The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2009, Blaðsíða 42

132
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #3
of the btiilding from outside . . .
Apart from the controversial secret
leadership and coalition meetings arranged
by Fox and Poole, reports of similarly
coercive elements within the Social Credit
party in Manitoba also emerged around the
time of the 1936 election. Although the
party’s platform appealed to Manitobans
from a variety of political backgrounds,
Social Credit organizers in Manitoba were
particularly interested in creating party
uniformity and distancing itself from leftist
parties and organizations. Campaigners
who expressed political sentiments outside
of the party’s official policy such as C.
Spence of Winnipeg’s North End met with
serious censure. Accused of turning the
party’s election campaign towards the left,
Spence was summoned to a closed meeting
with members of the Manitoba Social
Credit executive and Albertan M.L.A., W.
Kuhl, who was also involved in securing
Halldorson’s endorsement by the national
Social Credit Party. The Winnipeg Evening
Tribune reported the bizarre circumstances
of the meeting in the summer of 1936,
shortly following the election. Spence,
wrote the Tribune, stood accused of:
circulat(ing) reports calculated to
injure the cause. Specifically, Mr.
Spence is said to have tried to induce
workers to include in the organization
the returned soldiers group and the
unemployed ... During the entire ses-
sion, six husky young men stood
guard outside, armed with clubs.
Windows were carefully curtained
and closed.
Some of Halldorson’s correspondence
suggests her own entanglement in the more
provocative elements within the party,
specifically those dissatisfied with the
party’s leadership. British Social Credit
activist S.T. Powell responded to
Halldorson’s apparent complaints about
party leaders in February 1940, writing that
the movement suffered from glorified sec-
retaries masquerading as leaders who “will
not admit to being taught anything about
any subject for fear that he suffers depreci-
ation in the eyes of his followers.” Powell
wrote to Halldorson that it was time to
“start our movement again amongst almost
entirely new people: people without that
superiority complex which knowledge of
money technique so almost invariably
developed.” Understanding Halldorson’s
role as a dissenter within this restrictive
political environment is complex, however,
as she also served as president of the
Manitoba Social Credit League and was
also responsible for suppressing dissent
and subversive political elements within its
membership. However, her public opposi-
tion to the coalition certainly indicates that
she retained a flare for confrontation.
Halldorson appeared to have recov-
ered politically from her public clash with
the party leadership in 1936 and continued
to act as a well-recognised politician during
her first few years in office. During this
time she pressured the provincial govern-
ment to launch an inquiry into the roots of
the Depression, dedicated herself to wid-
ows’ rights under The Child Welfare Act,
farm debt reduction, improving teachers’
salaries, women’s employment, the provin-
cial censorship board and especially in
opposing the Sirois Report and its recom-
mendation to transfer numerous provincial
powers to the federal government. Despite
her involvement with a variety of political
and social issues, it was her persistent aver-
sion to centralisation which motivated her
opposition to Sirois that would contribute
to one of her most subversive and political-
ly contentious campaigns.
Beyond her calls for economic reform
and increased female political participation,
it was Halldorson’s anti-wartime coalition
and pacifist campaigns which gained her a
reputation for radicalism and a place on the
fringes of the legislature after 1939.
Following Canada’s announcement of sup-
port for Great Britain’s declaration of war,
the Manitoba Legislative Assembly created
a majority wartime coalition under
Bracken to provide a united front for the
war effort. Halldorson broke with her own
party and became one of only three MLAs
to form a small opposition to the coalition,
announcing to the assembly “that such
action (non-partisan government) is sub-
versive of the constitutional principles of
representative and responsible govern-