Robert N. Thompson

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Robert Norman Thompson (1914-1997) was a Canadian politician, chiropractor, and educator. He was born in Duluth, Minnesota, to Canadian parents and moved to Canada in 1918 with his family. Raised in Alberta, he graduated from the Palmer School of Chiropractic in 1939 and worked as a chiropractor and then as a teacher before serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

He was a supporter of the Social Credit Party of Alberta from its creation but could not run as a candidate in the 1935 provincial election because he was underage. Instead he became youth leader of the party.

In 1944, Thompson was sent to Ethiopia to serve as the founding commander of the Imperial Ethiopian Air force and head up nation's air force academy. He became a confidante of Emperor Haile Sellassie and, after the war, became deputy minister of education and helped rebuild the nation's public school system.

Thompson returned to Canada in 1958 and resumed his activities with Social Credit. Alberta Premier and Social Credit Party of Alberta leader Ernest Manning saw Thompson as the ideal person to lead the national Social Credit Party of Canada and backed him in a hotly contested leadership vote against Real Caouette, the movement's leader in Quebec. Thompson won, but some believe that Caouette actually won only to be rejected by the party's powerful Alberta wing. Manning had previously told the convention that the Alberta Socreds would never accept a francophone Catholic as national party leader. It seems highly unlikely that the vote was fixed in Thompson's favor, as after the 1962 federal election, Thompson appointed Caouette as the party's deputy leader. He had little choice, since 26 of the 30 Socreds elected that year came from Quebec. Thompson was re-elected in the 1963 and 1965 elections.

The 1962 and 1965 elections produced minority parliaments in which no one party had a majority of seats. This meant that the government had to rely on smaller parties such as Social Credit to pass legislation and remain in power.

The Social Credit Party was divided after 1962, as a majority of the caucus came from Quebec and regarded Caouette as leader. The number of Socreds from English Canada was declining. However, Thompson refused to cede the leadership of the party to Caouette. This caused the party to split: most of the Quebec Socred Members of Parliament(MPs) followed Caouette into his new Ralliement créditiste in 1963.

Thompson was frustrated by the lack of support the national party enjoyed from the provincial Social Credit parties in Alberta and British Columbia where they formed the governments and ran powerful political machines. As well, Manning was becoming concerned with the leftward trajectory of both the federal Liberal Party of Canada and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and encouraged Thompson to try to bring about a merger of the federal Social Credit and Progressive Conservative parties. Negotiations failed but, with the backing of both Manning and Robert Stanfield, Thompson decided to seek the nomination of the Progressive Conservative Party in an attempt to influence that party. He resigned as leader of Social Credit in March 1967 and won the Progressive Conservative nomination in Red Deer, Alberta, against the opposition of the local Tory riding association. He was re-elected as a Progressive Conservative MP from Alberta in the 1968 election.

Prior to the 1972 election, Thompson moved to British Columbia to teach and tried to win a seat from that province, but was defeated in the attempt. He retired from politics and taught political science at Trinity Western University in British Columbia through the 1970s. At various times he also served as chairman of the university's board of governors and vice president of development at the school.

In the late 1980s, Thompson was on the executive board of the extremist World Anti-Communist League.