Social Credit Party of Ontario - Fascist Takeover and Split

Fascist Takeover and Split

In the early 1970s the radical Edmund Burke Society (EBS) infiltrated the party electing Paul Fromm as the party's president and other EBSers to the executive. In the 1971 provincial election three of five Social Credit candidates running in the election were avowed "Burkers". By 1972, the party had been taken over by the EBS which now called itself the Western Guard. As a result the party was put under trusteeship at the instigation of the federal party which declared membership in the Western Guard to be "incompatible" with membership in Social Credit. The federal Social Credit Party disavowed the Social Credit Association of Ontario led by John Ross Taylor of the Western Guard and instead recognized the "Ontario Social Credit League", established in 1973 under the leadership of Bruce Arnold.

In the 1975 Ontario election the "Ontario Social Credit League" fielded 10 candidates, mostly in rural areas, while the "Social Credit Association of Ontario" ran three candidates in Metro Toronto who were disavowed by the League as supporters of the Western Guard. In the 1974 federal election, the Ontario Social Credit Association endorsed Martin Weiche as a candidate in Trinity co-endorsed by the Western Guard though because the party was not officially registered with Elections Canada their federal candidates were officially listed as independents.

Neither Social Credit party ran candidates in the 1977 provincial election though several candidates ran as "Independent Social Credit". Also in 1977, Western Guard leader Don Andrews was convicted of plotting to bomb the Israeli basketball team and was forced to sever his ties with the Western Guard freeing the way for John Ross Taylor to become the group's leader. He folded his Social Credit Association and became leader of the renamed Western Guard Party.