Harvey Lainson

Who was Harvey Lainson?

Harvey George Lainson was a Christian evangelical minister based in the Cambridge, Ontario region and was leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada from 1986 to 1990 during which time he led a successful effort to expel an anti-Semitic faction from the party led by Jim Keegstra.

Lainson was a longtime party member and stood as a Social Credit candidate during the 1962 federal election in the riding of St. John—Albert, New Brunswick. He led the Ontario Social Credit Party during the 1967 general election and was its candidate in Kitchener. He won the party's June 1986 leadership convention defeating Keegstra by a margin of 67 vote to 38. Lainson hoped to rename the party Christian Freedom since he thought people mistook the name "social credit" for socialist and rebuild the party with the support of Christian fundamentalists He faced resistance from the onset of his leadership with Keegstra's supporters insisting that Lainson was part of a conspiracy and pledging to obstruct him. "We're going to stonewall this guy. There's no way we're going to do business with him.