It was the discovery of vast resources of oil and natural gas that set Alberta on a different political trajectory than other provinces.
But there is another factor that goes back even further, and has had just as much influence on Alberta’s singular approach to politics: Christian conservatism.
Once again, it has reared its head in Alberta, thanks to Premier Jason Kenney’s longing to turn back the clock to the days before secular school curriculums, Medicare, gay rights, climate change, strong labour unions and the need for vaccine mandates.
Two of our most notable premiers — William Aberhart and Ernest Manning — were also fundamentalist preachers who had no qualms about mixing religion and politics while they were in office.
Aberhart, also known as “Bible Bill,” founded the Social Credit Party. Though based on very dubious economics, it became almost like a religion to him and many Albertans during the hard times of the 1930s.
So much so that during the 1935 provincial election, Aberhart suggested that prayer should be an integral part of the Social Credit campaign. He told his followers: “I don’t want you to stop shouting (for Social Credit), but I do want every last man of you to join in a Bible study and a little prayer meeting.”
Aberhart mentored Ernest Manning in both religion and politics; when Aberhart died in 1943, Manning quickly succeeded him as premier, remaining in office for 25 years.
Through his political ideology and his Sunday radio broadcasts — on “Back to the Bible Hour” — Manning made it clear that he actually wanted to convert people to a particular kind of Christianity. He constantly encouraged people to be “born again” before the imminent Second Coming of Christ, writes David Marshall in “Religion and Public Life in Canada: Historical and Comparative Perspectives.”
When Peter Lougheed’s Progressive Conservatives formed government in 1971, they were much more secular and remained so for the 44 years they held the reins of government.
But in the late 1980s, along came Preston Manning, Ernest’s son. He founded the Reform Party, which eventually smashed through the federal Progressive Conservative base in Western Canada and influenced provincial politics as well.
The younger Manning was usually tagged as a neo-conservative in the thrall of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. But his political ideology was rooted in an anti-collectivist (anti-Communist, anti-socialist) attitude that originated with the belief the divine purpose of the state was to ensure the freedom of the individual citizen, according to Clark Banack, author of “God’s Province: Evangelical Christianity, Political Thought, and Conservatism in Alberta.”
Preston Manning’s message was amplified tenfold by another conservative Christian, Ted Byfield, the publisher of Alberta Report — a magazine that attracted national attention by combining a strident call for Western Canadian political self-determination with anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Indigenous and anti-feminist ideology supposedly based on Biblical directives.
When Byfield died last week at 93, Kenney was quick to eulogize him on Twitter as “a remarkable man and a great Albertan ... an irascible character with a heart of gold and who had an enormous impact on Canadian journalism and politics.”
No mention of Alberta Report’s lurid “Can Gays be Cured?” cover story. Nor of the magazine’s cover featuring a photo of Indigenous children in a classroom with the headline “Canada’s Mythical Holocaust,” plus the subhead “Canada’s $350 million apology for the ‘horrors’ of Indian residential schools is rooted more in fiction than fact.”
Kenney is a committed conservative Christian himself. He was campaign manager for Stockwell Day — another Alberta preacher turned politician — when Day successfully ran for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance, a blend of Reformers and Progressive Conservatives which eventually became the official Opposition in Ottawa.
If he really could turn back the clock, Kenney likely would have made an excellent campaign manager for William Aberhart as well.
