Temple remained an activist in the CCF. In the early 1950s he was a leader of the "Ginger Group", a group of dissident CCFers who argued that the party's poor performance in the 1951 provincial election was due to the party moving away from taking clear socialist stands on issues and instead focussing too much on organizational issues. The group opposed what they saw as the "bureaucratization" of the CCF with salaried organizers and a greater emphasis on fundraising taking the place of grassroots volunteers and political education and discussion. Temple and his supporters also argued that power was being increasingly concentrated in the hands of the party executive instead of the grassroots resulting in the squelching of democratic discussion and grassroots policy development and sought to rectify this by curtailing the powers of the provincial secretary. On 12 April 1952, at the 18th annual provincial convention, Temple nearly ran for leader against Ted Jolliffe but withdrew at the last minute allowing Jolliffe to be acclaimed. Temple then ran for party president against establishment candidate Ted Isley, but was defeated 112 to 85. Temple and one other member of the Ginger Group, True Davidson, were then subsequently elected to the executive as vice-presidents.