by Denis Smith
The Liberal Party had given itself new, if confused, vigour in a study conference in September 1960 and a three-day policy rally in January 1961. Resolutions at the rally gave the party a marked interventionist tone and a somewhat less certain nationalist impulse, which Pearson described as moving the party not right, not left, but forward. Ramsay Cook, writing in the Canadian Forum, saw little more than opportunism at work: “Clearly the new Pearson is but the old King – with a dash of Walter Gordon.”143 Meanwhile, preparations went forward for the founding convention of the New Democratic Party, which took place in Ottawa at the end of July. The firebrand premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy Douglas, was elected leader of the party, and a moderately progressive, expansionist, and nationalist program was adopted, including a commitment to the recognition of “two nations … two national cultures” as “the basis of Canadian life.” In his speech to the convention, Douglas accepted Diefenbaker’s recent challenge that the next election would be fought on the issue of free enterprise versus socialism. That, he suggested, was appropriate for a government engaged in sabotaging the CBC and reducing the role of the public sector in favour of private business.144
In Quebec, where the victory of Jean Lesage’s Liberals in the 1960 provincial election had marked the symbolic beginning of the Quiet Revolution, a heady blossoming and transformation of the community was under way. The new Quebec state was engaged in a long-delayed process of secularization and modernization which threatened the shallow roots of Conservative support in the province. The old Union Nationale was shattered, divided, and unlikely to deliver much to the federal party in 1962 or 1963. Without links of his own in the province, Diefenbaker seemed oblivious of what was happening.
The long mid-term parliament had not been totally discouraging for the government. Diefenbaker took satisfaction in the massive wheat sale to China that was confirmed by Alvin Hamilton in March; a measure launching preparations for the country’s centennial celebrations in 1967; and Davie Fulton’s capital punishment bill, which created two categories of murder and limited the death penalty to a narrow range of offences. Thus the prime minister relieved his troubled conscience over Canadian executions, and removed from cabinet most of the detailed reviews of murder convictions that it had faced since 1957. Fleming’s June budget had been expansionist, including an income tax reduction, a promise to use the exchange fund to reduce the premium on the Canadian dollar and increase export sales, and a large anticipated deficit for 1961-62 of more than $800 million. The government continued to juggle – and defer – a range of contentious issues through an unusual number of royal commissions in progress, reporting, or anticipated.145
In March the federal government made new proposals to the provinces for tax-sharing and equalization, suggestions that would end the fifteen-year postwar experiment in centralized tax collection and free the provinces to impose their own taxes at their own levels. Six of the provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, complained at the terms, but Diefenbaker described the scheme as a return to the true principles of confederation, and introduced legislation to bring it into effect after the summer recess. Davie Fulton appeared to be making progress, as well, in his search for agreement with the provinces on a formula for amending the Constitution and bringing it home from Westminster. By December, however, he faced declared opposition to his formula from Quebec and Saskatchewan, and cabinet uncertainty about whether to proceed.
Cold War tension had grown over the summer, after John Kennedy’s face-to-face encounter with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in May, a growing exodus of East Germans to the West through Berlin, and the Soviet Union’s renewed threats to end four-power occupation of the city. The construction of the Berlin wall in August eased the immediate pressures, but the Kennedy administration had meanwhile undertaken large increases in its defence budget and military force commitments to Europe to demonstrate its resolve. Diefenbaker told cabinet late in July that there was an imminent risk of war, and ministers agreed that Canada must demonstrate its solidarity as a member of the Western alliance. In August, cabinet engaged in long discussions over the military budget, Canadian forces in Europe, and the warheads issue. Budgetary limits on defence spending were lifted in the absence of the minister of finance; military manpower ceilings were raised from 120,000 to 135,000; and 3000 additional troops were assigned to Canada’s NATO forces, resulting in increased spending of over $250 million per year. Fleming’s subsequent protests that the rate of inflation, interest rates, and the external value of the dollar would all rise were unavailing. On nuclear weapons – with a Canadian draft agreement ready for their consideration – ministers continued to baulk. Ground-to-air missiles designed for nuclear warheads were scheduled for delivery within a few months to domestic forces and to Canadian contingents in Europe, but the divided cabinet maintained the cautious line that the acceptance of warheads might appear provocative in a time of crisis. In September, after both great powers had resumed nuclear testing, Kennedy gave Canada a pretext for delay by announcing that the United States should, at least temporarily, refrain from providing nuclear weapons to any nations that did not already possess them. Privately, Diefenbaker was torn between his unambiguous commitment to the alliance and his compulsive desire to appease popular sentiment. In mid-September he told Elmer: “The world situation is terrible and people not knowing the situation are loud in their opposition to Canada having any nuclear defence. It is an ostrich-like philosophy which, while adhered to by many sensible people, is most beneficial to the Communists and of course receives their support.” The prime minister remained, uneasily, among the ostriches.146
When the House of Commons resumed sittings in September, members knew that a general election was approaching, and they rushed to complete debate on the estimates. For ten days the government had no legislation to present, and when the House prorogued on September 28 only a few measures had been adopted. The historian John Saywell commented on the long session of 1961 that “organization and procedure deteriorated. Legislation was introduced, disappeared, and reappeared weeks or months later. There seemed to be an almost complete absence of communication between government and opposition, with both sides trying to catch the other off base.”147 One day in May the House engaged in extended discussion about whether it had any business before it, since Gordon Churchill had neglected to put anything on the order paper.148 Regular attendance in the House fell off, even during major debates.
The government was distracted by its accumulating difficulties and the prospect of another election in the face of high unemployment and prairie drought. On July 30, when Diefenbaker asked his cabinet for advice about an election date, the replies were discouraging. George Hees wondered how the public would react to a dissolution when the government enjoyed so large a majority. Ellen Fairclough said, “Don’t go now.” Angus Maclean insisted that if unemployment weren’t reduced, it “will destroy us.” Waldo Monteith complained that Coyne “wasn’t handled the right way.” Noël Dorion asked: “Why did you not give (Coyne) a chance to be heard?” Léon Balcer warned that Conservative members were not working in their constituencies. Only two ministers, Michael Starr and Gordon Churchill, recommended an election in 1961 – and, for both, the reasons were defensive. Starr believed that unemployment would be slightly lower in the autumn, and that “if we go now we can say measures are taking effect. If we don’t we will have no answers to increased unemployment.” In the meantime, the new socialist party “will make great inroads in Ont.” Churchill agreed that there would be no fall in unemployment in the coming months, and that “nothing will be heard this winter but what socialist party will do.” He conceded that “we are losing ground” in the House of Commons.149 Facing that divided advice, Diefenbaker chose to wait until the spring of 1962.
When the lieutenant governor of Quebec died in October 1961, Diefenbaker seized the chance to lift the hapless Paul Comtois from cabinet and deposit him in Quebec City. That, in turn, necessitated some kind of cabinet shuffle – wh
ich might also provide him with a refreshed team for the forthcoming general election. As usual in such situations, the prime minister let rumour and the passage of time feed political speculation through a long autumn. The Toronto Telegram and the Ottawa Citizen suggested that Fleming would be leaving Finance because of his ineptitude in the Coyne affair, his string of budget deficits, and his abrasive relations with the press over British negotiations to enter the European Common Market.150 Diefenbaker took no steps to deny the speculation, which stimulated Fleming’s “smouldering resentment” against him. Diefenbaker never discussed the subject with Fleming. “Had he been a straightforward man,” Fleming wrote, “I would have expected him to discuss the situation in a friendly and realistic manner with the person most concerned … But Diefenbaker was not a straightforward man.”151
The prime minister had several other thoughts as well: elevating Noël Dorion to a senior portfolio and bringing in Jacques Flynn as concessions to Quebec; shifting Davie Fulton (another of the usual suspects) to a lesser portfolio; and granting the honorary title of privy councillor to the retired premier of Ontario, Leslie Frost. On December 19 Diefenbaker suggested to cabinet that there would be political benefit in Quebec if the changes – still unspecified – were to take place in Quebec City, where the governor general would be spending the holiday in residence at the Citadel. Ministers agreed, and the trek was announced to the press for December 28. That only heightened the gossip, still mostly centred on the fate of the minister of finance.152
On December 27 Diefenbaker summoned Fleming to his office for a chat, and when Fleming arrived at the East Block he was greeted by a crowd of reporters looking for drama. Fleming and Diefenbaker said nothing to the press after the meeting, but reports floated that the minister had faced down the prime minister and held on to his portfolio.153 Fleming himself insisted in his memoirs that the meeting was cordial and that Diefenbaker rejected any thought of moving him out of Finance. The discussion had centred on whether there should be a budget before a spring election, and if so, what it should contain. Fleming said that there must be a budget, that it must not include further tax cuts, and that the deficit must be contained within reasonable limits. Diefenbaker, Fleming wrote, “listened intently, asked various questions, and did not commit himself.”154 But the minister left confident that he would remain in Finance.
Fleming had underestimated the prime minister’s deviousness and sense of insecurity. Diefenbaker’s handwritten jottings on the cabinet changes, dated the same day, identify Fleming twice as his proposed new president of the Privy Council, which would either have been an empty ministry without portfolio or, in Fleming’s eyes when he reflected earlier about the job, a deputy prime ministership in charge of cabinet organization. That would allow George Nowlan to move to Finance, Davie Fulton to go to National Revenue, and either Noël Dorion or Jacques Flynn to take Justice.155 The entire reconstruction of the cabinet depended on removing Fleming from Finance. Perhaps without realizing that, Fleming in fact forestalled Diefenbaker’s plans simply by talking about his ideas for the next budget. The Chief – who lacked the executioner’s nerve – could not bring himself to disappoint Fleming. And without that opening, the prime minister’s whole scheme collapsed.156
The Cabinet Maker
But the excursion to Quebec City was still on. Most of the cabinet departed from Ottawa by train that afternoon, accompanied by a gaggle of expectant journalists. On December 28 Governor General Vanier performed an anticlimactic ceremony, swearing in Dorion as president of the Privy Council (while he remained secretary of state) and Flynn as minister of mines and technical surveys. No ministers were shifted, demoted, or dismissed, and Quebec was once more insulted with minor pickings. At a press conference later in the day, Diefenbaker’s best efforts could not disguise the embarrassment of the occasion. The train that evening carried a puzzled and disspirited cabinet back to Ottawa.
The editorials lambasted Diefenbaker for his missteps. Oakley Dalgleish’s doubting Globe commented that “the Conservative Party cannot be anything but dismayed at this indication of division in the Cabinet”; the Ottawa Citizen suggested that “the Cabinet shuffle that never was amounts to the heaviest personal defeat Prime Minister Diefenbaker has suffered since he won the leadership of his Party just five years ago,” and judged Fleming and Fulton to be “the architects of his defeat. They have told the Prime Minister what to do, and he has meekly bowed to their will.” The Liberal Toronto Star commented that Fleming had put up with “weeks of shabby treatment” never once repudiated by the prime minister, but had triumphed when he stood firm: “Mr. Diefenbaker’s efforts, like the theatrical excursion of his Cabinet to Quebec City, fizzled like a damp squib. As he has so often in the past, the Prime Minister back-pedalled in the face of strong resistance.”157
When the House reassembled after the holiday, the most bitter attack on Diefenbaker was delivered by a Liberal MP from Quebec, Lucien Cardin. He focused not on Fleming and Fulton, but on the hollow propaganda of the Quebec visit.
It is unfortunate that apparently the Prime Minister does not want to give his Quebec ministers the authority and responsibility that were enjoyed and used so well under the successive Liberal administrations. It is extremely insulting to see how offhandedly the Prime Minister looks down on Quebecers as imbeciles, incapable of making any distinction between light and shadow, in such an essential and important field as the management of their own country.
The Prime Minister must greatly underestimate the intelligence, the temperament and the patient yet eager determination of French Canada to play fully and effectively the part to which it is entitled in the administration of the country, since he has chosen to come and laugh at us on our own doorstep at a time of social and political upheavals.
The prime minister, Cardin claimed, had made an “odious” visit to Quebec City, and his “demagogic and old-fashioned tactics” had undermined the real progress being made towards national unity. If members were scandalized to see a mere back-bencher speak of the prime minister “in somewhat less than flattering tones,” well, the answer to that was that “the Prime Minister has been asking for it for a very long time.”
This is simply because he does not act like a real prime minister. He acts more like a silent movie hero who overacts his performance. The Prime Minister’s attitude in this house lacks the dignity and the decorum so severely guarded by all previous incumbents of that high office, including all the Conservative prime ministers. I feel the time has come when the Prime Minister must be reminded that in our democratic form of government the Prime Minister is not above the truth. The office of prime minister is not above the law, nor is it above the rules of this house or above the standards of political decency, and it certainly is not above criticism.158
The scent of hatred was in the air.
CHAPTER 12
A Government Disintegrates
1962-1963
WHEN HAROLD MACMILLAN VISITED OTTAWA IN APRIL 1961 AFTER his first meeting with President Kennedy, he left Diefenbaker with a fresh anxiety. Macmillan reported that Kennedy would welcome British association with the European Economic Community, which then included the six nations of France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy. Britain’s efforts to organize the European Free Trade Area, or “outer seven” – among itself and Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, and Portugal – had failed to produce substantial benefits, while the Common Market of “the six,” under French and German leadership, was beginning to demonstrate its potential. The community, it appeared, would become a formidable economic and political force, inspired by the vision of Franco-German reconciliation, the ancient memory of a single Europe, and the challenge of resistance against the communist threat from eastern Europe. By the spring of 1961 Macmillan had decided that Britain and the seven (or perhaps Britain alone) should seek closer ties with the community; and now Kennedy had urged him on.1
For both George Drew and John Diefenba
ker, this was a shock that hinted at British betrayal. Diefenbaker had invested his political capital in promoting Canada’s ties with Britain and the Commonwealth. A new British commitment to Europe, he feared, would have both symbolic and practical effects, relegating the Commonwealth to the background and possibly threatening Canada’s preferential access to the United Kingdom market. Canada’s delicate effort to balance its economic dependence on the United States would be upset, and Britain would be seen to rebuke the sentimental commitments of the Canadian Tory leader and his party. That signal of British indifference might be particularly damaging during the coming general election campaign. From June 1961 onwards the Diefenbaker government engaged in a frantic effort to discover Britain’s intentions, to protect what it saw as Canada’s interests, to dissuade Britain from its goal, and then – uncertainly – to subvert the formal British application for admission to the community.
The confused nature of the Canadian campaign was a product of Diefenbaker’s unreconciled emotions: his genuine affection for the United Kingdom, his sense of hurt and his desire to show it, his vague fear of economic injury, and his simultaneous unwillingness to accept criticism for his stance. It was also (and not by chance) an echo of Lord Beaverbrook’s campaign in the pages of his Daily Express against British entry into Europe. Drew and Beaverbrook shared their views on the subject, and Drew provided Diefenbaker with frequent reports from the Daily Express. As the Beaver ranted in London, Diefenbaker seemed little more than his colonial sales agent, hawking the same old imperial dream from British North America. The Canadian government’s campaign was controversial from the beginning, and especially upsetting to the old core of Conservative supporters because it publicly criticized Great Britain. It was disturbing also to others – including many businessmen and the Liberal opposition – who felt that obstruction would undermine rather than benefit Canada’s political and commercial links with the United Kingdom.2
