Lorne Reznowski
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Lorne Reznowski | |
|---|---|
| Leader of the Social Credit Party | |
| In office May 7, 1978 – February 23, 1979 | |
| Preceded by | Charles-Arthur Gauthier (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Charles-Arthur Gauthier (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 5, 1929 |
| Died | November 9, 2011 (aged 82) |
| Occupation | English professor |
Lorne A. Reznowski (January 5, 1929 – November 9, 2011) was a Canadian professor of English at the University of Manitoba and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada.[1][2]
He was the son of Ukrainian-Canadians Lorne William Reznowski and Anna Angela Brokowska. Reznowski received a BA degree from Loyola College in Montreal in 1949 and then worked as a longshoreman on the Pacific coast. He graduated with a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1957.[2]
He then studied at the University of Ottawa where he earned MA and PhD degrees in English Literature.[2]
He returned to Winnipeg in 1966 to teach at St. Paul’s College at the University of Manitoba and taught there until his retirement in 1993.[2]
He was active in the Social Credit Party since the age of 12 when he made radio broadcasts for the party.[2]
A one-time national secretary of the Social Credit Party, Reznowski once worked for former Socred leader Robert N. Thompson[3] and was a "doctrinal purist"[3] when it came to social credit monetary theory. He was the party's candidate in Provencher for the 1968 Canadian federal election, receiving 8.2% of the popular vote.[4]
Reznowski ran for the party leadership at its 1978 convention and was elected leader. He resigned four months after losing an October 16, 1978 by-election in Saint Boniface, Manitoba, in which he finished in fourth place with only 1,204 votes out of 43,572 valid votes (2.76%).[5][6]
Reznowski cited the need for him to finish his doctoral thesis in medieval literature in order to retain his teaching position for his resignation. However, he also said that the party wanted a francophone leader and that it would have a better chance of retaining its nine seats in the House of Commons of Canada, all of which were in Quebec, with a leader from that province. It had been hoped that Reznowski's leadership would help revive the party in its former base of Western Canada.[5]