Editing Ernest Manning (section)

==Federal politics==
Manning also used his strong provincial standing to influence the [[Social Credit Party of Canada|federal Socreds]]. He told the 1961 federal [[leadership convention]] that Alberta would never accept francophone Catholic [[Réal Caouette]] of [[Quebec]] as the party's leader even though Caouette led the party's strongest branch east of [[Manitoba]]. [[Robert N. Thompson]] of Alberta won the election, but Manning's objections to Caouette led to suspicions that the vote was fixed. Indeed, Caouette later claimed that he had enough support to win, but all of the Quebec delegates voted for Thompson after Manning told him, "Tell your people to vote for Thompson because the West will never accept a Roman Catholic French Canadian leader."<ref>Dufresne, Bernard, "Quebec's Socreds vote to Disown Thompson," ''Globe and Mail'', 2 September 1963, p.1</ref>  By then, however, all but four members of the Social Credit federal caucus came from Quebec. In 1963, virtually all of the Socred MPs from Quebec followed Caouette into the [[Ralliement des créditistes]] and left behind a Social Credit rump in [[English Canada]].

"In 1967, Manning's book Political Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians was published. This book is an outline of his views regarding the reorganization of the Canadian federal party system."<ref>{{cite web |title=The Honourable Ernest Manning, 1943 - 1968 |url=http://www.abheritage.ca/abpolitics/people/prem_manning.html |website=AB heritage |publisher=Alberta Online Encyclopedia |access-date=8 Dec 2010 |archive-date=8 December 2010 |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/2217/20101208163038/http://www.abheritage.ca/abpolitics/people/prem_manning.html |url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref>