Editing Ernest Manning (section)

===Anticommunism===
For the [[1944 Alberta general election|1944 election]], Manning campaigned on the labour protections that the party had implemented and used support from the [[Alberta Federation of Labour]] to fend off left-wing challenges from the [[socialist]] [[Co-operative Commonwealth Federation]] and the [[communist]] [[Labour-Progressive Party]].<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|128–129}} Though other unions, particularly those affiliated with the [[Canadian Congress of Labour]], took issue with the Social Credit Party's workers' protections, divisions within the unions and their leadership prevented any effective endorsement of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|130}} 
During the campaign, Manning likened the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to "the socialism of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]."<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|131}} Saying in one "letter to a CCFer, who... had naively written to suggest CCF-Social Credit electoral co-operation: 'it's an insult to suggest to the Canadian people who are sacrificing their sons to remove the curse which the socialism of Germany has brought in the world that their own social and economical security can be attained only by introducing some form of socialism in Canada. the premise embodied in your proposed resolution, namely, that there is such a thing as [[democratic socialism]], contradicts itself in that it attempts to associate two concepts of life which are diametrically opposed and opposite.'"<ref name="The Social Credit phenomenon in Alb">{{cite book |last1=Finkel |first1=Alvin |title=The Social Credit phenomenon in Alberta |date=1989 |publisher=Toronto, Ont. : University of Toronto Press |isbn=9781442682382 |page=86 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialcreditphen0000fink/page/84/mode/2up |access-date=18 April 2022}}</ref> He also said that socialists were trying to "enslave the ordinary people of the world, whose only real salvation lay in the issuance of Social Credit."<ref name="The Social Credit phenomenon in Alb"/>

Manning argued the media and education system was sympathetic to the communist cause. He stated that it is "evident, in my view, in the news media, which are very heavily slanted, as a general rule favorably slanted, to socialist philosophy. This isn't by chance, it's because [[communism]] has been smart enough to see... that there are always a goodly number of men in that field who are sympathetic to the socialistic and even communistic philosophy. You even have the same thing, to varying degrees, in the field of education. It isn't by chance that you find these agitations of Marxism and so forth in many of our universities. It isn't by chance."<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book |last1=Finkel |first1=Alvin |title=The Social Credit phenomenon in Alberta |date=1989 |publisher=Toronto, Ont. : University of Toronto Press |isbn=9781442682382 |page=107 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialcreditphen0000fink/page/84/mode/2up |access-date=18 April 2022}}</ref>

The Manning administration, now re-elected with a resounding majority of seats as a result of the 1944 election, devoted itself to an antisocialist crusade.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|131}} 
In 1946, Manning's government extended censorship to included 16mm films in the hopes of "eliminating communist thought from Alberta-shown movies."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Finkel|first=Alvin|date=1988|title=The Cold War, Alberta Labour, and the Social Credit Regime|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25142941|journal=Labour / Le Travail | volume=21|pages=123–152|doi=10.2307/25142941|jstor=25142941|issn=0700-3862|url-access=subscription}}</ref>{{Rp|131}}

In January 1948, a [[coal miners]]' strike broke out, with thousands of miners threatening the provincial [[electrical grid]] since most electricity was generated from [[coal]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Contraction and Expansion: 1930–1950 |url=http://history.alberta.ca/energyheritage/coal/contraction-and-expansion-1930-1950/default.aspx |website=history.alberta.ca |publisher=Alberta Culture and Tourism}}</ref> That strike alone accounted for 30% of all of the time that was lost to strikes in Canada in 1948. In Alberta, the time lost was even worse since it was responsible for well over 99% of all of the time lost by strikes for the entire year.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|133}}
Manning acted swiftly to avert the crisis by rewriting the province's labour laws in March to allow the government to shut down the strike. Labour was greatly weakened by the charges of communism, and Manning's stalwart defiance of union threats caused the unions to attempt to persuade legislators, instead of protesting using strikes or violence, and halted the rise of militant unionism in Alberta.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|134–135}}