Lyle Wicks (November 1, 1912 – February 3, 2004) was a British Columbia politician. Born in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Wicks graduated from McLean High School in Haney, British Columbia,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

in 1930. He was one of the first employees of the BC Plywoods Company (now defunct), and in 1940 he joined the BC Electric Railway Co., where he worked as a streetcar operator within the

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

transit system. He joined the

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

movement in 1943 and became actively involved in its organisational efforts. From 1946 to 1948, Wicks was elected vice-president of the

Social Credit Association of Canada The Social Credit Party of Canada (), colloquially known as the Socreds, was a populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform. It was the federal wing of the Canadian social credit movement. Origins ...

, British Columbia Section. He also took on the position of chairman of the Vancouver and District Social Credit Council in 1948. In 1949, Lyle Wicks was defeated as a Social Credit candidate in the Delta constituency. That year, he also became the founding president of the

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Social Credit League. He was re-elected to this position until the time of his resignation in October 1952. As president, Wicks recruited

W.A.C. Bennett William Andrew Cecil Bennett (September 6, 1900 – February 23, 1979) was a Canadian politician who served as the 25th premier of British Columbia from 1952 to 1972. With just over 20 years in office, Bennett remains the longest-serving premier ...

to the nascent party after Bennett bolted the

British Columbia Conservative Party The Conservative Party of British Columbia, commonly known as the BC Conservatives and colloquially known as the Tories, is a provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. It is the main rival to the governing British Columbia New Demo ...

to sit as an independent MLA in March 1951. In the 1952 convention to elect the party's leader, both Wicks and Bennett were nominated for the party's leadership. Wicks and Bennett both withdrew in favour of Reverend

Ernest George Hansell Ernest George Hansell (14 May 1895 in Norwich, England – 9 December 1965) was an ordained minister as well as a Canadian federal and provincial politician. Federal politics Hansell was the son of Walter Hansell, an FA Cup-winning footballer w ...

, an Alberta Social Credit MP hand-picked by Alberta Premier

Ernest Manning Ernest Charles Manning (September 20, 1908 – February 19, 1996) was a Canadian politician and the eighth premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He served longer than any other premier in the province' ...

to lead the British Columbia party. Following the June 1952 provincial election, which was unexpectedly won by Social Credit, Wicks called a new leadership convention at which only Social Credit

MLAs A Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected to sit in a legislative assembly. The term most commonly refers to members of the legislature of a federated state or an autonomous region, but is also used for several nationa ...

could vote thus ending the influence of the Alberta party. The leadership vote was won by Bennett. Wicks was elected MLA for the Dewdney

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

in the 1952 election; in August he was appointed Minister of Labour in Bennett's cabinet. The first session of the Social Credit Party took place in 1953. In September 1956 Wicks was appointed Minister of Railways, a portfolio he held until March 1959, at which time he was appointed Minister of Commercial Transport. He also served as the acting Minister of Agriculture for one week in 1957. During his political career, he played an active role in the establishment of the Albion Ferry on the Fraser River, the development of Alouette Park, the establishment of the Maple Ridge and Mission Hospitals, the completion of the north shore highway connecting Agassiz to Hope, and in the construction of the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge. He was made an Honorary Chief of the Kwakuitl Indian Nation in Harrison Hot Springs, BC in 1958. Wicks was defeated in the 1960 general election by future British Columbia Premier

Dave Barrett David Barrett (October 2, 1930 – February 2, 2018) was a Canadian politician and social worker in British Columbia. A member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BCNDP), he was the 26th premier of British Columbia from 1972 to 1 ...

. From 1961 to 1973 he served as a member of the Board of the

Public Utilities Commission A public utilities commission is a quasi-governmental body that provides oversight and/or regulation of public utility, public utilities in a particular area (locality, municipality, or Administrative division, subnational division), especially in ...

, which was abolished in 1973. Lyle Wicks died in 2004 at a hospital in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.https://vancouversunandprovince.remembering.ca/obituary/lyle-wicks-1065909160 The Lyle Wicks Papers, a collection of records documenting Wicks's political career, is housed at th
Trinity Western University Archives

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wicks, Lyle 1912 births 2004 deaths Politicians from Calgary British Columbia Social Credit Party MLAs 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia