Alexander Bell Patterson

Who was Alexander Bell Patterson?

Alexander Bell Patterson was a long time Canadian Member of Parliament and was briefly leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada. Patterson, a minister by profession, was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons 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 writ was 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.