Social Credit Board

To this end, it secured the services of L. Dennis Byrne and George Powell, two lieutenants of social credit's British founder, C. H. Douglas.

Most of this legislation was either disallowed by the federal government or ruled ultra vires (beyond the powers of) the province by the Supreme Court of Canada; these defeats and the advent of World War II made the Social Credit Board increasingly irrelevant.

[7] In 1937's Bankers' Toadies incident, Powell (along with Social Credit whip Joe Unwin) was convicted of criminal libel, sentenced to six months hard labour, and deported to the United Kingdom.

Instead of proposing new policy, the board devoted itself to propaganda;[11] its members spoke across the province about social credit, and it distributed vast numbers of pamphlets and leaflets (272,900 in 1939).

[15] Under his influence, the Social Credit Board began to propagate anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, including those espoused by the Russian forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Its 1943 report alleged "a plot, world-wide in scope, deliberately engineered by a small number of ruthless international financiers",[18] most of whom were Jewish.

[18] Its 1947 report repeated these allegations, and also proposed a new voting system in which voters would state their choices publicly, and be taxed only for those government programs they supported during the election.

Manning, benignly neglectful of the Social Credit Board to this point, took this as "a direct challenge to his leadership, a shot across the bow".

[19] In November 1947 he announced that the Social Credit Board would cease to exist effective March 1948,[19] and in February 1948 he asked for and received Byrne's resignation as deputy minister of Economic Affairs.