” Lloyd
Mackey examines a hitherto neglected dimension of the study of politics
in Canada. Unfortunately, it is likely to remain neglected. Although the
quality of the research (which includes the papers of Ernest Manning and
personal interviews with him and with Preston and Sandra Manning) is
excellent, there is none of the scholarly apparatus that earns a book
admission to the rank of academic studies: there are no footnotes, and
the references to related literature are few and narrow in range.

“Narrow” too is the inference often associated with the parties led
by the Mannings. Mackey does not dispute this charge or its association
with fundamentalist religious beliefs. He does quarrel, however, with
the attribution of extremism that often accompanies the description.
This book is original in its exploration of the importance of religion
to political attitudes, in its analysis of the impact of societal change
on the religious beliefs held by Aberhart, by “Manning I,” and by
“Manning II,” and in the close distinctions it draws between
mainstream evangelical, Pentecostal, charismatic, and reformed
believers, on the one hand, and adherents of the mainline churches on
the other. The Social Gospel movement and the political activism that
grew from it are subjected by Mackey to a rare critique.

Like Father, Like Son demonstrates that there is a rational explanation
for the policy choices that flow from the theological preferences of the
Mannings and of the Christian believers they represent. That explanation
may not persuade the unconverted to vote Reform, but it definitely helps
make the party’s values understandable and historically explicable.