John George Diefenbaker ( ; September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
of
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only
Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a
majority of the seats in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
.
Diefenbaker was born in
southwestern Ontario
Southwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It occupies most of the Ontario Peninsula bounded by Lake Huron, including Georgian Bay, to the north and northwest; the St. Clair River, Lake ...
in the small town of
Neustadt in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the
North-West Territories
The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...
which would soon become the province of
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
. He grew up in the province and was interested in politics from a young age. After service in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, Diefenbaker became a noted criminal defence lawyer. He contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in
1940.
Diefenbaker was repeatedly a candidate for the party leadership. He gained that position in
1956
Events
January
* January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan.
* January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are kille ...
, on his third attempt. In
1957
1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year ...
, he led the party to its first electoral victory in 27 years; a year later he called a
snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled.
Generally, a snap election in a parliamentary system (the dissolution of parliament) is called to capitalize on an unusual electoral opportunity or to ...
and spearheaded them to one of their
greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his cabinet (
Ellen Fairclough
Ellen Louks Fairclough (née Cook; January 28, 1905 – November 13, 2004) was a Canadian politician. A member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1950 to 1963, she was the first woman ever to serve in the Canadian Cabinet.
Early life and ca ...
), as well as the first
Indigenous member of the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
(
James Gladstone
James Gladstone ( bla, Akay-na-muka, script=Latn, italic=yes, lit=Many Guns; May 21, 1887 – September 4, 1971) was a Canadian politician who claimed to become the first Treaty Indian to be appointed to the Senate of Canada.
Early life
Jame ...
). During his six years as prime minister, his government obtained passage of the ''
Canadian Bill of Rights
The ''Canadian Bill of Rights'' (french: Déclaration canadienne des droits) is a federal statute and bill of rights enacted by the Parliament of Canada on August 10, 1960. It provides Canadians with certain rights at Canadian federal law in r ...
'' and granted the vote to the
First Nations and
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territorie ...
peoples. In 1962, Diefenbaker's government eliminated racial discrimination in immigration policy. In foreign policy, his stance against
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
helped secure the departure of
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
from the
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the C ...
, but his
indecision on whether to accept Bomarc nuclear missiles from the United States led to his government's downfall. Diefenbaker is also remembered for his role in the 1959 cancellation of the
Avro Arrow project.
In the
1962 federal election, the Progressive Conservatives narrowly won a
minority government
A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in t ...
before losing power altogether in
1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...
. Diefenbaker stayed on as party leader, becoming
Opposition leader
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
, but his
second loss at the polls prompted opponents within the party to force him to
a leadership convention in 1967. Diefenbaker stood for re-election as party leader at the last moment, but only attracted minimal support and withdrew. He remained in parliament until his death in 1979, two months after
Joe Clark
Charles Joseph Clark (born June 5, 1939) is a Canadian statesman, businessman, writer, and politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Canada from 1979 to 1980.
Despite his relative inexperience, Clark rose quickly in federal polit ...
became the first Progressive Conservative prime minister since Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker ranks average in
rankings of prime ministers of Canada.
Early life
![John Diefenbaker's Birthplace](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/John_Diefenbaker%27s_Birthplace.jpg)
Diefenbaker was born on September 18, 1895, in
Neustadt, Ontario
Neustadt is a community in the municipality of West Grey, Ontario, West Grey in Grey County, Ontario, Grey County in southern Ontario, Canada. The village is located south of Hanover, Ontario, Hanover on Grey Road 10 and north of Guelph, Ontario a ...
, to William Thomas Diefenbaker and Mary Florence Diefenbaker, née Bannerman. His father was the son of German immigrants from Adersbach (near
Sinsheim) in Baden; Mary Diefenbaker was of Scottish descent and Diefenbaker was Baptist. The family moved to several locations in Ontario in John's early years. William Diefenbaker was a teacher, and had deep interests in history and politics, which he sought to inculcate in his students. He had remarkable success doing so; of the 28 students at his school near Toronto in 1903, four, including his son, John, served as Conservative MPs in the
19th Canadian Parliament
The 19th Canadian Parliament was in session from 16 May 1940, until 16 April 1945. The membership was set by the 1940 federal election on 26 March 1940, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was dissolved ...
beginning in 1940.--the others were
Robert Henry McGregor,
Joseph Henry Harris
Joseph Henry Harris (December 13, 1888 – October 24, 1952) was a Toronto manufacturer and politician. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Conservative Member of Parliament for York East in the 1921 federal election. ...
, and
George Tustin.
The Diefenbaker family moved west in 1903, for William Diefenbaker to accept a position near
Fort Carlton
Fort Carlton was a Hudson's Bay Company fur trading post from 1795 until 1885. It was located along the North Saskatchewan River not far from Duck Lake.
It is in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and was rebuilt by the government of Sas ...
, then in the
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...
(now in Saskatchewan). In 1906, William claimed a
quarter-section, of undeveloped land near
Borden, Saskatchewan
Borden ( 2016 population: ) is a village in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan within the Rural Municipality of Great Bend No. 405 and Census Division No. 16. Borden is named after Sir Frederick William Borden, Minister of Militia in the L ...
. In February 1910, the Diefenbaker family moved to
Saskatoon
Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...
, the site of the
University of Saskatchewan
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...
. William and Mary Diefenbaker felt that John and his brother Elmer would have greater educational opportunities in Saskatoon.
John Diefenbaker had been interested in politics from an early age and told his mother at the age of eight or nine that he would some day be prime minister. She told him that it was an impossible ambition, especially for a boy living on the prairies. She would live to be proved wrong. John claimed that his first contact with politics came in 1910, when he sold a newspaper to Prime Minister Sir
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier, ( ; ; November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadian prime mini ...
, in Saskatoon to lay the cornerstone for the University's first building. The present and future Prime Ministers conversed, and when giving his speech that afternoon, Sir Wilfrid commented on the newsboy who had ended their conversation by saying, "I can't waste any more time on you, Prime Minister. I must get about my work." The authenticity of the meeting was questioned in the 21st century, with an author suggesting that it was invented by Diefenbaker during an election campaign.
In a 1977 interview with the
CBC, Diefenbaker recalled he saw injustice first-hand in his youth against
French Canadians
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...
,
Indigenous Canadians and the
Métis
The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Canadian Prairies, Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United State ...
. He said, "From my earliest days, I knew the meaning of discrimination. Many Canadians were virtually second-hand citizens because of their names and racial origin. Indeed, it seemed until the end of World War II that the only first-class Canadians were either of English or French descent. As a youth, l determined to devote myself to assuring that all Canadians, whatever their racial origin, were equal and declared myself to be a sworn enemy of discrimination."
![John Diefenbaker (ca 1919)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/John_Diefenbaker_%28ca_1919%29.jpg)
After graduating from high school in Saskatoon, in 1912, Diefenbaker entered the University of Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1915, and his
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
the following year.
Diefenbaker was commissioned a lieutenant into the
196th (Western Universities) Battalion, CEF in May 1916. In September, Diefenbaker was part of a contingent of 300 junior officers sent to Britain for pre-deployment training. Diefenbaker related in his memoirs that he was hit by a shovel, and the injury eventually resulted in his being invalided home. Diefenbaker's recollections do not correspond with his army medical records, which show no contemporary account of such an injury, and his biographer, Denis Smith, speculates that any injury was
psychosomatic
A somatic symptom disorder, formerly known as a somatoform disorder,(2013) dsm5.org. Retrieved April 8, 2014. is any mental disorder that manifests as physical symptoms that suggest illness or injury, but cannot be explained fully by a general ...
.
After leaving the military in 1917, Diefenbaker returned to Saskatchewan where he resumed his work as an
articling student in law. He received his law degree in 1919, the first student to secure three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. On June 30, 1919, he was
called to the bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
, and the following day, opened a small practice in the village of
Wakaw, Saskatchewan
Wakaw, Saskatchewan, is a town 90 km (56 miles) northeast of Saskatoon and 66 km (41 miles) south of Prince Albert. It is about halfway between the two cities and is served by Highway 2, Highway 41 and Highway 312. Wakaw is in hil ...
.
Barrister and candidate (1919–1940)
Wakaw days (1919–1924)
![Dief shack](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Dief_shack.jpg)
Although Wakaw had a population of only 400, it sat at the heart of a densely populated area of rural
townships and had its own
district court. It was also easily accessible to Saskatoon,
Prince Albert and
Humboldt, places where the
Court of King's Bench sat. The local people were mostly immigrants, and Diefenbaker's research found them to be particularly litigious. There was already one barrister in town, and the residents were loyal to him, initially refusing to rent office space to Diefenbaker. The new lawyer was forced to rent a vacant lot and erect a two-room wooden shack.
Diefenbaker won the local people over through his success; in his first year in practice, he tried 62 jury trials, winning approximately half of his cases. He rarely called defence witnesses, thereby avoiding the possibility of rebuttal witnesses for the Crown, and securing the last word for himself. In late 1920, he was elected to the
village council
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural council ...
to serve a three-year term.
Diefenbaker would often spend weekends with his parents in Saskatoon. While there, he began to woo
Olive Freeman, daughter of the Baptist minister, but in 1921, she moved with her family to
Brandon, Manitoba
Brandon () is the second-largest city in the province of Manitoba, Canada. It is located in the southwestern corner of the province on the banks of the Assiniboine River, approximately west of the provincial capital, Winnipeg, and east of the ...
, and the two lost touch for more than 20 years. He then courted Beth Newell, a cashier in Saskatoon, and by 1922, the two were engaged. However, in 1923, Newell was diagnosed with
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...
, and Diefenbaker broke off contact with her. She died the following year. Diefenbaker was himself subject to internal bleeding, and may have feared that the disease would be transmitted to him. In late 1923, he had an operation at the
Mayo Clinic
The Mayo Clinic () is a nonprofit American academic medical center focused on integrated health care, education, and research. It employs over 4,500 physicians and scientists, along with another 58,400 administrative and allied health staf ...
for a
gastric ulcer
Peptic ulcer disease (PUD) is a break in the inner lining of the stomach, the first part of the small intestine, or sometimes the lower esophagus. An ulcer in the stomach is called a gastric ulcer, while one in the first part of the intestines i ...
, but his health remained uncertain for several more years.
After four years in Wakaw, Diefenbaker so dominated the local legal practice that his competitor left town. On May 1, 1924, Diefenbaker moved to Prince Albert, leaving a law partner in charge of the Wakaw office.
Aspiring politician (1924–1929)
Since 1905, when Saskatchewan entered
Confederation
A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical iss ...
, the province had been dominated by the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
, which practised highly effective
machine politics. Diefenbaker was fond of stating, in his later years, that the only protection a Conservative had in the province was that afforded by the
game laws.
Diefenbaker's father, William, was a Liberal; however, John Diefenbaker found himself attracted to the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
. Free trade was widely popular throughout Western Canada, but Diefenbaker was convinced by the Conservative position that free trade would make Canada an economic dependent of the United States. However, he did not speak publicly of his politics. Diefenbaker recalled in his memoirs that, in 1921, he had been elected as secretary of the Wakaw Liberal Association while absent in Saskatoon, and had returned to find the association's records in his office. He promptly returned them to the association president. Diefenbaker also stated that he had been told that if he became a Liberal candidate, "there was no position in the province which would not be open to him."
It was not until 1925 that Diefenbaker publicly came forward as a Conservative, a year in which both federal and Saskatchewan provincial elections were held. Journalist
Peter C. Newman
Peter Charles Newman (born May 10, 1929) is a Canadian journalist and writer.
Life and career
Born in Vienna, Austria, Newman emigrated from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to Canada in 1940 as a Jewish refugee. His parents were Wanda Maria and ...
, in his best-selling account of the Diefenbaker years, suggested that this choice was made for practical, rather than political reasons, as Diefenbaker had little chance of defeating established politicians and securing the Liberal nomination for either the House of Commons or the
Legislative Assembly. The
provincial election took place in early June; Liberals would later claim that Diefenbaker had campaigned for their party in the election. On June 19, however, Diefenbaker addressed a Conservative organizing committee, and on August 6, was nominated as the party's candidate for the federal riding of
Prince Albert, a district in which the party's last candidate had lost his
election deposit In an electoral system, a deposit is the sum of money that a candidate for an elected office, such as a seat in a legislature, is required to pay to an electoral authority before they are permitted to stand for election.
In the typical case, the de ...
. A nasty campaign ensued, in which Diefenbaker was called a "
Hun
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
" because of his German-derived surname. The
1925 federal election was held on October 29; he finished third behind the
Liberal and
Progressive Party candidates, losing his deposit.
![Diefenbaker versus Mackenzie King](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Diefenbaker_versus_Mackenzie_King.jpg)
The winning candidate,
Charles McDonald Charles McDonald may refer to:
* Charles James McDonald (1793–1860), politician and jurist from the U.S. state of Georgia
* Charles McDonald (Australian politician) (1860–1925), Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
* Charles McDon ...
, did not hold the seat long, resigning it to open a place for the Prime Minister,
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was a Canadian statesman and politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A L ...
, who had been defeated in his Ontario riding. The Tories ran no candidate against King in the by-election on February 15, 1926, and he won easily. Although in the 1925 federal election, the Conservatives had won the greatest number of seats, King continued as Prime Minister with the support of the Progressives. Mackenzie King held office for several months until he finally resigned when the
Governor General
Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy ...
,
Lord Byng,
refused a dissolution. Conservative Party leader
Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen (; June 16, 1874 – August 5, 1960) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Canada from 1920 to 1921 and from June to September 1926. He led the Conservative Party from 1920 to 1926 and fr ...
became Prime Minister, but was quickly defeated in the House of Commons, and Byng finally granted a
dissolution of Parliament
The dissolution of a legislative assembly is the mandatory simultaneous resignation of all of its members, in anticipation that a successive legislative assembly will reconvene later with possibly different members. In a democracy, the new assemb ...
. Diefenbaker, who had been confirmed as Conservative candidate, stood against King in the
1926 election, a rare direct electoral contest between two individuals who had or would become prime minister. King triumphed easily over Diefenbaker, the Liberals won the federal election, and King regained his position as prime minister.
Perennial candidate (1929–1940)
![Diefenbaker as King's Counsel 1929](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Diefenbaker_as_King%27s_Counsel_1929.jpg)
Diefenbaker stood for the Legislative Assembly in the
1929 provincial election. He was defeated, but Saskatchewan Conservatives formed their first government, with help from smaller parties. As the defeated Conservative candidate for
Prince Albert City, he was given charge of political patronage there and was created a
King's Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...
. Three weeks after his electoral defeat, he married Saskatoon teacher
Edna Brower
Edna May Diefenbaker (''née'' Brower; November 30, 1899 – February 7, 1951) was the first wife of the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker.Geoffrey Stevens, "The Chief's unknown and vivacious first love". ''The Globe and Mail'', Sep ...
.
Diefenbaker chose not to stand for the House of Commons in the
1930 federal election, citing health reasons. The Conservatives gained a majority in the election, and party leader
R. B. Bennett
Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett, (July 3, 1870 – June 26, 1947), was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 11th prime minister of Canada from 1930 to 1935.
Bennett was born in ...
became Prime Minister. Diefenbaker continued a high-profile legal practice, and in 1933, ran for mayor of Prince Albert. He was defeated by 48 votes in an election in which over 2,000 ballots were cast.
In 1934, when the Crown prosecutor for Prince Albert resigned to become the Conservative Party's legislative candidate, Diefenbaker took his place as prosecutor. Diefenbaker did not stand in the
1934 provincial election, in which the governing Conservatives lost every seat. Six days after the election, Diefenbaker resigned as Crown prosecutor. The federal government of Bennett
was defeated the following year and Mackenzie King returned as prime minister. Judging his prospects hopeless, Diefenbaker had declined a nomination to stand again against Mackenzie King in Prince Albert. In the waning days of the Bennett government, the
Saskatchewan Conservative Party president was appointed a judge, leaving Diefenbaker, who had been elected the party's vice president, as acting president of the provincial party.
![John Diefenbaker (1939 election flyer)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/John_Diefenbaker_%281939_election_flyer%29.jpg)
Saskatchewan Conservatives eventually arranged a leadership convention for October 28, 1936. Eleven people were nominated, including Diefenbaker. The other ten candidates withdrew, and Diefenbaker won the position by default. Diefenbaker asked the federal party for $10,000 in financial support, but the funds were refused, and the Conservatives were shut out of the legislature in
the 1938 provincial elections for the second consecutive time. Diefenbaker himself was defeated in the
Arm River riding by 190 votes. With the province-wide Conservative vote having fallen to 12 percent, Diefenbaker offered his resignation to a post-election party meeting in
Moose Jaw
Moose Jaw is the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Lying on the Moose Jaw River in the south-central part of the province, it is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javian ...
, but it was refused. Diefenbaker continued to run the provincial party out of his law office and paid the party's debts from his own pocket.
Diefenbaker quietly sought the Conservative nomination for the federal riding of
Lake Centre
Lake Centre was a federal electoral district in Saskatchewan, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1935 to 1953. This riding was created in 1933 from parts of the ridings of Last Mountain, Long Lake and Regina.
Fr ...
but was unwilling to risk a divisive intra-party squabble. In what Diefenbaker biographer Smith states "appears to have been an elaborate and prearranged charade", Diefenbaker attended the nominating convention as
keynote speaker
A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework f ...
, but withdrew when his name was proposed, stating a local man should be selected. The winner among the six remaining candidates, riding president W. B. Kelly, declined the nomination, urging the delegates to select Diefenbaker, which they promptly did. Mackenzie King called
a general election for March 25, 1940. The incumbent in Lake Centre was Liberal
John Frederick Johnston. Diefenbaker campaigned aggressively in Lake Centre, holding 63 rallies and seeking to appeal to members of all parties. On election day, he defeated Johnston by 280 votes on what was otherwise a disastrous day for the Conservatives, who won only 39 seats out of the 245 in the House of Commons—their lowest total since Confederation.
Parliamentary rise (1940–1957)
Mackenzie King years (1940–1948)
Diefenbaker joined a shrunken and demoralized Conservative caucus in the House of Commons. The Conservative leader,
Robert Manion, failed to win a place in the Commons in the election, which saw the Liberals take 181 seats. The Tories sought to be included in a wartime coalition government, but Mackenzie King refused. The House of Commons had only a slight role in
the war effort; under the state of emergency, most business was accomplished through the Cabinet issuing
Orders in Council
An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council (''King ...
.
Diefenbaker was appointed to the House Committee on the
Defence of Canada Regulations
The ''Defence of Canada Regulations'' were a set of emergency measures implemented under the ''War Measures Act'' on 3 September 1939, a week before Canada's entry into World War II.
The extreme security measures permitted by the regulations ...
, an all-party committee which examined the wartime rules which allowed arrest and detention without trial. On June 13, 1940, Diefenbaker made his
maiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.
Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country. In many Westminster system governments, there is a convention th ...
in the House of Commons, supporting the regulations, and emphatically stating that most Canadians of German descent were loyal. In his memoirs, Diefenbaker wrote he waged an unsuccessful fight against the forced relocation and
internment of many Japanese-Canadians, but historians say that the fight against the internment never took place.
According to Diefenbaker's biographer, Denis Smith, the Conservative MP quietly admired Mackenzie King for his political skills. However, Diefenbaker proved a
gadfly and an annoyance to Mackenzie King. Angered by the words of Diefenbaker and fellow Conservative MP
Howard Green
Howard Green Jr. (born January 12, 1979) is a former American football nose tackle who played professionally in the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2002 NFL draft. He played colle ...
in seeking to censure the government, the Prime Minister referred to Conservative MPs as "a mob". When Diefenbaker accompanied two other Conservative leaders to a briefing by Mackenzie King on
the war, the Prime Minister exploded at Diefenbaker (a constituent of his), "What business do you have to be here? You strike me to the heart every time you speak."
The Conservatives elected a
floor leader
In politics, floor leaders, also known as a caucus leader, are leaders of their respective political party in a body of a legislature.
Philippines
In the Philippines each body of the bicameral Congress has a majority floor leader and a minor ...
, and in 1941 approached former Prime Minister Meighen, who had been appointed as a senator by Bennett, about becoming party leader again. Meighen agreed, and resigned his Senate seat, but lost a by-election for an Ontario seat in the House of Commons. He remained as leader for several months, although he could not enter the chamber of the House of Commons. Meighen sought to move the Tories to the left, in order to undercut the Liberals and to take support away from the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, the predecessor of the
New Democratic Party (NDP)). To that end, he sought to draft the
Liberal-Progressive
Liberal-Progressive was a label used by a number of candidates in Canadian elections between 1925 and 1953. In federal and Ontario politics, there was no Liberal-Progressive party: it was an alliance between two parties. In Manitoba, a party existe ...
premier of
Manitoba
, image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg
, map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada
, Label_map = yes
, coordinates =
, capital = Winn ...
,
John Bracken
John Bracken (June 22, 1883 – March 18, 1969) was a Canadian agronomist and politician who was the 11th and longest-serving premier of Manitoba (1922–1943) and later the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (1942–19 ...
, to lead the Conservatives. Diefenbaker objected to what he saw as an attempt to rig the party's choice of new leader and stood for the leadership himself at the
party's 1942 leadership convention. Bracken was elected on the second ballot; Diefenbaker finished a distant third in both polls. At Bracken's request, the convention changed the party's name to "Progressive Conservative Party of Canada." Bracken chose not to seek entry to the House through a by-election, and when the Conservatives elected a new floor leader, Diefenbaker was defeated by one vote.
Bracken was elected to the Commons in the
1945 general election
The following elections occurred in the year 1945.
Africa
* 1945 South-West African legislative election
Asia
* 1945 Indian general election
Australia
* 1945 Fremantle by-election
Europe
* 1945 Albanian parliamentary election
* 1945 Bulgarian ...
, and for the first time in five years the Tories had their party leader in the House of Commons. The Progressive Conservatives won 67 seats to the Liberals' 125, with smaller parties and independents winning 52 seats. Diefenbaker increased his majority to over 1,000 votes, and had the satisfaction of seeing Mackenzie King defeated in Prince Albert—albeit by a CCF candidate. The Prime Minister was returned in an Ontario by-election within months.
Diefenbaker staked out a position on the populist left of the PC party. Though most Canadians were content to look to Parliament for protection of
civil liberties, Diefenbaker called for a Bill of Rights, calling it "the only way to stop the march on the part of the government towards arbitrary power". He objected to the great powers used by the Mackenzie King government to attempt to root out Soviet spies after the war, such as imprisonment without trial, and complained about the government's proclivity for letting its wartime powers become permanent.
Leadership contender (1948–1956)
![Johndiefenbaker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Johndiefenbaker.jpg)
In early 1948, Mackenzie King, now aged 73, announced his retirement; later that year
Louis St. Laurent succeeded him. Although Bracken had nearly doubled the Tory representation in the House, prominent Tories were increasingly unhappy with his leadership and pressured him to stand down. These party bosses believed that Ontario Premier
George A. Drew, who had won three successive provincial elections and had even made inroads in
francophone ridings, was the man to lead the Progressive Conservatives to victory. When Bracken resigned on July 17, 1948, Diefenbaker announced his candidacy. The party's backers, principally financiers headquartered on Toronto's
Bay Street
Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial services industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Stre ...
, preferred Drew's conservative political stances to Diefenbaker's Western populism. Tory leaders packed the
1948 leadership convention in
Ottawa in favour of Drew, appointing more than 300 delegates
at-large. One cynical party member commented, "Ghost delegates with ghost ballots, marked by the ghostly hidden hand of Bay Street, are going to pick George Drew, and he'll deliver a ghost-written speech that'll cheer us all up, as we march briskly into a political graveyard." Drew easily defeated Diefenbaker on the first ballot. St. Laurent called
an election for June 1949, and the Tories were decimated, falling to 41 seats, only two more than the party's 1940 nadir. Despite intense efforts to make the Progressive Conservatives appeal to Quebecers, the party won only two seats in the province.
Newman argued that but for Diefenbaker's many defeats, he would never have become Prime Minister:
If, as a neophyte lawyer, he had succeeded in winning the Prince Albert seat in the federal elections of 1925 or 1926, ... Diefenbaker would probably have been remembered only as an obscure minister in Bennett's Depression cabinet ... If he had carried his home-town mayoralty in 1933, ... he'd probably not be remembered at all ... If he had succeeded in his bid for the national leadership in 1942, he might have taken the place of John Bracken on his six-year march to oblivion as leader of a party that had not changed itself enough to follow a Prairie radical ... f he had defeated Drew in 1948, he/nowiki> would have been free to flounder before the political strength of Louis St. Laurent in the 1949 and 1953 campaigns.
The governing Liberals repeatedly attempted to deprive Diefenbaker of his parliamentary seat. In 1948, Lake Centre was redistricted to remove areas which strongly supported Diefenbaker. In spite of that, he was returned in the 1949 election, the only PC member from Saskatchewan. In 1952, a redistricting committee dominated by Liberals abolished Lake Centre entirely, dividing its voters among three other ridings. Diefenbaker stated in his memoirs that he had considered retiring from the House; with Drew only a year older than he was, the Westerner saw little prospect of advancement and had received tempting offers from Ontario law firms. However, the
gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
so angered him that he decided to fight for a seat. Diefenbaker's party had taken Prince Albert only once, in 1911, but he decided to stand in that riding for the
1953 election and was successful. He would hold that seat for the rest of his life. Even though Diefenbaker campaigned nationally for party candidates, the Progressive Conservatives gained little, rising to 51 seats as St. Laurent led the Liberals to a fifth successive majority. In addition to trying to secure his departure from Parliament, the government opened a home for unwed Indian mothers next door to
Diefenbaker's home in Prince Albert.
Diefenbaker continued practising law. In 1951, he gained national attention by accepting the ''Atherton'' case, in which a young telegraph operator had been accused of negligently causing
a train crash by omitting crucial information from a message. Twenty-one people were killed, mostly Canadian troops bound for Korea. Diefenbaker paid $1,500 and sat a token
bar exam
A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction.
Australia
Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associat ...
ination to join the
Law Society of British Columbia
The Law Society of British Columbia is the regulatory body for lawyers in British Columbia, Canada.
Purpose
The society's primary mandate under the ''Legal Profession Act'' is to uphold and protect the public interest in the administration of ...
to take the case, and gained an acquittal, prejudicing the jury against the Crown prosecutor and pointing out a previous case in which interference had caused information to be lost in transmission.
In the mid-1940s Edna began to suffer mental illness and was placed in a private psychiatric hospital for a time. She later fell ill from
leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
and died in 1951. In 1953, Diefenbaker married
Olive Palmer (formerly Olive Freeman), whom he had courted while living in Wakaw. Olive Diefenbaker became a great source of strength to her husband. There were no children born of either marriage. In 2013, claims were made that he fathered at least two sons out of wedlock, based on DNA testing showing a relationship between the two individuals, and that Diefenbaker employed both mothers.
Diefenbaker won Prince Albert in 1953, even as the Tories suffered a second consecutive disastrous defeat under Drew. Speculation arose in the press that the leader might be pressured to step aside. Drew was determined to remain, however, and Diefenbaker was careful to avoid any action that might be seen as disloyal. However, Diefenbaker was never a member of the "Five O'clock Club" of Drew intimates who met the leader in his office for a drink and gossip each day. By 1955, there was a widespread feeling among Tories that Drew was not capable of leading the party to a victory. At the same time, the Liberals were in flux as the aging St. Laurent tired of politics. Drew was able to damage the government in a weeks-long battle over the
TransCanada pipeline
The TransCanada pipeline is a system of natural gas pipelines, up to in diameter, that carries gas through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. It is maintained by TransCanada PipeLines, LP. It is the longest pipeline in Canad ...
in 1956—the so-called
Pipeline Debate
The Pipeline Debate (May 8 – June 6, 1956) was a political event in the history of the Parliament of Canada. The debate was on the finances of the TransCanada pipeline, proper parliamentary procedure, and American economic influence on Canad ...
—in which the government, in a hurry to obtain financing for the pipeline, imposed
closure before the debate even began. The Tories and the CCF combined to obstruct business in the House for weeks before the Liberals were finally able to pass the measure. Diefenbaker played a relatively minor role in the Pipeline Debate, speaking only once.
Leader of the Opposition; 1957 election
By 1956, the
Social Credit Party was becoming a potential rival to the Tories as Canada's main right-wing party. Canadian journalist and author
Bruce Hutchison
William Bruce Hutchison, (5 June 1901– 14 September 1992) was a Canadian writer and journalist.
Born in Prescott, Ontario, Canada, Hutchison was educated in public schools in Victoria, British Columbia. He married Dorothy Kidd McDiarmid ...
discussed the state of the Tories in 1956:
When a party calling itself Conservative can think of nothing better than to outbid the Government's election promises; when it demands economy in one breath and increased spending in the next; when it proposes an immediate tax cut regardless of inflationary results ... when in short, the Conservative party no longer gives us a conservative alternative after twenty-one years ... then our political system desperately requires an opposition prepared to stand for something more than the improbable chance of quick victory.
In August 1956, Drew fell ill and many within the party urged him to step aside, feeling that the Progressive Conservatives needed vigorous leadership with an election likely within a year. He resigned in late September, and Diefenbaker immediately announced his candidacy for the leadership. A number of Progressive Conservative leaders, principally from the Ontario wing of the party, started a "Stop Diefenbaker" movement, and wooed
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
president
Sidney Smith as a possible candidate. When Smith declined, they could find no one of comparable stature to stand against Diefenbaker. The only serious competition to Diefenbaker came from
Donald Fleming
Donald Methuen Fleming, (May 23, 1905 – December 31, 1986) was a Canadian parliamentarian, International Monetary Fund official and lawyer, born in Exeter, Ontario, Canada.
Life and career
Fleming was first elected to the House of C ...
, who had finished third at the previous leadership convention, but his having repeatedly criticised Drew's leadership ensured that the critical Ontario delegates would not back Fleming, all but destroying his chances of victory. At the
leadership convention in Ottawa in December 1956, Diefenbaker won on the first ballot, and the dissidents reconciled themselves to his victory. After all, they reasoned, Diefenbaker was now 61 and unlikely to lead the party for more than one general election, an election they believed would be won by the Liberals regardless of who led the Tories.
In January 1957, Diefenbaker took his place as
Leader of the Official Opposition. In February, St. Laurent informed him that Parliament would be dissolved in April for an
election on June 10. The Liberals submitted a budget in March; Diefenbaker attacked it for overly high taxes, failure to assist pensioners, and a lack of aid for the poorer provinces. Parliament was dissolved on April 12. St. Laurent was so confident of victory that he did not even bother to make recommendations to the Governor General to fill the 16 vacancies in the Senate.
Diefenbaker ran on a platform which concentrated on changes in domestic policies. He pledged to work with the provinces to reform the Senate. He proposed a vigorous new agricultural policy, seeking to stabilize income for farmers. He sought to reduce dependence on trade with the United States, and to seek closer ties with the United Kingdom. St. Laurent called the Tory platform "a mere cream-puff of a thing—with more air than substance". Diefenbaker and the PC party used television adroitly, whereas St. Laurent stated that he was more interested in seeing people than in talking to cameras. Though the Liberals outspent the Progressive Conservatives three to one, according to Newman, their campaign had little imagination, and was based on telling voters that their only real option was to re-elect St. Laurent.
Diefenbaker characterized the Tory program in a nationwide telecast on April 30:
It is a program ... for a united Canada, for one Canada, for Canada first, in every aspect of our political and public life, for the welfare of the average man and woman. That is my approach to public affairs and has been throughout my life ... A Canada, united from Coast to Coast, wherein there will be freedom for the individual, freedom of enterprise and where there will be a Government which, in all its actions, will remain the servant and not the master of the people.
The final Gallup poll before the election showed the Liberals ahead, 48% to 34%. Just before the election, ''
Maclean's
''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...
'' magazine printed its regular weekly issue, to go on sale the morning after the vote, editorializing that democracy in Canada was still strong despite a sixth consecutive Liberal victory. On election night, the Progressive Conservative advance started early, with the gain of two seats in reliably Liberal
Newfoundland. The party picked up nine seats in
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, five in Quebec, 28 in Ontario, and at least one seat in every other province. The Progressive Conservatives took 112 seats to the Liberals' 105: a plurality, but not a majority. While the Liberals finished some 200,000 votes ahead of the Tories nationally, that margin was mostly wasted in overwhelming victories in safe Quebec seats. St. Laurent could have attempted to form a government, however, with the minor parties pledging to cooperate with the Progressive Conservatives, he would have likely faced a quick defeat at the Commons. St. Laurent instead resigned, making Diefenbaker prime minister.
Prime Minister (1957–1963)
Domestic events and policies
Minority government
When John Diefenbaker took office as Prime Minister of Canada on June 21, 1957, only one Progressive Conservative MP,
Earl Rowe, had served in federal governmental office, for a brief period under Bennett in 1935. Rowe was no friend of Diefenbaker — he had briefly served as the party's acting leader in-between Drew's resignation and Diefenbaker's election, and did not definitively rule himself out of running to succeed Drew permanently until a relatively late stage, contributing to Diefenbaker's mistrust of him — and was given no place in his government. Diefenbaker appointed
Ellen Fairclough
Ellen Louks Fairclough (née Cook; January 28, 1905 – November 13, 2004) was a Canadian politician. A member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1950 to 1963, she was the first woman ever to serve in the Canadian Cabinet.
Early life and ca ...
as
Secretary of State for Canada
The Secretary of State for Canada, established in 1867 with a corresponding department, was a Canadian Cabinet position that served as the official channel of communication between the Dominion of Canada and the Imperial government in London. Scot ...
, the first woman to be appointed to a Cabinet post, and
Michael Starr as
Minister of Labour Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...
, the first
Canadian of Ukrainian descent to serve in Cabinet.
As
the Parliament buildings had been lent to the
Universal Postal Union
The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to ...
for its 14th congress, Diefenbaker was forced to wait until the fall to convene Parliament. However, the Cabinet approved measures that summer, including increased price supports for butter and turkeys, and raises for federal employees. Once the
23rd Canadian Parliament was opened on October 14 by
Queen Elizabeth II – the first to be opened by any
Canadian monarch
The monarchy of Canada is Canada's form of government embodied by the Canadian sovereign and head of state. It is at the core of Canada's constitutional Canadian federalism, federal structure and Westminster system, Westminster-style Parliamentar ...
– the government rapidly passed legislation, including tax cuts and increases in old age pensions. The Liberals were ineffective in opposition, with the party in the midst of a leadership race after St. Laurent's resignation as party leader.
With the Conservatives leading in the polls, Diefenbaker wanted a new election, hopeful that his party would gain a majority of seats. The strong Liberal presence meant that the Governor General could refuse a dissolution request early in a parliament's term and allow them to form government if Diefenbaker resigned. Diefenbaker sought a pretext for a new election.
Such an excuse presented itself when former Secretary of State for External Affairs
Lester Pearson attended his first parliamentary session as Leader of the Opposition on January 20, 1958, four days after becoming the Liberal leader. In his first speech as leader, Pearson (recently returned from
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...
where he had been awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
), moved an amendment to
supply
Supply may refer to:
*The amount of a resource that is available
**Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers
**Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission
*Supply, as in confidenc ...
, and called, not for an election, but for the Progressive Conservatives to resign, allowing the Liberals to form a government. Pearson stated that the condition of the economy required "a Government pledged to implement Liberal policies". Government MPs laughed at Pearson, as did members of the press who were present. Pearson later recorded in his memoirs that he knew that his "first attack on the government had been a failure, indeed a fiasco". Diefenbaker spoke for two hours and three minutes, and devastated his Liberal opposition. He mocked Pearson, contrasting the party leader's address at the Liberal leadership convention with his speech to the House:
On Thursday there was shrieking defiance, on the following Monday there is shrinking indecision ... The only reason that this motion is worded as it is 'sic''is that my honourable friends opposite quake when they think of what will happen if an election comes ... It is the resignation from responsibility of a great party.
Diefenbaker read from an internal report provided to the St. Laurent government in early 1957, warning that a recession was coming, and stated:
Across the way, Mr. Speaker, sit the purveyors of gloom who would endeavour for political purposes, to panic the Canadian people ... They had a warning ... Did they tell us that? No. Mr. Speaker, why did they not reveal this? Why did they not act when the House was sitting in January, February, March, and April? They had the information ... You concealed the facts, that is what you did.
According to the Minister of Finance,
Donald Fleming
Donald Methuen Fleming, (May 23, 1905 – December 31, 1986) was a Canadian parliamentarian, International Monetary Fund official and lawyer, born in Exeter, Ontario, Canada.
Life and career
Fleming was first elected to the House of C ...
, "Pearson looked at first merry, then serious, then uncomfortable, then disturbed, and finally sick." Pearson recorded in his memoirs that the Prime Minister "tore me to shreds". Prominent Liberal frontbencher
Paul Martin
Paul Edgar Philippe Martin (born August 28, 1938), also known as Paul Martin Jr., is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 21st prime minister of Canada and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006.
The son o ...
called Diefenbaker's response "one of the greatest devastating speeches" and "Diefenbaker's great hour". On February 1, Diefenbaker asked the Governor General,
Vincent Massey
Charles Vincent Massey (February 20, 1887December 30, 1967) was a Canadian lawyer and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 18th since Confederation. Massey was the first governor general of Canada who was born in Canada after ...
, to dissolve Parliament, alleging that though St. Laurent had promised cooperation, Pearson had made it clear he would not follow his predecessor's lead. Massey agreed to the dissolution, and Diefenbaker set an election date of March 31, 1958.
1958 election
The
1958 election campaign saw a huge outpouring of public support for the Progressive Conservatives. At the opening campaign rally in
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...
on February 12 voters filled the hall until the doors had to be closed for safety reasons. They were promptly broken down by the crowd outside. At the rally, Diefenbaker called for "
/nowiki> new vision. A new hope. A new soul for Canada." He pledged to open the Canadian North, to seek out its resources and make it a place for settlements. The conclusion to his speech expounded on what became known as "The Vision",
This is the vision: One Canada. One Canada, where Canadians will have preserved to them the control of their own economic and political destiny. Sir John A. Macdonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...
saw a Canada from east to west: he opened the west. I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North. This is the vision!
Pierre Sévigny, who would be elected an MP in 1958, recalled the gathering, "When he had finished that speech, as he was walking to the door, I saw people kneel and kiss his coat. Not one, but many. People were in tears. People were delirious. And this happened many a time after." When Sévigny introduced Diefenbaker to a Montreal rally with the words ''"Levez-vous, levez-vous, saluez votre chef!"'' (Rise, rise, salute your chief!) according to Postmaster General
A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsib ...
William Hamilton "thousands and thousands of people, jammed into that auditorium, just tore the roof off in a frenzy." Michael Starr remembered, "That was the most fantastic election ... I went into little places. Smoky Lake, Alberta
Smoky Lake is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located northeast of Edmonton at the junction of Highway 28 and Highway 855. It lies between the North Saskatchewan River, Smoky Creek and White Earth Creek, in a mainly agricultural area. ...
, where nobody ever saw a minister. Canora, Saskatchewan
Canora is a town, located at the junction of highways No. Saskatchewan Highway 5, 5 and Saskatchewan Highway 9, 9 in east central Saskatchewan, about 50 km north of Yorkton. It is centrally located on the corners of four adjacent rural mun ...
. Every meeting was jammed ... The halls would be filled with people and sitting there in the front would be the first Ukrainian immigrants with shawls and hands gnarled from work ... I would switch to Ukrainian and the tears would start to run down their faces ... I don't care who says what won the election; it was the emotional aspect that really caught on."
Pearson and his Liberals faltered badly in the campaign. The Liberal Party leader tried to make an issue of the fact that Diefenbaker had called a winter election, generally disfavoured in Canada due to travel difficulties. Pearson's objection cut little ice with voters, and served only to remind the electorate that the Liberals, at their convention, had called for an election. Pearson mocked Diefenbaker's northern plans as "igloo-to-igloo" communications, and was assailed by the Prime Minister for being condescending. The Liberal leader spoke to small, quiet crowds, which quickly left the halls when he was done. By election day, Pearson had no illusions that he might win the election, and hoped only to salvage 100 seats. The Liberals would be limited to less than half of that.
On March 31, 1958, the Tories won what is still the largest majority (in terms of percentage of seats) in Canadian federal political history, winning 208 seats to the Liberals' 48, with the CCF winning 8 and Social Credit wiped out. The Progressive Conservatives won a majority of the votes and of the seats in every province except British Columbia (49.8%) and Newfoundland. Quebec's '' Union Nationale'' political machine had given the PC party little support, but with Quebec voters minded to support Diefenbaker, ''Union Nationale'' boss Maurice Duplessis
Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis (; April 20, 1890 – September 7, 1959), was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 16th premier of Quebec. A conservative, nationalist, anti-Communist, anti-unionist and fervent Catholic, he and hi ...
threw the machinery of his party behind the Tories.
Mandate (1958–1962)
An economic downturn was beginning in Canada by 1958. Because of tax cuts instituted the previous year, the budget presented by the government predicted a small deficit for 1957–58, and a large one, $648 million, for the following year. Minister of Finance Fleming and Bank of Canada Governor James Coyne proposed that the wartime Victory Bond
War bonds (sometimes referred to as Victory bonds, particularly in propaganda) are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are ...
issue, which constituted two-thirds of the national debt and which was due to be redeemed by 1967, be refinanced to a longer term. After considerable indecision on Diefenbaker's part, a nationwide campaign took place, and 90% of the bonds were converted. However, this transaction led to an increase in the money supply
In macroeconomics, the money supply (or money stock) refers to the total volume of currency held by the public at a particular point in time. There are several ways to define "money", but standard measures usually include currency in circul ...
, which in future years would hamper the government's efforts to respond to unemployment.
As a trial lawyer, and in opposition, Diefenbaker had long been concerned with civil liberties. On July 1, 1960, Dominion Day, he introduced the ''Canadian Bill of Rights'' in Parliament, and the bill rapidly passed and was proclaimed on August 10, fulfilling a lifetime goal of Diefenbaker's, as he began drafting it as early as 1936. The document purported to guarantee fundamental freedoms, with special attention to the rights of the accused. However, as a mere piece of federal legislation, it could be amended by any other law, and the question of civil liberties was to a large extent a provincial matter, outside of federal jurisdiction. One lawyer remarked that the document provided rights for all Canadians, "so long as they don't live in any of the provinces". Diefenbaker had appointed the first First Nations member of the Senate, James Gladstone
James Gladstone ( bla, Akay-na-muka, script=Latn, italic=yes, lit=Many Guns; May 21, 1887 – September 4, 1971) was a Canadian politician who claimed to become the first Treaty Indian to be appointed to the Senate of Canada.
Early life
Jame ...
in January 1958, and in 1960, his government extended voting rights to all native people. In 1962, Diefenbaker's government eliminated race discrimination clauses in immigration laws.
Diefenbaker pursued a "One Canada" policy, seeking equality of all Canadians. As part of that philosophy, he was unwilling to make special concessions to Quebec's francophones. Thomas Van Dusen, who served as Diefenbaker's executive assistant and wrote a book about him, characterized the leader's views on this issue:
There must be no compromise with Canada's existence as a nation. Opting out, two flags, two pension plans, associated states, Two Nations and all the other baggage of political dualism was ushering Quebec out of Confederation on the instalment plan. He could not accept any theory of two nations, however worded, because it would make of those neither French nor English second-class citizens.
Diefenbaker's disinclination to make concessions to Quebec, along with the disintegration of the ''Union Nationale'', the failure of the Tories to build an effective structure in Quebec, and Diefenbaker appointing few Quebecers to his Cabinet, none to senior positions, all led to an erosion of Progressive Conservative support in Quebec. Diefenbaker did recommend the appointment of the first French-Canadian governor general, Georges Vanier
Georges-Philias Vanier (23 April 1888 – 5 March 1967) was a Canadian military officer and diplomat who served as governor general of Canada, the first Quebecer and second Canadian-born person to hold the position.
Vanier was born and ...
.
By mid-1961, differences in monetary policy
Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often a ...
led to open conflict with Bank of Canada Governor Coyne, who adhered to a tight money policy. Appointed by St. Laurent to a term expiring in December 1961, Coyne could only be dismissed before then by the passing of an Act of Parliament. Coyne defended his position by giving public speeches, to the dismay of the government. The Cabinet was also angered when it learned that Coyne and his board had passed amendments to the bank's pension scheme which greatly increased Coyne's pension, without publishing the amendments in the ''Canada Gazette
The ''Canada Gazette'' (french: Gazette du Canada) is the official government gazette of the Government of Canada. It was first published on October 2, 1841. While it originally published all acts of the Parliament of Canada, it later also publ ...
'' as required by law. Negotiations between Minister of Finance Fleming and Coyne for the latter's resignation broke down, with the governor making the dispute public, and Diefenbaker sought to dismiss Coyne by legislation. Diefenbaker was able to get legislation to dismiss Coyne through the House, but the Liberal-controlled Senate invited Coyne to testify before one of its committees. After giving the governor a platform against the government, the committee then chose to take no further action, adding its view that Coyne had done nothing wrong. Once he had the opportunity to testify (denied him in the Commons), Coyne resigned, keeping his increased pension, and the government was extensively criticized in the press.
By the time Diefenbaker called an election for June 18, 1962, the party had been damaged by loss of support in Quebec and in urban areas as voters grew disillusioned with Diefenbaker and the Tories. The PC campaign was hurt when the Bank of Canada was forced to devalue the Canadian dollar to US cents; it had previously hovered in the range from 95 cents to par with the United States dollar. Privately printed satirical "Diefenbucks" swept the country. On election day, the Progressive Conservatives lost 92 seats, but were still able to form a minority government. The New Democratic Party (the successor to the CCF) and Social Credit held the balance of power in the new Parliament.
Foreign policy
Britain and the Commonwealth
Diefenbaker attended a meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London shortly after taking office in 1957. He generated headlines by proposing that 15% of Canadian spending on US imports instead be spent on imports from the United Kingdom. Britain responded with an offer of a free trade agreement, which was rejected by the Canadians. As the Harold Macmillan government in the UK sought to enter the Common Market
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...
, Diefenbaker feared that Canadian exports to the UK would be threatened. He also believed that the mother country should place the Commonwealth first, and sought to discourage Britain's entry. The British were annoyed at Canadian interference. Britain's initial attempt to enter the Common Market was vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle.
Through 1959, the Diefenbaker government had a policy of not criticizing South Africa and its apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
government. In this stance, Diefenbaker had the support of the Liberals but not that of CCF leader Hazen Argue. In 1960, however, the South Africans sought to maintain membership in the Commonwealth even if South African white voters chose to make the country a republic in a referendum scheduled for later that year. South Africa asked that year's Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference
Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were biennial meetings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominion members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Seventeen Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were held betwee ...
to allow it to remain in the Commonwealth regardless of the result of the referendum. Diefenbaker privately expressed his distaste for apartheid to South African External Affairs Minister Eric Louw
Eric Hendrik Louw (1890–1968) was a South African diplomat and politician. He served as the Minister of Finance from 1954 to 1956, and as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1955 to 1963.
Early life
He was born in Jacobsdal in the Orange Fr ...
and urged him to give the black and coloured people of South Africa at least the minimal representation they had originally had. Louw, attending the conference as Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (; 8 September 1901 – 6 September 1966) was a South African politician, a scholar of applied psychology and sociology, and chief editor of '' Die Transvaler'' newspaper. He is commonly regarded as the architect ...
recovered from an assassination attempt, refused. The conference resolved that an advance decision would be interfering in South Africa's internal affairs.
On October 5, 1960, South Africa's white voters decided to make the country a republic. At the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1961, Verwoerd formally applied for South Africa to remain in the Commonwealth. The prime ministers were divided; Diefenbaker broke the deadlock by proposing that South Africa only be re-admitted if it joined other states in condemning apartheid in principle. Once it became clear that South Africa's membership would be rejected, Verwoerd withdrew his country's application to remain in the Commonwealth and left the group. According to Peter Newman, this was "Diefenbaker's most important contribution to international politics ... Diefenbaker flew home, a hero."
Policy towards the United States
= Ike and John: the Eisenhower years
=
American officials were uncomfortable with Diefenbaker's initial election, believing they had heard undertones of anti-Americanism in the campaign. After years of the Liberals, one US State Department official noted, "We'll be dealing with an unknown quantity." Diefenbaker's 1958 landslide was viewed with disappointment by the US officials, who knew and liked Pearson from his years in diplomacy and who felt the Liberal Party leader would be more likely to institute pro-American policies. However, US President Dwight Eisenhower took pains to foster good relations with Diefenbaker. The two men found much in common, from Western farm backgrounds to a love of fishing, and Diefenbaker had an admiration for war leaders such as Eisenhower and Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
. Diefenbaker wrote in his memoirs, "I might add that President Eisenhower and I were from our first meeting on an 'Ike–John' basis, and that we were as close as the nearest telephone." The Eisenhower–Diefenbaker relationship was sufficiently strong that the touchy Canadian Prime Minister was prepared to overlook slights. When Eisenhower addressed Parliament in October 1958, he downplayed trade concerns that Diefenbaker had publicly expressed. Diefenbaker said nothing and took Eisenhower fishing.
Diefenbaker had approved plans to join the United States in what became known as NORAD, an integrated air defence system, in mid-1957. Despite Liberal misgivings that Diefenbaker had committed Canada to the system before consulting either the Cabinet or Parliament, Pearson and his followers voted with the government to approve NORAD in June 1958.
In 1959, the Diefenbaker government cancelled the development and manufacture of the Avro CF-105 Arrow
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft designed and built by Avro Canada. The CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) p ...
. The Arrow was a supersonic jet interceptor built by Avro Canada in Malton, Ontario
Malton is a neighbourhood in the northeastern part of the city of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, located to the northwest of Toronto.
Malton is bounded by Highway 427 to the east, the Brampton city limits (a Canadian National Railway (CN) rail l ...
, to defend Canada in the event of a Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
attack. The interceptor had been under development since 1953, and had suffered from many cost overruns and complications. In 1955, the RCAF
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...
stated it would need only nine squadrons of Arrows, down from 20, as originally proposed. According to C. D. Howe
Clarence Decatur Howe, (15 January 1886 – 31 December 1960) was an American-born Canadian engineer, businessman and Liberal Party politician. Howe served as a cabinet minister in the governments of prime ministers William Lyon Mackenzie ...
, the former minister responsible for postwar reconstruction, the St. Laurent government had serious misgivings about continuing the Arrow program, and planned to discuss its termination after the 1957 election. In the run-up to the 1958 election, with three Tory-held seats at risk in the Malton area, the Diefenbaker government authorized further funding. Even though the first test flights of the Arrow were successful, the US government was unwilling to commit to a purchase of aircraft from Canada. In September 1958, Diefenbaker warned that the Arrow would come under complete review in six months. The company began seeking out other projects including a US-funded "saucer" program that became the VZ-9 Avrocar, and also mounted a public relations offensive urging that the Arrow go into full production. On February 20, 1959, the Cabinet decided to cancel the Avro Arrow, following an earlier decision to permit the United States to build two Bomarc missile bases in Canada. The company immediately dismissed its 14,000 employees, blaming Diefenbaker for the firings, though it rehired 2,500 employees to fulfil existing obligations.
Although the two leaders had a strong relationship, by 1960 US officials were becoming concerned by what they viewed as Canadian procrastination on vital issues, such as whether Canada should join the Organization of American States (OAS). Talks on these issues in June 1960 produced little in results. Diefenbaker hoped that US Vice President Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
would win the 1960 US presidential election, but when Nixon's Democratic rival, Senator John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
won the race, he sent Senator Kennedy a note of congratulations. Kennedy did not respond until Canadian officials asked what had become of Diefenbaker's note, two weeks later. Diefenbaker, for whom such correspondence was very meaningful, was annoyed at the President-elect
An ''officer-elect'' is a person who has been elected to a position but has not yet been installed. Notably, a president who has been elected but not yet installed would be referred to as a ''president-elect'' (e.g. president-elect of the Unit ...
's slowness to respond. In January 1961, Diefenbaker visited Washington to sign the Columbia River Treaty
The Columbia River Treaty is a 1961 agreement between Canada and the United States on the development and operation of dams in the upper Columbia River basin for power and flood control benefits in both countries. Four dams were constructed under ...
. However, with only days remaining in the Eisenhower administration, little else could be accomplished.
= Bilateral antipathy: the Kennedy administration
=
Kennedy and Diefenbaker started off well but matters soon worsened. When the two met in Washington on February 20, Diefenbaker was impressed by Kennedy, and invited him to visit Ottawa. Kennedy, however, told his aides that he never wanted "to see the boring son of a bitch again". The Ottawa visit began awkwardly. Kennedy accidentally left behind a briefing note suggesting he "push" Diefenbaker on several issues, including the decision to accept nuclear weapons on Canadian soil, which bitterly divided the Canadian Cabinet. Diefenbaker was also annoyed by Kennedy's speech to Parliament, in which he urged Canada to join the OAS (which Diefenbaker had already rejected), and by the President spending most of his time talking to Leader of the Opposition Pearson at the formal dinner. Both Kennedy and his wife Jackie were bored by Diefenbaker's Churchill anecdotes at lunch, stories that Jackie Kennedy later described as "painful".
Diefenbaker was initially inclined to go along with Kennedy's request that nuclear weapons be stationed on Canadian soil as part of NORAD. However, when an August 3, 1961, letter from Kennedy which urged this was leaked to the media, Diefenbaker was angered and withdrew his support. The Prime Minister was also influenced by a massive demonstration against nuclear weapons, which took place on Parliament Hill
Parliament Hill (french: Colline du Parlement, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings, and their archit ...
. Diefenbaker was handed a petition containing 142,000 names.
By 1962, the American government was becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of a commitment from Canada to take nuclear weapons. The interceptors and Bomarc missiles with which Canada was being supplied as a NORAD member were either of no use or of greatly diminished utility without nuclear devices. Canadian and American military officers launched a quiet campaign to make this known to the press, and to advocate Canadian agreement to acquire the warheads. Diefenbaker was also upset when Pearson was invited to the White House for a dinner for Nobel Prize winners in April, and met with the President privately for 40 minutes. When the Prime Minister met with retiring American Ambassador Livingston Merchant, he angrily disclosed the paper Kennedy had left behind, and hinted that he might make use of it in the upcoming election campaign. Merchant's report caused consternation in Washington, and the ambassador was sent back to see Diefenbaker again. This time, he found Diefenbaker calm, and the Prime Minister pledged not to use the memo, and to give Merchant advance word if he changed his mind. Canada appointed a new ambassador to Washington, Charles Ritchie, who on arrival received a cool reception from Kennedy and found that the squabble was affecting progress on a number of issues.
Kennedy was careful to avoid overt favouritism during the 1962 Canadian election campaign. Several times during the campaign, Diefenbaker stated that the Kennedy administration desired his defeat because he refused to "bow down to Washington". After Diefenbaker was returned with a minority, Washington continued to press for acceptance of nuclear arms, but Diefenbaker, faced with a split between Defence Minister Douglas Harkness
Douglas Scott Harkness, (March 29, 1903 – May 2, 1999) was a Canadian politician.
Early life and military service
He was born in Toronto, Ontario, and moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1929. He graduated from the University of Alberta, then farm ...
and External Affairs Minister Howard Green
Howard Green Jr. (born January 12, 1979) is a former American football nose tackle who played professionally in the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2002 NFL draft. He played colle ...
on the question, continued to stall, hoping that time and events would invite consensus.
When the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in October 1962, Kennedy chose not to consult with Diefenbaker before making decisions on what actions to take. The US President sent former Ambassador Merchant to Ottawa to inform the Prime Minister as to the content of the speech that Kennedy was to make on television. Diefenbaker was upset at both the lack of consultation and the fact that he was given less than two hours advance word. He was angered again when the US government released a statement stating that it had Canada's full support. In a statement to the Commons, Diefenbaker proposed sending representatives of neutral nations to Cuba to verify the American allegations, which Washington took to mean that he was questioning Kennedy's word. When American forces went to a heightened alert, DEFCON
The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces. (DEFCON is not mentioned in the 2010 and newer document)
The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and unified and spec ...
3, Diefenbaker was slow to order Canadian forces to match it. Harkness and the Chiefs of Staff had Canadian forces clandestinely go to that alert status anyway, and Diefenbaker eventually authorized it. The crisis ended without war, and polls found that Kennedy's actions were widely supported by Canadians. Diefenbaker was severely criticized in the media.
Downfall
On January 3, 1963, NATO Supreme Commander General Lauris Norstad
Lauris Norstad (March 24, 1907 – September 12, 1988) was an American General officer, general officer in the United States Army and United States Air Force.
Early life and military career
Lauris Norstad was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minn ...
visited Ottawa, in one of a series of visits to member nations prior to his retirement. At a news conference, Norstad stated that if Canada did not accept nuclear weapons, it would not be fulfilling its commitments to NATO. Newspapers across Canada criticized Diefenbaker, who was convinced the statement was part of a plot by Kennedy to bring down his government. Although the Liberals had been previously indecisive on the question of nuclear weapons, on January 12, Pearson made a speech stating that the government should live up to its commitments.
With the Cabinet still divided between adherents of Green and Harkness, Diefenbaker made a speech in the Commons on January 25 that Fleming (by then Minister of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
) termed "a model of obfuscation". Harkness was initially convinced that Diefenbaker was saying that he would support nuclear warheads in Canada. After talking to the press, he realized that his view of the speech was not universally shared, and he asked Diefenbaker for clarification. Diefenbaker, however, continued to try to avoid taking a firm position. On January 30, the US State Department issued a press release suggesting that Diefenbaker had made misstatements in his Commons speech. For the first time ever, Canada recalled its ambassador to Washington as a diplomatic protest. Though all parties condemned the State Department action, the three parties outside the government demanded that Diefenbaker take a stand on the nuclear weapon issue.
The bitter divisions within the Cabinet continued, with Diefenbaker deliberating whether to call an election on the issue of American interference in Canadian politics. At least six Cabinet ministers favoured Diefenbaker's ouster. Finally, at a dramatic Cabinet meeting on Sunday, February 3, Harkness told Diefenbaker that the Prime Minister no longer had the confidence of the Canadian people, and resigned. Diefenbaker asked ministers supporting him to stand, and when only about half did, stated that he was going to see the Governor General to resign, and that Fleming would be the next Prime Minister. Green called his Cabinet colleagues a "nest of traitors", but eventually cooler heads prevailed, and the Prime Minister was urged to return and to fight the motion of non-confidence
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
scheduled for the following day. Harkness, however, persisted in his resignation. Negotiations with the Social Credit Party, which had enough votes to save the government, failed, and the government fell, 142–111.
Two members of the government resigned the day after the government lost the vote. As the campaign opened, the Tories trailed in the polls by 15 points. To Pearson and his Liberals, the only question was how large a majority they would win. Peter Stursberg, who wrote two books about the Diefenbaker years, stated of that campaign:
For the old Diefenbaker was in full cry. All the agony of the disintegration of his government was gone, and he seemed to be a giant revived by his contact with the people. This was Diefenbaker's finest election. He was virtually alone on the hustings. Even such loyalists as Gordon Churchill
Gordon Minto Churchill, (November 8, 1898 in Coldwater, Ontario – August 3, 1985) was a Canadian politician. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1946 to 1949 as an independent, and in the House of Commons of Canada from ...
had to stick close to their own bailiwicks, where they were fighting for their political lives.
Though the White House maintained public neutrality, privately Kennedy made it clear he desired a Liberal victory. Kennedy lent Lou Harris, his pollster to work for the Liberals again. On election day
Election day or polling day is the day on which general elections are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Saturday or Sunday, to enable as many voters as possible to participate; while in other countries elections a ...
, April 8, 1963, the Liberals claimed 129 seats to the Tories' 95, five seats short of an absolute majority. Diefenbaker held to power for several days, until six Quebec Social Credit MPs signed a statement that Pearson should form the government. These votes would be enough to give Pearson support of a majority of the House of Commons, and Diefenbaker resigned. The six MPs repudiated the statement within days. Nonetheless, Pearson formed a government with the support of the NDP.
Later years (1963–1979)
Return to opposition
Diefenbaker continued to lead the Progressive Conservatives, again as Leader of the Opposition. In November 1963, upon hearing of Kennedy's assassination, the Tory leader addressed the Commons, stating, "A beacon of freedom has gone. Whatever the disagreement, to me he stood as the embodiment of freedom, not only in his own country, but throughout the world." In the 1964 Great Canadian Flag Debate
The Great Canadian flag debate (or Great Flag Debate) was a national debate that took place in 1963 and 1964 when a new design for the national flag of Canada was chosen.
Although the flag debate had been going on for a long time prior, it offi ...
, Diefenbaker led the unsuccessful opposition to the Maple Leaf flag, which the Liberals pushed for after the rejection of Pearson's preferred design showing three maple leaves. Diefenbaker preferred the existing Canadian Red Ensign
The Canadian Red Ensign (french: Enseigne Rouge Canadienne ) served as a nautical flag and civil ensign for Canada from 1892 to 1965, and later as the ''de facto'' flag of Canada before 1965. The flag is a British red ensign, with the Royal Un ...
or another design showing symbols of the nation's heritage. He dismissed the adopted design, with a single red maple leaf and two red bars, as "a flag that Peruvians might salute", a reference to Peru's red-white-red tricolour. At the request of Quebec Tory Léon Balcer
Léon Balcer, (October 13, 1917 – March 22, 1991) was a Canadian politician.
He was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec and was a lawyer by profession.
Member of the House of Commons
He was one of only three Progressive Conservative (or P ...
, who feared devastating PC losses in the province at the next election, Pearson imposed closure, and the bill passed with the majority singing "O Canada
"O Canada" (french: Ô Canada, italic=no) is the national anthem of Canada. The song was originally commissioned by Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony; Calixa Lavallée composed the mus ...
" as Diefenbaker led the dissenters in "God Save the Queen
"God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, bu ...
".
In 1966, the Liberals began to make an issue of the Munsinger affair
The Munsinger affair was Canada's first national political sex scandal in 1966. The affair involved Gerda Munsinger, a German citizen who had been convicted in Germany as a common prostitute, a petty thief and a smuggler, who emigrated to Canada ...
—two officials of the Diefenbaker government had slept with a woman suspected of being a Soviet spy. In what Diefenbaker saw as a partisan attack, Pearson established a one-man Royal Commission, which, according to Diefenbaker biographer Smith, indulged in "three months of reckless political inquisition". By the time the commission issued its report, Diefenbaker and other former ministers had long since withdrawn their counsel from the proceedings. The report faulted Diefenbaker for not dismissing the ministers in question, but found no actual security breach.
There were calls for Diefenbaker's retirement, especially from the Bay Street
Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial services industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Stre ...
wing of the party as early as 1964. Diefenbaker initially beat back attempts to remove him without trouble. When Pearson called an election in 1965 in the expectation of receiving a majority, Diefenbaker ran an aggressive campaign. The Liberals fell two seats short of a majority, and the Tories improved their position slightly at the expense of the smaller parties. After the election, some Tories, led by party president Dalton Camp
Dalton Kingsley Camp, (September 11, 1920 – March 18, 2002) was a Canadian journalist, politician, political strategist and commentator, and supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. Although he was never elected to a se ...
, began a quiet campaign to oust Diefenbaker.
In the absence of a formal leadership review
In Canadian politics, a leadership review is a vote held at a political party convention in which delegates decide whether to endorse the incumbent party leader or schedule a leadership convention to elect a new leader. In most parties at present, ...
process, Camp was able to stage a de facto review by running for re-election as party president on the platform of holding a leadership convention within a year. His campaign at the Tories' 1966 convention occurred amidst allegations of vote rigging, violence, and seating arrangements designed to ensure that when Diefenbaker addressed the delegates, television viewers would see unmoved delegates in the first ten rows. Other Camp supporters tried to shout Diefenbaker down. Camp was successful in being re-elected thereby forcing a leadership convention for 1967. Diefenbaker initially made no announcement as to whether he would stand, but angered by a resolution at the party's policy conference which spoke of ''"deux nations"'' or "two founding peoples" (as opposed to Diefenbaker's "One Canada"), decided to seek to retain his leadership. Although Diefenbaker entered at the last minute to stand as a candidate for the leadership, he finished fifth on each of the first three ballots, and withdrew from the contest, which was won by Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield.
Diefenbaker addressed the delegates before Stanfield spoke:
My course has come to an end. I have fought your battles, and you have given me that loyalty that led us to victory more often than the party has ever had since the days of Sir John A. Macdonald. In my retiring, I have nothing to withdraw in my desire to see Canada, my country and your country, one nation.
Final years and death
Diefenbaker was embittered by his loss of the party leadership. Pearson announced his retirement in December 1967, and Diefenbaker forged a wary relationship of mutual respect with Pearson's successor, Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau called a general election for June 1968; Stanfield asked Diefenbaker to join him at a rally in Saskatoon, which Diefenbaker refused, although the two appeared at hastily arranged photo opportunities. Trudeau obtained the majority against Stanfield that Pearson had never been able to obtain against Diefenbaker, as the PC party lost 25 seats, 20 of them in the West. The former Prime Minister, though stating, "The Conservative Party has suffered a calamitous disaster" in a CBC interview, could not conceal his delight at Stanfield's humiliation, and especially gloated at the defeat of Camp, who made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Commons. Diefenbaker was easily returned for Prince Albert.
Although Stanfield worked to try to unify the party, Diefenbaker and his loyalists proved difficult to reconcile. The division in the party broke out in well-publicised dissensions, as when Diefenbaker called on Progressive Conservative MPs to break with Stanfield's position on the Official Languages bill, and nearly half the caucus voted against their leader's will or abstained. In addition to his parliamentary activities, Diefenbaker travelled extensively and began work on his memoirs, which were published in three volumes between 1975 and 1977. Pearson died of cancer in 1972, and Diefenbaker was asked if he had kind words for his old rival. Diefenbaker shook his head and said only, "He shouldn't have won the Nobel Prize."
By 1972, Diefenbaker had grown disillusioned with Trudeau, and campaigned wholeheartedly for the Tories in that year's election. Diefenbaker was re-elected comfortably in his home riding, and the Progressive Conservatives came within two seats of matching the Liberal total. Diefenbaker was relieved both that Trudeau had been humbled and that Stanfield had been denied power. Trudeau regained his majority two years later in an election that saw Diefenbaker, by then the only living former Prime Minister, have his personal majority grow to 11,000 votes.
In the 1976 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 1976 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced on 1 January 1976 to celebra ...
, Diefenbaker was created a Companion of Honour, an accolade bestowed as the personal gift of the Sovereign. After a long illness, Olive Diefenbaker died on December 22, a loss which plunged Diefenbaker into despair.
Joe Clark
Charles Joseph Clark (born June 5, 1939) is a Canadian statesman, businessman, writer, and politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Canada from 1979 to 1980.
Despite his relative inexperience, Clark rose quickly in federal polit ...
succeeded Stanfield as party leader in 1976, but as Clark had supported the leadership review, Diefenbaker held a grudge against him. Diefenbaker had supported Claude Wagner
Claude Wagner (April 4, 1925 – July 11, 1979) was a Canadian judge and politician in the province of Quebec, Canada. Throughout his career, he was a Crown prosecutor, professor of criminal law and judge.
Life and career
Wagner was bor ...
for leader, but when Clark won, stated that Clark would make "a remarkable leader of this party". However, Diefenbaker repeatedly criticized his party leader, to such an extent that Stanfield publicly asked Diefenbaker "to stop sticking a knife into Mr. Clark"—a request Diefenbaker did not agree to. According to columnist Charles Lynch, Diefenbaker regarded Clark as an upstart and a pipsqueak.
In 1978, Diefenbaker announced that he would stand in one more election, and under the slogan "Diefenbaker—Now More Than Ever", weathered a campaign the following year during which he apparently suffered a mild stroke, although the media were told he was bedridden with influenza. In the May election Diefenbaker defeated NDP candidate Stan Hovdebo
Stanley John Hovdebo (20 July 1925 – 14 January 2018) was a New Democratic Party member of the House of Commons of Canada. He was an educator by career.
He first campaigned in the Saskatchewan riding of Prince Albert during the 1979 f ...
(who, after Diefenbaker's death, would win the seat in a by-election) by 4,000 votes. Clark had defeated Trudeau, though only gaining a minority government, and Diefenbaker returned to Ottawa to witness the swearing-in, still unreconciled to his old opponents among Clark's ministers. Two months later, Diefenbaker died of a heart attack in his study about a month before his 84th birthday.
Diefenbaker had extensively planned his funeral in consultation with government officials. He lay in state in the Hall of Honour
The Centre Block (french: Édifice du Centre) is the main building of the Canadian parliamentary complex on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, containing the House of Commons and Senate chambers, as well as the offices of a number of membe ...
in Parliament for two and a half days; 10,000 Canadians passed by his casket. The Maple Leaf Flag on the casket was partially obscured by the Red Ensign. After the service, his body was taken by train on a slow journey to its final destination, Saskatoon; along the route, many Canadians lined the tracks to watch the funeral train pass. In Winnipeg, an estimated 10,000 people waited at midnight in a one-kilometre line to file past the casket which made the trip draped in a Canadian flag and Diefenbaker's beloved Red Ensign. In Prince Albert, thousands of those he had represented filled the square in front of the railroad station to salute the only man from Saskatchewan ever to become Prime Minister. His coffin was accompanied by that of his wife Olive, disinterred from temporary burial in Ottawa. Prime Minister Clark delivered the eulogy, paying tribute to "an indomitable man, born to a minority group, raised in a minority region, leader of a minority party, who went on to change the very nature of his country, and change it forever". John and Olive Diefenbaker rest outside the Diefenbaker Centre, built to house his papers, on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan.
Legacy
Patrick Kyba and Wendy Green-Finlay report: Most of those who have written about John Diefenbaker have concluded that he was a failure as a leader, or that, while he may have had some successes, he never fully lived up to his promise and, therefore, must be considered a failure.
Historian Conrad Black says that Diefenbaker: was not a successful prime minister; he was a jumble of attitudes but had little in the way of policy, was a disorganized administrator, and was inconsistent, indecisive, and not infrequently irrational. But he was very formidable; a deadly campaigner, an idiosyncratic but often galvanizing public speaker, a brilliant parliamentarian, and a man of many fine qualities. He was absolutely honest financially, a passionate supporter of the average and the underprivileged and disadvantaged person, a fierce opponent of any racial or religious or socioeconomic discrimination….”
According to Robert Bothwell:By the time Diefenbaker left office, his conduct of foreign policy was reviled by an important and growing number of Canadians, while his relations with both the Americans and the British were disastrous. Canada's influence in the world was declining....Overseas, at Canada's NATO garrisons, the prime minister's portrait was used as a dartboard in military messes.
Some of Diefenbaker's policies did not survive the 16 years of Liberal government that followed his fall. By the end of 1963, the first of the Bomarc warheads entered Canada, where they remained until the last were finally phased out during John Turner
John Napier Wyndham Turner (June 7, 1929September 19, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and leader of t ...
's brief government in 1984. Diefenbaker's decision to have Canada remain outside the OAS
OAS or Oas may refer to:
Chemistry
* O-Acetylserine, amino-acid involved in cysteine synthesis
Computers
* Open-Architecture-System, the main user interface of Wersi musical keyboards
* OpenAPI Specification (originally Swagger Specification) ...
was not reversed by Pearson, and it was not until 1989, under the Tory government of Brian Mulroney, that Canada joined.
But several defining features of modern Canada can be traced back to Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights remains in effect, and signalled the change in Canadian political culture that would eventually bring about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part ...
, which came into force after his death.
Since his death, Diefenbaker has had several locations named in his honour, particularly in his home province of Saskatchewan, including Lake Diefenbaker
Lake Diefenbaker is a reservoir and bifurcation lake in Southern Saskatchewan, Canada. It was formed by the construction of Gardiner Dam and the Qu'Appelle River Dam across the South Saskatchewan and Qu'Appelle Rivers respectively. Construc ...
, the largest lake in Southern Saskatchewan, and the Diefenbaker Bridge in Prince Albert. In 1993, Saskatoon renamed its airport the Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport. The city of Prince Albert continues to maintain the house he resided in from 1947 to 1975 as a public museum known as Diefenbaker House; it was designated a National Historic Site in 2018.Government of Canada Announces New National Historic Designations
Parks Canada news release, January 12, 2018.
Diefenbaker reinvigorated a moribund party system in Canada. Clark and Mulroney, two men who, as students, worked on and were inspired by his 1957 triumph, became the only other Progressive Conservatives to lead the party to election triumphs. Diefenbaker's biographer, Denis Smith, wrote of him, "In politics he had little more than two years of success in the midst of failure and frustration, but he retained a core of deeply committed loyalists to the end of his life and beyond. The federal Conservative Party that he had revived remained dominant in the prairie provinces for 25 years after he left the leadership." The Harper government
The premiership of Stephen Harper began on February 6, 2006, when the first Cabinet headed by Stephen Harper was sworn in by Governor General Michaelle Jean. Harper was invited to form the 28th Canadian Ministry and become Prime Minister of ...
, believing that Tory prime ministers have been given short shrift in the naming of Canadian places and institutions, named the former Ottawa City Hall, now a federal office building, the John G. Diefenbaker Building. It also gave Diefenbaker's name to a human rights award and an icebreaking vessel. Harper often invoked Diefenbaker's northern vision in his speeches.
Conservative Senator Marjory LeBreton
Marjory LeBreton (born July 4, 1940) is a Canadian former leader of the Government in the Senate of Canada, a cabinet-rank position; and past national chair of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Canada. She worked with four leaders of the Progres ...
worked in Diefenbaker's office during his second time as Opposition Leader, and has said of him, "He brought a lot of firsts to Canada, but a lot of it has been air-brushed from history by those who followed." Historian Michael Bliss, who published a survey of the Canadian Prime Ministers, wrote of Diefenbaker:
From the distance of our times, Diefenbaker's role as a prairie populist who tried to revolutionize the Conservative Party begins to loom larger than his personal idiosyncrasies. The difficulties he faced in the form of significant historical dilemmas seem less easy to resolve than Liberals and hostile journalists opined at the time. If Diefenbaker defies rehabilitation, he can at least be appreciated. He stood for a fascinating and still relevant combination of individual and egalitarian values ... But his contemporaries were also right in seeing some kind of disorder near the centre of his personality and his prime-ministership. The problems of leadership, authority, power, ego, and a mad time in history overwhelmed the prairie politician with the odd name.
Honorary degrees
Diefenbaker received several honorary degrees
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...
in recognition of his political career:
See also
* List of people from Prince Albert
This is a list of notable people who are from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan whether born, raised, or have spent a large part or formative part of their life and or career in that city. Colloquially known as Prince Albertans.
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* Diefenbunker
* " Dief Will Be the Chief Again"
References
Explanatory notes
Citations
Bibliography
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* Bothwell, Robert. ''Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the world 1945-1984'' (2007)
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* Granatstein, J. L. ''Canada 1957-1967: The years of uncertainty and innovation'' (1986), the major scholarly survey
* Kyba, Patrick. and Wendy Green-Finlay, "John Diefenbaker as prime minister," in D. C. Story and R. Bruce Shepard, eds. ''The Diefenbaker Legacy: Canadian Politics, Law and Society since 1957'' (1998): 57–70.
* McKercher, Asa. "Diefenbaker's World: One Canada and the History of Canadian–American Relations, 1961–63." ''The Historian'' 75.1 (2013): 94-120
online
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* Robinson, H. Basil. ''Diefenbaker's World: A Populist in Foreign Affairs'' (U of Toronto Press, 1989)
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* Spencer, Dick. ''Trumpets and drums : John Diefenbaker on the campaign trail'' (1994
online
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Online sources
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Further reading
* Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond, and John English. "The Diefenbaker Years 1957-63." in ''Canada Since 1945'' (University of Toronto Press, 2018). pp 181–252; university textbook
* Boyko, John. ''Cold fire: Kennedy's northern front'' (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2016)
* Carter, Mark. "Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights and the Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty: The Notwithstanding Clause and Fundamental Justice as Touchstones for the Charter Debate." ''Saskatchewan Law Review'' 82 (2019): 121
online
* Cavell, Janice, and Ryan M. Touhey, eds. ''Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era'' (UBC Press, 2018).
* Empey, Sarah. "John G. Diefenbaker and Cross Border Relations During the Bomarc Missile Crisis." ''Waterloo Historical Review'' 8 (2016)
online
* Hilliker, John. "The Politicians and the 'Pearsonalities': The Diefenbaker Government and the Conduct of Canadian External Relations", in ''Canadian Foreign Policy: Historical Readings'' ed. J. L. Granatstein (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1993), pp 152–167.
* Kyba, Patrick. ''Alvin: A Biography of the Honourable Alvin Hamilton, PC'' (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1989), pp. 390pp
* McKercher, Asa. "No, Prime Minister: Revisiting Diefenbaker and the 'Pearsonalities'." ''Canadian Journal of History'' 52.2 (2017): 264-289
online
* McKercher, Asa. "Sound and Fury: Diefenbaker, Human Rights, and Canadian Foreign Policy." ''Canadian Historical Review'' 97.2 (2016): 165-194
online
* McKercher, Asa. "The trouble with self-determination: Canada, Soviet colonialism and the United Nations, 1960–1963." ''The International Journal of Human Rights'' 20.3 (2016): 343-364.
* McMahon. Patricia I. ''Essence of Indecision: Diefenbaker's Nuclear Policy, 1957–1963'' (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009
online review
* Molinaro, Dennis. "'Calculated Diplomacy': John Diefenbaker and the Origins of Canada's Cuba Policy." in ''Our place in the sun'' (University of Toronto Press, 2016) pp. 75–95.
* Manulak, Daniel. "Blood Brothers: Moral Emotion, the Afro-Asian-Canadian Bloc, and South Africa's Expulsion from the Commonwealth, 1960–1." ''Canadian Historical Review'' (2021): e20200041.
* Morris-Hurl, Rebecca. "Diefenbaker's Canada: A Vision for Human Rights and Multiculturalism in the Speeches from the Throne." in ''Canada and Speeches from the Throne'' (2020)
online
* Neary, Peter. "High Commissioner JJS Garner on Joey Smallwood versus John Diefenbaker, 1959." ''Newfoundland and Labrador Studies'' 32.1 (2017): 229-240
online
* Parker, Oliver. "Canadian Concerns of a Different Kind of Brexit: Britain's First Application to the EEC and Canada's Commonwealth Appeal." ''The Round Table'' 108.1 (2019): 81-85.
* Story, D. C. and R. Bruce Shepard, eds. ''Diefenbaker legacy: Canadian politics, law and society since 1957". (Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, 1998). 13 essays by experts.
* Stevenson, Michael D. "George Drew, the Law of the Sea, and the Diefenbaker Government, 1957-1963." ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'' 31.2 (2020): 326-349.
* Urban, Michael Crawford. "A fearful asymmetry: Diefenbaker, the Canadian military and trust during the Cuban missile crisis." ''Canadian Foreign Policy Journal'' 21.3 (2015): 257-271
online
* Wiseman, Nelson. "Minority Governments: The Diefenbaker-Pearson Years." in ''Partisan Odysseys'' (University of Toronto Press, 2020) pp. 67–82.
External links
Political Biography from the Library of Parliament
an
Diefenbaker's electoral results
CBC Digital Archives – Dief the Chief
1960 Commencement Address at DePauw University
''Dief''
documentary film, National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
''Dief the Chief''
Canadian political dictionary entry
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