Let's be Honest about Our Late Leaders

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today's Globe and Mail, is an interesting comment by Joseph Martin, Director of Canadian business history at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070611.CODIEF11/TPStory/?query=Joseph+Martin

'ROGUE' OR CONSERVATIVE REFORMER?
Let's be honest about 'Honest John'
Fifty years after Diefenbaker's first election as prime minister, it's time for a re-evaluation of this remarkable Canadian

JOSEPH MARTIN
June 11, 2007

At a dinner in January to honour Sir John A. Macdonald, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated, "If ever there was a Conservative prime minister whose reputation needs to be reclaimed from Liberal slander, it is the Chief, 'Honest John'." He was referring to John George Diefenbaker, Canada's 13th prime minister and the only prime minister whose name is neither of French nor English origin.

The Diefenbaker reputation does need to be reappraised not only in light of "Liberal slander," but also in light of the critical view of him promoted by the central Canadian media and academic establishments, as well as the criticisms of the man's own party.

A half century ago, on June 10, 1957, John Diefenbaker led the Progressive Conservative Party to unanticipated national victory, the party's first electoral victory in more than a quarter of a century. In doing so, he contributed mightily to democracy in Canada by defeating a Liberal Party that had grown arrogant and contemptuous of democratic processes.

Diefenbaker's tumultuous six years as prime minister led to his description as a "renegade" and a "rogue" by journalists and academics. But he was really a Conservative reformer who, like Sir John A. Macdonald, brought his party back into the mainstream of Canadian political life and, thus, offered the Canadian people a viable choice.

Diefenbaker became a Conservative at an early age and held to his convictions in what was then a key Liberal stronghold - the province of Saskatchewan. He suffered five successive electoral defeats at the federal, provincial and municipal level but, in 1940, he was finally successful, becoming one of 39 Conservative MPs to win nationally, and one of three to win on the Prairies. He never lost his own riding in 11 subsequent elections.

In 1956 he was elected leader of his party and led it to what many deemed to be impossible - a minority victory - in 1957. In 1958, he led the party to the largest majority in Canadian history. In 1962, his party won another minority government in spite of the vote splintering caused in Quebec by the Ralliement des Créditistes led by Réal Caouette.

In 1963 and 1965 Diefenbaker held the Liberals to minority positions.

This is a remarkable record. He left his successors a legacy and majority party status in English-speaking Canada - strong in the West, in Western Ontario, as well as in the Maritimes.

John Diefenbaker was able to do all of this, not only because he was a magnificent political campaigner but also because he was a visionary: He envisioned One Canada - an unhyphenated Canadianism - as well as a Northern vision, and a belief in human rights both domestically and internationally.

When the Conservatives were elected in 1957 they had major problems to deal with, including an unpredicted economic recession with no recovery plans in place, a senior bureaucracy committed to the Liberal Party, a governor of the Bank of Canada with unusual ideas, and difficult decisions that had been postponed (the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, for example). On top of these problems, the Conservatives were totally inexperienced in government.

Since there were deficits during his term as prime minister, Diefenbaker's government has been accused of economic mismanagement. The accusations are laughable in light of subsequent deficits by other governments. Two programs caused the deficits and few would challenge their validity: a new, universal hospitalization program, and an enhanced Old Age Security program.

Diefenbaker was fiscally conservative, personally, and watched expenses carefully. The most dramatic evidence of this was his decision regarding the Arrow. The fighter jet was technologically out of date and far too expensive; the previous Liberal government had decided to cancel it and planned to announce that decision after it won re-election. Even in the size of his cabinet, smaller than those of his predecessors, the man was prudent.

Rather than be praised for his thrift, however, Diefenbaker found himself criticized - first for his dismissal of James Coyne, the governor of the Bank of Canada; then for the devaluation of the Canadian dollar that had been trading at $1.01 (U.S.). Although Mr. Coyne's dismissal may not have been well-managed, most leading economists, business people and premiers already had been calling for his termination due to his tight money/high interest rate policies and his opposition to foreign investment and consumer credit.

The government's decision to devalue the dollar to 92.5 cents (U.S.) was a major factor in Diefenbaker's 1963 defeat, but it looks quite reasonable in hindsight.

From the Suez Canal crisis of 1956 to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, Diefenbaker also was guided by a desire to see a counterweight to the dominance of the United States within the free world.

In the Suez crisis, Diefenbaker and his Conservatives opposed the American position against Britain and France, and strongly rejected then-prime minister Louis St. Laurent's likening the role of the two European allies in Suez to that of the Soviet Union in its recent crushing of the Hungarian uprising.

Six years later, prime minister Diefenbaker thought the U.S. was being inconsistent in its attitude toward Fidel Castro in Cuba in contrast to the attitude it had earlier adopted toward Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. Nor did Diefenbaker like Canada being taken for granted in that crisis and being treated as a non-sovereign state by U.S. president John Kennedy. Like Arnold Toynbee, who is said to have coined the phrase, Diefenbaker's approach was "no annihilation without representation."

The issue was compounded the following year when Diefenbaker opposed nuclear arms being installed in Canada, while the Liberals, under Lester Pearson, supported the idea. With help from the U.S. government, the Liberals managed to win a minority that year.

In between Suez and the Cuban missiles, Diefenbaker took important positions on international trade, Soviet tyranny and human rights in South Africa. In terms of trade, he wanted less reliance on U.S. markets, and was partially successful. He attacked Nikita Khrushchev's 1960 United Nations speech appealing for worldwide liberation from colonialism with the provocative query, "How many human beings have been liberated by the USSR?"

Diefenbaker's fundamental commitment to equal rights was most evident at the 1961 Commonwealth Conference. There the Canadian prime minister stood with the non-white nations against the apartheid regime of Hendrik Verwoerd, arguing that racial equality was a Commonwealth principle and precipitating South Africa's decision to withdraw its membership.

John Diefenbaker has been much maligned. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography states that he had "little more than two years of success." This is an extraordinary and misleading manner in which to describe a prime minister who governed effectively, stood up to American pressures, brought in the Canadian Bill of Rights, challenged the apartheid system and gave Canadians a vision of a united nation. The effect of all this, in political terms, was to re-establish a national party that had become moribund, something his successors to the present day can thank him for, and to contribute substantially to the preservation of democracy in Canada.

Fifty years after his first election as prime minister, it's time for a re-evaluation of the career of this remarkable Canadian.

JOSEPH MARTIN
Director of Canadian business history at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

I agree with Martin that Diefenbaker was right to fire Coyne and cancel the Arrow.

I am less certain that there was much merit in his foreign policy – in fact I think Howard Green was amongst the very worst foreign ministers Canada ever had.  (That's a fairly large group, comprising, as it does, Mr. Green, Allan J MacEachan (who cared nothing for foreign policy but, rather, who used the department as a political tool), André Ouellet, Jean Chrétien and Pink Lloyd Axworthy.)  Diefenbaker's foreign policy seemed, to me, unfocused.  He knew what he didn't like but I never detected a vision for 'Canada in the world.'

But Diefenbaker really brings to mind a political science lesson I learned about 40 years ago.  Waaaaay back then I was a reasonably attractive (to young women) fellow and I had a pretty, vivacious girlfriend.  In those days I, generally, favoured Pearson over Diefenbaker – on a wide range of policy grounds.  I was, however, appalled when Pearson brought Marchand, Pelletier and Trudeau into his government (1965).  I understood Marchand and Pelletier but I thought then, as I do now, that Trudeau was a tragic error – he was, as I explained to my girlfriend, not a Liberal, not at least in the way Laurier, King or St Laurent would understand that word and he most certainly was not a liberal either.  He was, I understood way back then, a substandard human being – a third rate man with a first rate education but devoid of character and real ability.

“How,” I asked, when she told me how she planned to vote the 1968 general election, “could you even consider a vote for Trudeau?  I admit that I'm no great fan of 'Dief the Chief' but he's infinitely superior, in every possible respect to Trudeau.  If you cannot abide Diefenbaker and his Tories then you have an honest choice in Tommy Douglas' NDP.”

“Have you looked at their feet?” she asked.

I hadn't and I didn't, really, understand the point.

“They – Diefenbaker and Douglas – wear boots!  They're old!  We need new men with new ideas – not more and more of the old ideas favoured by old men.”

The 'boots' were the same sort of fine, soft leather ankle high 'dress boots' worn by genetlemen of a certain age - those who 'came of age' in the Edwardian era: men like Diefenbaker, Douglas, Pearson and my grandfathers, but not young 'modern' men like my uncles or Pierre Trudeau. 

She was right, of course, as the 1968 general election proved.  Trudeau was new – he was Kennedyesque and we Canadians (always slavering after what the Americans have or had) wanted 'our own' Kennedy – no matter what his political pedigree.

That being said, John Diefenbaker is much underrated because, I think, he and his accomplishments (rather than his highly visible failures) are too little studied.

Diefenbaker was the first PM to have to face up to declining Canadian support for military spending which coincided with huge increases in the rate of defence product related inflation – which meant that new/replacement weapon systems cost more and more and more, increasing faster than capabilities (and, consequently, lower quantities required).  He cancelled the Arrow at the insistence of his senior bureaucrats, admirals, generals and some of his air marshals.  The aircraft was good but not great and there was no market, beyond Canada, for it – it was on track to destroy DND by sucking all the money away from all other projects.  He introduced an 'austerity programme' across government which had the primary aim of finding money for DND's budgets.  The Pearson/Hellyer integration/unification debacle was initiated because they, too, wanted to find ways to give DND what the admirals, generals and air marshals said they needed from within the current budget because Canadians would not support increased defence spending – new social programmes were top of the national priority list, a list created by those who survived the Great Depression and fought World War II.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

However how he cancelled the Arrow destroyed the aerospace industry here for a long time and wiped out any hope in getting any return on our investment.

 

[Edward Campbell]

However how he cancelled the Arrow destroyed the aerospace industry here for a long time and wiped out any hope in getting any return on our investment.

I disagree.

Our aerospace industry is healthy enough - as healthy as its competitors, anyway.  This report, in Fig. 6-16 indicates that we have at least some good export markets.

Bombardier is a global aerospace company and while we may no longer dominate the utility turboprop market, as we did in the '70s, we are doing as well as any small country should expect.

In my opinion (and that's all it is - I'm in danger of straying out of my lanes) AV Roe expanded too far, too fast into too many sectors in too many places and when the Arrow project was cancelled the company collapsed because it was too fragile.

 

[pbi]

I tend to agree with ERC here. My grandfather was a toolmaker with AVRoe around the time of the Arrow fiasco. He left AVRoe and went on to MacDonell Douglas, where he worked for years. Bombardier, deHavilland, Spar and others either survived the Arrow or came later. I think the Arrow probably hurt our prestige and cost us some bright minds, and certainly damaged AV Roe, but it didn't destroy thte areospace industry.

Cheers

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Well let me see there was the CF100 in 1949, the single Otter in 51 and the twin in 65  and then if I recall correctly the next Canadian aircraft to go into full production was the Dash7 in 1975

So the aerospace industry was able to produce 2 successful designs from 1952-1975 with the next being the Dash 8 I believe, I would consider that our aerospace industry took a major hit.

They could have curtailed the Arrow program and just finished the 5 aircraft and used them for testing and promotion. Then clean up AV Roe and keep much of the people here. My understanding is that the people that designed the Beaver and the Otter left and went to Cessna and designed the Caravan, plus many of the people also went to the US space program.

 

[Blackadder1916]

So the aerospace industry was able to produce 2 successful designs from 1952-1975 with the next being the Dash 8 I believe, I would consider that our aerospace industry took a major hit.

The aerospace industry is/was more than just about designing and selling complete aircraft.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1SEC815645

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Well considering they designed and produced the Beaver , CF100 and the Otter between 48-51 I would say it's a good indicator. I understand there is more to the industry than just new builds, in fact small aircraft new builds happen all the time, mind you built around a old serial number plate.

 

[Bane]

I would not go so far as Mr. Campbell in exalting the virtues of Dief., but I do think that a more balanced view of his Prime Minister-ship is needed.  I'm not a PC or CPC guy, but he has taken far to much heat for the Arrow cancellation and not enough praise for putting a little democratic steam back in the engine of Canada after two decades + of Liberal governments, also let us not forget that it was he who in 1960 brought in the Bill of Rights.   

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm resurrecting an old thread rather than starting a new one because this, while not about "Honest John" is about a dead and misunderstood (or maybe just misrepresented) prime minister of Canada.


I often agree in part with David Frum but only rarely am I with him pretty nearly 100%; this is one of those rare occasions when I agree, pretty much completely, with his analysis, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the National Post, which was presented at a recent public debate:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/03/23/david-frum-the-disastrous-legacy-of-pierre-trudeau/

David Frum: The disastrous legacy of Pierre Trudeau

Author and columnist David Frum participated Tuesday in one of the Royal Ontario Museum’s series of  “history wars” debates, on the resolution, “Pierre Trudeau was a disaster for Canada.” His debating partner was John English, the former Liberal Member of Parliament and the distinguished biographer of Pierre Trudeau. Following is the text of his opening remarks.

David Frum  Mar 23, 2011

I could win this debate with just two words: plaid suits.

Canada elected Pierre Trudeau on the understanding that Trudeau would continue to wear his 1960s skinny lapels and skinny ties. Trudeau reneged, and in 1972 his career was appropriately very nearly terminated.

The only thing that saved him: Trudeau’s opponent wore plaid suits too.
Under the strict rules of debate, my opponent Professor English can win if he proves that Trudeau was something less than a disaster for Canada: a disappointment or even a misfortune perhaps. I hope you will hold him – and Trudeau – and Canada to a higher standard. I hope you will require him to prove that Pierre Trudeau was affirmatively a good thing for Canada, a successful prime minister.

A few years ago, I took my children to visit battlefields of the First World War. All bloomed peaceful and benign in the summer sunshine. You’d never know that a century before, human beings had crouched in terror in these trenches, that here bullets had shattered human heads, doctors had amputated human limbs, bomb blasts had buried human beings alive, and that rats had feasted on human bodies.

When we look back on the past from a distance, everything fades and blurs. It was all so long ago. The dead would be dead by now anyway. Wasn’t the situation really very complicated? We are here and warm and comfortable. No point wasting time in futile regrets. Off we wander to view the next sight.

But if we are to understand history, we have to understand it as it was lived.

Canada today is a very successful country. It has suffered less from the global economic crisis than any other major economy.

So Canadians may be tempted to be philosophical about disasters in their own past. Hasn’t all come out right in the end? Of course you could say the same about the invasions of Ghengis Khan.

I don’t draw any personal comparison between Pierre Trudeau and Ghengis Khan, obviously. But I want to stress: Canada’s achievement overcoming Trudeau’s disastrous legacy should not inure Canadians to how disastrous that legacy was.

Three subsequent important prime ministers – Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper – invested their energies cleaning up the wreckage left by Pierre Trudeau. The work has taken almost 30 years. Finally and at long last, nobody speculates any more about Canada defaulting on its debt, or splitting apart, or being isolated from all its major allies.

Yet through most of the adult lives of most people in this room, people in Canada and outside Canada did worry about those things.

And as you enjoy the peace, stability and comparative prosperity of Canada in the 2010s just consider – this is how Canadians felt in the middle 1960s. Now imagine a political leader coming along and out of ignorance and arrogance despoiling all this success. Not because the leader faced some overwhelming crisis where it was hard to see the right answer. But utterly unnecessarily. Out of a clear blue sky. Like a malicious child on the beach stomping on the sand castle somebody else had worked all morning to build.

That was the political record of Pierre Trudeau.

I want to examine the Trudeau record in 3 dimensions: What Trudeau did to the Canadian economy, what Trudeau did to Canada’s standing in the world, and what Trudeau did to Canadian political stability.

I’ll conclude by offering some thoughts about the personal and intellectual traits that animated Trudeau’s destructive career. And I hope you’ll agree with me at the end that Trudeau deserves at least this much credit: There was nothing small-scale or parochial about him. As a political wrecker, he was truly world class.

***​

Pierre Trudeau inherited a strong, growing and diversified Canadian economy.

When Trudeau at last left office for good in 1984, Canadians were still feeling the effects of Canada’s worst recession since the Great Depression. Eight years later, the country would tumble into another and even worse recession.

The two recessions 1981-82 and 1992-93 can both fairly be laid at Trudeau’s door.

Pierre Trudeau took office at a moment when commodity prices were rising worldwide. Then as now, rising commodity prices buoyed the Canadian economy. Good policymakers recognize that commodity prices fall as well as rise. A wise government does not make permanent commitments based on temporary revenues. Yet between 1969 and 1979 – through two majority governments and one minority – Trudeau tripled federal spending.

Nemesis followed hubris. Commodity prices dropped. Predictably, Canada tumbled into recession and the worst federal budget deficits in peacetime history.

Trudeau’s Conservative successor Brian Mulroney balanced Canada’s operating budget after 1984. But to squeeze out Trudeau-era inflation, the Bank of Canada had raised real interest rates very high. Mulroney could not keep up with the debt payments. The debt compounded, the deficits grew, the Bank hiked rates again – and Canada toppled into an even worse recession in 1992. By 1993, default on Trudeau’s debt loomed as a real possibility. Trudeau’s next successors, Liberals this time, squeezed even tighter, raising taxes, and leaving Canadians through the 1990s working harder and harder with no real increase in their standard of living.

Do Canadians understand how many of their difficulties of the 1990s originated in the 1970s? They should.

To repay Trudeau’s debt, federal governments reduced transfers to provinces. Provinces restrained spending. And these restraints had real consequences for real people: more months in pain for heart patients, more months of immobility for patients awaiting hip replacements.

If Canada’s health system delivers better results today than 15 years ago, it’s not because it operates more efficiently. Canada’s health system delivers better results because the reduction of Trudeau’s debt burden has freed more funds for healthcare spending. The Canadian socialist Tommy Douglas anticipated the Trudeau disaster when he said that the great enemy of progressive government was unsound finance.

Pierre Trudeau was a spending fool. He was not alone in that, in the 1970s. But here’s where he was alone. No contemporary leader of an advanced industrial economy – not even the German Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt or the British socialist James Callaghan – had so little understanding as Pierre Trudeau of the private market economy. “Little understanding?” I should have said: “active animosity.”

Trudeau believed in a state-led economy, and the longer he lasted in office, the more statist he became. The Foreign Investment Review Agency was succeeded by Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada was succeeded by wage and price controls. Wage and price controls were succeeded by the single worst economic decision of Canada’s 20th century: the National Energy Program.

The NEP tried to fix two different prices of oil, one inside Canada, one outside.  The NEP expropriated foreign oil interests without compensation. The NEP sought to shoulder aside the historic role of the provinces as the owner and manager of natural resources. I’ll return in a moment to the consequences of the NEP for Canada’s political stability. Let’s focus for now on the economic effects.

Most other Western countries redirected themselves toward more fiscal restraint after 1979. Counting on abundant revenues from oil, the Trudeau government kept spending. Other Western governments began to worry more about attracting international investment. Canada repelled investors with arbitrary confiscations. Other Western governments recovered from the stagflation of the 1970s by turning toward freer markets. Under the National Energy Policy, Canada was up-regulating as the US, Britain, and West Germany deregulated. All of these mistakes together contributed to the extreme severity of the 1982 recession. Every one of them was Pierre Trudeau’s fault.

***​

Pierre Trudeau had little taste for the alliances and relationships he inherited in 1968. Canada had taken a lead role in creating the institutions of the postwar world, from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the General Organization for Tariffs and Trade. Those institutions were intended in great part to contain the aggressive totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and China. In 1968, Canada remained a considerable military power and an important voice in the councils of the West.

Trudeau repudiated that inheritance. His spending spree did not include the military. He cut air and naval capabilities, pulled troops home from Europe, and embarked on morale-destroying reorganizations of the military services. In 1968, Canada was a serious second-tier non-nuclear military power, like Sweden or Israel. By 1984, Canada had lost its war-fighting capability: a loss made vivid when Canada had to opt out of ground combat operations in the first Gulf War of 1990-91.

Something more was going on here than a left-of-center preference for butter over guns. Throughout his life – now better known than ever thanks to John English – Pierre Trudeau showed remarkable indifference to the struggle against totalitarianism that defined the geopolitics of the 20th century.

Indifference may be too polite a word.

Pierre Trudeau opted not to serve in World War II, although of age and in good health. He traveled to Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union to participate in regime-sponsored propaganda activities. He wrote in praise of Mao’s murderous regime in China. Trudeau lavishly admired Fidel Castro, Julius Nyere, and other Third World dictators. The Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik scathingly recalled Trudeau’s 1971 prime ministerial visit: Trudeau visited the Siberian city of Norilsk and lamented that Canada had never succeeded in building so large a city so far north – unaware, or unconcerned, that Norilsk had been built by slave labor.

As prime minister, Trudeau to the extent he could tried to reorient Canada away from the great democratic alliance.

It’s telling I think that Trudeau came to the edge of endorsing the communist coup against Solidarity in Poland in December 1981. Hours after the coup, Pierre Trudeau said: “If martial law is a way to avoid civil war and Soviet intervention, then I cannot say it is all bad.” He added “Hopefully the military regime will be able to keep Solidarity from excessive demands.”

Trudeau’s neutralism negated Canada’s former influence. Probably few remember now his farcical “peace initiative” of 1982. Convinced that Ronald Reagan was leading the world toward nuclear war, Trudeau shuttled between Western capitals to appeal for some kind of concession to soothe the Soviets. Results? Unconcealed disdain from the Americans, unconcealed boredom from the Soviets.

Canada had often before played an important go-between role. Not this time. Canada’s most important geopolitical asset is its unique relationship with the US. Trudeau had squandered that asset, and with it, his own influence.

Obviously, Canada and the United States will disagree sometimes. Canadians of different points of view will favor a more or less intimate relationship with the United States. But even the most US-skeptical Canadian nationalist would agree: it’s reckless and foolish to offend the Americans gratuitously. In fact, the more nationalist the Canadian prime minister, and therefore the more likely to conflict with the Americans on large issues – the more carefully you would expect that prime minister to avoid giving offense over inessentials.

Yet Trudeau made it clear to Presidents Nixon and Carter that he personally disliked them, and to President Reagan that he personally despised him. When it came to foreign affairs, there was always a deep strain of frivolity and irresponsibility in Pierre Trudeau.

What Trudeau did take seriously was our third ground of indictment: the stability and unity of the country. And it was here that he did perhaps his greatest harm.

***​

Pierre Trudeau had a unique approach to national unity. He ascertained what each of Canada’s regions most dearly wanted – and then he offered them the exact opposite.

Did Quebeckers want to live and work in French in Montreal? Trudeau said no to that – and instead promised that they could live and work in French in Vancouver.

Did Albertans want a less exploitive economic deal within Confederation? Trudeau said no – and instead offered a more exploitive economic deal within Confederation.
Unsurprisingly, Trudeau’s flip-them-the-finger approach to national unity did not yield positive results.

In fact, he nearly blew apart the country – and his own party.

At the beginning of the Trudeau years, separatism was a fringe, radical movement in Quebec. A decade later, Canada faced a referendum on “sovereignty-association.”

In 1968, Trudeau’s Liberals won 25 seats west of Ontario. In 1980, they won 2.

And in the end it was Trudeau’s own policies that destroyed his vision of the country. By dramatically increasing immigration, Trudeau made irrelevant his vision of a bilingual Canada. Lester Pearson famously expressed a hope that he would be Canada’s last unilingual prime minister. It’s very possible that sometime in the 2040s Canada will see its last bilingual prime minister, at least if the second language is French. On current trends, by the 2040s the proportion of French speakers in Canada will be lower than the proportion of Spanish speakers in the United States today.

Defenders of Trudeau’s disastrous governance habitually rally around one great accomplishment: the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Well, Herbert Hoover had some excellent wilderness conservation policies, but we don’t excuse the Great Depression on that account.

Would it really have been impossible to combine the adoption of the Charter with a less destructive economic policy, a less destructive foreign policy, a less destructive national unity policy?

Yet there is a sense in which the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a very characteristic Trudeau project.

The Charter addressed a deficiency in Canadian constitutionalism: checking the powers of government. It’s possible to imagine a lot of solutions to that problem. The solution contained in the Charter is to give unelected judges the power to void acts of Parliament.

Unelected judges chosen by the prime minister at the prime minister’s sole discretion, unscrutinized by any elected body.

The Charter encapsulates the grand theme of Trudeau’s political life: his lack of respect for the people who returned him to office again and again – his instinctive sympathy for power, the less accountable the better.

One story sums up the man best.

1979. Trudeau had lost that year’s election. His career seemed finished. Reporters awaited in the driveway of 22 Sussex Drive as he stepped into his gull-winged vintage Mercedes to speed away into history.

One shouted: “Mr. Prime Minister – any regrets?”

Pierre Trudeau pondered. Perhaps he had planned, perhaps he remembered something that Richard Nixon had said after losing the California governor’s race in 1962. In an instant Pierre Trudeau revised Nixon’s words to his own very different purpose. “Yes,” he said. “I regret I won’t have you to kick around any more.”

It’s long past time that Canadians in turn resolved: no longer to be posthumously kicked by this bad man and disastrous prime minister.

National Post

It may be a bit much to blame any recession on one man but Trudeau’s policies contributed a lot to Canada’s economic woes and they deepened and lengthened recessions that were, at least, regional in nature. His strategic vision severely weakened Canada - taking us, quickly, from "leading middle power" to lightweight in a few short years. And it is fair, I think to lay much of the blame for today's deep and bitter divisions in Canada at Trudeau's feet.

__________
* Perhaps a Mod could retitle this thread as "Let's be honest about or late leaders"


Edited to add: Thanks, Mods.

 

[OldSolduer]

I wasn't going to respond to this, however, after reading the above I feel compelled to.

I grew up in Saskatchewan in the 60s and 70's. My dad made his living from farming and school bus driving.

We, in the west didn't dislike Trudeau: We despised him and the majority still do.

He didn't like us Westerners and every opportunity he had to screw the West....he did. Witness the NEP and how it almost broke Alberta.

 

[Old Sweat]

There were a long line of Eastern prime ministers who did not understand the west, starting with Sir John A Macdonald. The second prime minister (and first Liberal one) Sir Alexander Mackenzie went so far as to suggest to the Governor General that rather than form the NWMP, we invite the US Army to pacify the west as an economy measure. That suggestion went nowhere, as well it should have. This may sound far-fetched, but I have read the correspondence in the National Archives.

In the early seventies the government went so far as to order that the title "Royal Canadian Mounted Police" on the detachments and the vehicles across the country be changed to "Police" as it was bilingual. The west went nuts, and the bilingual title resulted. I think this was before the 1972 election which reduced the Liberals to a minority, and with only two more seats than the PCs. They became, in Dief's (I think) classic words, an endangered species in the west.

 

[Infanteer]

- 1 to Pierre Trudeau.

What I can't figure out is why, with his destructive policies, the collective we kept letting him come back.

 

[Journeyman]

What I can't figure out is why, with his destructive policies, the collective we kept letting him come back.

At the risk of oversimplification....his first tenure as Prime Minister ('68-'79) overlapped Richard Nixon's time and the ugliest US combat efforts of the Vietnam war. It's way too easy for Canadian voters to support anything "not-US." PET made it even easier, since he was anathema to the US government and the UK Monarchy.

 

[ArmyRick]

What is frightening is the fact he still spent the majority of 1968-1984 as Prime Minister. Then again, Chretein and his liberals won three elections.

I have met numerous Canadians who worship the ground that PET walks on and treat him as a saint. Its too bad that politicians in our country can do a really good number on propaganda efforts and manage to succeed.

 

[a_majoor]

The only answer I can think of for that conundrum is that some people view the world (and politics) through an emotional lens, so they respond to things that sound good or are purely symbolic. Things like "global warming", gun control, universal day care, tax/soak/eat the "rich" and so on are popular to these voters. the added advantage to politicians who pander to these voters is since they don't look at the cause/effect relationship of the policies they vote for, it is easy to convince them that the (self induced) problems will be solved by voting for more of the same.

People who view the world through a rational lens do look at the cause/effect relationships, but have a harder time making their case since logical argument rarely can be reduced to a sound bite, and the arguments are often brushed off by attacking the messenger, changing the premise or simply ignoring inconvenient facts (watching financially strapped US states passing millionaire taxes or trying to tax Amazon.com despite the known consequences [millionaires suddenly disappear from the tax rolls; Amazon closes its affiliates programs in the affected state so there is a reduction in sales and affiliate income; no sales tax can be collected while the economy takes a hit]). In the time it takes to read and digest this paragraph, a Trudeau can say "fuddle duddle" and walk away.

We also need to be aware of media bias. The Young Dauphin is portrayed as a brilliant light while Prim Minister Harper is portrayed as cold and calculating. I have had the opportunity to see both in action, and in person the Young Dauphin is devoid of original thought and delivered a dull speech to boot, while I found the Prime Minister to be quite personable. Recent comments by the Young Dauphin about barbaric conduct would, if more widely reported, probably sink his political career for good. I don't see the CBC devoting hours of breathless commentary about this real scandal...


(edit for spelling)

 

[GR66]

You can't separate the situation from the times.  Trudeau won while the Baby Boomers were coming into adulthood.  They were young and idealistic.  They rebelled against authority (the "evil" United States lead by Nixon being the biggest, badest authority on the block).  The economy was good.  Deficits didn't effect them...they were reaping the benefits of social spending without (yet) having to pay the price.  The Russian boogeyman was kept from being a direct threat to Canada by US nuclear weapons and the ultimate threat of MAD keeping all-out war unlikely. 

In times like that it's not a huge surprise that this huge block of voters wasn't keen to listen to the stade, old alternative leaders that remembered the Great Depression or the sacrifices of wartime.  It's also not a huge surprise that more voters began turning to the right as they became homeowners with families to support at the same time that the costs of such massive government spending came due in the form of higher taxes, inflation and recessions.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It wasn't just the "boomers" who elected Trudeau, their parents, the generation that endured the Great Depression and fought World War II (in the 40s and 50s in 1968) voted for him, too. They supported his ideas of isolationism/"little Canada," knee-jerk anti-Americanism, massive (unfunded) entitlements and bullying Western Canada.

 

[GR66]

It wasn't just the "boomers" who elected Trudeau, their parents, the generation that endured the Great Depression and fought World War II (in the 40s and 50s in 1968) voted for him, too. They supported his ideas of isolationism/"little Canada," knee-jerk anti-Americanism, massive (unfunded) entitlements and bullying Western Canada.

Absolutely true...but the Baby Boomers were a very significant block of the voting public during the Trudeau years (a rough guesstimate being 30-35% of the total Canadian population from a very, very quick peek at StatsCan age stats for the 66-76 time period?).  Their parents were certainly short-term beneficiaries of the loose spending as well. 

Even despite these numbers Trudeau never managed to attract a majority of votes in any of the Federal Elections (45.5% in 1968, 38.5% in 1972, 43.2% in 1974 and 40.1% in 1979). 


Correction: My quick "guesstimate" of the Baby Boomer population looks a little TOO quick.  The percentage of Boomer voters in the earliest Trudeau years is definitely lower than this range...but it looks like it would have increased upward toward the 30-35% area during the later part of his political career.  Regardless...of the actual numbers the general sentiment...demographics plus the general outlook during "easy" times with very loose spending do still hold in my personal opinion.