Just Watch Me

by John English

  In his study of the Liberal Party from the sixties to the eighties, political scientist Joseph Wearing shows that many politicians around Trudeau became intoxicated with polling and with the belief that “Keynesian economics” would allow them to manipulate the economy: “An election could be called to coincide with an economic boom and a rising trend in the government’s popularity,” he said, “while a judicious reallocation of government expenditures could be applied to mop up any persisting areas of discontent.” But in the seventies, the economy proved it was not so malleable, and public opinion showed itself to be largely independent. In short, voters had minds of their own, and polls came to be seen as “snapshots in time.” Occasionally, as John Diefenbaker memorably said, those soundings of public opinion were more appropriate for dogs than for politicians.2

  Within the Prime Minister’s Office, however, Trudeau’s key advisers were deeply imbued with the belief that there could be a science of politics and public administration. “They created the impression—at least in the eyes of the key volunteers who ran campaigns—that a party organization would not really be necessary for fighting the next election” and that “it could all be done with regional desks and computers.”3 Inside the PMO, Jim Davey, an enthusiast of Marshall McLuhan, systems analysis, and cybernetics, and Quebec adviser Pierre Levasseur took major responsibility for political analysis.* Yet the detailed diary of Senator Richard Stanbury, the party president who conscientiously tried to link Trudeau with the diverse party membership, reports scarcely any dealings with Davey. A lawyer, Stanbury cared deeply about the party and was enmeshed through personal and business ties with the Young Liberals, who had transformed Liberalism in Ontario during the Pearson years by centring the party in Toronto and linking it with media, communications, and business leaders. He recorded numerous meetings with Trudeau, and his comments reveal the gap between the volunteers, elected party officials, and party organizers on the one hand and the PMO and Trudeau’s closest advisers on the other.

  Fresh with visions of making “participatory democracy” more than just campaign rhetoric, Stanbury, with Trudeau’s full encouragement, began a process of consultation with the party in late November 1969, including a major “thinkers’” conference at Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia, which was to produce a guide for grassroots meetings of party activists and ordinary citizens. Liberals also had recent memories of the historic Kingston Conference of 1960, which had played a major role in establishing the reform agenda for Pearson’s governments. The plan was for these meetings to culminate in a policy convention, where the party’s “basic policies” would be set. But the effort failed dismally.4

  Trudeau had ruminated about mass participation and citizen participation in the 1950s, when he played the principal role in the “Rassemblement” in Quebec—an attempt to emulate the mass parties of continental Europe and, more specifically, the citizens’ movement that, under Jean Drapeau, took control of Montreal’s municipal government in 1954 with the platform of cleaning up corruption.5 These dreams lingered, but their realization clashed with the systems approach championed by the new men in the PMO and by many Cabinet ministers, who were skeptical too.

  After a meeting of the “political Cabinet” (a subgroup charged with giving political advice), Stanbury flew with veteran parliamentarian Allan MacEachen of Nova Scotia and the voluble Don Jamieson of Newfoundland to a political meeting in Nova Scotia. To his “consternation,” he discovered that both men felt that “political organization is not particularly important and that, as Don Jamieson … [said], ‘Give me a few thousand dollars to use on specific projects and I’ll get elected for 50 years and elect other people with me.” “No wonder,” the earnest Stanbury wrote, “the Maritimes is in bad shape organizationally.” He was to learn that in much of Canada, patronage remained, as Wilfrid Laurier had earlier complained, the “lifeblood” of the political system—and that lifeblood created the flow of funds for the party in many provinces. Trudeau tried to improve efforts to reform the system of party financing by providing direct grants to constituency organizations and encouraging mass fundraising. And in 1974 his government passed the historic Election Expenses Act, which established election spending limits, regulated political broadcasting, required disclosure of funding, and provided for partial public funding, reflecting Trudeau’s own belief—but certainly not the views of many Liberal partisans—that a broader political process was essential for Canadian democracy to flourish.6

  The attempted democratization of the party conflicted with the trend in the modern state toward the centralization of decision making. At the Harrison Hot Springs Conference, Trudeau had used the rhetoric of participatory democracy, comparing the party to “pilots of a supersonic airplane. By the time an airport comes into the pilot’s field of vision, it is too late to begin the landing procedure. Such planes must be navigated by radar. A political party, in formulating policy, can act as a society’s radar.” The conference itself, he continued, should be a “supermarket of ideas.” Sometimes, however, the supermarket carried unpalatable goods, and when a three-day Liberal Party policy convention began in Ottawa on November 20, 1970, armed guards were everywhere. The memory of Pierre Laporte’s death was fresh, and James Cross was still a prisoner. Under existing party rules, the convention bore responsibility for producing the central party program for the next election. Before it opened, however, Trudeau and Stanbury had reflected on how difficult it was to make participatory democracy work. Stanbury shrewdly observed that there was a tendency among the young and others “to refuse to believe that the Party was effective” and a feeling that “they could be more effective outside parties.” It was a perceptive comment: this trend marked the remainder of the century, and for young and old alike, nongovernmental organizations and “civil society” became their preferred focus of commitment.7

  Despite the attractions of nonpolitical organizations and the threat of chilling temperatures, more than 1,500 party members came to Ottawa, armed with the policy resolutions that had been passed in their constituencies and at regional meetings. The process made political veterans nervous, and Trudeau expressed concern about resolutions passed at a student convention calling for the legalization of marijuana and for abortion on demand. Reflecting his personal views and perhaps his debates with Margaret, he told Stanbury that he was “concerned about both the abortion and the drug questions … and that the changes being demanded would affect the moral fibre of the nation.” Still, Trudeau sighed, if the people were ready for them, “perhaps we should move forward with them.” For his part, Stanbury agreed that some hesitation in these delicate areas was warranted. The convention managed to pass resolutions calling for government sale of marijuana (the way liquor was already sold in provincially operated stores) while defeating a resolution to make possession no longer an offence. Trudeau and others were irritated when many delegates questioned the “authoritarian” response to the FLQ kidnappings, and Trudeau strongly rejected the idea that a board be established to review that response.

  In the end, the convention brought forth a cornucopia of resolutions that were cobbled together by Professor Allan Linden, the convention policy co-chair. Ten months later, Stanbury and Linden presented these resolutions to the political Cabinet in a document entitled “Direction for the Seventies.” The ministers reacted quickly. As Stanbury put it: “The attack was led by Mitchell Sharp and John Turner, with Don Jamieson sometimes being helpful, sometimes being difficult; but all of the Cabinet Ministers obviously worried to some extent about the policy ammunition which the results of the Convention [would] give to the Opposition.” Trudeau did not want to publish the document, but Stanbury and Linden pointed out that the process was part of the Liberal Constitution. There were, Stanbury later wrote, “some high moments of drama—John Turner was terribly intense and hostile; Jean Chrétien and Jean Marchand were by far the best, but we ended up with a consensus that we should go to the Press Conference but then distribute only on requ
est.” The proposed “Liberal Charter for the Seventies,” an election program created through a democratic process within the party, was, in effect, tabled by the ministers. Linden left the meeting “really shaken,” and he soon accepted a judicial appointment. A decade later he said that his dream had died after the October Crisis, when the “centre” asserted its strength and the “Liberal Charter” died.8

  The “centre” held, as it did in other Western democracies in the last decades of the twentieth century. The challenge of “the streets” from Paris to Chicago to Margaret Trudeau’s Simon Fraser University subsided, and politicians returned to the basic questions of how decisions should be made and what role Parliament, the general public, and political leaders should play in making those decisions. Canadian trends reflected international influences. What historian Tony Judt wrote about Europe applies fully to Canada and illustrates why “participatory democracy” never came into its own: “It was not so much the idealism of the sixties that seemed to have dated so very fast as the innocence of those days: the feeling that whatever could be imagined could be done…. Whereas the sixties were marked by the naïve, self-congratulatory impulse to believe that everything happening was new—and everything new was significant—the seventies were an age of cynicism, of lost illusions and reduced expectations.”9 In many ways, the political Trudeau remained part of the sixties, with its innocence and joy in novelty, and found the seventies an uncongenial time.

  The parliamentary reforms introduced by the Trudeau government in its first year were a response to the “continuing demands made on the prime minister for accountability and participation.” Power, then, became more concentrated in the prime minister as the scope of government activities increased. All Western democracies experienced this phenomenon. In the United States, Arthur Schlesinger became troubled when Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon used “the imperial presidency” to widen the Vietnam War without congressional approval. In Britain, Trudeau’s former classmate Robert McKenzie revealed in writings and as a broadcaster how the Labour Party’s democratic structure masked strong oligarchic tendencies and how power was concentrated among the few. And in France, Charles de Gaulle proclaimed his belief that France had become much better governed after constitutional reforms enhanced the power of the French president.10

  We now recognize that the phenomenon of expansion of the “centre” was a response to the greater complexity of government. Political scientist Donald Savoie, for example, claims that Canada and Britain operate “court governments,” where effective power resides with the prime minister and his or her court. Journalist Jeffrey Simpson, with resignation and disappointment, writes about “the friendly dictatorship,” while former prime ministerial adviser Eddie Goldenberg boldly argues that the “buck will continue to stop on the prime minister’s desk and nowhere else.” Although, he writes, “Prime Ministers will continue to be accused of exhibiting dictatorial traits when they set government priorities and make unpopular decisions,” they will receive even greater criticism if they do not appear to be leaders who make decisions. Goldenberg implicitly dismisses calls by Savoie and other academics for greater “accountability” and new relationships between the governed and their governors. During the early Trudeau years, furious debates raged about what political scientist Tom Hockin, later a Conservative Cabinet minister, termed the “apex of power”—the office of the prime minister. Trudeau became the lightning rod for the many who argued that he had arrogantly expanded his office and had created a dictatorship where he and his court aloofly ruled.11

  During the October Crisis, Trudeau’s strength was publicly heralded in the polls. Indeed, a Liberal public opinion survey taken just before the crisis observed that Trudeau was already perceived as a “strong man,” but it warned that “things would be much better off in another election if fewer people felt he was arrogant, dictatorial, and cold.” It was, the analysts continued, “as if these people feel Mr. Trudeau is a little contemptuous of people—that he is living in his own private world (and a pretty plush one at that) and arbitrarily deciding what is both good and bad for everyone else.” Christina McCall, the best journalist of the age, captured how the party felt sidelined by Trudeau’s “private world.” “For the most part,” she wrote, “he seemed to pay little heed to what the party thought.” He brushed aside party loyalists who objected to his cavalier ways with party events and officials. He avoided as much as possible the chicken dinners that party associations relied on for critical campaign funds. Christina Newman recalled his dismissal of opposition MPs as “nobodies” when they were “fifty yards from Parliament Hill,” a remark John Diefenbaker righteously denounced as lacking respect for Parliament. Nor did Trudeau, a former journalist and professor, honour his former vocations. In Newman’s view:

  He was unimpressed when journalists and political scientists began to write that he had created a presidential office in the East block. After all, he was a liberal democrat, with a philosophical position. He knew how much democracy a democracy could stand.

  He neglected the party oldtimers, such as Keith Davey, who had managed Pearson’s campaigns; the clever strategist Jim Coutts; and the former Liberal Party president and campaign organizer John Nichol—even though these men had many friends throughout the party. Moreover, he never consulted party icons such as Jack Pickersgill, whose influence remained substantial at the Rideau Club, and Walter Gordon, who continued to have enormous influence over the editorial and news pages of the powerful Toronto Star.12

  The complaints baffled Trudeau. In his view no Canadian political leader had tried so much and with such sincerity to involve not only the party but also the public in the policy process. His correspondence expanded exponentially to meet the flood of letters addressed to the prime minister, and Trudeau read summaries and, occasionally, individual letters.13 His reforms of the committee system in Cabinet gave ministers more decision-making authority than ever before.* Similarly, the new rules governing procedures in the House of Commons gave greater freedom and responsibility to MPs, particularly in committees, and his promises of more staff, funding, and research capacity for private members freed MPs to focus on both their constituency and their parliamentary responsibilities.

  Most confusing was the voters’ attitude toward his strength. His popularity rose to astonishing heights as he stared down the terrorists during the October Crisis, and memories persisted of Trudeaumania with its excitement, energy, and enthusiasm. Nevertheless, as the prime minister’s first mandate neared its end, he and his closest advisers began to realize that even though Trudeau “comes through as an intelligent (and to many, brilliant) man,” who is “perceived as a strong leader who is decisive,” he had serious political problems. The party pollsters gave dire warnings. “First, he’s coming on a little too hard. The words haughty and disdainful come to mind. Mr. Trudeau just doesn’t care enough about how others feel. As more come to feel this way, more will surely come to feel there is a growing chasm between the Prime Minister and the people. The second [problem] is really related to the first. He is perceived as travelling too much, being a playboy, as not being sufficiently serious about his job. In a perverse way, the people are saying that they don’t like the Prime Minister because he seems to be enjoying himself.” To be sure, Trudeau should enjoy “good times,” but the pollster warned that “it would surely help if he didn’t seem to be having so much pleasure.” He should become “deadly earnest … about serving his country and its people.”14

  Trudeau’s brother, Charles, a shy man, offered some consolation in a generous letter on June 20, 1971, in which he told him how much he admired “everything that you have done for the good of the country, since the days where you were Minister of Justice.” No praise meant more to him.15 Very soon, a flood of photographs appeared, showing Trudeau at his desk, tie pulled open, as he “earnestly” pored over papers. Meanwhile, the fickle moods of public opinion frustrated Trudeau, who increasingly ignored the polls and those who delivered them
.

  Perceptions were not the only problem. The federal government faced fresh challenges after 1968. The Pearson government had used high levels of economic growth and increases in productivity in the early sixties to introduce an astonishing range of federal-sponsored programs, which provincial governments then complemented with initiatives of their own. Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, extended and improved assistance to seniors, student loans, and a sudden increase in general government services all rested on assumptions of increased exports, continued improvements in productivity, and rising fixed investment in business. Reflecting the affluent spirit of the times, Pearson’s government, at the urging of former labour leader Jean Marchand and against the advice of former public servants such as Mitchell Sharp and Bud Drury, extended collective bargaining to most public servants in 1966. The crisis over the Canadian dollar in February 1968, when the Pearson government had almost fallen, signalled that the future would not mirror the past. The effervescence of Trudeaumania cloaked a flat economy in which investment was falling and unemployment was rising. Between 1966 and 1971, unemployment increased from 3.6 percent to 6.4 percent of the labour force. Meanwhile, the federal government began to face the bills from the spending binge it had initiated. The result was immediate government restraint, continual tussles with the provinces about shared-cost programs, and general public disappointment in the new government.16