Social Discredit: Anti-Semitism, Social Credit, and the Jewish Response

J.L. Granatstein, distinguished research professor emeritus of history
at York University. He is the author of Who Killed Canadian History? and
co-author of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Influential Canadians of the
20th Century, Prime Ministers: Ranking

That the Alberta and national Social Credit Parties had a strong streak
of anti-Semitism has long been known, not least because the Social
Crediters made no attempt to hide their biases. Historian Janine
Stingel’s excellent book nonetheless breaks new ground by probing
deeply into the views of Ernest Manning, long-time premier of Alberta,
and the men around him. To his credit, Manning slowly led his provincial
party away from extremist views, his own attitudes changing in the
process. The national party, strong in Quebec, was a harder nut to
crack.

At the same time—and this is just as valuable a segment of her
work—Stingel documents the organized Jewish community’s ineffectual
response to Social Credit, its vain efforts to fight against the
anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish views that were all too popular with
mainstream Canadians, French- and English-speaking, in the 1930s and
1940s. The Canadian Jewish Congress tried passively to fight against the
anti-Semitism of Social Credit, but it could never find a coherent and
effective national public-relations policy, nor could it deal with key
decisionmakers with any more effect. On the other hand, intolerance in
the 1930s and 1940s (the war against the Nazis notwithstanding) was
almost sanctioned national policy, and the Congress’s difficulties
were excusable. What was not excusable was Social Credit’s hatred of
Jews, Catholics, and foreigners, its blatant intolerance against an
undifferentiated “them.”

Stingel’s book is a sophisticated analysis of prejudice and the
efforts to counter it. It is based on massive, thorough research, and it
reads well.