Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Allan Williams join Social Credit (1975)

What the record says

Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Allan Williams joined Social Credit from Independent status on September 30, 1975. Their earlier May departures from the Liberal caucus remain distinct affiliation intervals. All three won election before entering Cabinet.

Participants

1. Garde Gardom

   CTF-EP-000161-01

   Independent→ToBritish Columbia Social Credit PartyFrom the crossbenchWhere the seat went: The member left the crossbench for a partyThe return leg: a member sitting outside every caucus joins one. Sometimes the caucus they had left, sometimes another.What you may rely onThat the member ended in a caucus. Whether a general election fell between the departure and this return is the question that separates two very different sequences, and it is answered per leg by `independent_return_intervals`, not by this badge.How it countsCounted toward neither total. The outbound leg of the same episode is already counted as a departure to the crossbench, and adding this one would count a single person twice for one episode.

   Marked as a label rather than a party: the database has no party row for this side of the transition. Overwhelmingly this means the member sat as an Independent, and there is deliberately no “Independent” party.

   Riding

   not recorded

   Effective

   September 30, 1975

   Kind of transition

   Joined a party

   Voluntary

   Not recorded

   Direction

   Not recorded

   Appointment

   Not recorded

   What happened afterwards

   Recorded outcomes only. An absence here means nothing has been recorded, not that nothing happened, and no causal link to the affiliation change is asserted unless a source establishes one.

   • reelected

     December 11, 1975 · result: yes · causation: not established · election validation

     Garde Gardom was elected as a Social Credit candidate 72 days after joining the party.

   • cabinet appointment — Attorney General

     December 22, 1975 · result: yes · causation: not established · compensation, office

     Garde Gardom became Attorney General 83 days after joining Social Credit and 11 days after winning election. The documented ministerial salary is observed; causation is not established.

2. Pat McGeer

   CTF-EP-000161-02

   Independent→ToBritish Columbia Social Credit PartyFrom the crossbenchWhere the seat went: The member left the crossbench for a partyThe return leg: a member sitting outside every caucus joins one. Sometimes the caucus they had left, sometimes another.What you may rely onThat the member ended in a caucus. Whether a general election fell between the departure and this return is the question that separates two very different sequences, and it is answered per leg by `independent_return_intervals`, not by this badge.How it countsCounted toward neither total. The outbound leg of the same episode is already counted as a departure to the crossbench, and adding this one would count a single person twice for one episode.

   Marked as a label rather than a party: the database has no party row for this side of the transition. Overwhelmingly this means the member sat as an Independent, and there is deliberately no “Independent” party.

   Riding

   not recorded

   Effective

   September 30, 1975

   Kind of transition

   Joined a party

   Voluntary

   Not recorded

   Direction

   Not recorded

   Appointment

   Not recorded

   What happened afterwards

   Recorded outcomes only. An absence here means nothing has been recorded, not that nothing happened, and no causal link to the affiliation change is asserted unless a source establishes one.

   • reelected

     December 11, 1975 · result: yes · causation: not established · election validation

     Pat McGeer was elected as a Social Credit candidate 72 days after joining the party.

   • cabinet appointment — Minister of Education

     December 22, 1975 · result: yes · causation: not established · compensation, office

     Pat McGeer became Minister of Education 83 days after joining Social Credit and 11 days after winning election. The documented ministerial salary is observed; causation is not established.

3. Allan Williams

   CTF-EP-000161-03

   Independent→ToBritish Columbia Social Credit PartyFrom the crossbenchWhere the seat went: The member left the crossbench for a partyThe return leg: a member sitting outside every caucus joins one. Sometimes the caucus they had left, sometimes another.What you may rely onThat the member ended in a caucus. Whether a general election fell between the departure and this return is the question that separates two very different sequences, and it is answered per leg by `independent_return_intervals`, not by this badge.How it countsCounted toward neither total. The outbound leg of the same episode is already counted as a departure to the crossbench, and adding this one would count a single person twice for one episode.

   Marked as a label rather than a party: the database has no party row for this side of the transition. Overwhelmingly this means the member sat as an Independent, and there is deliberately no “Independent” party.

   Riding

   not recorded

   Effective

   September 30, 1975

   Kind of transition

   Joined a party

   Voluntary

   Not recorded

   Direction

   Not recorded

   Appointment

   Not recorded

   What happened afterwards

   Recorded outcomes only. An absence here means nothing has been recorded, not that nothing happened, and no causal link to the affiliation change is asserted unless a source establishes one.

   • reelected

     December 11, 1975 · result: yes · causation: not established · election validation

     Allan Williams was elected as a Social Credit candidate 72 days after joining the party.

   • cabinet appointment — Minister of Labour

     December 22, 1975 · result: yes · causation: not established · compensation, office

     Allan Williams became Minister of Labour 83 days after joining Social Credit and 11 days after winning election. The documented ministerial salary is observed; causation is not established.

Claims and the sources cited for them

Every statement this record makes is stored as a separate claim with its own review state and its own citations. A claim with no citation is shown as such rather than omitted.

1. Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Allan Williams joined Social Credit from Independent status on September 30, 1975.

   Supported

   Field:

   affiliation_change

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • A checklist of members of the Legislature of British Columbia

     Legislative Library of British Columbia · May 16, 2013 · record 30th Parliament; Frank Calder; Hugh Curtis; Garde Gardom; Patrick McGeer; Allan Williams; affiliation changes · EN

     The official checklist preserves the May Independent intervals and September 30 party entry.

     Archived copy — June 27, 2013

     CTF-S-BC-MLA-CHECKLIST-2013 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

2. Garde Gardom became Attorney General 83 days after joining Social Credit and 11 days after winning election. The documented ministerial salary is observed; causation is not established.

   Supported

   Field:

   cabinet_appointment

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • British Columbia Executive Council — December 31, 1975

     Statistics Canada · December 31, 1975 · page British Columbia Executive Council as at 1975-12-31; election 1975-12-11; minister salaries and portfolios · EN

     The official table gives the portfolio and ministerial salary.

     Archived copy — March 6, 2026

     CTF-S-STATCAN-BC-EXECUTIVE-1975 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

3. Pat McGeer became Minister of Education 83 days after joining Social Credit and 11 days after winning election. The documented ministerial salary is observed; causation is not established.

   Supported

   Field:

   cabinet_appointment

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • British Columbia Executive Council — December 31, 1975

     Statistics Canada · December 31, 1975 · page British Columbia Executive Council as at 1975-12-31; election 1975-12-11; minister salaries and portfolios · EN

     The official table gives the election date, portfolio, and ministerial salary as applicable.

     Archived copy — March 6, 2026

     CTF-S-STATCAN-BC-EXECUTIVE-1975 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

4. Allan Williams became Minister of Labour 83 days after joining Social Credit and 11 days after winning election. The documented ministerial salary is observed; causation is not established.

   Supported

   Field:

   cabinet_appointment

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • British Columbia Executive Council — December 31, 1975

     Statistics Canada · December 31, 1975 · page British Columbia Executive Council as at 1975-12-31; election 1975-12-11; minister salaries and portfolios · EN

     The official table gives the election date, portfolio, and ministerial salary as applicable.

     Archived copy — March 6, 2026

     CTF-S-STATCAN-BC-EXECUTIVE-1975 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

5. Garde Gardom was elected as a Social Credit candidate 72 days after joining the party.

   Supported

   Field:

   reelected

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • British Columbia Executive Council — December 31, 1975

     Statistics Canada · December 31, 1975 · page British Columbia Executive Council as at 1975-12-31; election 1975-12-11; minister salaries and portfolios · EN

     The official table gives the election date.

     Archived copy — March 6, 2026

     CTF-S-STATCAN-BC-EXECUTIVE-1975 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

6. Pat McGeer was elected as a Social Credit candidate 72 days after joining the party.

   Supported

   Field:

   reelected

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • British Columbia Executive Council — December 31, 1975

     Statistics Canada · December 31, 1975 · page British Columbia Executive Council as at 1975-12-31; election 1975-12-11; minister salaries and portfolios · EN

     The official table gives the election date, portfolio, and ministerial salary as applicable.

     Archived copy — March 6, 2026

     CTF-S-STATCAN-BC-EXECUTIVE-1975 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

7. Allan Williams was elected as a Social Credit candidate 72 days after joining the party.

   Supported

   Field:

   reelected

   Confidence:

   High

   Signed by:

   Official-source deterministic verifier

   • British Columbia Executive Council — December 31, 1975

     Statistics Canada · December 31, 1975 · page British Columbia Executive Council as at 1975-12-31; election 1975-12-11; minister salaries and portfolios · EN

     The official table gives the election date, portfolio, and ministerial salary as applicable.

     Archived copy — March 6, 2026

     CTF-S-STATCAN-BC-EXECUTIVE-1975 · Reliability tier: primary official · Rights: link only · Accessed: August 1, 2026

Corrections to this record

• Permanent citation address did not resolve

  The permanent URI published for this record was https://crossingthefloor.ca/en/crossings/gardom-mcgeer-williams-1975. This site has never served a language-prefixed route and has no /id/ route, so that address returned HTTP 404: any citation made against it did not resolve to the record. The permanent URI is now https://crossingthefloor.ca/crossings/gardom-mcgeer-williams-1975, the canonical record address. The record's facts, dates, parties, participants, sources and public identifier (CTF-E-000161) are unchanged; only the stored address was corrected.

  September 1, 2026 · material correction · CTF-COR-URI-000161

• Three-person British Columbia group record

  The group record now names Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Allan Williams individually and records each person’s outcomes.

  August 1, 2026 · material correction · CTF-COR-OUTCOME-000161

Editorial review passes

Which checks have been run against this record, and what each one concluded. A review that has not happened is shown as pending, never as passed.

• fact checkapproved · August 1, 2026

Revision history

Every change to this record is appended here. Nothing is edited away.

1. r3 corrected

   Corrected the stored permanent URI. It pointed at /en/crossings/gardom-mcgeer-williams-1975, a path this site has never served, so the citation target returned HTTP 404. It now points at /crossings/gardom-mcgeer-williams-1975, the canonical record address. No fact, date, party, participant or source in this record was changed.

   September 1, 2026

2. r2 expanded

   Resolved the group record into three named participants with individual election and cabinet outcomes.

   August 1, 2026 · Official-source deterministic verifier

3. r1 created

   Imported from the legacy archive as an unpublished research lead. Historical narrative, motive labels, and benefit scores were not treated as verified claims.

   July 31, 2026 · Crossing the Floor project maintainer