He was also interim leader of the Social Credit Party of Alberta from 1985 to 1988, in the wake of the party's loss of its only remaining seats in the Alberta legislature and was president emeritus afterwards. As leader he led an attempt to merge several Alberta parties into the Alberta Political Alliance, which proved to be a short-lived coalition of Social Credit, the Western Canada Concept and the Heritage Party, in 1986 but neither the Alliance nor Social Credit were prepared to run candidates in the 1986 Alberta election.
