Ernest Charles Manning (September 20, 1908 - February 19, 1996), Canadian politician, was Premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968, the longest term of office of any Alberta premier, and the second longest serving premier in Canada. For a period of time, Manning was the longest continually serving democratically elected official in the world.

Manning was born in Carncluff , Saskatchewan in 1908 and was raised on a farm. A devoted listener of the evangelistic radio broadcasts of Alberta Premier William Aberhart, Manning enrolled in Aberhart's Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute in 1927, becoming the first graduate of that institution. In 1930, Manning himself began speaking on the Prophetic Bible Institute Sunday radio hours, which were broadcast to a large audience across Canada, a practice he kept up throughout his life.

In the 1935 provincial election, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta as a member of the Social Credit Party. That same year he became Alberta's Provincial Secretary and Minister of Trade and Industry. In 1943 he became premier of Alberta, succeeding William Aberhart.

Manning led Social Credit to seven consecutive election victories between 1944 1967, usually with more than 50% of the popular vote.

Upon retirement in 1968, Manning established his own consulting firm, Manning Consultants Limited . In 1970, he was appointed to the Canadian Senate and made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

In 1936, Ernest Manning married Muriel Aileen Preston, the pianist at the Prophetic Bible Institute, with William Aberhart giving the bride away. They had two sons, Keith who died in 1986, and Preston who founded the Reform Party of Canada (a Canadian federal political party later known as the Canadian Alliance, and one of the forebears of today's Conservative Party of Canada).

There is a high school in Calgary, Alberta named after Ernest Manning and a town in Northern Alberta.

External link

• Alberta legislative assembly