Harvey George Lainson (c. 1935 – February 28, 2005) was a Canadian Christian evangelical minister based in the Cambridge, Ontario, region and was leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada from 1986 to 1990 during which time he led a successful effort to expel an anti-Semitic faction from the party led by Jim Keegstra.
[2] Lainson was a longtime party member and stood as a Social Credit candidate during the 1962 federal election in the riding of St. John—Albert, New Brunswick.
[4] He won the federal party's June 1986 leadership convention defeating Keegstra by a margin of 67 vote to 38.
[5] Lainson hoped to rename the party Christian Freedom since he thought people mistook the name "social credit" for socialist and rebuild the party with the support of Christian fundamentalists[5] He faced resistance from the onset of his leadership with Keegstra's supporters insisting that Lainson was part of a conspiracy and pledging to obstruct him.
He resigned as party leader in 1990 for unspecified "personal reasons" and was succeeded by another evangelical minister, Ken Campbell.