Réal Caouette

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Réal Caouette

David Réal Caouette (September 26, 1917 - December 16, 1976) was a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada. His son, Gilles Caouette, was also a Social Credit MP and was briefly acting leader of the party.

Born in Amos, in the Abitibi region of Quebec, Caouette was converted to the social credit philosophy in 1939. He was first elected to the House of Commons in a 1946 by-election in Pontiac under the Union des électeurs banner. He sat as a Social Credit MP once elected. In 1949, his home was drawn into the newly created Villeneuve, and he was defeated. He ran again in 1953, 1957 and 1958, but was unsuccessful each time. In 1958, he broke with Union des électeurs founders Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier, and joined Social Credit. He became the uncontested leader of the créditistes in Quebec.

Caouette mixed Social Credit's traditional social conservatism with ardent Quebec 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.

In 1961, he ran for leadership of the Social Credit Party, but lost to Robert N. Thompson, a Social Credit MP from Alberta. Some believe that Caouette actually won, only to be vetoed by the party's Alberta wing. Alberta Premier Ernest Manning had previously said that his province would never accept a francophone Catholic as party leader.

In the 1962 election, Social Credit won 26 seats in Quebec. Caouette himself returned to Parliament as the MP for Villeneuve, a riding he held for the rest of his life (though it was renamed Témiscamingue in 1966). The party won only four seats in the rest of Canada, forcing Thompson to appoint Caouette as the party's deputy leader. Holding the balance of power in the House of Commons, Social Credit helped bring down the Progressive Conservative minority government of John Diefenbaker. However in the 1963 election, Social Credit was reduced to 24 seats nationwide.

Caouette fought for bilingualism in the House of Commons, winning a symbolic victory when he got the Parliament's restaurant to produce bilingual menus. In this, he anticipated the official bilingualism policy that would later be put into effect by Pierre Trudeau.

Caouette believed that since the party was most successful in Quebec, he should be leader of the party instead of Thompson. As well, Caoeutte and his followers remained true believers in the social credit monetary theories of C.H. Douglas while Thompson and the Social Credit Party of Alberta had largely abandoned the theory. Thompson refused to step aside, leading Caouette to leave the party, along with the rest of Quebec wing in 1963, to establish the Ralliement des créditistes.

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, in which the party won 15 seats. Although the party continued to nominate candidates in other provinces, it never again won seats outside of Quebec. In the 1974 election, the party won 11 seats.

After his death in 1976, Social Credit in Quebec and at the federal Canadian level went into decline. The party won only six seats under Fabien Roy in the 1979 election, and none in the 1980 or subsequent elections. The party eventually folded in the 1990s.

Throughout the course of his career, Caouette was known for making controversial and intemperate statements. Shortly after World War II, Caouette claimed that his economic theories were the same as those of Benito Mussolini's discredited government in Italy. During the October Crisis of 1970, he also claimed that leaders of the Front de Libération du Québec should be shot by a firing squad. (The FLQ was an organization that sought to promote its goal of independence for Quebec through violent means, including bombing, kidnapping and murder.) While such statements may have resonated with radical créditiste supporters, they undoubtedly blunted the party's popularity with the mainstream electorate.