the operation. Thus, the native Canadian firm had to yield its autonomy as the price of pursuing a pioneering but complicated industrial project. In 1995 Sun sold its interest to Suncor Energy, based in Calgary. Suncor is second to Syncrude in the oil sands, but Syncrude is controlled by a consortium of international oil companies. Spin-off industry The province's oil and natural gas furnish raw materials for large industrial complexes at Edmonton and Calgary, as well as for smaller ones at Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. These complexes include oil and gas refineries and plants that use refinery by-products to make plastics, chemicals, and fertilizer. The oil and gas industry provides a market for firms supplying pipes, drills, and other equipment. Large amounts of sulfur are extracted from natural gas in plants near the gas fields. Helium is extracted from the gas in a plant near Edson, west of Edmonton. Social Credit Social Credit (often called Socred) was a populist political movement strongest in Alberta and neighboring British Columbia, 1930s-1970s. Social Credit was based on the economic theories of an Englishman, C. H. Douglas. His theories, at first brought to public attention in Alberta by UFA and Labour MPs in the early 1920s, became very popular across the nation in the early 1930s. A central proposal was the free distribution of prosperity certificates (or social credit), called "funny money" by the opposition. During the Great Depression in Canada the demand for radical action peaked around 1934, after the worst period was over and the economy was recovering. Mortgage debt was a social issue because many farmers could not make their payments and were threatened with foreclosure by banks. Although the UFA government passed legislation protecting farm families from losing the home-quarter, many farm families lived in poverty and faced the loss of the land base needed for viable profitable farms. Their insecurity was a potent factor in creating a mood of political desperation. The farmers' government, the UFA, was baffled by the depression and Albertans demanded new leadership. Prairie farmers had always believed that they were being exploited by Toronto and Montreal. What they lacked was a prophet who would lead them to the promised land, one who promised, despite the UFA's misgivings, to push aside the existing economic and constitutional barriers to the fight for Social Credit. The Social Credit movement in Alberta found its leader in 1932 when Aberhart