Alexander Bell Patterson

Alexander Bell Patterson (April 22, 1911 – April 2, 1993) was a long-time Canadian member of Parliament (MP) and was briefly leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada.[1]

Alexander Bell Patterson
Leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada
Acting
In office
March 1967  June 1968
Preceded byRobert N. Thompson
Succeeded byRéal Caouette (1971)
Member of Parliament
for Fraser Valley East
In office
October 30, 1972  September 4, 1984
Preceded byErvin Pringle
Succeeded byRoss Belsher
Member of Parliament
for Fraser Valley
In office
June 18, 1962  June 24, 1968
Preceded byWilliam Harold Hicks
Succeeded byRiding abolished
In office
August 10, 1953  March 31, 1958
Preceded byGeorge Cruickshank
Succeeded byWilliam Harold Hicks
Personal details
Born
Alexander Bell Patterson

(1911-04-22)April 22, 1911
Raymore, Saskatchewan, Canada
DiedApril 2, 1993(1993-04-02) (aged 81)
Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
Political partyProgressive Conservative (1972–1984)
Independent (1971–1972)
Social Credit (1953–1971)
SpouseCharlotte Nice
Children4
ProfessionClergyman

He was the son of an Irish father and Scottish mother who immigrated to Canada in 1901. He grew up on the family's farm until moving to Portage la Prairie to work in a grocery store. Later he attended the Salvation Army Leadership Training School in Toronto. In 1938, he married Charlotte Nice, a Salvation Army officer from Neepawa, Manitoba. They raised four children.

From 1935 until 1953, he led churches in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. In 1953, while minister of the Church of the Nazarene in Abbotsford, British Columbia, he was elected to House of Commons of Canada in the 1953 election from the riding of Fraser Valley, British Columbia. He was defeated in the 1958 election. He ran for the party leadership at the 1961 Social Credit leadership convention but withdrew before the first ballot.

Patterson returned to Parliament in 1962. He became acting leader of the Social Credit Party in 1967 when leader Robert N. Thompson resigned citing the party's lack of financial support from its BC and Alberta wings. Once the writs were dropped for the 1968 election, Thompson sought and won the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada nomination in his riding. Bud Olson had left the party a few months before joining the Liberal Party of Canada, leaving Patterson as the acting leader of the remaining three-person Social Credit caucus into the 1968 election in which all three MPs were defeated, including Patterson in Fraser Valley East.

Patterson returned to Parliament in the 1972 election representing Fraser Valley East as a Progressive Conservative, and was subsequently re-elected as a Tory until his retirement from politics in 1984.

References

  1. "Profile". lop.parl.ca. Retrieved July 4, 2022.
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