Just Watch Me

by John English

  Trudeau opened the campaign with a declaration that his government was “closer to the people” than any other in Canadian history. At his nomination in Mount Royal, his hair was stylishly swept back and the baldness at the front more exposed, with Laurier, rather than Caesar, now the model. He wore a conservative blue suit and white shirt, strikingly unlike the casual leather garb that had horrified political organizers when he showed up for the nomination in the same riding in 1965. The trademark red rose endured. Little was casual at the event, as a demurely dressed Margaret stood in her preselected place and aides crowding the aisles handed out autographed photographs of Trudeau. “As I look at the vitality of Canada today,” Trudeau told his constituents, “I see a country which has never before believed as much in itself, never shared such a strong sense of self-confidence, never looked forward with such optimism. Never has Canada been itself to this same degree.”3 The speech and the occasion lacked passion; the tone was reasonable and flat.

  The campaign kickoff, especially the statement from Liberal Party national director Torrance Wylie that the government would participate in a “dialogue with the people,” not an election campaign, horrified Senator Keith Davey. A pin-striped, ebullient backroom legend, Davey, whose buttonholing and berating had guided the Grits to political success in Ontario during the Pearson years, regarded the efforts of Wylie and the other organizers as thoroughly amateur. Davey was on a so-called national campaign committee, but he soon realized it would play no significant role in the election.* Indeed, Trudeau, to Davey’s surprise and disapproval, indicated that government business would continue as usual over the next two months, with the Cabinet meeting as it normally did on Wednesdays.4

  Lacking a specific platform, the Liberals basked in generalities and favourable early polls. At first the approach seemed to work. The government exulted in reflected glory during the Canada-Soviet Hockey Series in late September, when Paul Henderson scored the dramatic winning goal with 34 seconds left in the game—Canadian hockey’s greatest triumph. Soon, however, the celebrations stopped, and Canadians became cranky. The Liberal campaign began to sputter. Campaign co-chairs Jean Marchand and Bob Andras rarely communicated with each other, and once Marchand realized he was in trouble in his own constituency, he virtually abandoned his role at headquarters and went home to fight his own battle. Campaign manager Bill Lee was no Keith Davey, but he knew the constituencies well. A seasoned political campaigner who had run Paul Hellyer’s campaign for the leadership in 1968, he had the trust of his immediate counterparts and knew that four years of neglect of party workers had taken a toll in the ridings. His role was far less than his title suggested, however, and he became increasingly at odds with Trudeau’s Ottawa office. His pleas that Trudeau become more overtly political went unheard.

  The campaign slogan soon became the butt of crude jokes. One soothing television advertisement romanticized the Canadian landscape while an earnest voice insisted, “The land is strong.” Conservative strategist Dalton Camp mocked it, quipping, “Lalonde is strong.” Then, during a rally in southwestern Ontario, a farmer heckled a Liberal candidate: “If you had any sense you’d know it’s horse shit, not Liberal shit, that makes the land strong.” Davey and his crowd agreed: the Liberal campaign of 1972 lacked the horse shit so essential to politics on the hustings, and he wrote Trudeau a private letter of despair. On many occasions Trudeau accomplished what had seemed impossible in the electric 1968 campaign: he was dull. Charles Lynch of Southam News, one of the more sympathetic journalists, complained that he denied “his audiences a chance to explode while he is speaking: he turns his sentences down at the end, rather than up…. What he seeks to convey is controlled excitement and unabashed pride in his accomplishments.” By mid-October his pride had created a fall.5

  Eric Kierans, who had left Trudeau’s Cabinet in April 1971 but remained a very disgruntled Liberal MP, now publicly broke with the Liberals. He was a maverick, an economic nationalist who believed that John Turner’s 1972 budget reflected the Finance Department’s essential conservatism and its blindness to the sale of Canadian resources to foreigners. He wrote a preface to Louder Voices: Corporate Welfare Bums, a book sponsored by the NDP to promote David Lewis’s campaign. The phrase “corporate welfare bums” had an unexpected but powerful electoral appeal in 1972 as both inflation and unemployment were historically high, and business executives became an easy target. Here was a slogan that worked, and the eloquent Lewis thundered from the podium against corporate privilege. Long an admirer of his fellow Montrealer Lewis, Kierans released an October 16 letter to Trudeau where he said that to vote Liberal would be to “worsen our present problems.”

  Walter Gordon, the dominant influence on the news and editorial pages at the Toronto Star, had supported Trudeau in 1968 after he appeared to agree with statements drafted by Gordon that expressed opposition to the Vietnam War and concern about foreign investment. Now, completely disillusioned with the Trudeau government, Gordon, together with Peter C. Newman, the editor of Maclean’s, who had also lost his early enthusiasm for the prime minister, and political economist Abe Rotstein, formed the Committee for an Independent Canada (CIC). They were soon joined by Eric Kierans, Claude Ryan, publisher Jack McClelland, prominent Alberta Liberal and publisher Mel Hurtig, and over 170,000 other Canadians—all demanding a halt in the growth of foreign ownership. The United States was the source of most of the purchases, and fuelling the rage among Canadian nationalists was the sense that the country’s resources were not only being lost to Canada but contributing to America’s unpopular wars. It was no surprise, then, that Gordon wrote an article in the September Maclean’s condemning the government’s inaction and warning that the first party to endorse the CIC’s principles would “resolve [his] personal dilemma”—and that of others like him. “If Pierre Trudeau does not announce some major changes in his policies,” he warned, “I expect some of us will decide, on the day of the election, that we must put the future of the country first.” This new nationalist movement was highly damaging for the Liberals, and on October 30, multimillionaires Kierans and Gordon both voted socialist.6

  While economic nationalism drew Gordon and Kierans to David Lewis, the NDP leader’s effective attack on “corporate welfare bums” also attracted many less affluent progressive voters, particularly university professors and civil servants, who felt that Trudeau had taken an unexpected turn to the right. Simultaneously, Conservative leader Robert Stanfield’s attack on the Trudeau government’s handling of the economy began to resonate in newspaper columns, television commentary, hair salons, and lunch counters across the country. Kathy Robinson, who was responsible for “first-time voters” in the Liberal campaign, recalls that “unemployment” dominated most of the political meetings.7 Eighteen-year-olds had acquired the vote in 1970 (previously the age had been twenty-one), and they faced more limited employment prospects than their older siblings had a few years earlier. True, the major revision of the unemployment insurance program in 1971 provided far more generous benefits to the 6.2 percent of Canadians who were now unemployed than the 4.2 percent without jobs had received in 1968, and this support undoubtedly kept some Liberal seats. However, the benefits also cost Liberal support among small businesspeople, retirees, and bankers, who believed that Bryce Mackasey’s controversial unemployment reforms had created too many “welfare bums.”8

  As he toured the country with Trudeau, Richard Stanbury, the Liberal Party president, frequently encountered resentment among young people who told him stories about acquaintances who were prospering on the dole. In eastern Ontario, for example, the owner of “a little 5 & 10 Store in Eganville” and his friend complained bitterly about “the lazy welfare bums and all the people who were supposedly unemployed but just wouldn’t work.” Similarly, in a long letter to Toronto Cabinet minister Alastair Gillespie, a constituent listed five “abuses” of the system by her own “acquaintances”—a university graduate who had toured the world for a year, for instance, then d
ecided on his return to “take off” another year and live on the unemployment insurance he was entitled to because he had worked before his travels. Jobs had become scarce, and unemployment offices had few jobs to offer, so the situation permitted the “abuse” to occur. To the Liberals’ considerable embarrassment, the enriched benefits caused a crisis in mid-campaign when it was discovered that their cost was far greater—by as much as $500 million—than the government had predicted in its estimates. Trudeau pointed out correctly that the opposition parties had not only supported the reforms but also initiated some amendments that even increased their generosity. Nevertheless, much damage was done.9

  A candidate is usually the last to sense trouble, and that is what happened in the 1972 campaign. Crowds remained enthusiastic, and Trudeau’s presence still electrified hockey rinks, town halls, and shopping plazas even if his speeches were generally lifeless.* Polls were less frequent than in later years, and politicians relied more on instinct and gossip to judge the political winds. Trudeau himself seemed more relaxed and, initially, more willing to consider advice than he had been in 1968. Margaret was an infrequent but helpful presence, who managed to charm some of her husband’s media critics. Although the Liberals knew they were not as strong as in 1968, Trudeau’s campaign team remained confident. In a surprisingly complacent address to Liberal candidates, Trudeau said: “Other parties may be running against us, they may be trying to catch up with us—I know they won’t—but it’s fairly true to say that we are not really running against them.”10 Most early polls had shown a comfortable Liberal margin of 10 percent, and ten days before election day, campaign official Torrance Wylie still thought that the “most pessimistic count” was 140 Liberal seats. Richard Stanbury estimated that the Liberals had a better chance of picking up 10 seats from the Tories than losing them. The major Quebec organizer predicted 67 seats in Quebec, 11 more than the Liberals held going into the election.

  The final Gallup poll shattered this complacency. Taken the last week of the campaign, it reported a closer race, with the Liberals at 39 percent, the Conservatives at 33 percent, and the NDP at 21 percent. Suddenly, Liberal MPs began to tremble. Trudeau worried that it was too late to reverse the tide, which had clearly turned against him. He swallowed his pride and announced that he had some “candies,” which he began to drop on constituencies his advisers identified as “close.” Shawinigan got a “leisure park,” for instance, and Toronto was promised a major renewal of its bleak harbourfront.* Trudeau’s speeches became more emotional and political, and he began to celebrate with eloquence and passion the grandeur of the Canadian landscape and the spirit of its people. He later said that, at first, he had been “embarrassed to try and win an election this easy way, appealing to people’s feelings.” But he quickly lost that inhibition—and, henceforth, that particular appeal became his charmed political wand.11 The polls also showed that as prime minister, the majority of Canadians had a clear preference for Trudeau over Stanfield, and the Liberal campaign team hoped that this factor would tip the undecided vote in their direction. It didn’t.12

  On election day, Trudeau voted in Mount Royal and then drove with nervous aides to Ottawa. His headquarters were at the Skyline Hotel, where his supporters had partied with such exuberance four years before on the night he became Liberal leader. But the mood was different now, and Trudeau himself seemed shaken when the first returns came in from the Maritimes. The Conservatives had taken a solid lead in the popular vote in all the Atlantic provinces, especially in Stanfield’s native Nova Scotia. When Trudeau arrived at his suite on the twentieth-fifth floor, Quebec had finally brought good tidings, but in Ontario many Liberal seats had already fallen. A despondent Trudeau turned to Stanbury and said, “We must have had a bad government.”13

  Then came western Canada, where Liberal support collapsed: in Manitoba, the party took only 2 seats; in Saskatchewan, only Otto Lang, a former law dean with considerable prestige in the province, survived; and in British Columbia, Margaret Trudeau’s home province, the Liberals won only 4 of the province’s 23 seats. As these disappointing numbers came in one after the other, Trudeau turned to Margaret and said, oddly, “You may be a farmer’s wife sooner than you thought.” She broke into tears, took consolation in a drink, and sat morosely nearby as Pierre thanked his campaign team.

  As leaders must, he called ministers and MPs who had lost their seats. While he made these sad calls, bitterness swelled among his supporters. Some Trudeau assistants became “vituperative,” perhaps the product of a “little too much to drink but probably … even more the traumatic experience of the election results.” Finally, wearing a fresh red rose, Trudeau met the press. With a sombre Margaret at his side, he said the results were inconclusive because the Liberals and the Conservatives were tied at 108 seats. Then he ended his brief remarks with a quotation from “Desiderata,” an iconic text of the sixties counterculture: “Whether or not it is clear to you / no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”14

  Most Liberals strongly disagreed, particularly when Conservative leader Robert Stanfield tried to speed the unfolding with a declaration that Canadians had lost confidence in Trudeau and that the Governor General should call on him, Stanfield, to form a government.* NDP leader David Lewis, whose party had won a record 31 seats, held the balance of power, and he made it clear he would tilt the balance in whatever direction his party’s needs dictated. Although the Liberals had won more of the popular vote (38.42 percent versus 35.02 percent for the Conservatives), they had the plurality in only one province—Quebec. The Conservatives led in every other province, giving Stanfield’s argument for his residence at 24 Sussex considerable merit. His claim was strengthened early the following day, when the Conservatives temporarily gained an extra seat in the election tally, giving the Conservatives 109 seats, compared with 107 for the Liberals, before the vote reverted once again to a tie.

  On Halloween, a shocked Stanbury and other Liberals phoned contacts across the country for reactions to the “trick” Canadians had played on their party. Some despaired: Davey urged immediate resignation, arguing that Stanfield would so botch governing that the Liberals would soon return triumphant. Most, however, wanted Trudeau to cling to power. That decision became much easier when a recount in the partly rural riding of Ontario, east of Toronto, reversed the Conservative win there. The Tories’ strong standing had surprised them as much as the Liberals: they had forgotten to send a scrutineer to the recount, which the Liberals won by only four votes.15 Trudeau’s place in history may have been preserved by a Tory error and fewer Canadians than the fingers on one hand.

  Trudeau always hated losing. He competed fiercely, whether he was shooting rapids, fighting against his fellow student Jean de Grandpré at Brébeuf, debating with René Lévesque at the fabled meetings in Pelletier’s home, or jousting with his far more experienced opponents in the 1968 leadership race. In politics he had never known defeat, and he immediately decided he would not act like a loser in November 1972. He moved aggressively to counter early press analysis that blamed the loss on his personal policies, especially bilingualism, and on a poor campaign. In his first press conference, he rejected the suggestion that bilingualism had caused his defeat but suggested, “If I had the campaign to wage over again, I might give more explanation of the act. It was never intended that every Canadian speak both of the two official languages. I thought that was understood, but it seems it wasn’t.”16 He admitted “failures,” but at no point did he suggest that he step down. Others did. Ross Whicher, a small businessman from Ontario’s rural Bruce riding, called for Trudeau to resign and for Finance Minister John Turner to succeed him. Whicher was never forgiven, but he was not alone in his views. Even campaign manager Bill Lee apparently suggested the same course to Bob Andras, the campaign co-chair.17

  Trudeau acted quickly to stem any momentum for change by telling party officials that he would not resign. At a meeting of the informal political Cabinet (consisting of the ministers respo
nsible for political advice), Stanbury began with a letter indicating that Trudeau wished to remain and intended to learn from the troubling election results. The Cabinet members were polled, and three of them urged that the government should resign. Two had lost their own seats: Labour Minister Martin O’Connell from Toronto and Industry, Trade, and Commerce Minister Jean-Luc Pepin, with whom Trudeau had a long but distant and distrustful relationship. The third was John Turner.18

  The majority of ministers and MPs held firm for Trudeau, but after the election, the prime minister knew that the threads binding the party to him were badly frayed. When he met his full Cabinet on November 2, he faced criticism from ministers on both the left and the right. Manitoba’s James Richardson, scion of the famed Winnipeg financial family, blamed bilingualism for the defeat in the West. To Trudeau’s fury, he also argued that the West shared Quebec’s view that each region must build its own way in a decentralized Canada. External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp criticized the government’s immigration and economic policies, while Bryce Mackasey, the minister of manpower and immigration and a target of the conservative wing of the party, ferociously defended his unemployment insurance changes. Trudeau quickly cut off the fractious debate, telling Richardson that official bilingualism was not negotiable, and because the “other parties were not in a position to solve the issue,” it was “one good reason for the government to stay in office.” He promised better administration, more effective management of the economy, and policies to counter “welfare backlash.” A full and ambitious program to deal with the outstanding issues would soon be ready for Parliament and for Canadians, he said.