- Reaction score
- 4,340
- Points
- 1,160
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
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.
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.