David Réal Caouette (; September 26, 1917 – December 16, 1976) was a Canadian politician from

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada and founder of the '' Ralliement des créditistes''. Outside politics he worked as a car dealer. His son, Gilles Caouette, was also a Social Credit MP and was briefly acting leader of the party.

Early political career

Caouette was born in Amos, in the Abitibi region of Quebec, the son of Marie (Cloutier) and Samuel Caouette. Caouette was converted to the social credit philosophy in 1939. He was first elected to the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada () is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Monarchy of Canada#Parliament (King-in-Parliament), Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Ca ...

in a 1946 by-election in Pontiac for the '' Union des électeurs'', a pro-Social Credit group in Quebec. He sat as a Social Credit MP once elected. In the 1949 election, his home was drawn into the newly created Villeneuve, and he was defeated as a ''Union des électeurs'' candidate.

Out of Parliament

He ran again in the

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito ...

1957 Events January * January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany. * January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch. * January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be Dismissal (cricke ...

and 1958 elections, but was unsuccessful each time. He also ran provincially, for the

Quebec Liberal Party The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP; , PLQ) is a provincial political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955. The QLP has traditionally supported a form of Quebec federalist ideology with nuance ...

, in the 1956 provincial election but was defeated. In 1958, he broke with ''Union des électeurs'' founders Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier, and joined Social Credit forming '' Ralliement des créditistes'' as the national party's Quebec wing of which he became the uncontested leader.

Leadership defeat

In 1961, he ran for leadership of the Social Credit Party, which had no federal representation at the time following the 1958 election, but lost to the party's president, Robert N. Thompson of

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 ...

. The totals were never released. Caouette later claimed that on paper, he would have had enough support to win but for Alberta Premier Ernest Manning's intervention in favour of Thompson. According to Caouette, Manning told the Quebec delegates to vote for Thompson because Western Socreds would never accept a Francophone Catholic as party leader.Dufresne, Bernard, “Québec’s Socreds vote to Disown Thompson”, ''Globe and Mail'', 2 September 1963, p.1

Breakthrough

In the 1962 election, Social Credit won 26 seats in Québec, led by Caouette, who returned as the member for Villeneuve. He held this seat until 1968, when he transferred to the newly created Témiscamingue, a riding he would hold for the rest of his life. The party won only four seats in the rest of Canada. Under the circumstances, Thompson, now the MP for

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or Hart (deer), hart, and a female is called a doe or hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Ir ...

, was all but forced to name Caouette as the party's deputy leader. Holding the balance of power in the

, Social Credit helped bring down the Progressive Conservative

minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in ...

John Diefenbaker John George Diefenbaker (September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 an ...

. However, in the 1963 election, Social Credit was reduced to 24 seats nationwide, all but four of which were in Quebec. Caouette fought for bilingualism in the House of Commons, winning a symbolic victory when he got the Parliament's restaurant to produce bilingual menus.''

Montreal Gazette ''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the only English-language daily newspape ...

'', "Real Caouette: Question now; can message survive?", John Gray, November 9, 1976, p.9 In this, he anticipated the official bilingualism policy that

Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Between his no ...

's government would later enact. The Socred MPs from Québec considered Caouette as their true leader. Over time, Caouette came to believe that since the party was most successful in Québec, he should be the leader of the party instead of Thompson. As well, Caouette and his followers remained true believers in the social credit monetary theories of

C. H. Douglas Major (rank), Major Clifford Hugh Douglas, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, MIMechE, Institution of Electrical Engineers, MIEE (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952), was a British engineer, economist and pioneer of the social credit economi ...

while Thompson and the party's two most powerful branches—in

and

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—had largely abandoned the theory. Thompson refused to step aside, prompting Caouette and virtually all of the Socred MPs from Quebec to split from the party in 1963 and establish the ''Ralliement des créditistes'' as a separate political party. In the 1965 election, Caouette's ''Ralliement'' won nine seats, while Social Credit led by Thompson won five seats. In the 1968 election, Caouette's party won 14 seats while Social Credit won none. The two parties were reunited under Caouette's leadership for the 1972 election. The reunited Socreds won 15 seats in that election, all in Québec. It would never elect another MP from English Canada, though it continued to nominate candidates outside of Québec.

Later political career

In the 1974 federal election, the Social Credit Party machine in Québec was wracked by internal divisions. Caouette was suffering from a snowmobiling accident, and therefore the powerful voice that had carried Social Credit in prior elections was silenced. When he was able to speak, Caouette focussed his attacks on the Progressive Conservatives and the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

, instead of the

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, which was Social Credit's main competitor in Québec. Two weeks before the election was called, Caouette had informed the parliamentary caucus that he would resign as leader in the fall. Despite the party infighting, they managed 11 seats. Though this was one seat short of official status, the Speaker of the House of Commons agreed to recognize them as a party. The decline of the party accelerated after Caouette resigned from the party leadership in 1976. Caouette had announced in 1975 that he would step down from the leadership within a year. He was hospitalized after a stroke on September 16,''Montréal Gazette'', November 6, 1976, p. 11, "Socreds gather to elect leader Sunday" and died three months later. After his death in 1976, Social Credit went into decline both in Québec and at the federal level. The party fell to only six seats under Fabien Roy in the 1979 election. It was shut out of Parliament altogether in

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...

, never to return. The party eventually folded in 1993.

Political views

Caouette mixed Social Credit's traditional

social conservatism Social conservatism is a political philosophy and a variety of conservatism which places emphasis on Tradition#In political and religious discourse, traditional social structures over Cultural pluralism, social pluralism. Social conservatives ...

with ardent Québec nationalism. A populist leader and charismatic speaker, Caouette appealed to those who felt left out and pushed aside by financial institutions, traditional politicians, and what they perceived as elitist intellectuals. Throughout the course of his career, Caouette was known for making controversial and intemperate statements. Shortly after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Caouette claimed that his economic theories were the same as those of

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

's government in Italy, and said that Mussolini and

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

were his political heroes. During the October Crisis of 1970, he also claimed that leaders of the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

'' Front de libération du Québec'', which precipitated the October Crisis, should be shot by a firing squad. While such statements may have resonated with ''Créditiste'' supporters, they impaired the party's popularity with the mainstream electorate. :"The disdain for outsiders always seemed to fit conveniently with the theory of conspiracy of the old parties. The Jews were another and equally convenient part of the Creditiste demonology and there was a continuing strain of anti-Semitism. After the 1962 triumph, Caouette revealed that his political heroes were Hitler and Mussolini. As late as a few years ago, his bookshelves contained ''

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated text purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. Largely plagiarized from several earlier sources, it was first published in Imperial Russia in 1903, translated into multip ...

'' ... If non-Creditistes were horrified, the loyalists did not seem to care."—John Gray

Election results

, Candidat des électeurs , Réal Caouette , align=8,129 , Candidat des électeurs , Réal Caouette , align=8,276

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Caouette, Real 1917 births 1976 deaths 20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada Anti-Masonry Antisemitism in Quebec Canadian anti-communists Canadian political party founders Canadian Roman Catholics Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec Neurological disease deaths in Ontario People from Amos, Quebec Social Credit Party of Canada leaders Social Credit Party of Canada MPs