Preston Manning

When the Prairies began to prosper because of its status as an international wheat basket and the discovery of oil, the Social Credit Party, changed course from its 1930s share-the-wealth roots to embrace rugged individualism and free enterprise.

Ernest Preston Manning (born June 10, 1942) is a retired Canadian politician.

He is the son of Muriel Aileen (née Preston) and Ernest Manning, Social Credit Party Premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 and a Canadian Senator from 1970 to 1983.

Preston's grandparents were English immigrants.

Manning grew up in the Garneau district of Edmonton, but moved at age twelve with his parents to the family dairy farm east of Edmonton from which he attended a rural school – Horse Hill High School.

He enrolled in the honours physics program at the University of Alberta in 1960, but switched after three years to economics and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts in economics.

Manning and a colleague, Dr. Erick Schmidt, a PhD sociologist and Executive Secretary to the Alberta cabinet in the 1960s, became interested in the General Systems Theory of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and its possible application to governmental and business organizations.

Together, Manning and Schmidt authored a White Paper on Human Resources Development for the Alberta government applying systems concepts to the reorganization of Alberta's social services.

Earning a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1964, Manning rose to prominence in 1987, when he and an alliance of associates created the Reform Party, an anti-establishment right-wing populist party that won its first seat in 1989 and had a regionalist, Western Canadian base.

He sought election to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1965 federal election as a candidate of the federal Social Credit Party in Edmonton East, but was defeated.

Upon graduation from university in 1966, Manning briefly worked as a salaried researcher for the National Public Affairs Research Foundation—a small, independent think tank led by David R. Wilson, who had been formerly with the Social Credit as executive director.

The New York Times described the focus of the Foundation as fighting "creeping socialism" in Canada.

This research enabled Manning to work on quasi political projects of interest to himself and his father.

One such project included the preparation of a proposal for re-aligning Alberta provincial politics through a proposed merger of the governing Social Credit Party with the up-and-coming Progressive Conservative Party led by Peter Lougheed.

The proposal was ultimately rejected by the leadership of both parties but the statement of conservative principles it contained resurfaced time and time again in Manning's subsequent political ventures – in the statement of principles contained in a book researched by him for Ernest Manning entitled in Political Realignment: A Challenge for Thoughtful Canadians and in the statements of principles of the Reform Party of Canada, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, and the Conservative Party of Canada.

In 1967, Manning married Sandra (née Beavis).

Together they have five children.

Preston Manning has described himself as "a great fan and imperfect follower of Jesus of Nazareth" and has studied and lectured extensively on managing the interface between faith and politics.

It was presented to the Alberta legislature in 1968 and later formed the basis of Alberta's Human Resources Development Authority and related programs under Premier Harry Strom, Ernest Manning's successor.

Manning also contributed to the development of a "socio-economic development model" for TRW Systems of Redondo Beach, California, as the firm was endeavouring to shift its focus from the systems management of military projects to the management of "civil systems".

Over the next twenty years Manning continued to work as a management consultant using his firms – M and M Systems Research Ltd. and Manning Consultants Ltd. – to pursue projects of political relevance.

These included the development of strategies to prevent investor owned utilities from being nationalized by their provincial governments, developing a model of federal provincial negotiations which enabled his firm to predict the outcomes of federal provincial conferences, and assisting energy companies to increase their hiring of Indigenous workers and purchases from Indigenous-owned and operated companies.

In an effort to stimulate economic growth in the depressed region of north central Alberta, Manning served for almost twenty years as the President and CEO of a duel objective – social and economic – enterprise named Slave Lake Developments Ltd (later renamed Spruceland Properties Ltd).

In the mid-1980s, Manning and his associates were becoming increasingly aware of a growing political discontent in Western Canada and growing disillusionment with the traditional federal political parties.

Interest in western separatism was growing as well.

On October 16, 1986, Manning convened a small meeting in Calgary of 5 people – himself, Dr. David Elton (a pollster and President of the Canada West Foundation), James Gray (a prominent Progressive Conservative and Calgary business man), and two oil sector lawyers, Bob Muir and Doug Hilland – to discuss the West's political options.

The group could not agree on a specific course of action but decided there would be merit in holding a conference in the spring of 1987 to develop a Western Political Agenda and to sponsor a debate on various means of advancing it.

Manning represented the federal constituency of Calgary Southwest in the Canadian House of Commons from 1993 until his retirement in 2002.

Shortly after that, the party rapidly gained momentum in the 1993 Canadian federal election, where it won 52 seats.

He served as leader of the Official Opposition from 1997 to 2000.

Manning is the son of former Social Credit Premier of Alberta Ernest Manning.

In the 1997 federal election, support increased as the party's number of seats rose to 60 and became the Official Opposition, although Manning struggled to win ridings in Central and Atlantic Canada in order to become prime minister.

He was the founder and the only leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a Canadian federal political party that evolved into the Canadian Alliance in 2000 which in turn merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.

In 2000, the Reform Party was succeeded by the Canadian Alliance.

Manning lost the leadership election to Stockwell Day but continued to serve in the federal parliament until his retirement in January 2002.

Manning has been deemed the "father of modern-day Canadian Conservatism", and remains active in Conservative Party politics and campaigns.

Manning is also seen as the founder of the green conservative movement in Canada.

Upon his retirement, he has founded the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, not-for-profit organizations dedicated to strengthening Canadian democracy in accordance with conservative principles.

Manning was born in Edmonton, Alberta.

When the company was finally sold in 2016 it distributed over $55 million in dividends to some 300 local shareholders – illustrating Manning's belief that economic development could be more effectively stimulated in a depressed region by "a better distribution of the Tools of Wealth Creation" than by income redistribution schemes.