Aberhart, William

(born Dec. 30, 1878, Kippen, Ont., Can.—died May 23, 1943, Vancouver, B.C.) Canadian politician and the country's first Social Credit Party premier (Alberta, 1935–43). Aberhart was a high school principal in Calgary, Alta. (1915–35). An active lay preacher, he founded the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (1918). In 1932 he used his evangelical rhetoric to promote monetary-reform theories to solve the economic problems created in Alberta by the Great Depression, proposing to issue dividends (social credit) to each person, based on the real wealth of the province. When his party won a majority in the 1935 provincial election, he became premier and minister of education, but his social-credit proposals were disallowed by the federal government.

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