The unexpected Louis St-Laurent : politics and policies for a modern Canada 9780774864022, 9780774864046, 9780774864053, 9780774864060

Citation preview

C.D. Howe Series in Canadian Political History Series editors: Robert Bothwell and John English This series offers fresh perspectives on Canadian political history and public policy from over the past century. Its purpose is to encourage scholars to write and publish on all aspects of the nations political history, including the origins, administration, and significance of economic policies; the social foundations of politics and political parties; transnational influences on Canadian public life; and the biographies of key public figures. In doing so, the series fills large gaps in our knowledge about recent Canadian history and makes accessible to a broader audience the background necessary to understand contemporary public-political issues. Other volumes in the series are: Grit: The Life and Politics of Paul Martin Sr., by Greg Donaghy The Call o f the World: A Political Memoir, by Bill Graham Prime Ministerial Power in Canada: Its Origins under Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden, by Patrice Dutil The Good Fight: Marcel Cadieux and Canadian Diplomacy, by Brendan Kelly Challenge the Strong Wind: Canada and East Timor, 1975-99, by David Webster Canadian Foreign Policy: Reflections on a Field in Transition, edited by Brian Bow and Andrea Lane The series originated with a grantfrom the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation and is further supported by the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History.

C.D . H ow e Series In Canadian Political History

Edited by Patrice Dutil

THE UNEXPECTED LOUIS ST-L AU RENT Politics and Policies for a Modern Canada

UBCPress -Vancouver-Toronto

© UBC Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca. 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 2120

54321

Printed in Canada on FSC-certified ancient-forest-free paper (100% post-consumer recycled) that is processed chlorine- and acid-free. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: The unexpected Louis St-Laurent: politics and policies for a m odern Canada / edited by Patrice Dutil. Names: Dutil, Patrice A., editor. Series: C.D. Howe series in Canadian political history. Description: Series statement: C.D. Howe series in Canadian political history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020029217X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200292218 | ISBN 9780774864022 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780774864046 (PDF) | ISBN 9780774864053 (EPUB) | ISBN 9780774864060 (Kindle) Subjects: LCSH: St. Laurent, Louis S. (Louis Stephen), 1882-1973. | LCSH: Prime ministers Canada - Biography. | CSH: Canada - Politics and government - 1948-1957. Classification: LCC FC611.S24 U54 2020 | DDC 971.063/3 - dc23

Canada UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens Text design: Irm a Rodriguez Set in Myriad and Minion by Artegraphica Design Co. Ltd. Copy editor: Joanne Richardson Proofreader: Judith Earnshaw Indexer: Judy Dunlop UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 www.ubcpress.ca

FOR OUR STUDENTS,

those we know by name and those we do not, and for these three people who remind us that, as scholars, we have an important role to play in remembering.

St-Laurent fans at George-Étienne Cartier House, June 2017. Photo by Patrice Dutil

Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables / x Foreword / xii Robert Bothwell and John English Acknowledgments / xiv Introduction: Louis St-Laurent s Leadership in History / 3 Patrice Dutil

Part 1: Style 1

St-Laurent in Government: Realism and Idealism in Action / 23 Patrice Dutil

2

Grandpapa: A Portrait of the Man and His Family / 55 Jean Thérèse Riley

3

The Predominant Prime Minister: St-Laurent and His Cabinet / 72 Stephen Azzi

4

Uncle Lou, Both Old and New: The Marketing of St-Laurent / 89 Paul Litt

5

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy / 115 Robert Bothwell

Part 2: Structure 6

Thinking Confederation: St-Laurent and the Rowell-Sirois Commission / 133 Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

7

The Liminality of St-Laurents Intergovernmental Relations Strategy / 156 RE. Bryden

8

St-Laurent: The Last Father of Confederation? /173 David MacKenzie

9

Defence, Development, and Inuit: St-Laurents M odern Approach to the North /193 P. Whitney Lackenbauer

10

“But There Is Another Source of Liberty and Vitality in Our Country”: St-Laurent and Regional Development / 222 Michel S. Beaulieu

11

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality / 243 Mary Janigan

12

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State / 261 Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

13

The Cautious Liberal: St-Laurent and National Hospitalization / 281 Gregory P. Marchildon

Part 3: Substance

viii

14

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact: Belonging and Ambivalence / 299 Xavier Gélinas

15

The Politics of St-Laurent on the Crown, Rituals, and Symbols / 314 Christopher McCreery

Contents

16

St-Laurent, Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty in the Shadow of the Cold War / 336 Philip Girard

17

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition / 356 Patrice Dutil

18

Winning Words: Party Platforms in the 1949, 1953, and 1957 Elections / 383 Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

19

“The Greatest Period ... Canada Has Had”: Immigration and the St-Laurent Years / 412 Abril Liberatori

20

The Slow Evolution of Indian Policy during the St-Laurent Years / 431 J.R. Miller

21

St-Laurents Gray Lecture and Canadian Citizenship in History / 450 Adam Chapnick

22

A Voyage of Discovery: St-Laurents World Tour of 1954 / 466 Greg Donaghy Postscript: Eastern Township Thinking / 485 The Honourable Jean Charest Contributors / 488 Index / 494

Contents

ix

Illustrations and Tables

Photographs The photographs of St-Laurent on the cover and on pages 1,21,131, 297,483 are courtesy of Ms. Jean Thérèse Riley St-Laurent fans at George-Étienne Cartier House, June 2017 / v “Birthday Cake” - Louis St-Laurent and Lester B. Pearson, 1957 / 32 Jeanne and Louis St-Laurent on their wedding day, 19 May 1908 / 64 Louis St-Laurent and Jeanne Renault at 24 Sussex Drive, 1953 / 69 Louis St-Laurent, the press, and an admiring public of all ages, n.d. /101 St-Laurent, trop âgé pour conduire! Caricature, Louis St-Laurent, ca. 1957 / 309 St-Laurent, the young jurist, 1921 / 337 A pensive Louis St-Laurent / 443

Figures 1.1

Military expenditures in Canada, 1950-2016 / 36

12.1

Federal revenues and expenditures, 1939-60 / 263

12.2 Number of employees in the federal public service, 1939-60 / 267 17.1

National electoral results (seats and votes) / 379

18.1

RéseauLu visualization of the top thirty key words / 404

18.2 Platform clusters of the top 250 key words using Intelligent Archive software / 406 18.3 The key word clusters of the top 250 words using Intelligent Archive software / 406 18.4 Dendrogram two-factor hierarchical cluster analysis of the platforms / 407 19.1

Landed immigrants by five-year period, 1855-2014 / 415

Tables 1.1 Federal government expenditures by function in the St-Laurent administration, 1948-57 / 46 17.1 National electoral results / 366 17.2 Electoral results in British Columbia / 367 17.3 Electoral results in Alberta / 369 17.4 Electoral results in Saskatchewan / 370 17.5 Electoral results in Manitoba / 371 17.6 Electoral results in Ontario / 372 17.7 Electoral results in Quebec / 374 17.8 Electoral results in New Brunswick / 375 17.9 Electoral results in Nova Scotia / 376 7.10 Electoral results in Prince Edward Island / 377 17.11 Electoral results in Newfoundland/Labrador / 378 17.12 Electoral results in Yukon and the Northwest Territories / 378 18.1

Political party platforms, 1949-57 / 384

18.2 Key words in LPC and PC election platforms / 399 18.3 Key words in CCF and SC election platforms / 400 18.4 Raw frequencies of topical key words in LPC and PC election platforms / 402 18.5 Raw frequencies of topical key words in CCF and SC election platforms / 403 19.1

Immigration to Canada, 1947-58 / 415

19.2 Distribution in percentage of the foreign-born population, by place of birth, Canada, 1941-71/416

Illustrations and Tables

xi

Foreword ROBERT BOTHWELL AND JOHN ENGLISH

The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent is the sixth book in The C.D. Howe series in Canadian Political History. It offers a much-needed reappraisal of Canadas twelfth prime minister. O f the major prime ministers, St-Laurent is probably the least known, yet many of the artefacts from the period over which he pre­ sided are still present - sprawling suburbs, superhighways, atomic power plants, pipelines. It was a time of prosperity - for most, though not for all. There is plenty to ponder and study in this book filled with insights and, as Patrice Dutil’s title suggests, there is m uch to Louis St-Laurent and his politics that is unknown and unexpected. We are happy this collection of essays has found a home in our series, not just because of its genre, but because, once again, the Right Honourable C.D. Howe has come to the aid of his colleague and friend, the Right Honourable Louis St-Laurent. Colleagues in cabinet from 1941 to 1957 and friends until Howes death in 1960, they were linked for good or ill in the public m ind as “Uncle Louis,” who was kindly and grandfatherly, and “C.D.,” sometimes called “the m inister of everything.” Howe was called plenty of other things too, and played his part not just in the rise and maturity of the St-Laurent government but also in its decline and eventual demise. As minister of trade and commerce, Howe was the cabinet’s most active and prominent member next to St-Laurent, as well as the prime m inister’s faithful colleague. The admiration was mutual: St-Laurent had once seriously considered making Howe governor general, as the most outstanding Canadian he could think of. (He would also have been the first immigrant to be governor general,

having been born in the United States.) Howe was given the honour of intro­ ducing St-Laurent at a celebration of his friends seventy-fifth birthday in 1957. “I sometimes hear it said,” he told the audience, “that Prime Minister St. Laurent carried on where Mackenzie King left off. I have heard him referred to as a second Laurier. These are meant as tributes to our Prime Minister. But to me, he stands in the shade of no man, living or dead.” Howe meant every word of it, and so did his speechwriter, the deputy minister of trade and commerce, Mitchell Sharp. Sharp would later become a Liberal politician, and eventually minister of trade and commerce. But to the end of his days, he retained his admiration for St-Laurent, and his affection for the St-Laurent era. The essays in this book cover not just the man, but the era, the politics, and the policies - some good, some bad - that defined Canada during the 1950s. Rather like the 1950s, St-Laurent has faded in the public mind, leaving only an impression of a time when Canada was more solid, more homogeneous, more predictably prosperous - but also a time of conformity, when homogeneity was tinged by bigotry and rigid societal standards. The authors capture all sides of a complicated period - a time of dread as well as a time of hope, of rising living standards, of security at home and insecurity abroad. St-Laurent left a compli­ cated legacy: this book goes a long way to illuminate it.

The C.D. Howe Series on Canadian Political History is supported by a grant from the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation. The grant was given to promote greater research and publications on Canadas political history. The Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History also supports this series, which has already published important biographies and analytical studies that have attracted academic and popular interest.

Foreword

xiii

Acknowledgments

Seventy-two years after his accession to the post of prim e minister, this book brings together scholars from all points between Victoria and Halifax to con­ sider the record of Louis St-Laurents term in office. Each academic was invited because of her or his distinguished work either in the period from the late 1940s to the 1960s or because she or he had examined a particular national issue before (albeit in another period). They were quick to volunteer their contribution to this project when I invited them in the summer of 2016, and I am very grateful for their enthusiastic and generous participation. I learned immensely from this collaboration and it was a privilege to work with each contributor. This is their book as much as it is mine. In early May 2018, we gathered under the auspices of the Jarislovsky Chair in Public Management of the University of Ottawa for a stimulating twoday seminar. The exchange of views and interpretations was exhilarating. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Luc Bernier, the holder of the Chair, for funding most of the event and for his wise management of the seminar. The hospitality extended and organized by Daniela Gutiérrez de Pineres made the gathering all the more memorable. I am grateful also to the Ryerson University Faculty of Arts, the Departm ent of Politics and Public Administration, and the Departm ent of History. They came through at strategic points to provide crucial funding for the event at the University of Ottawa. I’m very grateful to John English and Robert Bothwell, the editors of the C.D. Howe Series in Canadian Political History, for again making room in their collection for one of my books. Their indispensable support has made it pos­

sible for this volume to be in your hands (or on your screens). Professor English has been such an encouragement to me over the past thirty years. I do my best to pay it forward. This book was published with the financial support of the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP) of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and I am very grateful for its assistance. The index was made possible by funds provided by the Office of the Dean of Arts at Ryerson University. Ryerson University also helped me hire three resourceful research assist­ ants: Aidan Hayes, Alex Shaul, and Grace Van Vliet, who chased down all sorts of details as I assembled this book. Their service was more helpful than they’ll ever know. My gratitude also goes to David Mayers and the Department of Political Science at Boston University for hosting me as visiting professor in the fall of 2018, when the pleasant work of editing this volume took place. I want to thank the three people who appear in the photo beneath the dedi­ cation. It was taken at the George-Étienne Cartier House in Old Montreal, a small museum operated by Heritage Canada. To underscore the 150th anniver­ sary of Confederation, the museum had invited patrons to answer historical questions and to post their pictures with their signs. I was studying the display of hundreds of photos out of curiosity when this one just popped out. There is no way of identifying these three, but I hope that one day they will find their picture and message in this book, and draw some satisfaction that their plea for memory was noted. I need to thank Randy Schmidt of UBC Press for supporting this project in all its phases. The whole UBC Press team again showed off its professional­ ism and dedication as this big volume worked its way through production and to market in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. My sincere thanks go to copy editor Joanne Richardson, indexer Judy Dunlop, typesetter Irma Rodriguez, and the manager of Production and Editorial Services Holly Keller. The peers who reviewed this long manuscript must be singled out with praise for their excellent work. Their comments, objections, and suggestions made this book all the better. We followed every word of their recommendations (well, almost every word). The mistakes that may remain in this text are ours, and particularly mine as editor. Taylor and Francis, the publishers of the American Review o f Canadian Studies, graciously allowed us to reprint Adam Chapnicks insightful article on St-Laurent s oft-cited “Gray Lecture.” I’m grateful to this firm. Readers need to know that this initiative started with Ms. Jean Thérèse Riley. It was her e-mail to me in the dark days of winter 2016 that launched this great adventure. Through the ups and downs of any big project like this, to say nothing

Acknowledgments

xv

of our delightful strategy lunches, she has been a source of iron confidence and encouragement (and photographs!). She has mustered a wide campaign in Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto to organize a legacy so that her grandfather, Louis St-Laurent, will be a living memory for new generations. I hope that this volume, now finally in her hands, reassures her that her goal is a noble one. The contributors to this book may not all be in agreement on all things St-Laurent, but they are certainly unanimous in recognizing that Louis St-Laurent, in his time and as of this writing, occupies an exceptional place in the Canadian pantheon. He was not just a fine leader and prime minister but also an admirable man who made an extraordinary contribution to the ongoing task of giving meaning to our country. My last word goes to Maha, as always. W ithout her, nothing. Patrice Dutil Ryerson University Canada Day, 2020

xvi

Acknowledgments

THE UNEXPECTED LOUIS ST-LAURENT

Introduction Louis St-Laurent's Leadership in History PA TR IC E D U T IL

One thing is certain ... no finer human being ever governed Canada and none has been so thoroughly misunderstood as St-Laurent.

- Bruce Hutchison, 1964'

In the summer of 1961, four years after leaving office, Louis St-Laurent granted a series of interviews to CBC journalist Jeanne Sauvé at his summer house in St. Patricks, now known as St-Patrice and part of Rivière-du-Loup,2a pleasant two-hour drive north of Quebec City. It is a rare document: it would be the only time he ever granted such a favour after he left office. He was almost eighty years old at that point but had not lost a bit of his verve. His head moved vigorously from left to right as he talked, almost as if he read the horizons of his precise beliefs. The signature pout-and-shrug was just as evident as it always had been, and he was thoughtful as he answered Sauvés questions directly. It was summer, and the interview was recorded outside, in a garden refreshed by the breezes off the St. Lawrence River. The former prime minister was dressed like a country gentleman, with a light suit and a dark bow tie. His clear horn-rim m ed glasses were fashionable (he ditched the black specs that had been his tradem ark through the 1950s), and even though the broadcast was black-and-white, view­ ers could see the traces of a light suntan on his high forehead, barely concealed by the white hair. He seemed a man at ease. Sauvés interview started with a num ber of compelling questions about the joys and drawbacks of political life, and his answers said a lot about who he was.

Yes, he regretted the treatment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War when he was minister of justice, and he admitted that “mistakes were made” though he vividly recalled that the fears of Japanese invasion were real.3He did not regret his governments attitude towards the pipeline project, even though it may have cost the Liberals the election of 1957. “We had perhaps become accustomed to carrying on as a board of directors and that displeased a part of the Canadian public,” he admitted. But the project was essential for prosperity, he insisted. If he had regrets, he did not display them. Sauvé peppered him with questions in the hope of getting him to reveal his political mind. Why did he accept Mackenzie King’s invitation to join the gov­ ernment in 1941 ? It was, he responded, a question of duty. One son had enlisted in the navy; a daughter was in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. He’d been asked to serve by the prime m inister and he could not say no, even though his wife was ill at the time and needed help. Politics was hardly a vocation, he said. He was happy his father had been defeated long before, in the 1904 provincial election, because the family simply was not ready for it at the time. It would have been too much of a demand on his mother, and Moïses obligations to his family would have been diminished. Sauvé asked him whether there was much merit in political life. St-Laurent thought about his answer for a moment and conceded a small “yes”: politics had merit in that an individual could be involved in some interesting issues, and yes, there could be enjoyment if the public was interested in the issues being discussed. He added that there was satisfaction in “being useful” but warned that the feeling might just be an illusion. Jeanne Sauvé then asked him whether he had enjoyed power. Again, he hesitated. “No, I don’t think so” he said, “[it] is not really power ... it is the satisfaction of getting a num ber of people to work together harmoniously and to achieve certain results.” W hen asked about what quality made him popular, St-Laurent again shrugged, not without some genuinely sincere shyness. Canadians were disposed to the idea that being a Catholic and of “French descent” did not prevent him from being a “likeable chap.” The cadence of his English would have been recognized in Yarmouth, Toronto, any town in the Prairies, or Victoria. Sometimes defensive, sometimes more assertive, CBC viewers watched a remarkable man candidly relive the previous twenty years of his life. Strangely, inexplicably, Radio-Canada’s audience was not given a similar opportunity to see the former prime minister express himself to a fellow francophone. Louis St-Laurent was a quiet, shy man. With Sauvé, he seemed comfortable among his flowers and played remarkably well to the cool medium of television (which must have been a surprise to those who had seen his wooden perform ­ ances in the 1957 election campaign). He was a serious man, and his answers

4

Patrice Dutil

were offered honestly; no one in his long life ever said the opposite. He be­ lieved in what he felt and he said what he believed. He could be blunt and straightforward. Most people appreciated that quality, though some saw it as cold and humourless; threats to resign coming from ministers or staff were met with a stony silence and the assurance that government could operate quite well without them. He did unexpected things. He was a practical man but time and again showed he was also idealistic. He was rooted in a traditional French-Canadian m ental­ ity that respected authority and traditions but proved to have an openness of m ind that allowed for originality, intuition, and flexibility. He was quite happy to challenge conventions, it turned out. His personal messenger/driver through­ out his years in Ottawa was Aldérie Groslouis, a Huron-W endat from the Loretteville Reserve near Quebec City who accompanied him everywhere including during the whirlwind world trip of 1954. Groslouis happened to be celebrating his sixty-ninth birthday on the way to Japan, and “the boss” arranged for cake and champagne to be served in his honour.4 Those qualities made him many friends not only in politics but also in life. He had a knack for assessing situations quickly and could just as quickly formulate a clear course of action. But at the same time, he had the maturity to understand that different viewpoints could be valid. Jean Thérèse Riley begins her account of Louis St-Laurent, her grandfather, by recalling a daring argument she had with Canadas prim e minister as a young girl. She remembers the unique mixture of seriousness and fun and his remarkable ability to relate to and influence the vast gamut of people he met. His capacity to communicate, to be versatile, and his undeniable charisma gave him the confidence to assume power. It was that ability to adapt and to try new things that made Louis St-Laurent a trail-blazer in many areas of policy and governance. He had modernized Canada in so many ways that the astuteness of his policies and politics was beyond question. In matters of the military, immigration, significant infrastructures (such as the St. Lawrence Seaway or the Trans-Canada Highway), regional development, justice, arts, university funding, pension and old age assistance reform, the creation of the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), support for the disabled, housing, federal-provincial relations (including negotiating the entry of Newfound­ land and Labrador into Confederation), international affairs, and national symbolism, to name but a few policy areas, he had decidedly moved Canada into a brand new, modern era. Sauvé did not ask about any of this in her CBC interview. In November 1941, Mackenzie King asked St-Laurent to join the cabinet. It was unexpected. He hesitated for many days, recognizing that duty called

Introduction

5

him to do what the prim e minister asked. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on that fateful Sunday morning of 6 December put paid to any doubts, and he was sworn in at Rideau Hall a few days later. Within seven years, in November 1948, he reached the top of Disraeli’s proverbial “greasy pole” with the driest hands possible. Seven months later, he led the Liberals to their greatest victory in history. In 1953, steady through eventful reforms and the Korean War, he captained the red team to another, albeit diminished, triumph. In 1955, an article in Macleans magazine declared him the “greatest vote getter Canada has ever seen.”5 In 1957, most thought Canadas best-known great-grandfather would win again and lead the Liberals to a third consecutive decade in power. Canadas economy was on fire for most of his mandate, his team had shone through the Suez Crisis (although many voters were upset, believing that St-Laurent had shown Britain and France grave disrespect), and prospects looked bright. In March, a Gallup Poll showed that 46.8 percent of voters in­ tended to vote Liberal - more than enough for a comfortable majority.6 But things went sour, and, at seventy-six years of age, Louis St-Laurent lost some of the fire in the belly that was essential for the good fight. Then, very suddenly in the last weeks of the campaign, a surprising Diefenbakermania took hold, and the party was over. St-Laurent and the Liberals won the popular vote, and he could have pushed to form a minority government with the support of Major James Coldwell’s CCF, much like King had done with the Progressives in 1925 (or Trudeau would in 1972 with the NDP). But he was exhausted, and his party was too. He announced his retirement in November 1957, almost nine years to the day after assuming the prim e ministership. Ashamed, personally hurt, and filled with guilt, Louis St-Laurent quietly disappeared from the scene. Canada moved on and entered nothing short of a social and cultural revolution in the 1960s. Louis St-Laurent now belonged to another century, it seemed, perhaps one even older than the First World War generation. He convinced himself that he only had answers to questions people no longer asked, and he became silent. He returned to Quebec City and the magnificent home he loved on the Grande Allée, noiselessly returned to work in the family firm, and resumed teaching a few courses at Laval Univer­ sity’s law school. With his unobtrusiveness, he lost none of his dignity or his sincere idealism. A few people who knew him worked on books that would be flattering of his time in office, but the memory of him disappeared with the 1960s. He was the man in the double-breasted suit in an age that decidedly favoured the single-breasted, modern look. He was bow ties and homburg when Canada was open-collared and bare-headed. He was radio when television was now “the medium.”

6

Patrice Dutil

Louis St-Laurent (1882-1973), Canadas prime m inister from 1948 to 1957, remains an enigmatic figure. He came to electoral politics late in life, im medi­ ately vaulted into the Mackenzie King cabinet as minister of justice at a time when Canada was already heavily invested in the Second World War. He became prime minister at age sixty-six, a statesman already, far more than a politician. He was much older than any other person, before or since, in assuming the post. His government was extraordinarily creative, and the traces of its deci­ sions are still vibrant seventy years later, if largely taken for granted. For sure, he governed in a time of prosperity in the West. One is tempted to summarize this time in Canada by referring to how Australian writers Stella Lees and June Senyard entitled their book: The 1950s: How Australia Became a Modern Society, and Everyone Got a House and Car.7 Canadians were more inclined towards revolutionary Tupperware than the politics of the left and were quite happy with the evolution of liberalism as it sought to expand social and economic programs.8 On that front, the St-Laurent government did not disappoint as it introduced a variety of poverty-reduction programs for the elderly, the dis­ abled, and the long-term unemployed. Some thought Ottawa miserly, others thought it was going too far, and there is no doubt that many voters did indeed turn to a more populist right as the decade progressed (notably those who also supported the Union Nationale in Quebec and the Social Credit Party in Al­ berta, both provincially and across Canada). But the reality is that Canada under Louis St-Laurent continued its ambitious march towards an unprecedented num ber of social and cultural programs that prepared the way for the revolu­ tionary 1960s - even while it balanced its budget before the 1957 showdown and practically retired the national debt.

Few people have actually articulated a judgm ent on St-Laurent’s tenure in of­ fice. There is no doubt that, in his day, many of the leading journalists - mostly leaning Liberal - liked him and his government a great deal.9 The journalist Bruce Hutchison, one of the most influential writers in the 1950s and 1960s, called St-Laurent an “amateur in politics” but admired the m ans intelligence - “as resourceful as Meighen’s and far superior to Kings.”10 Dale C. Thomson, who worked as his aide in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1953 to 1957 and then for a few months before St-Laurent’s retirement, wrote a glowing biog­ raphy of the man that was published in 1967, Canada’s centennial year. In Thomson’s eyes, St-Laurent incarnated everything that was truly “Canadian.” He meant national unity at a time when dis-unity was increasingly menacing. The established order was being challenged on many fronts: by the rising

Introduction

7

labour unions, by women, Indigenous peoples, minorities, and, not least, by the Québécois who were already taking the first steps of their Quiet Revolution. For a nationalistic English-Canadian audience, Thomsons book delivered reli­ ably on its promise of a comprehensive biography devoted to a man who loved Canada. It echoed what the journalist Bruce Hutchison had written a few years before, observing that St-Laurent “was Canadian, the most truly Canadian of all our prime ministers up to his time. He felt no nostalgia for the old lands of Europe nor any sense of isolation from the rest of his country in Quebec. Canada was the centre and workshop of his mind, as natural to him as his breath.”11 Some Toronto historians were less impressed. Donald Creighton was so infuriated by the Americanization of Canada under the Liberal governments of the 1940s and 1950s that he took refuge in writing a biography of Sir John A. Macdonald in order to rediscover the real nature of the country. In his as­ sessment of those years, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939-75 (published in the landmark Canadian Centenary Series in 1976), he had hardly anything to say about St-Laurent, but he often paused to note how the prime minister was hostile to anything that smacked of British institutions or practice. A historian who was so willing to give John A. Macdonald personal credit refused to accord the same consideration to St-Laurent, who was dismissed as a charmless “company chairman” who had a “harsh, nasal accent.” Everything seemed to be the product of “natural economic and social forces,” and the prime ministers name was not even mentioned in the concluding chapter.12Twenty years later, Michael Bliss’s impressive and impressionistic study of Canadian prime ministers showed that Creightons severe judgment had rubbed off on the University of Toronto cam­ pus. Bliss did not even include a chapter on St-Laurent; instead, he allotted only a few pages in an informal addendum to the chapter on Mackenzie King. Bliss was, in fact, hostile. He described St-Laurent as “aristocratic, aloof, and, when­ ever removed from Ottawa, out of touch.” In St-Laurent, Bliss only saw a “pack­ age” developed and delivered by a public relations firm, a spent force within four years of achieving power, who should have retired long before 1957.13 Not all of the University of Toronto was antagonistic towards St-Laurent. Robert Bothwell was more appreciative, observing, in his entry for the Dictionary o f Canadian Biography, that St-Laurent possessed “the best characteristics of a prime minister but few of the best attributes of a politician.” Bothwell inter­ preted St-Laurent as an activist, “at home and abroad,” who offered “something new and modern.” He argued that, “more than any prime minister since, StLaurent dominated his cabinet and his party.” Historians and political scientists have generated an impressive literature on government policies during the period of the 1940s and 1950s - especially

8

Patrice Dutil

when it comes to Canadas foreign and military policy - but they have had more trouble in assessing the personal role of Louis St-Laurent in these affairs. In the rankings of scholars organized by Macleans magazine in 1997,2011, and 2016, he has ranged from a remarkable fourth place to seventh place. Today, he and his government have been accused of thoughtless arrogance and, in the words of the current prime minister, of “purposeful” neglect in their management of tuberculosis among the Inuit. This was not just an issue of bad policy, in Justin Trudeaus view, it was also about treating the Indigenous peoples of the North as “inferior” and forcing them “into settlements where disease and infection ran rampant,” reflecting practices that were “a piece of the larger history of de­ structive colonialism.”14There is no point in denying that St-Laurent’s moment in power constituted an overwhelming turning point in the lives of these peoples. The realities of colonial invasion and all that it brought in terms of cultural disorientation and disease, which had started in the Americas in 1492, had finally caught up with the North some five hundred years later. Life there was forever changed. Still, Trudeau’s judgm ent was misleading given the circum­ stances of the times. St-Laurent s government did make mistakes. While innovative in so many aspects of public life, his administration did little as residential schools for In­ digenous children continued to thrive; people were being put to death for the crimes they committed; and pollution grew exponentially. The government sometimes lacked imagination. It was not very active on the issue of creating a memorial in Ottawa to honour those who fought and died during the Second World War.15 It could commit follies. In a fit of ideological pique, it suddenly refused entry to the great American bass baritone Paul Robeson on the grounds that he posed a threat as some sort of communist agitator.16 It could even be a little goofy, as demonstrated by an aborted program to im port yaks in order to help develop the Inuit economy.17 Perhaps the harshest assessment of the St-Laurent government was articulated by Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse in their book Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 19451957, which documents how parts of the St-Laurent government worked to repress communism and leftist organizations in this country.18 The reality re­ mains that St-Laurent’s government did not perm it the excesses of American McCarthyism to take hold. To read some accounts from this period, St-Laurent would be something akin to “Chauncey Gardiner,” the lead figure in Jerzy Kozinski’s novel Being There (1970), who finds temporary success and recognition by accidentally being in the right place at the right time. Many scholars have considered StLaurent to be the lucky inheritor of a “golden” economy and of the policy legacy

Introduction

9

left by Mackenzie King. In terms of management, many saw him more as a natural, stand-offish “chairman of the board” who could leave the initiative to others than as an energetic innovator. In Louis St. Laurent: Canadian, Thomson wrote a sympathetic biography at a time when the concept of “Canadian” was coming under sharp scrutiny in Quebec, as that province struggled with a new identity, and among English Canadians, who were increasingly concerned about the cultural and economic importance of the United States in their home affairs. Thomson acknowledged that he had depended on a key minister, John Whitney Pickersgill (but “Jack” to practically everybody and “Pick” to his friends), for facts and interpretation. Pickersgill contributed his own assessment of the 1950s Liberals with his My Years with Louis St Laurent (1975), a warm memory of a leader who was above all things consequential to his country’s politics. Pickersgill appreciated the influence of the man, noting that he had “as fine an intelligence as was ever applied to the problems of government in Canada. He left it a richer, a more generous and more united country than it had been before he became prime minister.” But as historians dug deeper in the 1950s, they lost sight of the prime minister and of the coherence he gave to his country. Reginald Whitaker’s heavily detailed The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party o f Canada, 1930-58 only mentions St-Laurent in passing.19 In much the same way, Jack Granatstein’s splendid studies of the public service leadership, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957 and A Man o f In­ fluence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929-1968, only rarely mention St-Laurent. “He was courteous, considerate of his staff, but still a bit aloof’ Granatstein observed, “when he wanted information, he wanted it quickly and succinctly, and he preferred to have options laid out with recommended courses of action.” These were the habits of a high-ranking executive who put a premium both on speedy decisions and on substance. That meshed well with most government executives but not very well with the creative, bookish types like the eminent Robertson.20 People who have studied St-Laurent, his works, and his government can find him innovative, while others find him to be nothing more than the bene­ ficiary of the banquet laid before him by Mackenzie King’s postwar policies, a very supportive press corps, and the archly talented public service of the post­ war period. That view is deeply unsatisfactory to me. Leadership is extraordin­ arily difficult. King pointed to St-Laurent because he suspected he had the requisite talent. Policy entrepreneurs such as C.D. Howe liked St-Laurent’s style and “his quality for quickly mastering the information set before him and his faculty for making quick decisions.” Howe liked this style of leadership - the

10

Patrice Dutil

new prime minister, in the words of Howes biographers, “understood the va­ garies of life; he was not a man to waste time with idle reproaches when things went awry. Propriety and efficiency were what he wanted.”21 For the rest, it was clear that he commanded respect and enjoyed the support that came with hav­ ing so much talent around the executive table, although he might have blushed upon hearing, time and again, George Drew accusing him of running govern­ ment like a “dictatorship.” St-Laurent also knew how to operate with seasoned public-sector leaders and delegated authority adroitly. He managed, to borrow Fred I. Greensteins description of Dwight Eisenhowers style, with a “hidden hand.”22 Diefenbaker - who had access to the same team of highly efficient and imaginative people as had St-Laurent - demonstrated vividly, through sheer incompetence, that it took more than knowing how to turn on the engine of government to be successful. Beyond his deep-seated (and not altogether in­ correct) suspicion that the bureaucracy was contam inated with “Pearsonalities,” he demonstrated few abilities to manage talent and to direct the country.23 Desmond Morton, yet another University of Toronto historian, rem em ­ bered meeting Prime Minister St-Laurent when accompanying his mother on a walk in Ottawa. Brief glances were exchanged, nothing more, but the civility of the moment forever impressed the boy. “It is perhaps my proudest memory of Canada,” he wrote fifty years later.24 He reviewed the St-Laurent record and concluded in a magazine article published in 2003 that the prime minister himself played an active part in its success. “His era was such a golden age that many Canadians believed that peace, order and good government was their natural destiny,” he concluded. “They would learn their error.”25 The reality is that the story of the St-Laurent government is full of contingents, full of alterna­ tive political and policy choices. Choices had to be made and St-Laurent, as prime minister, made them - it was he who had the dominant voice in Canadian politics. Nothing was automatic or predetermined by structures and policy imperatives. It is high time for a critical reassessment. For all his successes and unique features, it has been over fifty years since St-Laurent and his government were treated by a book-length study, and my ardent hope is that this volume will introduce him to a new generation of readers. How character and circumstance blended themselves in Louis St-Laurent in the late 1940s and 1950s to move Canada into an new era of m odern policy-making is a topic that has not been addressed, and that is the raison d’ê tre of this book. It is a challenging task because St-Laurent is practically impossible to know. He left no memoirs, hardly published, and his preserved archives consist mostly of routine adm in­ istrative missives; few documents written by his own hand exist. The task of

Introduction

11

identifying and understanding his ideas and ambitions m ust be executed through other means. St-Laurents political and administrative philosophy is at once challenging to define yet also relatively simple, much in the tradition of Canadian prime ministers. It does not help that St-Laurent was not boastful. His approach to management could easily qualify him for the ultra-m odern label of “servant leader” - a leader who sees his task as that of helping his colleagues, removing the obstacles in their way, in order to allow the collective to get things done. This modesty shaped him not because he did not believe in his accomplish­ ments but because he was convinced his accomplishments, both personal and professional, spoke for themselves. He grew up in a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves. His secret was that he had nothing to prove: an exceptional quality in a politician and probably one that only comes with age. St-Laurent was raised that way and stayed that way. He was never comfortable with the brash or with the conceited.26 Thomson argued that St-Laurent was an “Edwardian Liberal,”27 a politician who deeply believed that government could do great things, but that social goodness could only be real­ ized in a country that favoured economic growth. He was, for his time, a social progressive who might have been touched by the Liberal progressivism that coursed through the veins of Quebec,28 affected by the m ost reform ist C ath­ olic thinking of his time (reminded of this by his sister Kathleen who had become a nun and his brother Nil who was ordained a priest) but marked by a strong fiscal conservatism. He wanted to be seen with people of different skin tones and inevitably played a role in overturning Canadas long-standing “White Only” immigration policy (albeit only by allowing a trickle of immigrants from the West Indies and the South Asian continent). In response to a letter on the desirability of more women in Parliament, St-Laurent responded that “ce serait une excellente chose,” but he reminded his correspondent that women had to campaign hard for nominations and for seats. He was encouraging, even resigned to the reality that women could be better candidates than men: “Si les femmes se mêlent plus activement de la chose publique, elles s’imposeront graduelle­ ment et seront éventuellement choisies, dans certains endroits, de préférence à des hommes.”29 Ambitious for his country and for Canadas place in the world, St-Laurent was hardly a placeholder. In hindsight, we can say that his time in power was like a bridge between two worlds: the prewar Canada that was tentative, often neutralist in foreign affairs, and a new, more m odern Canada that was more open to government involvement in the economy, in culture, and in world

12

Patrice Dutil

affairs. Louis St-Laurent openly talked about “values” in directing Canada’s behaviour in the world. He was anti-communist, for sure, but he was also a hum anist and an ardent believer in peace. He believed that Canada should have a strong military and showed that he meant it by rapidly expanding it dur­ ing the 1950s. He believed in the North - and that if it was going to be C an­ adian, it had to be defended as such. It was during his time in government that Canada dotted its northern landscape with three necklaces of distant early warning (DEW) stations. It was also a time when the United States - through massive capital invest­ ments in Canada but also through cinema, popular music, books and magazines, and radio and television - made its presence felt in Canadian homes as never before. St-Laurent was chosen to replace Mackenzie King at a time when Canada was changing dramatically in terms of demographics (the haby boom and, later, massive immigration), and in the eyes of his peers he was the best person to captain the ship. He became prime minister only months after Refus Global was published. This parallel may appear as a stretch to some, but it is worthy of consideration. Refus Global, written by Paul-Émile Borduas, was a passionate cri de coeur against the cultural oppression of colonial mentalities as well as against the religious and business establishments that dominated Montreal. It was signed by sixteen young Québécois artists and intellectuals, including Paul-Émile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Marcelle Ferron, and Françoise Sullivan. Six months later, in the winter of 1949, sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy mutinied, first on the HMCS Athabasca and then aboard the Crescent (anchored in Nanjing, China) and the Magnificent, an aircraft carrier operating in the Caribbean.30 In the winter of 1949, the Canadian Seamens Union (CSU) also started a general strike, and miners walked off the job at four asbestos mines in the Eastern Townships, near Asbestos, Quebec, and Thetford Mines.31 It would last four months. In 1951,249 strikes broke out in Canada, a new record. Fewer strikes took place the following year, but the num ber of working days lost reached almost three million.32 Those figures would not be reached again until the Diefenbaker years. There is no evidence St-Laurent would have accepted the arguments of the Refus Global, let alone that he read it, but much like its authors he had a remark­ able capacity to imagine a new Canada. The sailors’ mutiny was adroitly managed by military commanders, and the CSU, long led by communist sympathizers, was quickly put down by a rival union (with some help from the RCMP). The num ber of strikes - surely an indicator of malaise - dropped as the 1950s progressed. Still, the spirit of Refus Global, the mutineers, and the strikers

Introduction

13

was something St-Laurent would have recognized and accepted. Things had to change, and St-Laurent was energetic enough and entrepreneurial enough to make things happen and modernize Canada in ways that met public needs. This book is thus a rediscovery of how Louis St-Laurent unexpectedly re­ vealed himself in power. In my introductory chapter, which aims to provide an overview of St-Laurent’s life and the key accomplishments of his adm inistra­ tion, I argue that his approach to the affairs of state was one that married both idealism and realism - an approach to life’s challenges that can be seen through the theories of the French philosopher, part-tim e diplomat, and Nobel Prize winner Henri Bergson (1859-1941). In a nutshell, Bergson argued that a per­ sons thinking is guided by the rationality that is acquired through lived experi­ ence: the highs, lows and learning derived from poverty, war, success, and ruin that are absorbed over the years and that create intuition - a key component of decision making. At the same time, motivations can be guided by sympathies, the ability of a person to put themselves in the place of others. How sympathies, ideals, and the hard realities of lived experience mix provide a clue to a persons decisions. St-Laurent’s personality and government, I argue, demonstrate a powerfully original mix: policies that were hard and fast when it came to pro­ tecting capital and in defending Canada in the face of rising communist forces in the world, yet at the same time relentless innovation born of the conviction that better ideals could be realistically accomplished in a wide variety of fields. It was St-Laurent’s unique intuition - one he sought in colleagues as much as in policy - that time was of the essence, that things had to change in order to ensure that Canada took its place in the “modern” world, offering a decent re­ sponse to the needs of its citizens, which included the financial essentials neces­ sary for a good life, safety, a sense of belonging, dignity, and respect, and the hope that democracy could work for the benefit of the majority. The book is organized into three broad parts - style, structure, and sub­ stance - that I find especially helpful in trying to understand political develop­ ment. To begin with style: in Canada, the prime minister enjoys enormous personal latitude in exercising power. Each m an (the one woman did not serve long enough to leave an imprint) brought to governance a certain set of habits and preferences, the product of his personality and his family. This is no small matter, though many “scientists” in the field of politics will contest its validity. I’m not one of those, and I am utterly convinced that it does make a difference. Each man has brought his interests and his passions to the job as well as his dislikes. Each brought a philosophy of work to bear on his daily activities. Will he consult? W hen and how often? How widely? For how long? Who will he

14

Patrice Dutil

listen to, and who will he ignore? How quickly are decisions made? Where do party matters place in his hierarchy of priorities?33 These are all matters of personal choice, and they matter enormously to biographers who are sensitive to the very hum an aspect of governance. The contributors to Part 1 review how Louis St-Laurent interacted with the people in his entourage. Jean Thérèse Riley looks at the man and his family from a family insiders perspective. Stephen Azzi analyzes the dynamic around the cabinet table. Robert Bothwell interprets the complex relationships with the senior ranks - the mandarins - of the gov­ ernment of Canadas public service. Paul Litt identifies how different aspects of his style were manipulated by image-makers and perceived by the press. There is another element of style that is probed in this book, one that relates more to governance. By this I mean the choice of policy instruments. One can catch a fly by swatting it with a newspaper or by installing adhesive paper that will trap the insect. The same goes with policy - will governments use a carrot to induce a certain sort of behaviour or a stick? These chapters on “structures” also reveal the contours of St-Laurent s administrative style. Structure matters enormously in the life of prime ministers, and, in Part 2, authors appraise how St-Laurent shaped the governance and administration of issues during his time in power. To what degree did he set the policy-making agenda? In what sense did his approach to the structures of government, to the substance of policy and to the style of management, have an impact on the success and failures of his administration? The structures of federalism, for example, were topics of great interest to St-Laurent. Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson assess his particular role in the Rowell-Sirois Commission, a royal inquiry into the nature of Canadas federal-provincial relations. Mary Janigan scrutinizes his role in establishing an equalization formula to dis­ tribute funds to poorer provinces that was nothing short of revolutionary, and P.E. Bryden questions more broadly his approach to intergovernmental relations. In this section, his rapport with regions is also examined. David MacKenzie looks at the mechanics of winning Newfoundlanders over to the cause of Con­ federation in 1949. Michel Beaulieu takes a look at how, in his many speeches, Louis St-Laurent viewed the “regions” of Canada. W hitney Lackenbauer fo­ cuses on the Arctic, a new frontier for Canadians in the aftermath of the Second World War that proved of great interest to St-Laurent and his government as they fortified defence mechanisms. He places the policies regarding the assist­ ance of the Inuit, who were dying of tuberculosis, in their proper historical context. This section also looks at administrative structures. Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier scrutinize St-Laurent’s choice of instruments, ranging from cabinet

Introduction

15

positions to the growth of the Canadian civil service. Greg Marchildon describes the emerging hospitalization insurance issue through an intergovernmental relations lens and discusses how Louis St-Laurent hesitantly grappled with it. Part 3 deals with substantive matters. These chapters bear a great deal of similarity to the chapters on “structural” issues like federalism and administra­ tion but are more intensely focused on borderless policy and political matters. In this area, to borrow the language of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, one could see St-Laurent as keenly interested in building “symbolic” and “cultural” capital. Canada, for St-Laurent, was not merely an “imagined community” but one that had to recognize itself for was it was. It started with something simple, like insisting early in his first term that the expression “the Dominion of Can­ ada,” which smacked of the colonial past, be abandoned in favour of Canada tout court, but it went further. Xavier Gélinas reviews how St-Laurent managed issues of concern to French Canadians and Québécois, and scrutinizes some of the factors that raised real concerns in some Quebec circles. Many thought that St-Laurent had done little to advance the cause of French Canada within Con­ federation and within the public service.34 Christopher McCreery surveys the impact St-Laurent had in Canadianizing key institutions of governance and culture. Philip Girard takes a look at an altogether different form of cultural capital: the nature of Louis St-Laurent s approach to justice. It was he who led the arguments in favour of making the Supreme Court of Canada the final court of appeal, ending for good any recourse to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Girard also probes judicial appointments, knowing well how deeply involved St-Laurent had been in the legal community all his life. Alone among those who served as prime minister, St-Laurent could easily have been nom in­ ated to the Supreme Court and served as chief justice. And I look at altogether different substantial issues: the politics of Louis St-Laurent and his success in attracting different voting coalitions to support the Liberal Party. In a follow-up chapter co-written with Peter M. Ryan, I broaden the lens to discuss the change in policy platforms among the four dominant parties of the time: the Liberal Party of Canada, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, the Social Credit Party of Canada, and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Also in this section, Abril Liberatori contributes a chapter on the changes and continuities of the St-Laurent practice of immigration policy, and J.R. Miller explains the governments policy regarding Indigenous peoples. Adam Chapnick discusses the many ideas Louis St-Laurent articulated in the famous Gray Lecture he delivered the year before he became prime minister. Finally, Greg Donaghy captures how policy substance was incarnated by St-Laurent as he undertook a trip around the world in 1954 - yet another “first” in the annals

16

Patrice Dutil

of the prime ministership in Canada. The Hon. Jean Charest rounds out this collection in a postscript, which draws out some of the key elements of “town­ ship thinking” - the mentalité of the people of his terroir and how it shaped St-Laurenfs thinking as well as his own. Together, these chapters create a composite portrait of Louis St-Laurenfs politics and policies that accents the complications of his times. They each make an effort to measure the prim e m inister’s role and come to different conclu­ sions. None leaves doubt, however, that St-Laurent was engaged with his gov­ ernment, and they stand against the notion that his government had no vision and little purpose in its doings. Instead, what emerges from these pages is a government of conviction and direction, one that is adventurous and enter­ prising in some instances and yet reluctant and cautious in others. The best explanation is that the St-Laurent government operated not only in a time of growth but also in a time of growing conservatism - an electoral force that, for the most part, it respected (though perhaps not sufficiently when it came to the Suez Crisis). Nevertheless, the St-Laurent government had a lasting impact. It demonstrates that the modest goal of “getting a num ber of people to work together harmoniously to achieve certain results” can yield enormous good for the people of the country. St-Laurenfs government was transformative. Power revealed him to be someone remarkable in the service of his country.

Notes 1 Bruce Hutchison, Mr. Prime Minister, 1867-1964 (Toronto: Longman’s, 1964), 286. 2 The house was purchased in 1950. It was near the home John A. Macdonald had bought and refurbished in the 1880s. 3 St-Laurent would have undoubtedly favoured the ardent defence of the Canadian pos­ ition as articulated by J.L. Granatstein and Gregory A. Johnson in “The Evacuation of the Japanese-Canadians, 1942: A Realist Critique,” in On Guard for Thee: War, Ethnicity and the Canadian State, 1939-1945, ed. Norman Hillmer, Bohdan Kordan, and Lubomyr Luciuk, 1 (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1988), 101-29. 4 See Maclean’s, September 1957,4.1 am indebted to Donald B. Smith for this insight. 5 Ian Scandlers, “How the Prime Minister Became Uncle Louis,” Macleans, 1 January 1955. 6 John English, The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, vol. 2, 1949-1972 (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1992), 185. 7 Stella Lees and June Senyard, The 1950s: How Australia Became a Modern Society, and Everyone Got a House and Car (Victoria: Hyland House Publishing, 1987). 8 See Jennifer A. Delton, Rethinking the 1950s: How Anticommunism and the Cold War Made America Liberal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 9 See Patrick Brennan, Reporting the Nations Business: Press-Government Relations during the Liberal Years (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994). 10 Bruce Hutchison, Mr. Prime Minister, 1867-1964 (Toronto: Longman’s, 1964), 285.

Introduction

17

11 Ibid., 287. 12 Donald Creighton, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939-75 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 283. 13 Michael Bliss, Right Honourable Men: The Descent o f Canadian Politicsfrom Macdonald to Mulroney (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1998), 181-82. 14 Statement o f Apology on Behalf o f the Government o f Canada to Inuit for the Management of the Tuberculosis Epidemic from the 1940s-1960s, 8 March 2019, Iqaluit, Nunavut. It is worth noting that the prime minister opened his remarks by declaring “We have to know our history” 15 See Tim Cook, The Fight for History: 75 Years o f Forgetting Remembering and Remaking Canadas Second World War (Toronto: Penguin Random House, 2020). 16 See Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “Paul Robeson in Canada: A Border Story” Labour/Le Travail 51 (Spring, 2003): 177-221. 17 Davis Meren, ‘“Commend Me the Yak’: The Colombo Plan, the Inuit of Ungava, and ‘Developing’ Canada’s North,” Histoire sociale/Social History 50, 102 (2017): 343-70. 18 Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making o f a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994). 19 Reginald Whitaker, The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party of Canada, 1930-58 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). 20 J.L. Granatstein, A Man o f Influence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 19291968 (Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1982), 251. 21 Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 225. 22 Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). 23 This was not entirely without reason. See Asa McKercher, “No, Prime Minister: Revisiting Diefenbaker and the ‘Pearsonalities,’” Canadian Journal o f History 52, 2 (2017): 264-89. See also Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era, ed. Janice Cavell and Ryan M. Touhey (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018). 24 Desmond Morton, “Uncle Louis and a Golden Age for Canada: A Time of Prosperity at Home and Influence Abroad” Policy Options (June-July 2003): 51. 25 Ibid., 55. 26 I owe much of this reflection to David Brooks, The Road to Character (New York: Random House, 2015), particularly as he discusses Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall, two of St-Laurent s contemporaries who also shared very similar characters. 27 Dale C. Thomson, “The Political Ideas of Louis St. Laurent,” in The Political Ideas o f Prime Ministers of Canada, ed. Marcel Hamelin (Ottawa: Editions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1969), 141. 28 See Patrice Dutil, Devil’s Advocate: Godfroy Langlois and the Politics o f Liberal Progressivism in Lauriers Quebec (Montreal: Robert Davies, 1994). 29 Louis St-Laurent to Madame Doyon, 23 April 1949, Library and Archives Canada, Louis St-Laurent Papers, MG 26 L59. 30 See Richard Gimblett, “The Mutiny That Never Was,” Dorchester Review 9, 1 (2019): 55-62. 31 See Jim Green, Against the Tide: The Story of the Canadian Seamens Union (Toronto: Progress Books, 1986); and William Kaplan, Everything That Floats: Pat Sullivan, Hal Banks, and the Canadian Seamen’s Unions o f Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987).

18

Patrice Dutil

32 See Charles Lipton, The Trade Union Movement in Canada, 1827-1959, 4th ed. (Toronto: NC Press, 1978), 306-7. 33 Reginald W hitaker makes the argument that St-Laurent cared very little about the party structure, happily leaving it to others. I think this is indeed true. Whitaker also makes the argument that St-Laurent gave ascendency to his ministers. Here, I do not agree. See Whitaker, Government Party, 408-10. 34 In a revealing anecdote, Ramsay Cook recalls a conversation with Pierre Elliott Trudeau in February 1968 in which the latter speaks of his concern about being subject to the same criticisms levelled at the French Canadian prime ministers that had preceded him: “Will they call me un roi nègre: will I fall under the same criticisms as Laurier and will I get the Uncle Louis image?” Cook elsewhere says that Michel Brunet, the noted Université de Montréal historian and nationaliste, had flatly told him that he considered St-Laurent a vendu. See Ramsay Cook, The Teeth o f Time: Remembering Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 47, 137.

Introduction

19

r.n » ,

1

St-Laurent in Government Realism and Idealism in Action P A T R IC E D U T IL

Realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul, and it is only through idealism that we resume contact with reality.

- Henri Bergson

Winston Churchill, finding himself prime minister again at the age of seventyseven in late October 1951, decided he should start his new mandate with a visit to North America. He planned to spend most of his time in Washington, DC, to discuss world alfairs now that the British Empire had essentially col­ lapsed and the Soviet Union had affirmed its domination of Eastern Europe, and he planned to visit Ottawa as well. At some point, however, he was told that Canada had ended the practice of playing “Rule Britannia” and that he would not be greeted with the imperial song during his upcoming trip. He grew angry and threatened to cancel the trip. It was Clementine, his wife, who per­ suaded him to board the overnight train from Washington, and he arrived in Ottawa early on 12 January 1952. As he stepped off the train, the Royal Canadian Air Force Central Band struck up his favourite tune. According to many reports, he wept.1 It is not clear if the prime minister had something to do with the quick pro­ gram adjustment, but he likely did. Louis St-Laurent’s sense of things defies easy categorization. “I don’t think Mr. St-Laurent was a politician at all,” said Jimmy Gardiner, the m inister of agriculture. “He was a lawyers lawyer ... but that isn’t politics.”2 It was St-Laurent’s genius that he did not show what a

consummate politician he really was. In the pecking order of priorities, party matters may have ranked low, but where politics mattered he was particularly adept at holding strong on principles while knowing when they could become a nuisance. Making Churchill happy - making sure the heroic Winston returned to Ottawa in the middle of the Cold War - was an acceptable cost for breaking the rule. Churchill was well worth a sailors tune, and when he returned in 1954, “Rule Britannia” was again played (exceptionally) in his honour. Most people who experienced the 1950s as adults, indeed many born during the Second World War or in the years immediately thereafter, remember this period in Canadian history - even as children - as a time when the prime m in­ ister was a benign figure, a do-gooder who could be relied on to deliver effective policy with a rare assurance. Categories evade him. He was, when he became prime minister in 1948, refreshing: a family man (a grandfather, even) when families mushroomed across the land; an affable, avuncular figure who could not have been more completely different from his predecessor. Where William Lyon Mackenzie King was secretive, inscrutable, and tem ­ peramental, St-Laurent was graceful (though he had a temper), a man who was not given to fantasies, a realist. If King seemed to live for himself, St-Laurent manifestly seemed to live for others. Both had similar ideas of duty and ambitions for their country, but where King seemed to place the Liberal Party in the forefront of all his calculations, St-Laurents order of things had a less partisan bite, even though he had been a Liberal practically since he learned to walk. Power unleashed in him an unexpected desire to change things in order to meet new ideals. He was certainly grounded and had a firm sense of belonging. Louis St-Laurent was an eighth-generation Canadian who could trace his lineage back to the 1660s, when a new wave of settlers arrived from France as a result of Louis XIV’s entrepreneurial program to reinvigorate New France.3 LouisÉtienne St-Laurent was born in the age of Sir John A. Macdonald, in Compton, Quebec, about twenty-five kilometres south of Sherbrooke, on 1 February 1882 (it is not clear when he translated his second given name to “Stephen”). At age three, he surely would have heard the name of Louis Riel being discussed in the family store. He was the first of what would be seven children (one died in infancy) raised by his father Moïse St-Laurent (a Québécois retailer to the root) and his mother Mary Anne Broderick (the daughter of Irish immigrants, she kept her Irish heritage alive and spoke no French). Young Louis grew up in a firm but loving household. It did not take very long before his teachers noticed that he was an outstanding pupil. Dale Thomson, upon interviewing St-Laurent and people who knew him, wrote:

24

Patrice Dutil

Because of his shyness and his fear of being scolded, he prepared his lessons carefully; as a result he was consistently at the head of the class. A mother’s, and a teachers, pet, he might well have incurred the jealous dislike of his class-mates had he not been so modest and unassuming; despite his success in school, his careful dress, and his reserved manner, he seems to have been a popular boy.4

Young Louis loved reading. The only time he ever broke the rules was to sneak candles into his room so he could read at night.5 His purpose was to learn something new and chose his readings accordingly; he disliked music and his piano lessons, and sports had very little appeal for him. At fourteen, St-Laurent was determined to be eligible to attend a collège classique. A local woman, Dorilla Têtu, trained him for five years to take the entrance exam to the Séminaire Saint-Charles-Borromée in Sherbrooke. He passed effortlessly, the first boy from Compton to do so. Nearly everyone assumed the charming young man would follow the path of the priesthood after his time at the college. One of his teachers, Father Maltais, later said of St-Laurent that if he “entered the Church he would certainly become a bishop, and if he entered politics, he would become Prime Minister.”6 St-Laurent graduated in June 1902, his eyes fixed on a career in law.7 The family was never rich, but education was a priority. St-Laurent pursued law at Laval University in Quebec City, starting that fall. He really enjoyed the Quebec capital and was determ ined to get on with his career in that city after he graduated. Life in the latin quarter tempted him into politics, and he became a m em ber of the student Liberal Club.8 He graduated first in his class in 1905 and was awarded the Governor General’s Medal for the best grades as well as the Prix Tessier, a twenty-dollar gold piece and, not least, a Rhodes Scholarship. But Louis St-Laurent had no time to waste and turned down the opportunity to study at Oxford. At age twenty-three, he hurriedly threw himself into his career, working long hours first in the Quebec City firm of Louis-Philippe Pelletier, a Conservative Party activist, and then in partnership with Antonin Galipeault. St-Laurent s talents and dedication were recognized by his clients, who easily recommended him. St-Laurent did not ruffle feathers with his first political choices. His first partners in his legal practice were Conserva­ tives, yet he also invited Philippe-Auguste Choquette to join his firm. Choquette, now in the final phase of his career, had been a Liberal firebrand, demanding that his party use the provincial state to improve education and social service delivery.9 It worked for St-Laurent: it took only a few years for him to collect

St-Laurent in Government

25

well-paying clients in the city, in the province, in the country, and even continentally.. He also established himself as a family man in his twenties. He met Jeanne Renault, a glamorous Beauceville girl, the year he finished his studies and, after a long courtship, convinced her to m arry him. Jeanne and Louis St-Laurent married on 19 May 1908 and honeymooned in Niagara Falls. There were three additions in short order: Marthe (March 1909), Renault (September 1910), and Jean-Paul (April 1912), followed by Thérèse (December 1914) and Madeleine (April 1917). He was the father of five children when he turned thirty-five. By the time Madeleine was born, the St-Laurent family was living comfort­ ably in a beautiful home on the Grande Allée in Quebec City. Already, Louis St-Laurent was part of the city’s establishment. His firm was installed in the handsome Imperial Bank building on rue Saint-Pierre and he was earning $10,000 a year ($214,000 in 2020 dollars). A labourer on a farm in those days earned $341 a year, including board.10 Laval gave him the degree of doctor of law, and he taught courses at his alma mater. He was a Liberal in a Liberal town and in a Liberal province. His talent and charm were undeniable. He was in­ vited to join the Bonne Entente movement, a Toronto creation designed to bring together the elite of French and English Canada in an effort to reconcile the two peoples following the divisive debates over conscription and Canadas place in the British Empire. St-Laurent travelled to Toronto to make his views known. He favoured Canadas role in the war against Germany but could not support forcing people to the front. The deaths, just a few blocks from his house, of five young conscription protesters in the spring of 1918 must have crushed him. Life went on. For a while, the family owned a hobby farm on the Ile d’Orléans and summered there in the 1920s. Trips to Europe were organized when the children were old enough to appreciate the luxury. St-Laurent’s specialty was corporate law, but he was sometimes asked by various governments to repre­ sent their interests before the Supreme Court. He pleaded in favour of ensuring Jewish representation on Montreal’s Protestant School Board in 1926. Soon he was arguing cases before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London, still the last court of appeal for Canadian affairs. (He would be the one to end this practice when he became prime minister. The Supreme Court of Canada would have the final word, and yet another reminder of Canada’s colonial past was cut.) He led the Quebec Bar in 1929 and was elected president of the Canadian Bar Association for a term, between 1930 and 1932. Life was good: St-Laurent made a lot of money and could afford a maid and a chauffeur (Louis turned out to be a dangerous driver and a menace on the

26

Patrice Dutil

road), but his financial world soon turned upside down. The Wall Street crash cost him much of his savings, and the Depression gave him no reason to be optimistic about recovering his fortune. He continued to work hard and oc­ casionally picked up contracts from the government of Canada to plead a number of cases, not least involving defending federal cases before the JCPC. He was asked to join the Rowell-Sirois Commission, which was mandated by the Mackenzie King government to examine the Canadian economy in the context of federal-provincial relations. If St-Laurent could avoid the First World War because of his family status, the second one quickly caught up with him. He co-chaired the Victory Loan Campaign in Quebec and gave it instant cred­ ibility; he certainly caught the prime minister s eye. W hen Ernest Lapointe, the leading Quebec minister in King’s cabinet, died in late November 1941, King suspected he might have a perfect replacement. He turned to St-Laurent, plead­ ing with him to enter politics on the grounds that the war, according to what his friend Winston Churchill had told him, would soon end. No one else in Quebec enjoyed the status and respect of the quiet Quebec City lawyer who, in his thirty-five-year career, had never been publicly political or international. The move to Ottawa was not greeted well in the St-Laurent home. Jeanne St-Laurent hated politics and knew it could consume her husband. It meant a massive pay cut (he was now earning over $50,000 a year [about $774,000 in 2020 dollars] when most ministers earned less than $15,000) at a time when St-Laurent was still trying to recover the losses he had suffered in 1929. Never­ theless, duty called: St-Laurent took the plunge and was sworn in as minister of justice and attorney general while he told himself and others that it was only to help until the war was over. A few months later, he won a by-election in Quebec-East, the seat of his hero Wilfrid Laurier, allowing him to sit in Parliament. As minister of justice, many of the most im portant files that crossed his desk had international implications. His first and most controversial role was in authorizing and justifying the incarceration of much of the Japanese popula­ tion on the west coast. The act was entirely contrary to his instincts and con­ victions, but St-Laurent did not contemplate resistance, let alone resignation. Japan had to be defeated in response to its attack on Pearl Harbor and other atrocities in the Far East, and there was no doubt that he supported the govern­ ment. He played a m inor role in the 1942 referendum King launched to release the government from its 1939 pledge not to introduce conscription. St-Laurent saw nothing wrong with the governments position. Canada was at war and unquestionably on the right side of history. His colleague Arthur Cardin resigned

St-Laurent in Government

27

from cabinet, unable to reconcile him self with King s introduction of the National Resources Mobilization Act, but St-Laurent would have none of that. His ethics were again tested when the government felt it had no choice but to introduce conscription for foreign service in 1944 in order to help defeat the Nazis in the west and the Japanese Empire in the east. He might have had doubts, but if he did, he kept them to himself. War was war, and Canada had to help defeat the Axis. Loyalty was not a small word in the St-Laurent vocabulary. Another important international issue to cross his desk concerned the emer­ ging global financial order. In 1944, King asked him to represent Canada at the Bretton Woods Conference (in New Hampshire) to discuss the establishment of the International Monetary Fund; a year later he was in San Francisco to represent Canada at the founding of the United Nations. St-Laurent enthusiastic­ ally supported both projects, both personally and as a leading member of the Canadian delegations. He met interesting people and felt at home with the issues. St-Laurent, to the regret of many, played no role in the Quebec provincial election of 1944 that returned Maurice Duplessis to power. Many Liberals thought he could have lent his prestige and given the Adélard Godbout govern­ ment - a very progressive one11- the support it deserved. For reasons that remain unclear, he stayed in Ottawa, focusing on his own busy affairs. He was not a natural politician, eager to make political arguments. That said, he easily won his own re-election in Quebec-East in 1945 and soon had a new challenge. Like many of his colleagues in the Liberal govern­ ment, St-Laurent was supportive of an increasingly assertive government of Canada. He ardently defended a controversial loan to Great Britain in 1946 on the grounds that it would allow it to purchase Canadian goods. This angered a portion of public opinion in Quebec, but St-Laurent was unmoved. He would also play an instrumental role in negotiating with Newfoundland the terms of joining Confederation, yet another issue to which Quebec objected because it confirmed Labrador as part of Newfoundland. He forged ahead nevertheless. In October 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a young employee in the Soviet Unions embassy in Ottawa, walked into a government office and asked for asylum. The request was clumsily handled by the administration (including St-Laurents own Departm ent of Justice, which initially turned him away, thinking the young Russian was simply confused), but the file finally landed on StLaurents desk and he dealt with the legal ramifications. St-Laurent argued that Gouzenkos revelations had to be examined by a third party, and arrangements were quickly made for a royal commission to be headed by two judges of the Supreme Court of Canada, Justice Robert Taschereau and Justice Roy Kellock.

28

Patrice Dutil

The commission hastily arranged for twenty people to be arrested and tried for suspicious activities. On 20 February 1946, the Soviet Union did admit it was spying on Canada. Ten people were found guilty of spying for the Soviet Union, and in June, Fred Rose, the MP for the St-Louis riding in Montreal, was sen­ tenced to six years of jail for espionage. In essence, though St-Laurents portfolio was far removed from anything to do with pursuing a military front against the Germans, the Japanese, and now the Russians, he could not prevent the real world from crashing against his door. The government was harshly criticized for being slow in responding and for not respecting the civil rights of the people accused of spying. St-Laurent had little sympathy for communists and certainly did not want to see them employed by the government. In 1952, a directive was issued indicating that “a person who is a member of the Communist party, or who by his words shows himself to believe in Marxism-Leninism, or any other ideology which advocates the overthrow of government by force, should not be permitted to enter the public service. Such persons discovered within the public service must not be allowed access to classified information, and their continued employment by the government may be undesirable.” Under St-Laurent, such investigations into loyalty or security threats would be carried out in secret by either the RCMP or, in the case of members of the civil service, the executive staff of the Privy Council.12 It was not overt policy, but via a secret cabinet directive, that within months the National Film Board was purged of its communist employees and its commissioner was dismissed. In 1953, the government made a range of amendments to the Criminal Code to allow the state to persecute individuals suspected of pursuing communist activities that threatened the country. Three years later, the RCMP officially created the Directorate of Security and Intel­ ligence to recognize and organize more formally what it had been doing with regard to the surveillance of potentially seditious activity.13 Later, the St-Laurent government opted for discretion and caution in dealing with potential “subversives,” and there were few prosecutions. No documenta­ tion on investigations was ever revealed to Parliament or disclosed to the public. “As a matter of fact, we had very little trouble,” remembered Brooke Claxton, the minister of national defence, “there were not too many cases. They were given no publicity... Under our system McCarthy had no place to go and as I say I never heard of an unjust result.”14 That judgment likely underplayed the level of surveillance and harassment to which some employees were subjected, but St-Laurents government proved to be mostly “fair” against employees it considered disloyal. In contrast, a formal homosexual screening program was

St-Laurent in Government

29

installed by the Diefenbaker government in 1959, following investigations on the presence of gays and lesbians in the federal bureaucracy that started in 1958.15

Exhausted by years of leading government, Mackenzie King broke the conven­ tion that the prime minister also act as de facto secretary of state for external affairs and offered St-Laurent the position in early September 1946. It was un­ expected but made sense because St-Laurent had dealt with international issues since 1942 and had performed well. It was a remarkable promotion that reaffirmed St-Laurent on the front seats and in a hot portfolio. The Iron Cur­ tain was certainly descending on the world scene, and Canada was now pitted against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The global order had changed, and St-Laurent sensed that a new logic for involvement was needed and quickly applied himself to articulate the principles that could govern Canadas foreign policy. King’s decision would have another lasting consequence: St-Laurent’s m eeting Lester Pearson, who was returning to Ottawa after spending the Second World War in London. St-Laurent’s vision for Canada, one that called for vigorous involvement in the affairs of the world, meshed perfectly with Pearsons view. St-Laurent delivered a lecture at the University of Toronto in early 1947 (forever known as his “Gray Lecture” [see Adam Chapnick, Chapter 21, this volume]) that, to this day, remains the clearest, most articulate declaration of Canadas foreign policy principles. For him, any involvement in the world had to meet a five-point test. First, it had to meet the needs of national unity. In other words, if either the English majority or the French-Canadian community could not live with the governments position, the other would have to scale back and rethink its pos­ ition. Second, St-Laurent injected other values into the mix. Canadas foreign policy had to be in pursuit of political liberty, he argued, not simply in pursuit of its own interests. In practice, Canada would oppose those governments who brutally dominated their peoples. Third, it would pursue a respect for the rule of law. Canadian foreign policy would act in support of international law. Fourth, it would favour human values - a crisp and clear orientation towards human rights. Finally, Canadas foreign policy would be governed by its “international obligations.” As a member of various alliances and as a supporter of the United Nations, Canada would respond if called upon. St-Laurent insisted that Canada would intervene in world affairs based on moral principles, that it would “seek and nurture the same values in world affairs” as it did in Canadian matters. He put these principles to the test. In fact, St-Laurent transformed Can­ adian foreign policy as no prime minister before or since has ever done. He had

30

Patrice Dutil

argued forcibly for a strong presence in world affairs, a perspective that made Mackenzie King very uncomfortable. St-Laurent and Lester B. Pearson, the undersecretary of state for external affairs and a favourite of Mackenzie King, advocated involvement in the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea to contain the troubles that were brewing in the peninsula in 1947, along with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in the Middle East in 1948.16 St-Laurent even threatened King with resignation if he did not receive the prime minister’s support. Mackenzie King finally reconciled himself to the notion that the time had come for him to step aside, and he called for a leadership convention in early August 1948. St-Laurent was not the only contender - Liberal heavyweights like Paul Martin Sr., Chubby Power, and Jimmy Gardiner really wanted the job. St-Laurent, strongly supported by King, won the nomination and was sworn in as prime minister of Canada on 15 November 1948. He was almost sixty-six years old, the oldest man ever to assume the position for the first time. Nevertheless, he made it look easy. Louis St-Laurent moved into the prime ministers suite in the East Block and reconfirmed Lester B. Pearson as his suc­ cessor as secretary of state for external affairs. The trusting relationship he had built with Pearson as his under-secretary (deputy) from 1946 to 1948 would continue to flourish until his political career ended. “I believe that our partner­ ship during [the 1950s] enabled us to do together much that neither of us could have done separately to serve Canada,” St-Laurent said upon learning of Pearsons death in 1972.17

The Idealist as Realist: Foreign Policy Over the few years they had worked closely as minister and deputy minister, respectively, St-Laurent and Pearson had become convinced that Canadas hardearned position in global affairs would not be sustainable unless it continued to actively work with other leading countries. This notion married a certain realism in foreign policy (the idea that questions of the day had to be managed with Canadas trade and security interests in mind) with a certain idealism (the idea that peace and goodwill could only be achieved by pursuing higher object­ ives through multilateral organizations like the United Nations and by letting go of old enmities). As a temporary member of the Security Council of the United Nations, Canada was immediately challenged by a num ber of issues and tensions within cabinet - indeed between the multilateralist bureaucrats in the Department of External Affairs and the prime minister himself. The first issue was the brewing

St-Laurent in Government

31

I

"Birthday Cake"- Louis St-Laurent and Lester B. Pearson in celebration: an alliance and a friendship (1957?). C o u rte sy o f Ms. Je a n Thérèse Riley

trouble in Palestine, with which the prime m inister wanted nothing to do. In 1947, both St-Laurent and his deputy Lester Pearson, who was deeply respected by Mackenzie King, made strong arguments for Canadas involvement as some sort of peacekeeper. Mackenzie King stubbornly refused to consider the option but finally relented and Canada joined the UN Special Committee on Palestine. Mackenzie King had applied the prim e Laurier test: national unity. He was also a realist: Canada had nothing to gain from its involvement on distant shores. This issue reared its head once again as the United Nations tried to cool the embers of hostility on the Korean peninsula. St-Laurent (and Pearson) wanted to see Canada live up to its obligations on the Security Council, but for King, again, the Korean issue only offered downsides to the Liberal Party, mostly from

32

Patrice Dutil

what many perceived to be a neutralist, isolationist Quebec. St-Laurent, the chief Quebec representative in cabinet, stood his ground and, for the second time, threatened to resign if King did not allow Canada to join the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea. As King moved towards retire­ ment but still remained influential, St-Laurent and Pearson kept a watching brief on the Korean question, sensing that Canada had a role to play. Canada became a United Nations peace observer in India, yet another country in which Canadian interests were hardly vital or immediate.18 In 1951, Canada became part of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan, where it was to observe and report violations of the ceasefire. In 1954, Canada became a member of the International Commission on Security and Control in Indochina in an attempt to help the Vietnamese build a bridge to peace. Canadas involvement in these issues was based on principle: it had no vital interests in any of these parts of the world. The Middle East loomed large both at the beginning of his primeministership and at the end. St-Laurent pursued the issue of recognizing Israel, and official notice was given a m onth after he stepped into office. Canada, as a member of the UN’s Security Council, had not reacted to Israel’s first application for membership in the UN in May 1948, and had abstained when Israel applied again later that year. At the same time, Canada had supported partition while St-Laurent had been secretary of state for external relations. Things changed rapidly when St-Laurent became prime m inister and Pearson assumed the mantle of external affairs. While there was still much heated debate about border issues and about where Canada stood, Pearson took the issue to cabinet and won the argument. On Christmas Eve, 1948, Canada effectively recognized the state of Israel. This was confirmed following the Israeli election early in the new year, and when a new application for recognition was submitted to the United Nations in March 1949. Canada co-sponsored the admission resolution and voted in favour of it, following the example of the United States (Britain still abstained). It was far from principled heroism, but Canada did the right thing in the end.19 Perhaps the thorniest issue was relations with the British, which always seemed to make their way to the top of the agenda and sometimes even tested St-Laurent’s com m itm ent to multilateralism. W ith victory over the Nazis behind it, the British government was keen to recreate a form of empire that would loosely unite the United Kingdom and its colonies. The postwar years, however, had not been kind to the old empire, and it was clear that nationalist movements in Asia, the Asian sub-continent, and Africa would not tolerate an institution that smacked of any British dominance. St-Laurent was present at

St-Laurent in Government

33

meetings when solutions were sought to install a new institutional framework that would keep the former members of the empire somewhat united. He was convinced that Canadas interests could be furthered by closer relations with the developing world, particularly as the old colonial regimes literally dissolved in the 1950s. It was perfectly consistent with his worldview that Canada would lend support to several developing nations and even facilitate their entry into the UN.20 The notion of a “Commonwealth of Nations” made its way through the dis­ cussions, and it was St-Laurent who proposed that King George VI be styled the “Head of the Commonwealth,” a formula that could appeal to the new re­ publics of Ireland (which did not join the Commonwealth) and India (which did join). The formulas and agreements necessary to form the new alliance were drafted, and Canada signed on. The London Declaration, issued by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, became official in May 1949. The modern Commonwealth was born, midwifed by St-Laurent. To honour the new relationship, St-Laurent and his cabinet hosted the heir to the British throne, Princess Elizabeth, as well as the Duke of Edinburgh, eighteen months later in October 1951. Canadian media covered the trip extensively as the Royals trav­ elled from coast to coast. This visit solidified political and trade relations be­ tween Canada and Britain and demonstrated that Canadians still honoured the British monarchy. St-Laurent headed the delegation of Canadians (politicians and common folk alike) that attended the coronation in June 1953, but point­ edly refused to wear any uniform that smacked of a colonial relationship with Britain.21 This was pure Louis St-Laurent. It demonstrated loyalty to the British Crown and to the Commonwealth, but on Canadian terms. The emergence of communist China spread fear in the West about the pos­ sibility of communism making its way across the entire continent.22St-Laurent, putting aside the hard realism of those who saw Beijing as necessarily hostile, advocated that Maos China be officially recognized. He was not naïve. In 1951, a group of representatives from the Commonwealth nations met in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), to discuss how poverty acted as an incubator for the spread of communism and how much of a threat the current economic status of the South and Southeast posed to itself. Canadas outlook “has not been the purely negative one of resisting Communist encroachments, but the more posi­ tive one of helping to establish a good and sound society that would have the moral vigor and confidence to resist the Communist appeal.”23 The solution to protecting the Asian continent from the communist m en­ ace lay in its economic sphere. Australia spearheaded the new initiative known

34

Patrice Dutil

as the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia.24 The plan was to unfold on multiple platforms and it was to offer much more than just financial assistance. In the short term, the Colombo Plan was meant to provide immediate relief to economic crises and food short­ ages while simultaneously laying the groundwork for developing an adequate industry before pulling back the proverbial training wheels.25 The total Com ­ monwealth contribution was to be $350 million over the six-year period (of which Canada would provide $150 million - $25 million each year).26 This accounted for the improvement of transport facilities, irrigation works, and efforts at land reclamation in order to jum p-start South and Southeast Asian economies.27 Both the British and the Canadians were worried that the project was not viable on Commonwealth money alone, though they were hesitant to bring the Americans onboard for fear they would monopolize authority.28The United States proved agreeable to the idea and cooperated with the Commonwealth. The only condition the Americans put forward was that non-Commonwealth nations in Asia also be recipients of the Colombo Plan, which was agreed.29 Canada thus played a role in demonstrating that the Commonwealth could work without replicating old empire reflexes of authority and colonialism.30 Canada profiled the Colombo Plan as “helping them to help themselves.”31

Cold Warrior Prior to the St-Laurent years, Canada had flirted with the idea of joining an Atlantic alliance that would send a clear message to the Soviet Union that the West stood strong against communism.32 This potential arrangement, Canada hoped, would act as more than just a military alliance and pursue multilateral objectives within economic and cultural spheres as well.33 The agreement (the North Atlantic Treaty) was signed in the spring of 1949, a few months after St-Laurent came to power, and it joined Canada with the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, France, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and Luxembourg. These countries stood united on the principle that an attack on any one of them would be interpreted as an attack on all of them. Canada was now part of a new alliance that defied the Soviet Union.34 War formally became a part of St-Laurents policy agenda when the North Korean army crossed the border into South Korea on 25 June 1950. St-Laurent considered alternatives and pressed Harry Truman to gather support from the United Nations. The Soviet Union - which was temporarily boycotting the

St-Laurent in Government

35

FIGURE 1.1 Military expenditures in Canada, 1950-2016

Source: Tradingeconom ics.com , https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/military-expenditure.

Security Council over the UN’s unwillingness to recognize the People’s Repub­ lic of China - did not officially object when the United States tabled a Security Council Resolution calling for North Korea to end its aggression. China, whose vote was still exercised by the Chiang Kai-Shek government now in “exile” in Taiwan, supported the measure. W ithin six months, Canadas contribution to the Korean police action was up to six thousand men and it would keep troops in Korea until 1954. Mackenzie King died in the middle of the crisis (22 July); he and his isolationist views could now only haunt cabinet from beyond. St-Laurent s foreign policy was a decided mix of realism and idealism.35 In the context of the Cold War, St-Laurent favoured military spending. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the 1947-48 defence budget had been lowered to $269 million, and the armed services were kept far below authorized strength.36 W hen he assumed power, Canadas army consisted of thirty-eight thousand people. By 1952, it neared 120,000, and the St-Laurent government was spending $1.959 billion on defence, the equivalent of 42.2 percent of the entire budget and the equivalent of almost 10 percent of Canadas GDP.37 The NATO commitments, the Korean War, and broader concerns engen­ dered by the aggression of the Soviet Union changed Ottawa’s attitude towards defence. In 1951, a new departm ent of defence production was created, with C.D. Howe as minister. Canada had two aircraft carriers in the oceans in the St-Laurent years. First was the HMCS Magnificent, which was succeeded by the HMCS Bonaventure. There was no more eloquent expression of St-Laurent’s views on Canada, the military, and international relations than the founding,

36

Patrice Dutil

in 1952, of Le Collège militaire royal de St-Jean, about a ninety-minute drive west of his hometown in the Eastern Townships. It was the rough equivalent of the Royal Military College in Kingston, which had been created by an earlier generation of Liberals in 1876. Canada would thus be fighting the Cold War in both official languages. By 1954, the Canadian government was spending the equivalent of 8 percent of the country’s gross national product on the military.18 Canadas m ilitary boasted two full-time divisions. During St-Laurent’s tenure, it designed and built its own anti-submarine destroyers. In the air, it had eighteen CF-86 squadrons for domestic defence purposes (built in Montreal) and was funding a supersonic fighter plane (the CF-105, “the Arrow”), which was being developed by A.V. Roe Canada (generally known as Avro Canada) in Toronto. In effect, St-Laurent ushered in Canadas entry into the field of aerospace. A.V. Roe Canada Ltd. was a subsidiary of the Hawker Siddeley Group of Great Britain, which owned 60 percent of the Canadian operations. The company grew to be the third largest employer in Canada in the 1950s, em ­ ploying some 14,300 people at the time the Diefenbaker government cancelled the Arrow in 1959. Canada, in its own way, had emerged as an atomic power in the aftermath of the Second World War. It provided scientific contributions and, not least, the vital uranium that could be found in the Northwest Terri­ tories.39Uranium sales slowed during the postwar years when American atomic superiority was unquestioned, but it skyrocketed after the Soviets had success­ fully tested their own nuclear bomb, providing Canada with approximately $1.5 billion annually in sales to the United States.40 The mining of uranium in the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Northern Ontario also created a culture of research around the possibility of nuclear energy to generate elec­ tricity for the nation. In Chalk River, Ontario, a new nuclear research facility was opened to study the potential use of atomic energy for electricity. The close relationship with the United States in the context of the Cold War was probably inevitable, but it was not accomplished without some negotiation. In 1952, a deal was concluded to allow a twenty-year lease for the United States to build an air base in Goose Bay, Labrador. The Eisenhower administration put a priority on setting an early warning system to detect Soviet bombers flying in North American air space. The more problematic line was the one destined to run along the 70th parallel. The United States considered this zone to be unclaimed, something with which the Canadian government strongly disagreed, and it was only after the Eisenhower government recognized Canadas claim to it that the DEW Line was built. This was generally a productive, mutually

St-Laurent in Government

37

beneficial tim e for Canadian-American relations, a genuine “Era of Good Feeling,” in the words of historian Robert Bothwell.41 Canada enthusiastically worked to contribute to continental defence by building up its army, navy, and air force. Its contribution to building radar networks across the country the Mid-Canada Line (also known as the McGill Fence), the Pinetree Line, and the DEW Line in the Arctic - led to a formal North American Air Defence Agreement (NORAD). In that context, the temptation to fully integrate Can­ adas continental military policy with that of the United States was a constant during the St-Laurent years. But there were limits. Willing to integrate the winged aspect of continental defence through the NORAD base in Colorado, the government hesitated when it came to ballistic missiles. Canadas military wanted to keep its independence in that act of defence, while still working in tandem with its American counterpart. This easily matched St-Laurenfs view of the world.42 The ideal of multilateralism was attractive to St-Laurent. He saw the United Nations as a forum that could expand Canadas presence in the world. It pre­ sented a new opportunity for Canada, a chance to perhaps make up for the lost opportunity of the League of Nations, to make its presence felt in various corners of the world and perhaps to expand its zone of economic influence.43 His view of the continent included Mexico, and he met with Eisenhower and Mexican president Adolfo Ruiz Cortines in 1956 to discuss a range of issues. At the same time, Canada was a staunch ally of the United States, of NATO, and there was no doubt as to where its priorities lay. In this, the government was perfectly in tune with popular opinion in the country.44

Non-Military Canada-US Relations The United States was the policy priority and Canada grew very American in the St-Laurent years. Exploding consumer habits had much to do with it, along with the popularization of American music ranging from jazz to rock ’n roll streaming from radios from coast to coast. Canadians may have felt uncomfort­ able with the highly politicized witch hunt for suspected communist sympa­ thizers symbolized by Republican senator Joe McCarthy south of the border, but that did not prevent them from going to see American movies, reading American books and magazines, and buying everything American companies produced. Quebec was hardly immune from the pressure of Americanization.45 The first meeting Prime Minister St-Laurent had with Truman was held within months of him becoming prime minister, from 11 to 13 February 1949,

38

Patrice Dutil

and the focus was the St. Lawrence Seaway.46 St-Laurent was eager to move on this file: the economic benefits were obvious as far as Canada was concerned. The planning for the seaway was divided into two projects: navigation and power developments. The seaway itself was to provide a larger and deeper port for large incoming and outgoing ships.47The im portant hydroelectric com pon­ ent could generate over 6,700 megawatts. New canals were to be built on the Canadian side of the river, owned and operated entirely by Canadians.48 The navigation development, therefore, did not require American approval, but the power development did. The idea had been stalled in the Senate in both the F.D. Roosevelt and Truman administrations.49 St-Laurent was anxious to get the project going. The Americans, it seemed, were dragging their feet in coming to a decision on the matter, and St-Laurent made it clear that Canada was willing to go ahead on the project alone so long as the United States did not object.50 Truman accepted the idea, judging it as “second best” to a fully fledged partnership. It was hoped that American ap­ proval to begin work that involved the state of New York, where much of the power development was to be set, would eventually be granted. But the project kept stalling in Congress and in the White House, and Canadians waited for the state of New York to begin cooperating with the province of Ontario to start construction of the seaway. The project depended a great deal more on Canadian efforts, and would still constitute a monumental collaboration between the United States and Canada. President Trumans relations with both Mackenzie King and St-Laurent were good, though “lacking warmth.”51 The Canadian government increasingly saw the Korean conflict as a waste of time and resources, and Lester Pearson, in particular, lobbied hard to end it as swiftly as possible.52American policies were perceived as too belligerent, and talks on how to handle the Korean War chilled non-military Canadian-American relations. The Truman administration saw Pearsons position as a nuisance and out of proportion to Canadian contribu­ tions to the war effort.53This was not the only place where Canadian-American relations were souring, and the new Eisenhower administration was welcomed as it seemed determined to adopt a more cordial diplomatic relationship with Canada - one that operated along the lines of friendship rather than as a simple political and economic alliance.54 St-Laurent took advantage of Eisenhowers election as president to move on the idea of developing the St. Lawrence Seaway. The St-Laurent government informed the Eisenhower adm inistration that Canada would undertake the project unilaterally if it had to. Eisenhower joined the project in 1954. Patience and persistence paid off.

St-Laurent in Government

39

The Suez Canal Crisis In the summer of 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal, a structure financed, built, and operated by Britain and France since the late nineteenth century. The for­ eign policy of the St-Laurent government, teetering between idealistic pursuits and hard realist policies, came to a head when those two powers, along with Israel, invaded the Sinai Peninsula, occupied the Suez Canal, and even bombed parts of Cairo. For St-Laurent, this was a spasm of old colonial reflexes that had no place in the m odern world of the 1950s. And it also meant that Canada could no longer support its closest European allies. Canadas foreign policy regarding Great Britain and the United States was tested as never before. The former Commonwealth countries held meetings intermittently after the war. In the early m onths of the Suez Crisis they met in London but w ith­ out effective resolve. India had committed itself to neutrality, but other devel­ oping countries could not tolerate the European colonists again affirming their power over Egypt. Neither could the United States. Britain hoped for Canadian support of its military action, but Canada was very reluctant to respond af­ firmatively. Building on the idea of international troops being used to effect a ceasefire, Pearson instead floated the idea of creating a more permanent peace­ keeping corps under the aegis of the United Nations. St-Laurent liked the idea at once and began to lobby for it across the key capitals. In his mind, Canada had a duty to at least try to defuse the Suez Crisis. As St-Laurent argued in the House of Commons, this was “because the members of the smaller nations are human beings just as are their people; because the era when the supermen of Europe could govern the whole world is coming pretty close to an end.” But Canada could provide some compromise.55 St-Laurent’s government had quickly seen the impasse. The use of force in the Sinai by Great Britain, France, and Israel was a losing proposition. The United States disapproved of it, as did most of the developing nations, and NATO support was absent. The idea of an intervening force made sense and was consistent with the practices of the St-Laurent government. Since 1949, Canada had acted on behalf of the United Nations in a variety of peacekeeping missions. It was then that the government made its proposal for the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force in the Sinai. It was a bold move, and a politically risky one, because Canadians were divided on Suez.56 Forty-three percent of the population (mostly from Ontario and the Maritimes) approved the British and French action, while 40 percent opposed it. Seventeen percent had no opinion. The Canadian idea, finally supported by the United States, was approved by the UN and the peacekeepers separated the belligerents in the

40

Patrice Dutil

Middle East. Lester Pearson received the credit for the idea, but there was no doubt that the Canadian move was perfectly consistent with St-Laurents ideas of how the world should work.

Social Programs If St-Laurent promoted the idea that Canada should be more involved in global affairs, he also supported the notion that Ottawa could use its money to improve the lot of Canadians even if it meant elbowing the provinces out of their exclu­ sive responsibilities under the British North America Act. As minister of justice, he had a direct hand in crafting the legislation that allowed the distribution of family allowances in 1944. With Canadas baby boom already under way, it was a sure path to popularity. It was also the right thing to do: St-Laurent was not only a father but also a grandfather, and he would become a great-grandfather before his government was defeated. It took no time for Ottawa to be involved in helping to fund Canadian universities. Some in Quebec objected - even refusing the funds - but eventually they relented and, like all provinces, saw the merit of federal funding in this area of provincial jurisdiction. The same could be said about equalization - the cash grant provided by Ottawa to provinces needing extra support to deliver social and health services roughly on par with Canadian averages. The mid-1940s saw extensive planning for the expansion of Canadas wel­ fare program. By the time the St-Laurent took power, though, many politicians considered these plans timid in light of the economic boom that had started in 1947. As the 1950s began, Ontario premier Leslie Frost was pushing for a na­ tional hospital insurance scheme.57 Frosts idea gained widespread support, including from St-Laurent himself. Generally, the only person who did not take to this idea was Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis. Canada was thus taking the first steps towards a socialist-leaning health care system. St-Laurent also wished to address the pension system. Previously, it had been restricted to those over seventy and required a means test, which most people considered embarrassing and a very inaccurate measurement of need. The pen­ sion itself was quite small and could not sustain many of its recipients. Because pensions were considered within the provincial rather than the federal sphere of responsibility, it would be quite the hassle to enact any major changes to the pre­ existing system. The Senate and House of Commons proposed a moderate reno­ vation of the pension system whereby universal pensions would be given to all those over seventy without a means test, while a means test would be imposed on those between sixty-five and sixty-nine. This proposition was accepted by the

St-Laurent in Government

41

provincial governments. In 1951, the Old Age Security Act was passed, along with the Old Age Assistance A ct The first was to be universal, with no means test. The Assistance Act would provide up to forty dollars a month to people between the ages of sixty-five and sixty-nine who were in need. That program was extended to the Indigenous population - another first.58 St-Laurent also favoured developing a contributory pension scheme that would encourage Can­ adians to save for retirement, but the idea took many years to mature. In the last budget presented by his government in 1957, the new vehicle was finally unveiled: the Registered Retirement Savings Plan. It would allow citizens to transfer a small portion of their revenue to a retirement plan that would be shielded from taxa­ tion as would any interest or dividend revenue generated by the plan. The St-Laurent government introduced the Female Employees Equal Pay Act, which promised salary equity for women doing “substantially identical work” to that of men. The Blind Persons Act, 1951, and the Disabled Persons Act, 1954, extended assistance to those in need between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five. In 1954, St-Laurent passed the National Housing Act to assist provincial programs aimed at constructing and repairing housing for lowincome families, the elderly, the disabled, and students. Overriding the resist­ ance of many provinces and the medical establishment, the federal government finally passed the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act in April 1957 to help Canadians pay the cost of medical services. In 1956, the government passed the Unemployment Assistance Act. This program was to lend assistance to people who were unemployed but who had exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits, and it was administered based on a means test. Social programs were driven by a constantly expanding and growing popu­ lation, and the government was often accused of being less than generous in supporting it. Dennis Guests discussion of St-Laurent’s social programs was rightly couched in the context of a “conservative decade.”59The Canadian popu­ lation increased at about 2.3 percent annually between 1941 and 1961.611 The estimated population in 1948 was approximately 12,823,000, and it reached an estimated 16,610,000 by 1957.61 The St-Laurent years saw one of the highest increases in birth-rate over death-rate that Canada had ever seen. The demo­ graphic composition of Canada changed greatly over the St-Laurent years due to influxes of immigration from all over the world coupled with relatively little emigration. By the end of St-Laurent s mandate, Canada was much more diverse than it had been at its beginning. Postwar immigrants were concentrated mostly in Ontario and British Columbia, and most of them were hastily fitting into Canadian English-speaking society. Rural Canadians were also making

42

Patrice Dutil

their way to urban centres in huge numbers, especially those from the Maritimes and Saskatchewan, attracted by the boom of Canadian industrialization. The city of Toronto expanded dramatically, to the point at which its outlying suburbs were more populous than the city itself.62 In 1953, the provincial government created a metropolitan level of government so that the geographic area could solve demographic and population problems collectively.63

Economic Policy The St-Laurent years rode the postwar economic boom of developed nations, which kept government coffers flush with cash. In the last war year, Canadas federal government had a revenue of $3.013 billion and expenditures amounting to $5.136 billion. The deficit of $2.123 billion would soon be wiped out when Ottawa’s expenditures rapidly declined. Consequently, the King administration was able to tally surpluses from 1946 to 1948, and St-Laurent continued on that path until 1951, when heavy military expenses put Ottawa’s books slightly in the red. The government recovered in 1956, recording a small surplus of $260 million before heading into an election the following year.64 At the start of the 1950s, Canada’s gross national product was an estimated $22 billion and rose to $25 billion halfway through the decade. In that same period, the value of Canadian exports went from $3.96 billion to $4.173 bil­ lion.65 Im port capital (mostly from the United States) went from about $84 million in 1949 to $222 million in 1950 to $332 million by 1952. Fourteen per­ cent of gross investment derived from foreign sources. Canada’s role as an inter­ national trader had changed drastically following the war.66 Prior to 1940, 40 percent of Canadian exports had gone to the United Kingdom, 40 percent to the United States, and the remaining 20 percent to the rest of the world.67 StLaurent saw the economic rapport with the United States as managed trade. Working through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Canada focused on its biggest trade partner during the three rounds of negotiations that took place during St-Laurent’s tenure.68Still, it was far from a free trade North Amer­ ican zone. The United States outlawed imports of Canadian lead and zinc, and Canadian oats could not enter American territory. The bitter response of Canadian farmers to those restrictions would eventually harm the St-Laurent government in the 1957 and 1958 elections. On the other hand, oil and gas exports to the United States were welcomed and encouraged. A wide range of agricultural product boards were created by the St-Laurent government to fa­ cilitate international marketing efforts.

St-Laurent in Government

43

Canada’s economic performance was generally above average when com­ pared to its counterparts in the newly created (1948) Organisation for Eco­ nomic and Cultural Cooperation (OECD), but the comparison that mattered was with the United States. Consistently through the St-Laurent years, the average unemployment rate was 3.41 percent while the rate in the US was 4.34.69 The average rate of inflation from 1949 to 1957 in Canada was slightly higher at 2.53 percent, than in the US (2 percent).

Identity Building Though St-Laurent’s m ind easily turned to matters of policy and manage­ ment, he was a man of culture, interested in things Canadian and in the place of Canadian culture in the world. St-Laurent was interested in creating a new, more m odern state of “belonging” by encouraging investment in the arts and sciences. The new commitment came at a propitious time as Canada absorbed more immigrants in the 1950s than at any other time except for the boom years under Wilfrid Laurier. Funding for culture and fine arts no longer seemed frivolous. A significant innovation was the creation of the Departm ent of Citizen­ ship and Immigration. Its name alone signalled a new priority, though it integrated functions that had belonged to either the Department of Mines and Resources or the Department of the Secretary of State. New funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-Radio-Canada triggered the Canadian engagement with television, with the first station opening in 1952. On the policy side, one of the first actions of the government was to create, in 1949, a royal commission headed by Vincent Massey to examine how development in the arts, letters, and sciences could be realized. The Massey Commission was tasked with examining organizations like the National Film Board, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Na­ tional Gallery to examine and define “Canadian culture.”70Its final report declared what most knew already: Canadian culture existed, but only on the further reaches of the country’s mindset. It made a num ber of recommendations, ranging from more federal funding to universities to more support for new cultural institutions. For many in mid-twentieth-century Canada, Canadian culture was undernourished and increasingly vulnerable to American exports of books, magazines, music, and film. Institutions that had been generated in the Depression, such as the NFB and the CBC, showed promise in reflecting the realities of Canadian culture, but many opinion leaders believed that more had to be done. International perceptions saw Canada as “a coarse-grained

44

Patrice Dutil

adolescent still clearing the land, lacking the leisure and taste for refinement.”7' The recom m endations of the Massey Commission were accepted, though St-Laurent balked at the price tag. Still, the initially hesitant prime minister was swayed, and in 1957 the government of Canada embarked on a new mission to subsidize the arts through a Canada Council for the Arts when a private sector donor was found to kickstart the program.77The Massey Commissions request for funds to universities was also accepted, but grants were mostly geared to­ wards the sciences and engineering as the space race began.73 In 1953, the government established the National Library and the Shake­ speare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, made its debut. Launched in 1952 by local patrons, it was perceived as a vehicle to show how federal money could be used to support producers, directors, actors, and all the theatre arts.74 The spending areas the St-Laurent administration favoured are clearly re­ vealed by Table 1.1. Overall, spending grew by 152 percent from the 1948 levels. The biggest spending envelope was defence, and its growth over nine years was a dramatic 536.2 percent. The second largest expenditure was the debt, and it grew by slightly under 20 percent. Transportation and communications was the third largest spending envelope, growing by 150 percent over the years of the mandate. The fourth largest expenditure was Old Age Assistance, starting from nothing and rocketing to $474 million. The growth in expenditure over eight years was almost 534 percent. Payments to provinces and municipalities were less important in terms of expenditure but climbed by a remarkable 293 percent. It is worth noting that transfers to universities experienced the most intensive level of growth, moving from $5 million to $72 million, a spectacular 1,340 percent increase. In sum, defence, infrastructure, and payments for social pro­ grams dominated the St-Laurent agenda. The massive increase in the latter two categories certainly paved the way for further increases in the 1960s.75According to one study, the St-Laurent administration triggered the largest average increase in per-person spending (7 percent annually) of any government in the period 1945-2019.76

The Decline and Fall The governments inclination to use tax dollars to subsidize art was fairly popular but not unanimously supported. Maurice Duplessis was avidly against state funding of the arts and universities, and the Social Credit Party thought those programs would undermine the importance of family and religion.77 By the 1957 election, several of the opposition parties were using the Massey Com ­ mission against the Liberals. Much of this was because, during the 1957 election

St-Laurent in Government

45

Source: Statistics Canada, Table H19_34-eng.

b Consists mainly of grants to universities.

TABLE 1.1 Federal government expenditures by function in the St-Laurent administration, 1948-57 (millions of dollars)

campaign, the Soviets were on the cusp of launching the first satellite (which they did successfully on 4 October of that year).78 The St-Laurent government had used its first two mandates to respond to a wide range of human and national needs. The economy was strong, ensuring job growth and an unprecedented prosperity. Infrastructure was financed and built, ranging from highways to bridges and dams. The government had erased its deficits while social programs were expanded on almost all fronts, not least in providing universal pensions for people over seventy years of age and for those over sixty-five who were in demonstrable need. Hospitalization insur­ ance and equalization payments were a priority. The government had pursued a solid policy on defence. Canada was in a state of near-war with the Soviet Union, and St-Laurent built up the military, expanding it for land, sea, and air operations. As with infrastructure, the St-Laurent government had ambitions to do much more in support of its multilateral foreign policy. In the Suez Crisis, it had showed that Canada mattered, that its views had consequence on the world stage. St-Laurent oversaw a massive spending increase, taking on large infra­ structure projects such as the St. Lawrence Seaway (starting in 1954), the TransCanada Highway (1949), the Distant Early Warning Line for air defence, the Canso Causeway in Nova Scotia, and, not least, the transcontinental gas pipe­ line from Alberta to central Canada. The idea behind the pipeline was to reduce imports of oil and gas from the United States in supplying energy to eastern Canada. By 1953, the pipeline had reached Sarnia, Ontario. It was a good stop-gap measure but did not go far enough for those who wanted the security of a pipeline that could supply homes and industry across the country. Fortunately, natural gases were abundant in Alberta, and, as private com ­ panies began to realize that provinces immense potential, it became clear that these would be the resources to power Canada. American rival gas companies also wanted a slice, and so the St-Laurent government forced the formation of the TransCanada Pipeline - a formidable construction whose purpose was to carry natural gas from Alberta to Ontario, parts of Quebec, and into the eastern United States. Construction began in 1956.79 St-Laurent’s personal ability to campaign had begun to wane. W here Diefenbaker was on the road for thirty-nine days and reached 130 of the 133 ridings, the prime minister toured the country for only twenty-eight days, although he still managed to visit 120 constituencies.80But the government had grown technocratic, old, and arrogant. St-Laurent was subjected to repeated audience heckling, an indignity his sharp wit could no longer parry with the needed speed. He was hopelessly untelegenic. The main grievance was the

St-Laurent in Government

47

pipeline issue. There was a demonstrated need for Canada to have a gas pipe­ line to supply western-based gas to eastern Canada. Logic dictated that it be built quickly in order to end Canadian dependency on American oil and coal. The government went about finding allies in the private sector to cut costs and accelerate the process, even if it would assume most of the risks and most of the financing. W hat were trivial details to the Liberal government became kindling for the opposition, which saw the opportunity to highlight the failings of the St-Laurent administration. This was certainly what John Diefenbaker latched on to in the 1957 campaign: the pipeline issue had shown the Liberals to be arrogant when they shut down debate. He succeeded in showing that the self-appointed “governing party” was all too eager to please its own schedule rather than cater to the legitimate needs of Parliament, and, above all, it was in too much of a hurry to help a host of likely American friends with Canadian money. In many ridings, this worked magic. The United States loomed in the background because of two issues: (1) a portion of the pipeline funding was American and (2) Canada seemed to be doing the United States’ bidding in the Suez Crisis. The Liberals won more votes than the Progressive Conservatives but fewer seats. Half the cabinet was defeated, though St-Laurent comfortably took Quebec-East. The pipeline remained a largely Canadian-owned operative, despite Texas oil companies’ constant at­ tempts at intervention. By autumn 1958 the project was complete and natural gases were reaching far and wide across the nation - though this meant very little to St-Laurent’s Liberals as they were all out of office by this time.81 St-Laurent, despite all the accomplishments of his administration, had run his support to the limit. After twenty-two years of unbroken Liberal rule, enough Canadians had voted to convince him (and what remained of the cabinet) that it was time to leave the stage. St-Laurent had brought something new to govern­ ment - an almost perfect mix of idealism and realism. On almost every issue it touched, the government modernized the idea of Canada, whether in its support of social programs or in its international relations. The French phil­ osopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) - who, coincidentally, had a more direct impact on a contemporary political leader, Charles de Gaulle82 - might have been summarizing St-Laurent’s approach to government when he linked realism and idealism. Bergson described “action” as the inevitable product of both those factors, that experience and intuition were far more im portant in determining how an objective, or an “ideal,” could be obtained. St-Laurent’s ideas sprang from his instinct for how things should be and from his lived experience. He had the wisdom, the management acumen, and the work ethic to ensure that

48

Patrice Dutil

the work of government put those ideals into practice. He also had the ability to mobilize people - ordinary Canadian voters and policy experts alike - to sup­ port him. St-Laurent was unmistakably the soul of his government: no other spirit could have guided it so consistently across such a wide range of activities.83 Those abilities gave him historical significance, and many of his most observant contemporaries were aware of what was being lost when he was defeated.84 The lively correspondence between writers William Weintraub and Brian Moore darkened after the 1957 election, when they considered the advent of the Diefenbaker government. There was surely good comedy ahead, Weintraub mused, though he nervously shared concerns that the new anti-arts government would “abolish the NFB [National Film Board] and use its buildings to store surplus western wheat.”85 Louis St-Laurent lived by the rules of the state and of his church, and he obeyed the rules of both, though he was willing to challenge them when they got out of line. He welcomed capital. He tried to counterbalance the cultural presence of the United States with Canadian symbols. He was, in that regard, willing to invest considerable political capital to crusade for new national icons. This was unprecedented. He believed, long before it became fashionable, that cultural vitality was important, and he was convinced that the state could help build it. He applied himself to the task and proved to be a key agent of modernity in this country. Many of the things he did while in office continue to shape Canadian politics today - reducing poverty, building pipelines, improving de­ fence, finding a place for Canadian culture, welcoming immigration, creating equalization payments, addressing the imperatives of dealing with the North, to name but a few. Canada today lives with the expectations and ambitions that St-Laurent first crafted. The history of Canada in the second half of the twentieth century took place within the framework established by St-Laurent and his ministers. Yet no one would call themselves a “St-Laurent kind of pol­ itician” or a “St-Laurent Liberal.” He was, like many people who rose to power in the West in the 1940s and 1950s - Adenauer, Attlee, Ben-Gurion, De Gaulle, Eisenhower, Marshall, Masaryk, Truman - a good chairman, a good colleague, a capable administrator (indeed, in many ways a policy entrepreneur) but a man whose vision was too evident and too widely shared to be described as particularly unique. What he did exceptionally well was create an ideal of what a modern Canada should look like, and he applied himself to realize it by using all the tools at his disposal. In this regard, he was a realist who was keenly aware of both the opportunities and the political constraints at hand.

St-Laurent in Government

49

In other words, government could spend money while it had the money to spend. Deficits had to be small, if they were to exist at all. St-Laurent had high moral qualities. He was modest, serene, at peace with his thoughts, and certain of his convictions. Thomson wrote that St-Laurent was “a Liberal in the sense that he believed in certain things that the Liberal party had stood for over many years such as Canadian nationalism, the freest possible trade, respect of the rights and opinions of others, and the protection of minority rights.”86 For him, that could only happen through the force and creativity of the private sector. St-Laurent chaired the Liberal government’s cabinet committee on federalprovincial relations and played a cardinal role in the Reconstruction Confer­ ences of 1945-46, which established a range of new transfers and services to Canadians. He applauded efforts to “build government” and to build infrastruc­ ture. He could not resist the entrepreneurial flair of C.D. Howe, his minister of everything that had to be constructed. He was willing to see the federal govern­ ment involved in university funding, hospital funding, social security, and aid to developing countries. He was also quite happy to see the federal government assume its responsibilities (and those of the provinces, if that was necessary) to deliver on those goals. The realization of equalization payments demonstrated that thoughts could translate into action. St-Laurent exercised a sort of leadership that was far ahead of his time by combining unique abilities. First, he understood the issues facing Canada and its governments. This came from decades of observing the state from both upclose and afar. Experience mattered. Second, he knew how to create visions of the future and to set priorities. He had his own ideas and was happily willing to help others who had compelling visions. He knew that not everything could be accomplished at once and was capable of setting priorities. Canadians be­ lieved him and supported those priorities, allowing him, in turn, to create more. Third, he knew how to manage competency. Good, dedicated people mattered to him, and he mattered to them. As simple as it sounds, this can be extremely difficult to accomplish. From his early days, St-Laurent built networks at all levels. He was active in his profession, in his community, and in his politics. He was a joiner and people joined him, in respect. He could relate to people perhaps not to the level traditionalists could recognize, but he did connect. This mattered to him also. But perhaps his most im portant skill was that, cog­ nizant of his limitations and sensitive to his surroundings, Louis St-Laurent was constantly searching out leading trends in politics, in economics, in culture, in the arts, and in global affairs. And when he found these trends, he was capable of adjusting his leadership and his worldview accordingly.87

50

Patrice Dutil

Notes

1 See David Dilkes, The Great Dominion: Churchill in Canada, 1900-54 (London: Thomas Allen, 2005). Dilkes’s text includes the L.B. Pearson memorandum that describes his meet­ ing with Churchill in preparation for the upcoming visit. See also Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (New York: Allen Lane, 2018), 928. Lester B. Pearson himself has a slightly different account in his memoirs. He recounts being told by Churchill of how disappointed he was about the “Rule Britannia” decision in a preparatory meeting in early December 1951, but then he shifts the story to June 1954. Pearson says it is not clear if St-Laurent was consulted or not the second time around; since the precedent was actually set in January 1952, it is likely that the prime minister was not bothered with the issue. See Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Lester B. Pearson, vol. 1, 1897-1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 235-36. 2 Cited in W.A. Matheson, The Prime Minister and the Cabinet (Toronto: Methuen, 1976), 159. 3 Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 19-22. The details on Louis St-Laurent’s pre-political life are all drawn from this book, which itself made use of interviews the author had with his former boss. 4 Ibid., 22. 5 Ibid., 31. 6 Ibid., 4L 7 Ibid., 39-42. 8 Ibid., 45. 9 On Choquettes early career, see Patrice Dutil, Devil’s Advocate: Godfroy Langlois and the Politics o f Liberal Progressivism in Lauriers Quebec (Montreal: Robert Davies, 1994), multiple references throughout the book. 10 Statistics Canada, “Average wages of farm help in Canada, by province, 1909, 1910 and 1914 to 1916,” https://www65.statcan.gc.ca/acyb02/1917/acyb02_191702028-eng.htm. 11 Godbout nationalized the Montreal Light Heat and Power Company, starting Quebec on its path to producing and managing its own electricity. He also extended the franchise to women and made schooling mandatory for all children up to age sixteen. 12 Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making o f a National Insecurity State, 1945-1967 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994); Reg Whitaker, “Left-Wing Dissent and the State: Canada in the Cold War Era,” in Dissent and the State, ed. C.E.S. Franks (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989), 191-210. 13 See Whitaker and Marcuse, Cold War Canada, 69. 14 Cited in ibid., 182. The authors characterize Claxtons message as “imperturbable smug­ ness, so characteristic of late St-Laurent Liberalism.” On the anti-communist activities of the St-Laurent government, see J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975). 15 If witch hunts did take place in the St-Laurent years (or any time before 1958) they have not been recorded. The work by Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile, The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), took ad­ vantage of living witnesses, all of whom were working for the government from the early 1960s onwards. The Canadian practice under St-Laurent stands in contrast to the American government’s policy. President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450 in 1953, which defined as security risks any government personnel whose character or behaviour could

St-Laurent in Government

51

16

17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

36 37 38

be considered “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, or sexual perversion.” It is estimated that between five and ten thousand people might have been fired or resigned as a conse­ quence of this order. See David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution o f Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Telling of the times, the American Civil Liberties Union supported this policy. See John Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979); Escott Reid, Time o f Fear and Hope: The Making o f the North Atlantic Treaty (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977); and James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada, vol. 4, Growing Up Allied (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). Montreal Gazette, 24 July 1973, 6. See John English, Shadow o f Heaven: The Life ofLester Pearson, vol. 1 ,1897-1948 (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1989), 324-27. See David J. Bercuson, Canada and the Birth of Israel: A Study in Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). Robert Bothwell, The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War (Toronto: Irwin, 1998), 51. See J.L. Granatstein, A Man of Influence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929-1968 (Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1981), 291. See also David Black, “All in the Family - Canada and the Commonwealth: The Multilateral Politics of a ‘Wasting Asset,’” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 16,2 (2010): 61-77; Lome Kavic, “Canada and the Commonwealth,” The Round Table 65, 257 (1975): 37-49. Ademola Adeleke, “Playing Fairy Godmother to the Commonwealth: The United States and the Colombo Plan,” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 42,3 (2004): 393. B.S. Keirstead, Canada in World Affairs: September 1951 to October 1953 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1956), 208. Ademola Adeleke, “Cocksparrow Diplomacy: Percy Spender, the Colombo Plan, and Commonwealth Relations,” Australian Journal o f Politics and History 54,2 (2008): 174. Ibid., 209-11. Ibid., 211. Ibid., 212. Adeleke, “Playing Fairy Godmother to the Commonwealth,” 405. Ibid. Keirstead, Canada in World Affairs, 204-7. Ibid., 208. Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 119. Ibid., 120. Ibid., 121. A very good review of Canada-Soviet Union relations in this period is Jamie Glazov, Canadian Policy toward Khrushchev's Soviet Union (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueens University Press, 2002). Costas Melakopides took the term and extended it to the mid-1990s. See Costas Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism: Canadian Foreign Policy, 1945-1995 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1998). Bothwell et al., Canada since 1945, 119. Statistics Canada, figures H19_34 Bill Robinson and Peter Ibbott, Canadian Military Spending: How Does the Current Level Compare to Historical Levels?... to Allied Spending?... to Potential Threats? (Waterloo, ON: Project Plougshares, 2003), 9.

52

Patrice Dutil

39 Ibid., 143. 40 Ibid., 144. 41 Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945-1984 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), chap. 7. 42 See James G. Ferguson, Canada and Ballistic Missile Defence, 1954-2009: Déjà Vu All Over Again (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010). 43 Ibid., 116. 44 See Robert Teigrob, Warming Up to the Cold War: Canada and the United States’ Coalition of the Willing from Hiroshima to Korea (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), and Whitaker and Marcuse, Cold War Canada; Stephen J. Whitfield, 1he Culture o f the Cold War, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) is a very useful guide to American trends. 45 James Eayrs, Canada in World Affairs: October 1955 to June 1957 (Toronto: Oxford Univer­ sity Publishing, 1965), 99. 46 “Prime Minister Louis S. St-Laurent (November 1948-June 1957) (Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower),” in Canadian-American Summit Diplomacy, 19231973: Selected Speeches and Documents, ed. Roger Frank Swanson (Toronto: The Canadian Publishers, 1975), 127. 47 Keirstead, Canada in World Affairs, 222. 48 See Daniel Macfarlane, Negotiating a River: Canada, the US, and the Creation o f the St. Lawrence Seaway (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014). 49 “Prime Minister Louis S. St-Laurent,” in Swanson, Canadian-American Summit Diplo­ macy, 127-28. 50 Ibid., 128. 51 Ibid., 101. 52 Ibid., 124. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 See Antony Anderson, The Diplomat: Lester Pearson and the Suez Crisis (Toronto: Goose Lane, 2015); John English, The Worldly Years: The Life o f Lester Pearson, 1949-1972 (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1992), chap. 4; J.L. Granatstein, A Man o f Influence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929-1968 (Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1981), chap. 10. A good source on the Suez Crisis from a non-Canadian perspective (Canada is mentioned four times) is Barry Turner, Suez, 1956: The Inside Story o f the First Oil War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2006). 56 See Janice Cavell, “The Spirit of ’56: The Suez Crisis, Anti-Americanism, and Diefenbaker’s 1957 and 1958 Election Victories,” in Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era, ed. Janice Cavell and Ryan M. Touhey (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018), 67-84. 57 Bothwell et al., Canada since 1945,148. 58 See Kenneth Bryden, Old Age Pensions and Policy-Making in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: Institute of Public Administration of Canada and McGill-Queens University Press, 1974), chap. 6. 59 See Dennis Guest, The Emergence o f Social Security in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1980), 139-46. 60 John R. Miron, Housing in Postwar Canada: Demographic Change, Household Formation, and Housing Demand (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1988), 32. 61 Bothwell et al., Canada since 1945,139.

St-Laurent in Government

53

62 Ibid., 140. 63 Ibid., 142. 64 See Livio Di Matteo, A Federal Fiscal Flistory: Canada, 1867-2017 (Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 2017). 65 Keirstead, Canada in World Affairs, 180-81. 66 Ibid., 181. 67 Ibid., 182. 68 In Torquay in 1949, Annecy in 1950-51, and Geneva in 1956. 69 Authors calculation, based on Statistics Canada, series D223-235: Unemployment Rates, by Age and Sex, Annual Averages, 1946-75, https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-gdp-growth -3306008, https://inflationcalculator.ca/historical-rates-canada/. 70 See Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). 71 Bothwell et al., Canada since 1945,151. 72 Ibid., 152. 73 Ibid. 74 Katherine Scheill, “Importing Stratford,” Critical Survey 24, 2 (2012): 73-74, 80. 75 I’m borrowing the point made by Jennifer A. Delton, Rethinking the 1950s: Flow Anti­ communism and the Cold War Made America Liberal (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 76 Tegan Hill, Jake Fuss, and Milagros Palacios, “Prime Ministers and Government Spending, 2020 Edition,” Fraser Research Bulletin (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2020). 77 Bothwell et al„ Canada since 1945,153. 78 Ibid., 156. 79 Ibid., 144-45. 80 JohnMeisel, The Canadian General Election o f1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 151. 81 Ibid., 145. 82 See Julian Jackson, Charles de Gaulle (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2018), 23. 83 I’m very inspired by the helpful distinctions between operational “entrepreneurial” leaders, mid-level “enabling leaders,” and top-level “architecting leaders.” See Deborah Ancona, Elaine Backman, and Kate Isaacs, “Nimble Leadership: Walking the Line between Creativ­ ity and Chaos,” Harvard Business Review (July-August 2019): 74-83. 84 This notion was applied to modern-day business and public-sector management by Douglas R. Conant, “The Power of Idealism-Realism: How Great Leaders Inspire and Transform,” Harvard Business Review Online (January 2012), https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-power-of -idealistic-realism. A sharp criticism of Idealism-Realism is found in Pedro Alexis Tabensky, “Realistic Idealism: An Aristotelian Alternative to Machiavellian International Relations,” Theoria: A Journal o f Social and Political Theory 113 (2007): 97-118. 85 William Weintraub, Getting Started: A Memoir o f the 1950s (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2001), 245. 86 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian, 153. 87 I develop this theory of leadership in more detail in Patrice Dutil, “Searching for Leadership,” in Searching for Leadership: Secretaries to Cabinet in Canada, ed. Patrice Dutil (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 13-41.

54

Patrice Dutil

Grandpapa A Portrait of the Man and His Family JEAN THÉRÈSE RILEY

Louis St-Laurent was the first prime minister to occupy the residence at 24 Sussex Drive. In 1950, it was freshly refurbished, stylish and elegant. There were French doors to the garden and a circular staircase leading to the second floor. The dining room walls were a deep red, and two large crystal chandeliers hung over the long polished table. The silvery colour of the drawing room added to the enchantment. I was just a little girl when my parents (Thérèse St-Laurent and Frank Lafferty), my baby brother Stephen, and I stayed there for the first time in 1951.1 was given a room on the third floor with flowered wallpaper and matching chintz bedspreads. It became my room whenever I went to stay. Louis St-Laurent was my grandfather, and this account, which is based on my personal experience of him, may surprise readers. For us, those who knew him intimately, photographers seldom captured his warmth. He was shy, he did not like being photographed and was bored when he had to pose. It showed. As a consequence, he is typically perceived as distinguished and diffident. He was both of those things for sure, but, at the same time, he had a huge amount of playfulness and sweetness. It was one of several contradictions that defined him. He had large eyes, a mobile, expressive face, and dimples. He could look amused, pleased, annoyed, or disappointed without ever saying a word. It was a quirky characteristic that was at odds with his formal, professorial demeanour. He used his face, his voice, and a characteristic shrug to create a mock-pout that was surprisingly unguarded and intimate. I especially remember a breakfast encounter with him early one morning when I was seven. I was staying with my parents in his summer house in

St Patrick’s, and it was totally quiet. Everyone else was still asleep. I slipped into the dining room chair on his right and started to fiddle, probably noisily. He had already eaten breakfast and was reading the paper. From behind the paper a stern voice said, “Jean, drink your orange juice.” (Whether our conversations were in English or in French is hard to recall because for him and for me the boundary between the two languages was invisible and unconscious.) “You’re not my mother,” I challenged. The paper lowered and his glasses slipped down his nose. He looked at me, annoyed and amused. In that moment he gave me his full attention and was totally present with me. By the time he slowly said, “Yes ... that’s true: I am not your mother,” I had gulped my juice, settled down, and was waiting for more of his wonderful attention. He was my grandpapa. I was his ninth grandchild (of eighteen). W hen I was born, he had been a m inister in Mackenzie King’s cabinet for two years. I have a nice picture of him at my christening with his arm around one of my older cousins. Grandpapa was to me a glamorous and exciting person. In 1948, not only did I get to see him off at the airport in Montreal on his way to see the King and Queen but our picture was on the front page of the Montreal Gazette the next morning! At my first communion, he was placed in the front row of the church in front of all the other parents. There were black cars and men in uniform and photographers. Everyone bowed to him or greeted him with rever­ ence, even the nuns. Luckily for me he was comfortable with children and easy to talk to. He radiated tenderness and I grew up basking in it. My m other and I sent him a copy of my monthly report cards and he always responded. I often received mail from him. From his office came notes, postcards, sometimes geometry puzzles, and often books. I started to read the newspaper when I was nine or ten because I wanted to impress him. I worshipped him. All the St-Laurents loved children. My grandfather’s closest sibling, my Aunt Lora, who never married and who lived in the family house in Compton, wel­ comed little visitors whenever their parents needed to get them out of the city. She was very much part of her brother Louis’s family life. For his grandchildren it was like having an extra grandmother. She was cozy and made the simplest things interesting because she knew so much. She was a marvelous cook who allowed tasting while she whipped up her specialties. She made afternoon tea a daily ceremony. I loved watching her prepare the tea, set the tray, toast her marmalade and cheese treats, and pile up the plates with sugar biscuits and Jumbos (cookies filled with nuts and dried fruit, her specialty). We would then carry the tray and the goodies into the front sitting room where she would put her feet up. I would sit across from her and wait for her to declare, “Now we can talk.” Her questions encouraged conversation. Her quiet chuckle and amused 56

Jean Thérèse Riley

eyes discouraged reticence. I was somewhat self-conscious about the fact that my eyes were of different colours. Aunt Lora declared reassuringly that the most beautiful woman in the world, Emma Hamilton, also had eyes of different col­ ours. It wasn’t until later that I was impressed by her knowledge of Lord Nelsons mistress. In those days, her widowed younger brother, Maurice, known in English as Mot, also lived in the house. W hen I was little he worked in Sherbrooke but commuted by bus every day. Staying with Mot and Lora was a joy. All his life Grandpapa looked and dressed the part of a Victorian gentleman. The pictures of him as a young lawyer reveal him as distinguished, elegant, relatively tall (about five feet, ten inches in his prime), and formal. It was a great cover for his shyness. In the village of Compton he had grown up next to a Baptist church whose Sunday services were held later than the Catholic ones. His mother did not allow her children to change out of their Sunday clothes until well after the last of the Baptists had gone home. She did not want her Catholic brood to be seen to be less well-dressed than the Protestant children. St-Laurent wore the equivalent of those Sunday clothes all his life. He worked hard to be successful and felt the need to make enough money to be comfortable and without anxiety. Yet he was utterly indifferent to status and social position. His successful law career caused him to spend some work days in Montreal on a regular basis. He was invited to join the exclusive Mount Royal Club, and, although he was not a club man, he accepted because he was the first French Canadian to be invited. He was hopeless at small talk, was never particularly at ease at parties, and, like many shy people, gravitated towards children. When I was a teenager and starting to realize the potential anxieties and pitfalls of social life in Montreal, he explained to me that snobbery in Canada was ridiculous. We were all newcomers, he explained, whose families had, at different times and for different reasons, needed to come to a new country. No one could legitimately claim superior status, he said, “Except, m aybe...” - with a pause and a twinkle in his eye - “the Taschereaus and the Garneaus.” He had spent a great deal of time pleading before the Privy Council in London and had observed first-hand the hierarchical nature of Britain’s institutions. British snobbery was a fact of life and he wanted none of it. Grandpapa prized the freedom and social mobility open to every Canadian. I have inherited a box of letters and documents that show Grandpapa’s painstaking efforts to trace the baptisms and marriages of succeeding genera­ tions of his St-Laurent ancestors. His letters to various priests, their responses, and the notarized copies of documents from parish registers demonstrate a tenacious preoccupation with family history. He already knew the story of his

Grandpapa

57

m aternal grandparents, Stephen Broderick and Bridget Tully, who had ar­ rived in Canada from Ireland in 1847. Obviously, he felt the need to know about the arrival of his French forebearers centuries before. His research eventually revealed that his ancestor, Nicolas Huot, arrived in Quebec in 1658. Huot, who came from Auxerre in Burgundy, was the illegitimate son of a merchant and the widow of a pastry chef. Soon after his arrival Huot came to be called StLaurent, probably after the river and as a reminder of his fathers first name Laurent. Newly arrived settlers to the colony often took on a new name. Grandpapa saw himself as the descendant of a long line of individuals who had struggled to find a place in a new land. He was profoundly respectful of British tradition and, as a French C an­ adian, always factored his Frenchness into any decision. He opposed the ap­ pointm ent of Georges Vanier as Canadas high com m issioner in London because he did not want a French-Canadian prime minister asking the British government to deal with a French-Canadian representative. Similarly, he sent his principal secretary, Jack Pickersgill, to London to invite High Com mis­ sioner Vincent Massey to become the first Canadian governor general. As in­ structed, Pickersgill gently suggested a possible change in protocol: Would Massey absolve women from having to curtsey to the governor general? The request was to be made as a personal and informal ask from St-Laurent, not as a direction from the prime minister to the governor general. Massey refused! I think the request and the refusal were characteristic of both men. Grandpapa had a capacity to reduce complicated things to their essence. In English, he spoke in a folksy, plain way with a slight Galway brogue that he had inherited from his Irish mother. His French was both colloquial and exact, the language typical of a highly educated Quebecer. A gentle lilt might be heard occasionally, but it came from inflections in his voice not his pronunciation. The clarity of his thinking seemed effortless. He enjoyed leaving things unsaid and waiting for his listener to join him in the implied complicity. His humour was mostly gentle but he could deploy irony and sarcasm to great effect. I have the impression that his plainness of speech and the quiet subtlety of his humour added to his moral authority. His personal modesty and fairness of mind com­ bined with the ferocious power of his intellect gave him a kind of grace. His opponents, whether in the law courts or in government, were often disarmed by his impartiality and candour. Lome Webster, a Montreal businessman, once told me that, when St-Laurent was acting for the Webster family company (prob­ ably Lome’s grandfather Senator Lome Webster, a native of Quebec City) in a complex conflict with another company, the judge recommended that an im­ partial mediator be hired to untangle the conflict and make resolution possible.

58

Jean Thérèse Riley

Much to the Websters’ astonishment, the opposing party proposed St-Laurent, their lawyer. He effortlessly stepped into the role of mediator and negotiated a solution. Canadians came to see him as an older, courteous public figure whose hu­ man qualities commanded respect and affection and whose government had, in its own careful, old-fashioned way, transformed Canada into an exciting, glamorous, and confident country. He represented a model of reticence and selfless public service. He was indeed a reserved, bookish, scholarly character who was able to connect with ordinary people with the charm and simple friendliness one might find in a country store - not unlike the general store his father ran in Compton. He left few personal papers, kept no personal diary, and did not write a memoir. Cabinet decisions were often recorded in the brief­ est terms. He was happy to let others get the credit. He would shrug and try to dismiss compliments and honours. He saw a life in law as a life of learning, and he believed a lawyers contribution to his clients success was and should be invisible. As the prime minister, he felt the same way. He was focused on getting things done and always felt that his own role in achieving results was of no interest or consequence. Family was so important. Grandpapa saw himself as the shy and clumsy son of a very charismatic man, Jean-Baptiste Moïse (known as Moïse) St-Laurent, whose vitality, playfulness, and charm turned his general store into a social hub in the village of Compton. Moïse St-Laurent was ambitious and entrepreneurial. He had to sell his haberdashery in Sherbrooke after the bank called in his loan just as he was preparing to leave on a buying trip to Europe. With what was left he purchased the general store in Compton. Moïse, a bilingual, good-looking, forty-year-old bachelor, fell in love and married Mary Anne Broderick, a school­ teacher at the local English Catholic school. Mary Anne, the gifted third child of Irish immigrants from Galway, was raised in a home that emphasized a rich life of the mind and rigorous personal discipline. Compton was a bustling place, at the heart of a vast and fertile agricultural area. The village was home to three churches, Anglican, Baptist, and Roman Catholic. Kings Hall, a prestigious boarding school for Anglican girls from across Canada, had opened in 1874. When Louis was born the village was about 70 percent English-speaking. But change was in the air. British and American migration to the Townships diminished after 1850 and eventually ceased. Rail­ way expansion throughout the territory brought new business opportunities and facilitated the movement of people. Many English speakers left Compton as part of a general exodus towards cities, the west, and the United States. They were replaced by ambitious French Canadians who were being squeezed out

Grandpapa

59

of crowded formerly seigneurial lands. As a bilingual justice of the peace, Moïse was a key player from 1901 until the end of his life in facilitating many of the transactions that took place as a result of the changing relationships in Compton as French-speakers became the majority population. Moïse was intensely involved in his community. The store had a sitting area where people gathered to smoke and talk. The space at the back served as a regular meeting place for local organizations. He was secretary-treasurer of several organizations - the Town Council, the Independent Order of Foresters, the school board, and the Model Farm. He once ran for office as a Liberal can­ didate but did not win. He was also a church warden and vice-president of the Protestant school board. He was sometimes paid for these jobs, which must have been helpful to the family finances. St-Laurent s store extended credit to its clients. This generosity helps to explain why the store was viewed for a long time as a family project propped up by revenue from outside activities. Lora St-Laurent became town postmistress, and her salary and eventual pension from it were part of keeping the St-Laurent project going. W hen Louis was offered one of the first Canadian Rhodes Scholarships his refusal was said to be for financial reasons. He needed to start earning as soon as he could after graduation in order to repay the sacrifices made by his whole family to pay for his legal studies at Laval. I inherited (from Aunt Lora) a very old piece of gold and turquoise jewellery that had been given to the St-Laurents in lieu of payment by the Crèvecoeur family, descendants of an old aristocratic French family who had settled in Compton. In spite of the financial challenges and Moïses careful management of money - a constant frustration to Mary Anne - the St-Laurent family lived well. They employed a maid called Edwige, and they had a large vegetable garden where corn, beans, potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes grew; a stable with horse and carriage; a lawn for tennis and croquet; and a house filled with books. Kathleen St-Laurent, one of Louis’s sisters who became a nun, is remembered by us as a girlish eighty-eight-year-old who was fond of saying, “Eve been happy all my life.” After Moïse died, his son Maurice left his job in Sherbrooke to manage the family store (Maurice returned to work in the city after his son Marc took over). The family ethos was to look after one another: first it was looking after their mother, and later it was trying to keep the store going even after it was no longer financially viable. For some members of the family the sacrifices were huge. Mary Anne was socially at ease with both the Catholic and the Protestant English-speaking community in Compton. She was one of them: she did not speak French. When French became the majority language in the village she may have felt isolated. W hen Louis was graduating in law from Laval University,

60

Jean Thérèse Riley

Moïse and Lora travelled to Quebec City to witness the grand occasion, while Mary Anne stayed in Compton because she feared that her lack of French would make things difficult. At the age of fifty-three she seldom left home. She had married at twenty-nine and given birth to seven children within ten years of her marriage. It was said in the family that she had never really recovered from the sudden death of Yvonne, her sixth child, at the age of nine m onths. Grandpapa would have been nine when this happened and he may have been deeply affected by her sorrow. An extremely sensitive and loving child, he may, at that time, have grown up rather quickly and started to take on responsibility for his m others and his siblings’ happiness. This prolonged sadness of Mary Anne’s is the first known indication of potential depression in the family. Yet, in her own kind of contradiction, Mary Anne was strong, energetic, and deter­ mined. Aunt Kathleen described home as “a little nation in which each member had a voice. Financial, political and social matters were all discussed in the living room and each one could have his little say.” Mary Anne had “tremendous influence over her husband.” Kathleen emphasized her m other’s personality and praised “her intelligence, her integrity, her broadmindedness and her sense of humour.” Mary Anne was obviously the head of the family, and the house - in which everybody spoke English - was her domain. The store was Moïses space, and French was spoken there. He was irresistible in his playfulness, and all the children revelled at the chance to spend time with him. It wasn’t all games: each of the children had a job to do and running the store required their involvement and help. Moïse, a passionate supporter of Wilfrid Laurier, ensured that his children heard the great man speak at least once. A family excursion to Sherbrooke was undertaken, but Larmier was late arriving. Once, the family waited for several hours to hear him. They returned to Compton in the middle of the night. Louis closely followed political events from his boarding school in Sherbrooke. Much later he still spoke about how important it had been for him as a young man to hear the prime minister speak to a small group. He had been thrilled to meet him and to shake his hand. Louis and Lora were especially devoted to their mother. Louis was Mary Anne’s pride and joy, and Lora’s considerable abilities allowed her to gradually take over from her m other as head of the household. Louis and Lora remained close all their lives. Louis wrote to his mother and sent flowers every year on February first, his birthday. The much-loved first-born, he was generous and considerate to her and to his younger brothers and sisters. My cousin Bernard St-Laurent, the distinguished radio journalist who grew up in Compton, re­ members seeing Maurice and Louis all dressed up, wearing top hats and getting

Grandpapa

61

into a chauffeur-driven car. “W hy are you dressed like magicians?” asked Bernard. The next Christmas Bernard received a magicians set from his greatuncle Louis. All his life Louis was alert to the vulnerabilities of others. The ability to calm and reassure was part of his character and may be traced back to his m others occasional emotional frailty. He had an intuitive capacity for empathy that co­ existed with a fierce need to challenge and use his intellect. As a young father he had been such a workaholic that my mother was a little jealous of how avail­ able he was to me as a grandfather: she spent her childhood being shooed away so as to allow him to work. W hat seems remarkable is not only how much he worked but how much he managed to accomplish. The stress eventually took its toll, and in 1916 he developed a swelling in his neck and his worried doctor feared tuberculosis. His sister Louise had died of tuberculosis. The doctor rec­ ommended a withdrawal from work and several months of rest. St-Laurent moved his family to Métis Beach, a summer resort on the shores of the St. Lawrence, known as an air spa. He played golf and card games, took long walks, read novels, and played with his young children. He briefly contemplated abandoning the law and moving out of the city, but all those who knew him laughed at the thought. He was still passionate about the law, and besides, the comfortable lifestyle he and Jeanne enjoyed was definitely urban. Much of his identity was tied to his work. From the moment of his gradua­ tion from Laval, Louis was encouraged by prominent mentors who assigned him significant cases and im portant clients. In 1908, Sir Georges Garneau, the mayor of Quebec City, asked him to act as legal counsel to the newly formed Battlefields Commission, which had been created to celebrate the three hun­ dredth anniversary of the founding of the city. St-Laurent handled the negotia­ tions with Ottawa and oversaw the expropriation proceedings required to assemble the glorious park on the Plains of Abraham that exists today. Sir William Price, the pulp and paper magnate, gave him significant business. From all accounts, Sir William was a wonderful person. Late in life St-Laurent’s eyes went soft when talking about him. There were American clients as well. At the turn of the century, Canada provided 80 percent of the world’s newsprint. Quebec City was the business centre for much of the forestry industry. In 1912, after press reports of St-Laurents win of a case against the Canadian Pacific Railway, some New York World executives, who happened to be in Quebec at the time, requested a meeting with him. They hired him to act for the Joseph Pulitzer-owned New York World, one of the most profitable newspapers in the world. It was a breakthrough for St-Laurent. His bilingualism was a huge asset and he was recognized as a problem solver and mediator. Some Toronto

62

Jean Thérèse Riley

businesspeople came to Quebec City as part of the Bonne Entente movement, which sought to repair relationships damaged by the conscription crisis. They were so impressed by him at a dinner in Quebec that he was invited to address the Empire Club of Toronto in 1920. He spoke compellingly about the need for a national spirit built on an appreciation of the unique advantage of having two legal systems that reflected two cultures. He was thirty-eight years old. The 1920s were good years for St-Laurent. He became a founding member of the Canadian Bar Association and, in 1930, its fourth president, stepping in to replace R.B. Bennett. Volunteer commitments made his life even busier. The episode of bad health in 1916 had taught him about the need for relaxation. As his children got older he joined them for the occasional games of golf and bridge. He took his sons fishing, eventually joining three fishing clubs. He con­ tinued to read novels. He bought a car. The car turned out to be a problem that caused him much embarrassment and frustration. Even though he required his passengers to remain completely silent while he was driving he simply could not avoid hitting things. He never overcame his clumsiness. Ultimately a chauf­ feur was hired, and he stayed with the family until after Louis’s death. The 1930s were happy years. The five St-Laurent children grew up skiing, skating, swimming, horseback-riding, and playing golf, tennis, and badminton. Grandpapa was instrumental in creating the Winter Club in Quebec City, a social gathering place that had a swimming pool and badminton courts. It was housed in a handsome grey stone building overlooking the Plains of Abraham. At home the house was always filled with cousins and friends. Grandpapa was a devout Catholic who had a secular outlook. W hen it came time for Marthe, the first-born, to make her “debut,” my grandparents had to make an awkward decision: the Catholic bishop of Quebec forbade dancing in his diocese. And so my grandparents hosted the ball in Montreal! Their library contained several books that were on “the Index” - the Vatican’s forbidden book list. It was a secret delight for the convent-educated girl that I was to sit quietly on the floor behind a chair in their summer house reading Dumas and Machiavelli, both forbidden by the Church. For Louis, the ultimate recogni­ tion of his prominence and success came when he was invited early in 1941 to join the board of the Bank of Montreal, the oldest and most prestigious finan­ cial institution in the country. He soon had to give it up when he joined the King government. Grandmaman and Grandpapa were happy. The country boy m arried Jeanne Renault, a twenty-four-year-old popular beauty who had a wide circle of friends and a great sense of fun. She had wanted to meet him after seeing him trip and stumble on his way up to receive the Governor General’s Medal at Laval

Grandpapa

63

î

Jeanne and Louis St-Laurent on their wedding day, 19 May 1908. C o urte sy o f Ms. Je a n Thérèse Riley

University. She loved playing cards and wearing pretty clothes. Her parents, from Beauceville near Quebec City, were sophisticated and fancy. Her father owned an im port business and a department store that served a wide region. He wore a m orning coat every day to greet his customers. Grandmamaris well-married older sisters lived in Quebec City and she was a frequent visitor. My grandparents’ courtship had lasted for three years until Louis could afford to pay for the comforts to which she had become accustomed. She was beautiful and perhaps a little spoiled and used to getting her way - their wedding, sched-

64

Jean Thérèse Riley

uled for the early spring of 1908, was postponed for various reasons, including that the gloves she had ordered from France to match her outfit had not arrived in time. Those gloves are proudly shown off in their wedding portrait. Being at their table was always a treat. They both loved food, and my me­ ticulous grandmother always monitored the preparation and the presentation of the meal. It was not only enjoyed but praised and critiqued. Recipes and al­ ternative preparation methods were discussed. Dessert was important and often quite rich. One of the family favourites was sucre-à-la crème, a traditional con­ coction of brown or maple sugar cooked with butter and cream. It was typically served as fudge, but at their house you had a whole bowl of it and ate it with a spoon. I have inherited many of Grandmamans cookbooks. Dessert recipes were often annotated and obviously favoured. Grandpapa came home for lunch every day in Quebec and when he was at 24 Sussex in Ottawa. Before moving into the official residence he took most meals at the parliamentary restaurant. At their house on Grande Allée conversa­ tion was lively. Politics and political personalities provided the major interest. The family was large by the time I was included, and family matters competed with politics as we were very involved in each others lives. There was always a lot to talk about. Grandpapa served wine to the children when the grownups were having it. Grandmaman disapproved. She would get up and, after the ceremonial show of outrage, add water to the small servings of wine. In family conversation, Grandpapa insisted on referring to his political opponents with respect and did not allow them to be referred to by their last names. The name was to be used after “Mr.” or “Mrs.” Grandmaman was less likely to adhere to such rectitude: she frequently expressed outrage and some­ times contempt for those who criticized or opposed him. She was opinionated and passionately partisan. She had no trouble attributing unworthy motives to those she regarded as his enemies. He did not tolerate such outbursts. “Jeanne,” he would implore in a sort of warning growl. If she did not cease or show a change in attitude he would grind his teeth and growl a little more. Except for occasional bouts of impatience Louis mostly indulged Jeanne. She ran a superb household and he quietly enjoyed her tyranny. I think that he valued her buoyancy and her enjoyment of life. She was down to earth, practical, and independent, and, like all the Renaults, loved to laugh. She declared in her later years that she would have enjoyed being an engineer. She loved to socialize, to play cards, and to stay out late at night. He had an office at home and worked every evening. In the morning he would ask sternly about what time she had returned. She would look right at him and answer like a teenager: a little after 12:30. Even I knew that it had been much later than that.

Grandpapa

65

It was clear he adored her. From the time Mackenzie King “conscripted” him to join the government in Ottawa, he missed her terribly. She did not like the capital and continued to live in Quebec City. He was often lonely without her and noticeably happier when she visited him in Ottawa from time to time. Their relationship was such that it would be hard to imagine him complaining about her absence, even though I think it was a major cause of his bouts of melancholy. They were both older when he entered public life, and he probably felt that she had already put up with enough of his frequent absences and crushing work commitments. I have found a letter addressed to Thérèse, my mother, written as his ship was pulling out of the Quebec City harbour on one of his many journeys across the ocean to plead before the Privy Council. He acknowledges how touched he is by his daughters intuitive understanding of how sad he was to be leaving. He wrote that, although the ship was full and his room large, he felt very alone. “Il n’est pas bon que l’homme soit seul,” he quoted from scripture. It is from him an intimate and extremely rare expression of loneliness. Grandmaman had not married into a political family: it was not part of the matrimonial bargain. Grandpapas public life started in December 1941 after Ernest Lapointe, Mackenzie Kings long-time Quebec lieutenant, died. King called Grandpapa at home and asked him to join the government. He was fiftynine years old and, although he was widely respected, he had no public profile and, more important, no desire to acquire one. Accepting meant withdrawing from his law practice, severing other business relationships, and temporarily moving to Ottawa. He felt that he had no choice. Two of his five children were serving overseas and he saw the assignment as his own wartime contribution. At that time in Canada there was m istrust and closed-mindedness in many sectors of life. Society was tribal. It was a time of religious and cultural sectar­ ianism: not only was there widespread anti-Semitism but there was suspicion and dislike between Protestants and Catholics and between English- and Frenchspeaking Canadians. The First World War had exacerbated the resentment felt by English Canadians for their French-speaking compatriots who opposed compulsory military service, and the resentment was reciprocated. The funda­ mental character of Canadian life was British, with the exception of the third who were French. W hen I was a little girl going to French-language school in Montreal in the 1940s and 1950s, my schoolmates and their parents used the term “Canadiens” to describe French Canadians. All other Canadians were de­ scribed by them as “Les anglais.” The unity of the country had been damaged by the First World War. There was bitterness on both sides. Grandpapa saw the crisis, as did many other com­ munity leaders, as a serious long-term threat to national unity. It became one

66

Jean Thérèse Riley

of his life’s goals to do everything in his power to bridge any possible rift be­ tween French and English Canada. He could not refuse Prime Minister King’s invitation to join the cabinet when issues around the potential need for con­ scription flared up again. He knew that he, by birth and by experience, could help bridge and mediate some of the sharper differences. Grandpapa joined a government totally focused on defeating the Nazis and the Japanese Imperial Army. The whole country was mobilized. Mackenzie King had managed to balance the government’s full commitment of men, equip­ ment, money, and training resources with a formal promise not to impose compulsory military service. The war effort required special attention to FrenchCanadian sensibilities. Mackenzie King did not speak French but he had a deep understanding of his government’s need for strong, effective representa­ tion from French Canada. Grandpapa was sworn in as minister of justice on 10 December 1941 and joined the cabinet’s war committee. St-Laurent certainly matched Mackenzie King in intellect, but he had no natural political flair. He found partisanship distasteful. Unlike King, he was trenchant and decisive, practically devoid of vanity and free of concerns for position or social status. He had a quiet m anner and the authority and confi­ dence that come from a scholar’s capacity for detachm ent and a life of stun­ ning professional success. When he started working in Ottawa he rented a comfortable, furnished flat in the Roxborough Apartments near the corner of Elgin Street and Laurier Avenue. He walked to his office in the East Block. W hen he became prime m in­ ister he saw no reason to change. He had always envisioned his work in Ottawa as temporary, and the apartment was a simple and easy arrangement. Grand­ maman would occasionally come to stay with him. In the late 1980s, in Toronto, I met Geo Gilchrist, the widow of the owner of the Roxborough Apartments, at a party. She told me that the apartments were set up with small kitchens where the residents could easily heat something or have breakfast but there were strict rules about not cooking. Apparently, my food-loving French Canadian Grandmaman ignored the rules, made jam in the tiny kitchen, and filled the building with the heavenly smell of slow-cooking fruit. It sounds as though this caused talk in Anglo Ottawa. To me, the story communicates a poignant image of homesickness, especially as Grandmaman s jam was very competently made by her cook in Quebec City. Grandpapa was elected leader of the party in August 1948 and stepped into the prime minister’s job in November of the same year. He accepted the leadership with some reluctance but was persuaded that the presence of a French-Canadian leader would bolster national unity at a key mom ent in Canada’s growth.

Grandpapa

67

The government purchased a grand house at 24 Sussex Drive as an official residence for the prime minister, and in 1951 he and Grandmaman moved in. He only agreed to move in after it was negotiated that he could pay rent: $5,000 a year. Similar rent was paid by John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson, but the practice was ended by Pierre E. Trudeau. W hen visiting 24 Sussex my most prized memories are of being alone with Grandpapa. If he was not able to get away to Quebec for the weekend I would be sent on the train from Montreal to keep him company. The activities of one of those Ottawa weekends included much reading while he worked. The quiet was broken by meals and conversation, a swim with h im at the pool at the Chateau Laurier and perhaps either a visit to the Museum of Nature or to my Lafferty cousins in Rockcliffe. I don’t remember the details of our conversations other than thoroughly enjoying them, but what I do recall is how much he neu­ tralized criticism and urged a more tolerant attitude. However dramatic and intense I made my stories and observations, he always managed to convey to me that reducing my negative criticism of others was better. He wasn’t didactic about it: he would suggest the possibility of mitigating circumstances and often expressed sympathy for the perpetrators. This, combined with that signature shrug and a conspiratorial smile or two, made the message pretty clear. As a prime minister Grandpapa gave the impression of being very handson and, although, unlike Mackenzie King, he allowed smoking, he ran cabinet meetings with a tight rein. People who worked with him would tell me how much the government, the ministers, and the public service felt the benefit of his firm and decisive leadership. However, there are a few well-documented episodes of his having low energy, showing a diminished ability to problemsolve, and letting others lead the charge in the Commons. These episodes of fatigue and melancholy were never spoken about in the family. Everyone knew that he resented being alone for long periods and that sometimes he was struck with insomnia as well as digestive and prostate problems. He and Grandmaman visited the Lahey Clinic in Boston. His library contained several books about managing stress and about how to relax. I imagine that he was advised to learn to swim in his late sixties and that his regular routine at the swimming pool at the Chateau Laurier was part of the program. Since he rarely complained, his bouts of deep sadness remain shrouded in mystery. One possible cause of his melancholy, which is never spoken about, is how much he must have missed having Jack Pickersgill as his right-hand man. As principal secretary, Jack’s political flair, amazing grasp of history and the m a­ chinery of government, and great love and respect for Grandpapa made him invaluable. The atmosphere in the office must have changed drastically in 1953

68

Jean Thérèse Riley

Louis St-Laurent and Jeanne Renault at 24 Sussex Drive, 1953. Toronto Reference Lib ra ry Picture C o llectio n

when Pickersgill left the inner office to join the government and the cabinet. Jack was replaced by Dale Thomson, a bilingual Albertan who had fought in the Second World War and who finished his doctorate at the Université de Paris. (Thomson later became Grandpapas biographer.) No matter how quali­ fied, charming, and deftly self-promoting Dale was, the loss of daily access to a genuine friend like Jack inevitably added to Grandpapa’s tendencies towards melancholy. Thomson had no sense of humour. For Grandpapas seventy-fifth birthday in February 1957, the Liberal Party staged a lavish banquet in his honour at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.

Grandpapa

69

The celebration was genuinely joyful, and he was much moved. For such a modest man the affection and respect shown that weekend may have influ­ enced him to distance himself from his instinctive wish to retire. Now he was feeling strong pressure to remain as leader. Polls led the party to believe that he was still their greatest asset and that the Liberals would win a third mandate. In spite of the governments exceedingly clumsy handling of Parliament around the TransCanada Pipeline project, it could not imagine that its leaders record of competence and sound public policy would be rejected. He was defeated by a younger man whose energy and rhetoric made the Liberal strategy seem oldfashioned, smug, and arrogant. John Diefenbaker was an outsider, a populist who spoke with passionate intensity of his vision for Canada. In June of that year the St-Laurent government was defeated, and, in the aftermath, Grandpapa blamed himself. He regretted letting the Liberal Party establishment persuade him to stay in spite of his age and his own feeling that it was time to leave. By the summer he had developed a full blown ulcer. I can still see him mix­ ing powder into a glass of water at the end of each meal. He never complained, but there were more shoulder shrugs and fewer chuckles and smiles. He loved the summer house in St. Patrick’s and kept up his usual summer activities, but he seemed listless and much older after the defeat. Some months later he re­ covered his vigour and confidence and the ulcer healed. Essentially, he was a happy person; his resilience finally kicked in. He went back to work in his law firm and chaired and served as director to several challenging boards. Grandmaman died in 1966, creating a terrible void in his life. He thoroughly enjoyed Expo 67, where he was welcomed and feted with great respect. Five years later, on his ninetieth birthday, he said in a telephone conversation with Jack Pickersgill, “I feel as mentally fit and as energetic as I did 50 years ago ... for about an hour a day.” Grandpapa died in his own bed in his own house on the Grande Allée on 25 July 1973 at the age of ninety-one. It was hard that summer for me to imagine life without my beloved Grand­ papa. I was thirty years old and participating in the state funeral brought not only the slow ache of deep loss but also the hyper alertness of being part of a public spectacle. It was a Saturday, a perfect summer day. The streets of the old city of Quebec sparkled. It was a grand occasion, televised live across Canada, featuring Prime Minister Trudeau, Governor General Michener, members of both federal and provincial cabinets, and dignitaries representing various levels of government and public institutions. After a formal service featuring eulogies, chants, incense, and priests in gold, family members huddled behind the casket as it was slowly carried by Mounties down the aisle towards the sunlight and the crowds and the cameras. It was a moment of palpable emotion. The Basilicas 70

Jean Thérèse Riley

bells were the only sound, and through the silence one felt a kind of throb. Outside the goodbyes were brief, and as the limousines drove slowly away family members could see crowds of people lining the streets. Quebec City is full of churches, and all of them rang their bells in unison. It was as though the bustle of daily life in Quebec had come to a halt while its citizens paid their respects and said goodbye to someone who had been deeply loved and respected. The cars motored slowly away from the heart of the city, and I cried, overcome by the poignant image of us taking Louis St-Laurent home, back to Compton in the Eastern Townships, from which he had journeyed more than seventy years before. As we travelled through villages and towns, the cortège was acknowledged by the ringing of church bells and people standing by the side of the road to pay their respects. When the day was over and we returned to our lives, some of those images stayed with us. Not only were they themselves unforgettable but they seemed to communicate that our personal loss was shared by the whole country. The scene at the Compton graveyard was stark in its silence and simplicity. The colourful presence of the Mounties and the band of the Royal 22nd Regiment created a contrast with the quiet modesty of the burial itself. Grandpapa had requested that his burial stone be smaller than his fathers. He was put to rest as he had wanted, and as he had lived, in that unassuming way that was his. The humility of it was breathtaking.

Grandpapa

71

chapt er The Predominant Prime Minister St-Laurent and His Cabinet STEPHEN AZZI

In September 1953, a senior official from Canada’s Privy Council Office, the government departm ent that supported the work of Prime Minister Louis StLaurent, was invited to speak about cabinet government to the National Defence College. Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet Gordon Robertson explained the essential elements of the Westminster system and its evolution over more than three hundred years, providing detail that his audience of non-historians must have found tedious. In the midst of his talk, he digressed to examine the role of Canadas head of government. Robertson described the prime minister as the dominant person in Ottawa: the prime minister called cabinet meetings, con­ trolled the cabinet agenda, appointed the other members of ministry, and could remove ministers from office at will. The result was that the prime minister had a “powerful hold” over cabinet. In theory, ministers are equal in the cabinet room and decisions are arrived at by consensus, but in reality “position, prestige, and loyalty all give special and great weight to the views of a prime minister.” In Robertsons view, it was “difficult to overestimate the power and influence a prime minister can wield if he desires.” The traditional definition of the prime minister as primus inter pares, first among equals, “may have had some truth 100 years ago” but was “now nonsense.”1 From a perspective of more than sixty years later, Robertsons words are striking. Scholars now lament the extensive powers of the prime minister, con­ trasting today s situation with that of an earlier age, when it is said that the prime minister was truly first among equals. This critique is not new. Each generation seems to have complained about excessive power being vested in the prime

minister, waxing nostalgic about a time when authority was broadly dispersed.2 Some have even bemoaned the “presidentialization” of the office, an ill-conceived term, given that there have always been fewer checks on the power of Canadian prime ministers than on that of American presidents.3 Scholars who advance the centralization thesis - the argument that power was once dispersed and is now concentrated in the prime m inisters hands point to Louis St-Laurent s government as evidence of better days in the not so distant past, a time when the Canadian polity worked as it should. According to this version of history, St-Laurent was not the dominant figure in his gov­ ernment. He was the chairman of the board, a respected elder statesman who presided over cabinet meetings and offered advice but allowed strong ministers like C.D. Howe to exercise the real executive authority. This myth might well have started with the journalist Tom Kent. In the pages of the Winnipeg Free Press, Kent reported on the prime m inisters m anner at a 1957 campaign stop, describing it as “less that of political controversy than of the chairman of the board of a successful corporation reporting to a shareholders’ meeting.”4 Kent was not observing St-Laurent s leadership of the government but his comport­ ment on the campaign trail. Still, the description seemed apt, so much so that it became the generic description of St-Laurent as prime minister. The picture of St-Laurent as chair of a corporate board has dominated media portrayals of him and seeped into the historiography and the political science literature.5 Almost inevitably, this characterization is advanced without evidence, whether eyewitness testimony or specific documents that demonstrate St-Laurent s pos­ ition in cabinet.6 The image of St-Laurent as somehow above it all became fixed for several reasons. It suited the Liberal marketing machine to present the prime minister as Uncle Louis, a kindly old gentleman who led Canadas government with a light hand. This obscured, as intended, St-Laurent s iron core and dark moods. But it also had the unintended consequence of hiding his considerable capacity as leader of the government. The opposition also had reasons to portray St-Laurent as the “nominal head” of the government and Trade and Commerce Minister Howe as the real prime minister, as opposition leader George Drew did during the acrimonious pipeline debate near the end of the governments tenure.7Not able to overcome St-Laurent s personal popularity, the Progressive Conservatives found it easier to argue that the government was in fact in the hands of the much less likable Howe. St-Laurent did nothing to correct this distorted image of his government. An introvert who was not interested in enhancing his own persona, he was pleased to let others take credit for his governments accomplishments.8The picture of a cabinet led by Howe and other

The Predominant Prime Minister

73

strong m inisters seemed particularly credible during the government’s abys­ mal last two years, characterized by an exhausted prime minister, arrogant ministers, and a bored caucus. That period has come to overshadow the gov­ ernment’s highly successful first seven years. Complicating matters is the difficulty of getting to know St-Laurent. Political historians have a nemesis in a leader who was uninterested in his own legacy.9 St-Laurent left no diary or memoirs. He revealed little in the few interviews he gave after his retirement. Cabinet documents tell us about the formal process of government and record the decisions taken but do not speak to the interaction between the prime minister and other ministers. St-Laurent’s personal papers shed scant light on the topic. Many of those who worked closely with St-Laurent have written glowing descriptions of his intellect and character, but they have written sparingly. The anecdotes are few, the descriptions limited to testimonials about his ability and virtue. St-Laurent appears less as a politician than as a saint - albeit a saint who had an occasional outburst of bad temper. Yet a review of the available sources reveals a considerably different picture from that of the prime minister as chair of the board or first among equals. Throughout his time as prime minister, St-Laurent dominated his cabinet both because of a political system that placed extensive power in his hands and be­ cause of the reverence with which his followers viewed him. Ministers were responsible for running their departments and proposing policy measures to cabinet, but St-Laurent made the final decisions, determining the governments tone and direction.10 Scholars, particularly political scientists, have often emphasized the insti­ tutions at the centre of the Westminster system, neglecting the agency of the prime minister. St-Laurent’s case shows that the Westminster system gives prime ministers great power, though much rests on the incumbent’s personal capacity and on the political context.11As Gordon Robertson told his audience in 1953, the prime m inister’s power depended not only on institutional structures but also on his personality and relations with his colleagues. In St-Laurent’s case, the prime m inister’s predominance was not merely a result of a constitutional structure that gave great authority to the head of government, it was also a function of his personal resources: his immense reputation in the public and in his party, his capacity as a decision maker and leader of cabinet, and the belief among Liberals that, as long as St-Laurent was leader, they could never lose. No Canadian prime m inister has received as much unalloyed praise from his followers as St-Laurent. Much of the admiration was for his personal qualities: his integrity, honesty, and modesty, coupled with his total lack of vindictiveness or spite. “He is about the kindest and most understanding man I have ever met,

74

Stephen Azzi

and the most selfless,” External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson recorded in his diary in 1953.12 “Mr. St-Laurent was undoubtedly one of the most admirable human beings I have ever met,” remembered Gordon Robertson. “He was a modest man, utterly honest, had no personal ambition and a great sense of re­ sponsibility to his family, to society, to the province of Quebec and to Canada. He had great courage. He was really one of the finest people I have ever come across.”13 The mixture of these personal traits, according to Jack Pickersgill, meant that “St-Laurents moral primacy in the government was enormous.”14 When talking about St-Laurents integrity, observers often noted his in­ difference to partisan political concerns. He was preoccupied with making the right decision for the country, regardless of its impact on Liberal Party fortunes. No doubt this was partly a result of St-Laurents dearth of political experience and lack of involvement in the Liberal Party before he was first elected to Parliament a few days after his sixtieth birthday. For St-Laurent, cabinet was not a focus group to bring together divergent views from across Canada in search of a compromise; instead, it was a collection of talented indi­ viduals who should do what was best for the country. “Whatever was right was done,” remembered Defence Minister Brooke Claxton.15 This attitude was on display when Fisheries Minister Robert Mayhew considered the abolition of a subsidy for the fishing industry but worried that it would cost the government important political support. “Do you really think that this is the right thing to do?” the prime minister asked. Mayhew responded that the policy was right but might not be politically wise. “I think it is right too,” the prime minister replied, “and I think we should do what we feel is right, and then face the political consequences afterward.”16 St-Laurent s personal popularity was not the result of a backslapping style of leadership. Quite the contrary: throughout his life, St-Laurents m anner was dignified and reserved. There are few endearing anecdotes to illustrate his character. W hen a journalist asked an old classmate for incidents from StLaurents school days, the response was terse: “Mr. St-Laurent is a man who does not have incidents.”17He was not open with others about the inner work­ ings of his soul. “St-Laurent was the easiest man to talk to and work for, as long as you talked business,” Pickersgill remembered. “He was not interested in small talk or gossip.”18 Paul Hellyer s memoirs recount his invitation to join the cabinet. When Hellyer answered the phone, the prime minister did not begin with routine pleasantries; instead he went right to the point: “Would you like to join my colleagues and me in the cabinet as associ­ ate minister of national defence?”

The Predominant Prime Minister

75

“Yes, I would,” Hellyer responded, “Thank you very much, sir.” “Then if you will be good enough to come to Ottawa in the morning you will be sworn in at eleven.”

Each man then passed on regards to the others wife, and the conversation was over.19 k It is difficult to describe St-Laurent s m anner because’it was marked by contradictions. St-Laurent might not have been gregarious but he was charm ­ ing and could exhibit warmth.20 He was always correct and dignified but not formal. He spoke frankly, remembered journalist Bruce Hutchison, “in an easy, colloquial idiom unexpected from the erudite scholar of law and constitution.”21 Liberal MP Bona Arsenault similarly recalled a down-home, colloquial way of speaking and “rural common sense.”22 St-Laurent treated his staff, public ser­ vants, and cabinet ministers as equals, making them feel as though they were colleagues, not subordinates.23 After a cabinet meeting, St-Laurent frequently ate lunch at a common table in the parliamentary restaurant, chatting with ministers about that days business.24 “If you went into his office, he would im ­ mediately give up his desk chair to go and take a seat by your side,” according to Arsenault. “If you ever went to greet him at his table in the parliamentary restaurant, he would spring up to shake your hand, giving you the impression that it was you who were Louis St-Laurent.”25 St-Laurent made himself readily accessible to his cabinet ministers. Often when Brooke Claxton would call the Prime Minister s Office to request an appointment, St-Laurent would come on the line and say, “Come right down, Brooke.”26 Adm iration for St-Laurent s character was coupled with widespread re­ spect for his intellect. Pickersgill noted that, in addition to St-Laurent s “moral primacy” in Ottawa, the prime minister also enjoyed “intellectual primacy.”27 Rational and cerebral, he placed a heavy store in reason and possessed a talent for finding the core of an issue.28He was able to present ideas in a way that made them look perfectly sensible, even inevitable.29 He was knowledgeable: several cabinet ministers later recounted that St-Laurent often knew a subject better than the responsible minister.30 The combination of these characteristics led followers to conclude that St-Laurent was an extraordinarily able cabinet minister and prime minister. St-Laurent s cabinet colleagues seemed to try to outdo each other in their tributes to his capacities. Health and Welfare Minister Paul Martin later remembered that St-Laurent was the most capable prime minister of the four in whose cab­ inet Martin had served: Mackenzie King, St-Laurent, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau.31 King, one of the shrewdest judges of talent in Canadian political

76

Stephen Azzi

history, said that St-Laurent was the ablest person ever to serve in a Canadian cabinet.32 In Transport Minister Lionel Chevrier s view, “St-Laurent was the greatest prime minister this country’s ever known.”33For Pickersgill, St-Laurent “was the greatest Canadian of our time.”34 Supreme praise came from C.D. Howe: St-Laurent, he said, “stands in the shade of no man, living or dead” words that Héfjyer later echoed.35 St-Laurent’s stauire was enhanced by his ability to win votes. “He was,” to the political-minded Gordon Robertson, “the best thing the Liberal Party had going for it.”36 St-Laurent “to all intents and purposes, came to power through the comparatively new idea of attaching more importance to the personality of a leader than to the ideas he represented,” according to Chubby Power, a minister in Mackenzie King’s cabinet and a member of St-Laurent’s caucus.37 Political scientists have described today’s leader-centric politics as a new phenomenon, but voters and the media have focused on party leaders since at least the late 1940s.38The press and parties presented the 1949 election campaign to voters as a clash between Louis St-Laurent and George Drew.39In 1953, the Liberal slogan was “A Great Leader for a Greater Canada” and, in individual ridings, Liberal campaign literature urged voters to support “the local St-Laurent candidate.”40 Dale Thomson, who worked in St-Laurent’s office, remembered the 1953 Liberal campaign as “oriented almost entirely around the leader’s personality, huge photographs portraying him in a dignified, well-groomed pose, gazing directly into the eyes of his fellow citizens with an expression of quiet competence.”41 One tool at a prime m inister’s disposal is the ability to hire and fire cabinet ministers. Ministers are often loyal for no other reason than that they owe their place at the cabinet table to the prime minister. St-Laurent’s leadership is strik­ ing for how seldom he used - or threatened to use - his power to make or break ministers. It helped that St-Laurent started with one of the most impressive cabinets ever assembled in Canada, perhaps even stronger than Wilfrid Laurier s 1896 ministry, nicknamed the cabinet of all the talents. O f the twenty ministers in St-Laurent’s first cabinet, eighteen were carried over from Mackenzie King’s last ministry, though King had appointed Lester Pearson, Canada’s foremost diplomat, on St-Laurent’s urging, just two months before the new prime minis­ ter took over. C.D. Howe, Douglas Abbott, Jimmy Gardiner, Brooke Claxton, Walter Harris, and Paul Martin had all proven themselves in the King years. St-Laurent added two new ministers: Manitoba premier Stuart Garson and a capable newcomer, Robert Winters of Nova Scotia. Later the prime minister added several others, including J.W. Pickersgill, the former head of the Prime Minister’s Office and former clerk of the Privy Council, who understood O t­ tawa’s power structure better than anyone else.

The Predominant Prime Minister

77

In St-Laurent s Ottawa, the process of cabinet government was orderly, illustrated symbolically by St-Laurent’s practice of clearing his desk by the end of each day.42 St-Laurent did not micromanage. It was for ministers to take care of the details, though he took a personal interest and played an active role in certain policy files, such as foreign affairs and federal-provincial relations. StLaurent respected Pearsons expertise in the international field, but the prime minister would still insist on having his own way when they disagreed and when he felt strongly on the issue.43 The prime ministers job was to decide the broad sweep of government policy. St-Laurent controlled the cabinet agenda, choosing what would and would not be discussed.44 Proposals had to be put on paper, meaning that ministers entered the meeting well briefed. Policy initiatives came from ministers, but not always. The T1 income tax form came about after the prime minister wrote a six-page memorandum criticizing the existing form as too complicated for the average person.45 Even in areas where he did not take the initiative, St-Laurent was the key figure in cabinet. It was not enough for a minister to win over the majority of colleagues: the prime minister needed to be convinced first.46 St-Laurent read all the cabinet papers and had opinions, sometimes strong opinions, on matters under consideration. “Any policy he didn’t approve of didn’t go,” according to J.W. Pickersgill.47 St-Laurent’s abilities were most visible in a cabinet meeting. Paul Martin wrote that St-Laurent “loved the work of cabinet, particularly the intellectual exercise of meticulously arranging the details of a problem.”48 Cabinet began punctually, with St-Laurent always careful not to waste time. Ministers went systematically through each agenda item in order. Discussions were focused and on point rather than wide-ranging. As Dale Thomson noted, “irrelevant comments or long-winded interventions were not encouraged.”49 St-Laurent would not perm it ministers to get hung up on a particular agenda item. Diffi­ cult problems were referred to a committee or to a couple of ministers to sort out rather than taking up precious cabinet time. When Mackenzie King was in charge, matters that interested only one or two ministers had been allowed to eat up time, with King determined that every minister should have his say. Under St-Laurent, that practice ended.50As a result, as Finance Minister Douglas Abbott remembered, “We got through our Cabinet business rather more quickly in Mr. St-Laurent’s day than in my relative short experience under Mr. King.”51 “The efficiency showed and could be counted on until St-Laurent’s last year in office,” recalled Gordon Robertson.52 Then, as now, there were no votes in cabinet. In St-Laurent’s summary of cabinet decision making, “everybody [in cabinet] is invited, a free discussion takes place and then it is the responsibility of the Prime Minister to advise the

78

Stephen Azzi

Crown.”53 Officials have fleshed out this description. According to Robertson, the prime minister would “usually not lead discussion” because, if he did, he would be “apt to blanket the views of others.” Instead, St-Laurent’s practice was to “let the discussion develop, see what colleagues think, and then develop the basis of an agreed policy,” which consisted of the prim e minister’s “own views plus what [the cabinet had] said.”54 Dale Thomson described a crisp decision­ making process: St-Laurent followed the discussion closely, and, as soon as he felt the facts had been made clear and the different viewpoints fairly expressed, he summed up the situation in a few words and proposed a decision. It was nearly always adopted at once, and the ministers went on to the next item.55

Cabinet Secretary Bob Bryce explained the personal dynamic in cabinet: It’s not easy to know what’s being decided often in Cabinet, because there’s a certain stage where it is clear that Mr. So-and-So is giving in and accepting the fact that he’s not going to get what he wants. A tactful prim e m inister like St-Laurent will not underline that. He doesn’t announce, “Well, we’re rejecting Mr. Gardiner’s proposal” or whatever. Often, it’s a look from the prime minis­ ter to the man concerned or often it’s something the prime minister says that indicates he’s approved the other side of the argument. So keeping the thing tactful means that you don’t have clear-cut motions.56

The final decision was the prime minister’s - and the prime minister did not always feel the need to clearly communicate this decision in the cabinet meeting. St-Laurent was a sensitive chair who sought a balance between listening and pushing the agenda along. “Mr. St-Laurent’s Cabinet was more formal than mine,” Lester Pearson later reflected, “but he was always a very considerate and courteous chairman, and anxious to encourage the widest participation in discussions.”57 As Pickersgill recalled, “No minister was restrained from pre­ senting his views for fear St-Laurent might take offence.” Yet St-Laurent still dominated the cabinet discussion. Pickersgill observed that St-Laurent’s “moral ascendency over the Cabinet” intimidated some ministers. They did not speak up in cabinet for fear of “making fools of themselves” by “appearing to be illinformed or ineffective.”58 And as much as St-Laurent tried not to lead cabinet discussions, he would often anticipate the arguments of cabinet ministers, presenting them himself. He had a tendency “to show his hand too quickly,” as

The Predominant Prime Minister

79

Paul Martin noted.59 This occurred because there were limits to St-Laurents patience. He found it particularly difficult to listen to long-winded colleagues. W hen Abbott left politics in 1954, Paul Martin suggested that Garson become the new finance minister. St-Laurent groaned, “But we’ll have to listen to him all the time.”60 Ministers in the St-Laurent cabinet later went out of their way to contradict the characterization of St-Laurent as chair of the board. George Marier, who had served on major corporate boards - including Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Trust, Lafarge Cement - insisted that St-Laurent “was much more than a mere chairman,” a term that implied a “passive role.”61 Ac­ cording to Pickersgill, “St-Laurent dominated his Cabinet, not by imposing his authority, but by his sheer intellect, his wide knowledge, and his unequalled persuasiveness.”62 If a corporate comparison was needed, both Paul Martin and Dale Thomson saw St-Laurent as the company’s president, not the board’s chair.63 In the 1956 pipeline debate, Progressive Conservative MP Donald Fleming insisted that Canada was under “one-man rule” and that the ruler was not the prime m inister but C.D. Howe. Fleming described St-Laurent as “just a weak man who has proven himself, in this debate as on other occasions, to be just putty in the hands of the strong man, the one-man ruler of Canada.”64 Howe was indeed the most powerful minister after St-Laurent, but whenever the two clashed in cabinet, it was Howe who backed down. Howe believed he had enjoyed a free hand in Mackenzie King’s cabinet because King “didn’t know a damn thing about business or industry.” But, as Howe lamented to journalist Gratton O’Leary, St-Laurent was a corporate lawyer and was “always one jump ahead” of Howe. “He knows exactly what’s going on ... You can’t put anything over on the bugger.”65 There were many instances in which St-Laurent exercised his authority over Howe. In March 1951, cabinet considered a proposal to pay western farm ­ ers $65 million to make up for losses caused by an agreement to sell wheat to Britain at below market price. Howe opposed the measure but yielded when St-Laurent endorsed it.66 In 1956, cabinet rejected Howe’s initial plans for the natural gas pipeline from Alberta to Quebec, forcing him to work with the Alberta government and Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Ltd. to draff a new pro­ posal, despite Howe’s objections. It has been said frequently that the Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects could only have been appointed because it was raised in cabinet when Howe was out of town.67 In fact, Howe was in Ottawa and lost the debate in cabinet.68 In a private letter, journalist Grant Dexter told the story to Tom Kent: “When [Finance Minister Walter] 80

Stephen Azzi

Harris brought the proposal before cabinet, Howe took it as an expression of no confidence... He lost his temper and there was quite a quarrel... The decision ... went against Howe.”69 Cabinet minutes also reveal a dispute over the Defence Production Act. The government had created the Department of Defence Production in 1951 as a temporary entity to coordinate rearmament during the Korean War. The ori­ ginal legislation called for the department to fold after five years, but cabinet agreed in 1955 that the legislation should be amended to make the department permanent. At the same time, several ministers were concerned about the extraordinary powers that the act assigned to the m inister and questioned whether these could be justified in peacetime. For instance, the legislation al­ lowed the minister to compel factory owners to accept defence contracts on terms he dictated and to install a controller in a business to direct its operations if the minister determined that the terms of a defence contract were not being fulfilled efficiently. Howe insisted on retaining these powers, but a compromise was eventually reached. The powers would remain in the act, but “if Parliament showed a strong feeling that such an indefinite extension of the extraordinary powers ... was unwarranted by the present outlook, these sections would be reconsidered by the government.”70 The opposition objected strenuously to the extension of Howe’s wartime powers. St-Laurent then agreed, much to Howe’s annoyance, to amend the legislation so that the minister’s special powers would expire in 1959. The incident lends credence to Pickersgill’s observation that St-Laurent “gave Howe’s recommendations to Cabinet the same careful scrutiny that he gave to those of the most junior minister.”71 The tragedy of Louis St-Laurent was that he did not step down earlier, as he had long planned to. Howe and St-Laurent agreed that they would retire a year or two after the 1953 election.72 Yet prom inent Liberals feared that they might not win without St-Laurent and persuaded the prime minister to stay on, long after he was past his prime and despite his own personal wishes. He carried on successfully through 1953 and 1954, though some witnesses re­ member short bouts of fatigue or depression. By early 1955, the problem was pronounced. St-Laurent later said, “I was worn out and didn’t know it.”73 His children were deeply concerned about his depression and apathy. Renault St-Laurent went to see three cabinet ministers, suggesting that his father should resign. “The ministers said that it was out of the question and that it was abso­ lutely necessary for him to remain because the country needed him,” Renault later remembered.74 Personal problems demoralized St-Laurent. An undated note in Brooke Claxton’s papers is telling:

The Predominant Prime Minister

81

A wife who did not conceal her reluctance to leave the family foyer at Quebec for Ottawa or, when there, her readiness to sit up all night playing cards, a handsome daughter whose nervous condition had forced her to live away from her husband and children, a son who in his forties had had a serious heart attack and another whose activities in business were combined with an active political life. No wonder Mr. St-Laurent had ulcers!75

Guy Sylvestre, the prim e m inister’s private secretary, rem em bered that St-Laurent’s wife, Jeanne, “had nothing to do” and would often “sit in his office by the hour.”76 Renault remembered that St-Laurent agonized over the problems of his daughter Madeleine, who suffered from bipolar disorder and whose marriage had broken down.77 Financial concerns also weighed on the prime minister. St-Laurent’s salary in politics did not match what he had earned in the private sector, so he began in 1947 to borrow every few months on his life insurance.78 St-Laurents decline was not a simple one-way process. In 1950, perhaps earlier, St-Laurent began a cycle of long periods of activity punctuated with brief periods of inactivity. But the periods of inactivity became longer and their impact more consequential.79 Dale Thomson described times of depression being followed by phases when the prime minister was “hyperactive” and “full of beans,” a description that suggests cyclothymia, a less extreme version of bipolar disorder, in which an individual alternates back and forth between periods of depression and those of euphoria.80 The prim e m inisters listless interludes were no secret: the media increasingly commented on them.81 The depression was noticeable in the Commons, where St-Laurent spoke less often. He was prone to be both irritable and impatient, even in the cabinet room.82 Still, according to Pearson, the prime minister continued to slog away: “He worked hard at everything. He was a tremendous worker.”83 Thomson re­ membered that, with “dogged determination,” St-Laurent “kept appearing at his office every morning, and in the House of Commons after lunch.” Somehow, “he managed to go through the motions of carrying out his duties, spending the usual long hours on Parliament Hill, poring over the papers submitted to him, and making the speeches he had agreed to give.”84 St-Laurents depression diminished his capacity but not his authority in Ottawa. In the Commons, St-Laurent “sometimes failed to act promptly and decisively,” according to Pickersgill.85 Pearson recalled that, at the 1956 Com­ monwealth Conference, St-Laurent “really didn’t want to say anything at all at the meetings and kept asking me if I would deal with this or if I would deal with

82

Stephen Azzi

that.”86The prime minister s greatest skill was in chairing a cabinet meeting, but, according to Dale Thomson, St-Laurent “sometimes fell down when he was in his depressed periods.”87Pearson agreed: St-Laurent was “a little more reluctant ... to stand up to Mr. Howe as much as he might have done if he had felt stronger and more vigorous.”88He was less and less able to solve the problems facing the government and the country.89During the pipeline debate, Liberals were shocked to see St-Laurent sitting silently in his place as the Commons descended into chaos. Bob Winters and Paul Martin tried unsuccessfully to rouse the prime minister to action.90 Yet even in his weakest state, St-Laurent had the final say and could overrule his ministers. In 1956, House of Commons Speaker René Beaudoin resigned after his reputation had been destroyed by his handling of the pipeline debate. Ministers had decided to accept the resignation and chose a new speaker. But then St-Laurent returned from a trip to London and insisted that Beaudoin stay.91 Not long after, he called three ministers and their deputies to his office to settle a dispute over a construction project in Quebec City. According to Dale Thomson, the prime minister “lectured them in a language that left them speech­ less; within a few days, the argument was settled and the project authorized.”92 Right through his final year in office, St-Laurent remained the undisputed central figure in Ottawa. A leader of stature and authority, St-Laurent has emerged in the political science and historical literature as a weak old man. In fact, he was a command­ ing leader of the government throughout his tenure. Canadas Constitution places enormous power in the prime ministers hands, which St-Laurent did not hesitate to use. Not for him a consensual cabinet of equals. Instead, he ran a government on the Westminster model, whereby the prime minister had the final say and disgruntled ministers had to accept responsibility for cabinet deci­ sions or resign. St-Laurents power in Ottawa was enhanced by extensive personal resources: his intellect, his charm, and his popularity across the country. When he was at his best, he was no less powerful a force than any other Canadian prime minister. His power declined as he suffered from depression and fatigue in the final years. Still, when he was roused to action, he could show that he was the predominant figure in Ottawa.

Acknowledgments The author is grateful to Norman Hillmer for his incisive comments and to the two an­ onymous reviewers.

The Predominant Prime Minister

83

N otes

1 “Cabinet Government in Canada,” notes for remarks at the National Defence College, 4 September 1953, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Gordon Robertson Fonds, MG 31 E87, vol. 5, file 2. The original text was written in note form. For the reader’s sake, I spell out abbreviations and add conjunctions and articles where Robertson had obviously intended them. 2 In 1963, Frank Underhill lamented that the prime minister was “no longer just the first among equals.” Donald Savoie voiced a similar complaint in 1999. See Frank FI. Underhill, “P.M. Didn’t Grow: He Inflated Himself,” Toronto Star, 16 March 1963,7; Donald J. Savoie, Governingfrom the Centre: The Concentration o f Power in Canadian Politics (Toronto: Uni­ versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 13. In an introduction to Bagehot s 1867 classic, The English Constitution, R.H.S. Crossman notes, “Even in Bagehot’s time it was probably a misnomer to describe the Premier [i.e., the prime minister] as chairman and primus inter pares” See R.H.S. Crossman’s introduction to Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution (London: Watts, 1964), 1-57, at 51. Patrice Dutil demonstrates the dominant role of the Canadian prime minister during the country’s first fifty years in Prime Ministerial Power in Canada: Its Origins under Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017). 3 Herman Bakvis and Steven B. Wolinetz, “Canada: Executive Dominance and Presidentialization,” in The Presidentialization o f Politics: A Comparative Study o f Modern Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), chap. 9; Jamie Gillies, “The Presidentialization of Executive Leadership in Canada,” in Canadian Election Analysis 2015: Communication, Strategy, and Democracy, ed. Alex Marland and Thierry Giasson (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015), 38-39. 4 “Mr. St-Laurent’s Case,” Winnipeg Free Press, 30 April 1957, 17. The editorial was un­ signed, but Kent identified himself as author in his memoirs. See Tom Kent, A Public Purpose: An Experience o f Liberal Opposition and Canadian Government (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), 36. 5 For examples from the world of journalism, see Christina McCall-Newman, Grits: An Intimate Portrait o f the Liberal Party (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), 201; Ian Urquhart, “Ten Who Led the Country,” Toronto Star, 4 April 1999, Fl, F4; Robert Fulford, “When I Was Very Young,” Queen’s Quarterly 111, 2 (2004): 173. For examples from the historiography, see Donald Creighton, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939-1957 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 159-60; Desmond Morton, A Military History o f Canada, 5th ed. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2007), 231; Raymond Blake, Jeff Keshen, Norman Knowles, and Barbara Messamore, Narrating a Nation: Canadian History, Post-Confederation (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2011), 297; Paul Lift, Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation o f John Napier Turner (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), 398. For examples from political science, see W.A. Matheson, The Prime Minister and the Cabinet (Toronto: Methuen, 1976), 158-59; Philip Resnick, The Masks o f Proteus: Canadian Reflections on the State (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), 49. 6 Matheson, for example, makes several sweeping statements about St-Laurent’s relation­ ship with cabinet, supporting them only with a quotation from opposition leader George Drew, a statement made in the heat of the pipeline debate. See Matheson, Prime Minister and the Cabinet, 157-58. 7 House of Commons Debates: Official Report, 3rd session, 22nd Parliament, 14 May 1956,3867. 8 Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, p. 4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, R11232, vol. 2, Pickersgill file.

84

Stephen Azzi

9

10

11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28

“He never worried about ... making a place for himself in history,” remembered Jack Pickersgill, the cabinet minister who was closer to St-Laurent than any other. Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, p. 4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. St-Laurent himself told a reporter, “It is not going to be very important to me after I disappear whether I am remembered or not.” Jeanne Sauvé interview with StLaurent, 1962, p. 91, McGill University Archives (hereafter MUA), Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds, MG 2040, container 10, file 215. Robert Bothwell is one of the few historians to see St-Laurent as the dominant figure in his government. See Robert Bothwell, “Louis-Stephen St-Laurent,” in Canadas Prime Ministers, Macdonald to Trudeau: Portraits from the Dictionary o f Canadian Biography, ed. Ramsay Cook and Réal Bélanger (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 329-54, esp. 353. Here I make use of the concept of prime ministerial predominance developed by Richard Heffeman and expanded by Mark Bennister. They emphasize the prime minister s agency. The prime ministers powers are extensive but dependent on the broader context and the leaders traits and skills. See Richard Heffeman, “Prime Ministerial Predominance? Core Executive Politics in the UK,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 5, 3 (2003): 347-72; Mark Bennister, Prime Ministers in Power: Political Leadership in Britain and Australia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs oftheR t. Hon. Lester B. Pearson, vol. 2 , 1948-1957, ed. John A. Munro and Alex I. Inglis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 128. Tom Earle interview with Gordon Robertson, October-November-December 1990, pp. 39-40, LAC, Library of Parliament Fonds, R1026, vol. 2571, file 16. Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 28 August 1974, p. 3, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. Untitled typewritten notes for Claxton’s memoirs, pp. 1-2, LAC, Brooke Claxton Fonds, MG 32-B5, vol. 224, Memoir Notes Politics file. Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 263. “The Dominion: Père de Famille,” Time, Canadian ed., 12 September 1949, 34. Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, p. 4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. Paul Hellyer, Damn the Torpedoes: My Fight to Unify Canada’s Armed Forces (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990), 12-13. Lentner interview with Dale Thomson, 12 September 1975, p. 9, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Thomson file. Bruce Hutchison, Far Side o f the Street (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), 221. Bona Arsenault, Souvenirs et confidences (Ottawa: Éditions Leméac, 1983), 14. J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 327-28. Paul Martin, A Very Public Life, vol. 2, So Many Words (Toronto: Deneau, 1985), 17. Arsenault, Souvenirs, 14. Untitled typewritten notes for Claxtons memoirs, pp. 1-2, LAC, Brooke Claxton Fonds, vol. 224, Memoir Notes Politics file. See also Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 60; J.W. Pickersgill, Louis St-Laurent, rev. ed. (Markham, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2001), 29. Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 28 August 1974, p. 3, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, p. 4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file.

The Predominant Prime Minister

85

29 Stursberg interview with Jack Pickersgill, 14 October 1976, 13-14, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, MG 31 D78, vol. 31, file 11; J.W. Pickersgill, “The Greatest Canadian of Our Time,” address to the Canadian Club of Fort William, 27 November 1959, p. 5, LAC, C.D. Howe Fonds, MG 27-IIIB20, vol. 108, file 75(6). 30 Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, 4, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file; Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 174-75; untitled typewritten notes for Claxton’s memoirs, pp. 1-2, LAC, Brooke Claxton Fonds, vol. 224, Memoir Notes Politics file; Stursberg interview with George Marier, 13 September 1978, p. 67, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, vol. 36, file 12. 31 John English interview with Paul Martin, cited in John English, Shadow o f Heaven: The Life o f Lester Pearson, vol. 1 ,1897-1948 (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1989), 316. 32 J.W. Pickersgill, “The Greatest Canadian of Our Time,” address to the Canadian Club of Fort William, 27 November 1959, LAC, C.D. Howe Fonds, vol. 108, file 75(6); Stursberg interview with Jack Pickersgill, 5 September 1973, p. 31, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, vol. 15, file 17. See also Bruce Hutchison, Mr. Prime Minister, 1867-1964 (Toronto: Longmans, 1964), 291. 33 Stursberg interview with Lionel Chevrier, 17 August 1976, p. 60, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, vol. 28, file 9. See also Mabel Tinkiss Good, Chevrier: Politician, Statesman, Diplomat, and Entrepreneur of the St-Lawrence Seaway (Montreal: Stanké, 1987), 154. 34 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 328. 35 C.D. Howe, quoted in Pickersgill, “Greatest Canadian of Our Time,” 3; Paul Hellyer, “StLaurent’s Shadow,” Macleans, 4 July 2011, 8. 36 Tom Earle interview with Gordon Robertson, October-November-December 1990, pp. 39-40, LAC, Library of Parliament Fonds, vol. 2571, file 16. 37 Charles G. Power, A Party Politician: The Memoirs o f Chubby Power, ed. Norman Ward (Toronto: Macmillan, 1966), 265. 38 See, for example, Savoie, Governingfrom the Centre, 80. 39 J.M. Beck, Pendulum of Power: Canadas Federal Elections (Scarborough, ON: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 262. 40 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 354. 41 Ibid. See also Cory Baldwin, “The Branding of the Prime Minister: ‘Uncle Louis’ and Brand Politics in the Elections of Louis St-Laurent, 1949-1957” (MA thesis, Trent University, 2017). 42 Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, p. 4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. 43 John Hilliker and Donald Barry, Canadas Department o f External Affairs, vol. 2, Coming o f Age, 1946-1968 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995), 122. 44 The secretary to the cabinet prepared a draft agenda, but St-Laurent almost always altered it. Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 28 August 1974, p. 3, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. 45 Ian Sclanders, “How the Prime Minister Became Uncle Louis,” Macleans, 1 January 1955,42. 46 Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, pp. 3-4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file. 47 Ibid. 48 Martin, Very Public Life, 2:17. 49 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 262-63. 50 Stursberg interview with Lionel Chevrier, 17 August 1976, p. 59, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, vol. 28, file 9.

86

Stephen Azzi

51 Stursberg interview with Douglas Abbott, 24 October 1978, p. 134, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, vol. 32, file 12. 52 Gordon Robertson, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 101. 53 House o f Commons Debates: Official Report, 7th session, 21st Parliament, 23 February 1953, 2319. 54 “Cabinet Government in Canada,” notes for remarks at the National Defence College, 4 September 1953, LAC, Gordon Robertson Fonds, vol. 5, file 2. 55 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 262-63. 56 Tom Earle interview with Robert Bryce, 4-8 July 1983, p. 61, Library of Parliament Fonds, vol. 2562, file 5. 57 Thomas A. Hockin interview with Lester B. Pearson, 28 February 1970, in Apex o f Power: The Prime Minister and Political Leadership in Canada, 2nd ed., ed. Thomas A. Hockin (Scarborough, ON: Prentice-Hall, 1977), 261. 58 Lentner interview with J.W. Pickersgill, 3 August 1974, p. 4, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Pickersgill file; Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 174-75. See also J.W. Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole: A Memoir (Markham, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1994), 379. 59 Martin, Very Public Life, 2:17. 60 Ibid., 2:20. 61 Stursberg interview with George Marier, 13 September 1978, p. 67, LAC, Peter Stursberg Fonds, vol. 36, file 12. 62 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 175. See also Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 379. 63 Martin, Very Public Life, 2:17; Lentner interview with Dale Thomson, 12 September 1975, p. 8, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Thomson file. 64 House of Commons Debates: Official Report, 3rd session, 22nd Parliament, 5 June 1956, 4691-92. 65 Grattan O’Leary, Recollections of People, Press, and Politics (Toronto: Macmillan, 1977), 108. 66 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 311. 67 Denis Smith, Gentle Patriot: A Political Biography of Walter Gordon (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1973), 33; Walter L. Gordon, Storm Signals: New Economic Policies for Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975), 12; Walter L. Gordon, A Political Memoir (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), 64; Creighton, Forked Road, 258; McCall-Newman, Grits, 27-28; Kent, Public Purpose, 30; Mitchell Sharp, Which Reminds M e... A Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 53-54. 68 Stephen Azzi, Walter Gordon and the Rise of Canadian Nationalism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1999), 38. 69 DextertoTom [Kent], 29 April 1955, Queens University Archives, Alexander Grant Dexter Fonds, coll. 3621.3, vol. 1. 70 Cabinet Conclusions, 8 September 1954, p. 2, LAC, Privy Council Office Fonds, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2656. 71 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 66. 72 C.D. Howe to Irvin Studer, 23 May 1958, LAC, C.D. Howe Fonds, vol. 107, file 75(2). 73 Jeanne Sauvé interview with St-Laurent, 1962, p. 96, MUA, Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds, container 10, file 215. 74 Thomson interview with Renault St-Laurent, 9 August 1965, MUA, Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds, container 10, file 211.

The Predominant Prime Minister

87

75 Brooke Claxton, notes for his memoirs, unnumbered and untitled page, LAC, Brooke Claxton Fonds, vol. 224, Memoir Notes Politics file. 76 Thomson interview with Guy Sylvestre, 16 August 1965, MUA, Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds, container 10, file 209. 77 Thomson interview with Renault St-Laurent, 9 August 1965, MUA, Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds, container 10, file 211. 78 Thomson interview with Guy Sylvestre, 16August 1965, MUA, Dale Cairns Thomson Fonds, container 10, file 209. Robert Bothwell notes that the family law firm was not prospering and that the St-Laurents were living beyond their means. See Bothwell, “Louis-Stephen St-Laurent,” 348. 79 Pickersgill recalled St-Laurents being depressed in January 1950. At this stage, the depres­ sion appears to have been well concealed. Most witnesses only noticed it after March 1954, when St-Laurent returned from a world tour. See Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 346-47. 80 I am very grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers who suggested perceptively that cyclothymia would be a more fitting description of St-Laurents mood state than bipolar disorder. See the Lentner interview with Dale Thomson, 12 September 1975, p. 11, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Thomson file. Journalist Michael Barkway also noted the mood swings: “For more than a year before October 1955 Mr. St-Laurent had been ex­ hausted, depressed and indecisive; yet he still had outbursts of unpredictable and decep­ tively euphoric vigour.” See Michael Barkway, “The Fifties: An Ottawa Retrospect,” Waterloo Review 5 (Summer 1960): 29. 81 “Prime Minister’s Strange Silence” [editorial], Ottawa Journal, 5 March 1956, 6; Victor Mackie, “Notes from Ottawa,” Winnipeg Free Press, 17 July 1956,17; Victor Mackie, “Notes from Ottawa,” Winnipeg Free Press, 17 August 1956,19; Victor Mackie, “Notes from Ottawa,” Winnipeg Free Press, 6 December 1956,13. 82 Chris Young interview with Pearson, 8 June 1970, roll 105, pp. 5-6, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG26 N5, vol. 46, Pearson Years file; Dexter memo of 23 May 1954, Dexter Fonds, vol. 7. 83 Chris Young interview with Pearson, 8 June 1970, roll 105, pp. 5-6, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, vol. 46, Pearson Years file. 84 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 373-74. 85 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 46. 86 Bernard Ostry interview with Pearson, 6 May 1970, roll 85, p. 2, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26 N5, vol. 46, Pearson Years file. 87 Lentner interview with Dale Thomson, 12 September 1975, p. 9, LAC, Howard Lentner Fonds, vol. 2, Thomson file. 88 Chris Young interview with Pearson, 8 June 1970, roll 105, pp. 5-6, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26 N5, vol. 46, Pearson Years file. 89 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 373. 90 Martin, Very Public Life, 2:256. 91 Peter Stursberg, “P.M. Shows Who’s Boss, Makes Speaker Stay When All Sure He’d Go,” Toronto Daily Star, 11 July 1956, 6. 92 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 453.

88

Stephen Azzi

chapter

4

Uncle Lou, Both Old and New The Marketing of St-Laurent PAU L L IT T

People vote for men they have confidence in rather than for party programs.

- Louis St-Laurent, 19491

The folksy connotations of the well-known “Uncle Louis” nickname obscure the reality that m odern marketing methods shaped and disseminated the image of Louis St-Laurent. In the 1940s, the Liberal Party had close ties to cor­ porate Canada, including its market research, advertising, public relations, print media, and movie enterprises. Gradually, it integrated experts and techniques from these sectors into party policy-making and electioneering. This chapter examines the making of the public image of Louis St-Laurent from the summer of 1948, when he became Mackenzie King’s successor as leader of the Liberal Party, through to the sum m er of 1949, when the Liberals won a majority government. The postwar period was conducive to new departures in political publicity. The ongoing march of modernity had been hobbled by the Depression then diverted to the war effort. With the return of peace and prosperity came a catching-up period. There was a housing shortage, but tracts of new homes were under construction. Wartime rationing tailed off and consumer goods, advertised in the mass media, proliferated once more. “New and Improved” appliances appeared in stores and redesigned car models glistened in show­ rooms. Meanwhile the burgeoning media of print, radio, and film intensified

their cultivation of mass audiences. The media sold their audiences to adver­ tisers, including large corporations that used their ads to develop brands that would help sell products on a mass scale. Television, recently available in the United States, promised to accentuate this trend. These developments had implications for Canadian politics. Producing news on the nation offered the media greater economies of scale than reporting on regional or local politics. It also cultivated the mass audience desired by big business. Meanwhile, as faster rail, highway, and air travel facilitated the cir­ culation of people and goods over larger distances, and mature point-to-point communications technologies like air mail, the telegraph, and the telephone made it easier to stay in touch with others far away, experiences direct and imagined made the territorial entirety of Canada more familiar. The result was a heightened consciousness of the nation, its politics, and the national parties’ leadership. Other factors influencing voting decisions in national elections, such as traditional party allegiances, local issues, and the local candidates, were correspondingly diminished.2 In these emergent circumstances, commercial techniques for reaching a mass audience provided new possibilities for how to market politicians. For a national political formation like Canadas Liberal Party, structured like a franchise operation with national headquarters in Ottawa, regional organizations in the provinces, and outlets in most constituencies, it made sense to develop the leaders image much like a national brand. Just as Mr. Clean and Betty Crocker put a friendly face on eponymous household prod­ ucts, Louis St-Laurent could personify the Liberal Party. Electioneering was hardly that simple, of course - success was influenced by a wide range of factors.3The point is that in this period, m odern conditions lent themselves to the marketing of a leader’s image becoming a more conscious campaign tactic. The growing significance of leaders’ images was recognized at the time. “The conditions of present-day electioneering,” observed the jour­ nalist B.K. Sandwell in 1949, were “exploiting the personalities of the national leaders to the exclusion of the local candidates.”4 Chubby Power, a one-time cabinet colleague of St-Laurent, observed that he “to all intents and purposes, came to power through the comparatively new idea of attaching more im port­ ance to the personality of a leader than to the ideas he represented.”5Historians have agreed that this was a period in which this m odern politics of image first became clearly evident.6 Although St-Laurent had been in federal politics for a few years, in a mar­ keting sense he was brand new. W hen he became prime minister, it was the first time in almost thirty years that a new Liberal leader appeared on the scene and the first time in eighteen years that a prime m inister of any political stripe had

90

Paul Litt

made his debut. St-Laurent s introductory image blended the promise of m od­ ernization with reassurances of continuity, suggesting that Liberal imagemakers read the electorate as simultaneously attracted by and anxious about modernity. Since the m odern condition was one of relentless change, its sub­ jects were constantly whipsawed between hopes for betterment and fears of loss. The St-Laurent image was crafted to quiet that reciprocation. It promised the benefits of progress through modern management while reassuring the electorate that St-Laurent was also a homespun country boy with good old common sense. The magnitude of the Liberal election victory in 1949 suggests that the Liberals had concocted an image that resonated with the electorate. The roots of the Liberals’ marketing expertise extended back to the 1920s, when American big business felt that it had mastered mass production. Supply­ ing product was no longer the problem; it was time to focus on fostering demand for the ample supply. The field of market research emerged. In its rapid development, it drew upon the research methodologies and theories of the emerging social sciences. Psychology, for example, contributed its insights into human instincts and desires, and advertising changed from factual recitals of a products attributes to sly appeals to consumers’ vanity, phobias, status anx­ ieties, and aspirations. The trend hit Canada in the 1930s, with the Montrealbased advertising agency Cockfield, Brown and Co. establishing itself as a national leader in market research.7 Market researchers eventually got around to applying their trade to politics. George Gallup’s polling enterprise, the best-known example, began in the United States in the 1930s and had branch plants operating in Canada and other coun­ tries by the early 1940s. During the Second World War, the Wartime Prices and Trade Board commissioned studies from Gallup’s Canadian spinoff operation, the Canadian Institute for Public Opinion (CIPO), to help it manage the war effort on the home front. The Wartime Information Board, which was respon­ sible for selling the war to the Canadian public and anticipating its wants in the postwar world, was another CIPO customer. It also employed Cockfield Brown. By the end of the war progressive Ottawa mandarins and their minions were aware of the “scientific” cultivation of consent, such as it was at the time, and the Liberal Party had access to government-procured data as it developed its electoral platform and communications strategies.8 In 1940, Montreal lawyer Brooke Claxton engaged the services ofH.E. Kidd, a Cockfield Brown ad man, to help him with campaign publicity as he ran for Parliament for the first time. Kidd had a background in journalism in British Columbia. He had moved from newspapers to trade publications and in-house magazines, then into advertising, eventually taking a job in sales, research, and

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

91

marketing in Cockfield Browns Vancouver office in 1930. Around the same time he became active in the Canadian Institute for International Affairs (CIIA), a leading national networking organization for Canadian opinion leaders in the interwar period.9 This may have been where he first met Claxton, an active member of the institute. Claxton was elected handily, and soon became Mackenzie King’s parliament­ ary assistant and an emerging powerbroker of Liberal policy and electoral strategy. Claxton’s success inspired hopes for more of the same, and the Liberals struck a deal with Cockfield Brown in 1943. If it helped them win elections, in return they would make it the favoured agency for the party’s national advertis­ ing and the government’s advertising contracts.10Kidd was appointed publicity director of the National Liberal Federation (NLF) that year and worked closely with Claxton; Senator Gordon Fogo, NLF president; and Jack Pickersgill, head of the Prime Minister’s Office on preparations for the 1945 general election campaign. The closing years of the war saw a dramatic rise in support for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its vision for a postwar social democracy. The NLF brain trust read the polling data and fed it back to King and his cabinet, supplementing their traditional sources of political infor­ mation. The Liberals tacked leftward and won another majority government. Kidd returned to the Montreal office of Cockfield Brown after the election, but only temporarily. After directing publicity for the 1948 Liberal convention, he became general secretary of the NLF in 1949. Cockfield Brown paid his salary. This was just one of many cozy relationships the Liberals had with corporate Canada.11 Louis St-Laurent emerged on the national political scene as these changes were in process. By 1945, when he was appointed secretary of state for external affairs, the combination of King’s favour, St-Laurent’s talent, and the electoral value in Quebec of a French Canadian leader made him a likely successor as prime minister. In January of 1946, Time identified St-Laurent as “the man most likely to succeed Prime Minister Mackenzie King.” By the end of the year he had become the “heir apparent.”12This was the consensus of the national political press. St-Laurent, it was said, could be “the New Laurier.”13 King wanted a na­ tional political convention at which he could abdicate ceremonially and anoint his successor, and one was duly planned for the first week of August 1948. It so happened that there was also a US presidential election in 1948. Kidd visited the Republican Convention in Chicago that June, of particular interest because it was being broadcast on the new medium of television.14Canada did not yet have television - the Liberal convention would be broadcast nationally but only on radio. Although the national political convention was a concept 92

L.

Paul Litt

borrowed from the Americans, observers of the Liberals’ Canadian version noted how theirs differed from the extravaganzas staged by the Republicans and Democrats south of the border. The stagiest moment of the Liberal con­ vention was a ceremony in which Young Liberals carried a torch for liberalism. They converged on Laurier House, where Mackenzie King gave them the gift of fire, then proceeded to a vigil beneath the Laurier statue on Parliament Hill.15 Compared to the glitz and jiggle at the US conventions, this was a sol­ emn, symbolically substantial ritual. The only American-style frippery at the Liberal convention came courtesy of Paul Martins supporters from Windsor, which was, after all, as close to the States as one could get and still be Can­ adian.16Given a choice between “zany antics, with balloons, body guards, circus acts and vaudeville stunts, or the quiet, dignified dull order of Canadian con­ ventions,” pundits claimed they preferred the latter, rationalizing, with nation­ alistic moral superiority, that Canadian politics was more about substance than showmanship.17 In this same spirit of sober responsibility, the Liberal convention estab^ lished a foundational component of the St-Laurent image. He was presented as a reluctant draftee who had power thrust upon him because his superior qualities made him the obvious choice. The Liberal messaging would be that St-Laurent had not sought the office, it had sought him. This theme built upon the circum­ stances of his arrival in Ottawa, when he had been recruited by Mackenzie King and accepted out of a sense of obligation to preserve national unity in wartime.18 Like Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance (the comic operetta had been revived on Broadway in the winter of 1948), St-Laurent was “The Slave of Duty.” Gilbert and Sullivan may have mocked this conceit decades earlier, but it was still opera­ tive in mid-twentieth-century Canadian political culture.19 Mackenzie King stayed on as Liberal leader and prim e m inister im medi­ ately after the convention because he wanted to go to Europe for a meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth in October. As a result, St-Laurent did not take over as leader until 15 November 1948. Former Ontario premier George Drew had been elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party the previ­ ous month, so both parties would campaign with new leaders in the next elec­ tion. The Liberals planned to call that election in the spring of 1949, when, it was expected, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty would be signed and Newfoundland would be part of Canada. Since their leftward tack in the 1945 election, social democratic ideas had been tainted by association with communism as the Soviet Union morphed from wartime ally into implac­ able Cold War foe. Meanwhile, the need for a more social democratic platform was lessened by increasing prosperity. Easing up on social reform would also

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

93

avoid conflict with the provinces arising from federal incursions into provincial jurisdiction. In an interview that September, St-Laurent told Blair Fraser, who wrote on national politics for Maclean’s, that he favoured social-welfare legisla­ tion but was concerned about its costs and sensitive to its implications for federal-provincial relations.20 The latter concern was all the more significant since the Union Nationale, led by Maurice Duplessis, a jealous defender of provincial rights, had been re-elected in Quebec in 1948. In their appeal to the electorate the Liberals decided to position themselves as reasonable centrists, not as risky as the CCF “Liberals in a hurry,” but more progressive and humane than the Tories, whose election would threaten both recent hard-won social reforms and economic progress.21They would emphasize St-Laurent rather than bold new policies. As one internal campaign planning document put it, “the presentation of our new leader to the people of Canada is project No. I.”22 This would be a challenge because Canadians as yet had only a vague impression of their prime minister. The upside of this situation was that it gave the Liberals the opportunity to shape his image. The NLF undertook a pre-campaign campaign with the aim of, as Jack Pickersgill later put it, “making sure St. Laurent was well and favourably known to the public.”23“O ur purpose,” Kidd wrote, is “to give the people of Canada a picture of the man as a leader - as an aggressive, down-to-earth campaigner; as a new side to his other qualities already acknowledged - i.e. statesmanship, integrity, intellectual brilliance, etc.”24 After Parliament resumed sitting on 29 January 1949, the Liberals had the new prime minister visit Ontario and Quebec cities on weekends. They also arranged a high-profile meeting for him with US president Harry Truman in February. The two got along well, and, according to Pickersgill, “The visit made a good public impression in Canada.”25 Meanwhile influential print media outlets were acquainting Canadians with their new prime minister. Certain journalists were, as Kidd put it, “prepared to help us.”26The Winnipeg Free Press was reliably Liberal in its sympathies. Jack Pickersgill recalled that “Harry Hindmarsh, the driving force at the Toronto Star, was a great admirer of St. Laurent and turned the newspaper almost into an instrum ent of personal publicity for the prime minister.”27 Blair Fraser of Macleans also held St-Laurent in high esteem, as did George Ferguson of the Montreal Star. Ken Wilson of the Financial Post was another well-placed, sympathetic scribe. Bruce Hutchison, one of the most prominent journalists in the country, was an associate editor with the Winnipeg Free Press but also wrote St-Laurent profiles for other papers and national magazines.28He puffed up the new prime minister with a hyperbolic high diction that would have made a

94

Paul Litt

hardened publicity flack blush.29 The result of the Liberals’ cozy relationship with prominent national affairs journalists was that there was an echo-chamber quality to the development of St-Laurent’s image. Although the leading national affairs journalists seemed to do the initial work of presenting him to the public on their own, their opinions were coloured by their close relations with govern­ ment insiders. The Liberals subsequently quoted liberally from this journalism in their publicity materials, presenting it as independent proof of St-Laurent s virtues.30 The Liberals made a point of cultivating all journalists, not just those they knew to be friendly. Having a new prime minister was news, and people were naturally curious about him, so the media wanted copy on St-Laurent. More­ over, media owners were not oblivious to the advantages of currying favour with the party in power or the potential revenue from Liberal Party and govern­ ment advertising. To accommodate this demand, the Liberals curated the best stuff written about St-Laurent under high-profile bylines and fed it to news outlets that didn’t have their own coverage of Ottawa.31 In this manner, the St-Laurent image was built up in clippings files one scrap of newsprint at a time, each based on previous deposits. In time a sheaf of conventional wisdom ac­ cumulated, ready to be mined by the next writer on the topic. When the House recessed for Easter on 8 April 1949, St-Laurent set out on a western tour by train. By this time NATO was approved (28 March) and Newfoundland had officially become Canada’s newest province (31 March). According to the Liberals’ plan, everything was set for an election call. They could have put it off, but recent government tax cuts were still fresh in people’s minds and the economy was strong, whereas if they waited both might fade. The only reason not to go to the polls was their fear that St-Laurent was still not well enough known. Yet the results of the prime minister’s test run out west were positive, so soon after his return the Liberals asked the governor general for a dissolution. As the election got under way, the NLF cranked up its publicity efforts. It bought billboard space and put ads in daily newspapers, magazines, and spe­ cialized publications for labour, minorities, religious, trade, and business in­ terests. It generated pamphlets, posters, hand bills, “car cards” for street cars, even window streamers for committee rooms (“a point of sale technique,” Kidd noted, “commonly used in marketing of merchandise and just as effective in selling liberalism”).32It also distributed tens of thousands of photos of St-Laurent across the country.33St-Laurent got further media exposure by appearing several times on The Nations Business, a national radio program on which the CBC

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

95

allotted each federal party air time. The Liberals reserved the bulk of the time available to them for their new leader. The prime minister’s image was also circulating around the country courtesy of a promotional newsreel, The St. Laurent Story.34 It was the product of a rela­ tionship between the Liberals and film business interests ethically equivalent to the party’s deal with Cockfield Brown. For decades there had been virtually no Canadian feature film production because the movie business in Canada was dominated by oligopolistic theatre owners who had privileged access to a steady flow of popular Hollywood products. They might show other films to plug holes in their schedules, but in general they denied alternative offerings the assured access required to provide any hope of a return on investment. About three-quarters of the films shown in Canada were of American origin. Canada was Hollywood’s largest export market.35 The Liberals had a history of close relations with the movie theatre chains, but in the postwar period the government considered restricting imports of Hollywood movies to help it deal with its critical balance of payments prob­ lem. Many Western European nations, including Britain, introduced such meas­ ures to address their postwar balance of payments issues, with the side effect of fostering their domestic feature film industries. In 1947, C.D. Howe mused at a press conference that Canadians could always make their own films. This prompted the Motion Pictures Producers Association, Hollywood’s industry association, to make a pitch. If the Liberals would leave Hollywood imports alone, it promised to have Canada mentioned favourably in Hollywood films, thereby attracting American tourists north of the border, which would amel­ iorate the balance of payments problem. This solution was consistent with the new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, to which Canada was a signatory, and so with the general thrust of the government’s trade policy. The result, the Canadian Cooperation Project (CCP), would become an infamous example of Canadian acquiescence in its own cultural colonization.36 The CCP deal was made in 1948. Within months the Liberal prime minister was being promoted in The St. Laurent Story, a film produced gratis by American interests and shown in foreign-owned movie theatre chains across the land during an election campaign. Kidd explained that parts of this film were put together from library footage, parts were freshly taken material from a crew from New York This material was then sent to all first-run theatres three or four weeks in advance of the polling date and then it sifted down through the other theatres until it had completed the circuit.37

96

Paul Lift

Kidd claimed that this “public relations service provided by the motion picture industry” was available to other parties as well, but this was disingenuous - by the time the other parties were told that they too had access to screen time, it was too late for them to produce films for the purpose. The Liberals also shipped The St. Laurent Story out to constituencies when a candidate wanted to show it.38 By the time the election campaign was in full swing, then, St-Laurent was benefitting from broad exposure through multiple media across the country. This was absolutely necessary but not in itself sufficient to consolidate the new leader s public image. Mass communications facilitated the functioning of mass democracy, but their intangible representations of a politician in far-off Ottawa could induce scepticism among distant and distracted target audiences. They had to be supplemented by appearances of the real, live-in-the-flesh candidate to integrate the imagined nation with local lived experience. The Liberals’ efforts to get St-Laurent out to communities around central Canada during the 1949 winter session of Parliament demonstrated their aware­ ness of the political value of live appearances, as did the western tour they had St-Laurent undertake during the Easter recess. The previous fall, US president Harry Truman had made good use of whistle-stop campaigning in the American west, and the tactic was credited with helping him pull off his upset victory in the November 1948 presidential election.39 The Liberals had done the same in Ontario earlier that winter, having St-Laurent appear on the rear platform of his rail car to greet and address a few remarks to crowds gathered to see him at towns along his route. It worked well enough that they structured the prime minister s western trip the same way. The western whistle-stop campaign associ­ ated St-Laurent with all the positive publicity recently enjoyed by Truman and invited favourable comparisons between them, especially because the two men were alike in many ways. Both came from humble rural roots. Both were in their mid-sixties, grey-haired, and dignified in bearing. Both had served loyally under a famous predecessor and emerged from his shadow to take power under circumstances in which the office was not sought but thrust upon them. Truman, characterized as a straight-shooter, impatient with equivocation and political bullshit, was now the quintessential underdog folk hero. His upset victory was the big political story of the year, and the Liberals artfully associated St-Laurent with it.40 Like Trumans Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, Progressive Conserv­ ative leader George Drew could easily be caricatured as an arrogant city slicker. Drew “sensed the value of media” and his party also had an ad man, Alistair Grosart of McKim Advertising Ltd., who was involved in election planning.

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

97

Compared to the Liberals, however, the Progressive Conservatives did a poor job of projecting a positive image for their leader.41 The Liberals pulled off what today is recognized as a major objective of electoral strategy: they defined their opponents image negatively before the opposition had a chance to tell its own story. The National Liberal Federation produced a pamphlet entitled Mr. Drew on the Record. “This record of Mr. Drew’s public utterances,” it began, “is a record unequalled in Canadian public life for (1) inaccuracy and utter disregard for even elementary consistency, (2) racial intolerance, and (3) vituperation and abuse against men in public affairs in Canada.” It then went on to develop these points at length.42 The Progressive Conservative national party president admitted, ruefully, that “The Liberal ‘hate campaign had a very considerable measure of success in dragging our Leader down from the high position of public esteem which he had held when the House was in Session to an ogre who allegedly represented all the evil interests of society.” The Liberals, he concluded, had successfully portrayed the Tory leader as “an arch-imperialist, a stuffed shirt, an ally of big business and the liquor interests, and the enemy of the working man.”43 Yet St-Laurent’s main weakness as a candidate was similar - he was vulner­ able to the accusation that he was out of touch with the average Canadian, the privileged paragon of a remote professional-managerial elite. After all, he had had a long career as a successful corporation lawyer, was well-to-do, and had moved in rarified corporate and government circles of power before becoming a cabinet minister. In many ways he exemplified the stereotype of the grey faceless captain of modernity, a master of the rules, processes, and logics that governed mass society. Was there not something cold, clinical, and inhuman about him? Whistle stopping helped dispel such negative associations. At the dawn of the jet age, it evoked old times and traditional values, suggesting the cam­ paigner was a grounded m an of the people.44 Style of travel aside, the travel itself was a populist gesture that reassured voters that the big shot from the capital was not so big that he did not have to visit to ask for their vote. The celebrity from far-away Ottawa, the centre of the imagined nation, showed up on Main Street, or at least at the train station. Well briefed, he was attuned to local issues and sympathetic to grassroots concerns. The local crowd was flat­ tered to be included in the unfolding national drama and thrilled to his ap­ pearance. This reel-to-real synthesis propelled a virtuous cycle of event and publicity through which crowds grew in size with each stop.45 For local audi­ ences, St-Laurent was a national figure whom they had known previously only

98

Paul Litt

through a disembodied voice on the radio airwaves, impressions conjured by words in print, or images from photos and newsreels. It was reassuring to see that he was real. His appearance tied one small town or city after another into the national community. “In the campaign of 1949,” Pickersgill claimed, “St. Laurent travelled to more constituencies than had any previous prime minister. In many places I was surprised to discover that the only other prime minister to visit had been Laurier.”46 The appearance of the leader had the not incidental side benefit of energizing local Liberals in their constituency campaigns. Kidd would remark that “the strength of the Liberal Party’s power lies not in the Cabinet so much as in the roots of the organization which extend deep into the electorates of every province.”47 By confirming the connection between centre and margin the leaders tour enlarged the capillary power of the party, making it a more effective national organization. The Liberal campaign presented St-Laurent as a character of honesty and integrity. His accomplished career was attributed to hard work, something to which the average worker, white or blue collar, could relate. His position as prime minister was presented as just another job that had to be done.48 Bruce Hutchison wrote that “Canadians think of him as the constitutional lawyer, the man of business, the sophisticated and rather dashing figure of clubs and board rooms. But he is, in fact, pure homespun, a simple man most at home with small town folk.”49 The leaders biography in the Liberal election handbook that was distributed to constituency campaigns echoed this line, claiming: “St. Laurent is a typical Canadian, a country boy who made good in the big city.”50 The candidate quickly learned what was expected of him on the campaign trail and performed accordingly. Channelling his small-town youth, St-Laurent chatted with the locals about the crops and the weather, affecting a down-toearth style that echoed “straight talker” Harry Truman. Macleans speculated that he had rediscovered the general store vernacular of his childhood.51 The Liberals decided to reinforce this perception by opening their election cam­ paign in the Eastern Townships of Quebec in the village of Compton where St-Laurent had been born and grew up. It gave the impression of family roots extending back into the distant mists of time, sanctifying the candidate by steeping him in the eternal verities of old rural Canada. The press lapped it up.52 Compton was also a useful site at which to negotiate tensions between liberal individualism and the communal values animating contemporary social reform. On the one hand, it provided a humble baseline from which St-Laurent had arisen, Horatio Alger-like, to great man status, a trajectory that confirmed the

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

99

myth of upward social mobility through competitive individualism that re­ warded diligence and merit. On the other, it signalled that St-Laurent was in­ stilled with com m unitarian values from his small-town upbringing. These narratives converged at his father’s general store, a symbolic nexus of commercial entrepreneurialism and community life. Significantly, however, the communal values seemed strongly rooted in the past and were embodied by St-Laurent, who could be trusted to enact them when appropriate. Another way to show that St-Laurent was alive to the welfare of the com­ munity was to position him as a family man. Photos showing him as the pater­ familias, surrounded by children and grandchildren, were circulated widely by the party apparatus.53The St-Laurent family was very traditional in its values and gender roles. A profile of his wife assured readers: Madame Jeanne St. Laurent is first and foremost a m other and wife. According to statistics that’s precisely what the majority of Canadian women are, too. She is proud o f her husband, remembers her first meeting with him, follows the careers of her children closely, fusses about her grandchildren and is an extremely good housekeeper. Take your nicest neighbour from Glace Bay to Prince Rupert and what do you find? Just about the same thing.54

“While Louis St. Laurent may steer the wheel of state,” the author concluded, “Madame St. Laurent must set the gentler note of a personalized state.”55Jeanne St-Laurent was a hit with the English-Canadian press, which appreciated her fashion sense, the sacrifice she’d made when wartime service called her husband to Ottawa, and the story possibilities of finally having the equivalent of an American First Lady.56 The parallels between the nuclear family and the national family were ob­ vious, but for those who might not get it the Liberals provided interpretive assistance. In a national radio address in the spring of 1949 targeted at Can­ adian women, St-Laurent described “his own family circle” and commented that “the needs, the aspirations, the joys and sorrows of my dear ones are the needs, the aspirations, and the joys and sorrows of practically all Canadian women.”57The patriarch guided and guarded them all. “His view of the govern­ ment,” reported one journalist, “he once expressed in the good French phrase as being that of a bon père de famille!’58 This facet of the St-Laurent image resonated with a strong postwar desire to return to “normal” defined by the wholesome traditional middle-class family values of imagined days of yore. According to Doug Owram,

100

Paul Litt

The idea of home ... had very powerful connotations by the end of the war, ranging from material comfort to renewed relationships, to peace itself. Underlying it all was a search for stability on the part of a generation that had known nothing but instability... Such a romanticized and idealized vision of family was a natural hum an reaction to years of disruption.59

Paradoxically, the return of peace and prosperity that made a recovery of nor­ mality seem possible brought with it the rapid destabilizing change that was the norm under conditions of capitalist modernity. Every traditional family, nuclear or national, needed its patriarch, and if the family was to reproduce itself, it went without saying that he had to be healthily heterosexual. This was an era in which Freuds ideas were seeping through popular culture, so perhaps it is not inappropriate to indulge in some speculative

Louis St-Laurent, the press, and an admiring public of all ages, n.d. C o u rte sy o f Ms. Je a n Thérèse R iley

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

101

psychoanalytical analysis. Imagine the Canadian postwar collective psyche in therapy, reclining on the couch and unburdening itself. After the traumas of depression and war are probed, another troubling issue surfaces from the sub­ conscious - for most of the previous three decades the prime minister had been a bachelor. Wasn’t there something odd about that? Not to worry, in the postwar return to normal there would be a family guy in charge - the queer undertones of “spinster rule” could be forgotten.60 After a decade of Depression in which many fathers had failed as breadwinners and a six-year war that had taken many of them away from home, “Dad” was back, regeneratively heterosexual yet wellregulated by domesticity.61 The Liberals worked this family-guy trope throughout the 1949 election campaign. On the campaign trail (or rather, rails), St-Laurent - seemingly spontaneously - displayed a benevolent indulgence towards children. It was on his April test-run out west that the “Uncle Louis” moniker was bestowed. A Toronto Telegram reporter watched St-Laurent chatting up youngsters on the train station platform in Field, British Columbia, and concluded, “Uncle Louis is going to be hard to beat.” The Liberals ran with it.62 It was yet another way to humanize the buttoned-down corporate lawyer. It reinterpreted his distance and reserve from out-of-touch elitism to the quaint m anner of a courtly gentle­ man who was still a warm human being beneath his old-school ways. A similar image would successfully brand Kentucky Fried Chicken as its franchises ex­ panded rapidly across North America a few years later. In the best tradition of paternalism in family matters nuclear or national, St-Laurent offered domestic bliss secure from external threats. Postwar Can­ adians wanted prosperity and harmonious federalism along with protection from a frightening Cold War world. Accordingly, Uncle Louis was kindly and benevolent internally, vigilant and resolute externally, the guarantor of the Liberal campaign slogan of “Unity, Security, Freedom.”63 It helped too that he personified national unity. “Not since Laurier has any French-Canadian political leader done so much to soften asperities between the two races,” wrote Grattan O’Leary.64 Bruce Hutchison was particularly overwrought on this point, trumpeting St-Laurent’s “authentic” Canadianism: Authentic because Mr. St. Laurent comes from the two great bloodstreams of the Canadian race, out of the oldest inhabited soil of our country, from ances­ tors who have known nothing but Canada for three hundred years, from the environment of poverty, danger and struggle in the Canadian wilderness that has made us what we are.65

102

Paul Lift

St-Laurent spoke English fluently, but he did have an accent. It was not French Canadian but, rather, a faintly Irish lilt acquired from learning English from his Irish-Canadian mother. It had a soft melodic quality that listeners of British descent might find familiar and comforting.66His delivery was neither boringly monotone nor over-the-top melodramatic but somewhere happily in between, projecting just enough personality to engage the audience and just enough reserve to signal character. Add to all this his career success in corporate Canada, which made him almost as “modern” as an English Canadian, and St-Laurent was for English Canadians the best type of French Canadian - one who was just like them. The downside of this facet of his image was that it left him vulnerable in Quebec to accusations that he was not a real French Canadian. His opponents there made a point of calling him by his full name, Louis Stephen St-Laurent, foregrounding his anglophone heritage by outing his English middle name. On balance, however, Québécois pride in St-Laurent as a native son eclipsed such tactics. St-Laurent s embodiment of national unity connected with the assertion that he had not sought the prime ministership but, rather, accepted it out of a sense of duty. The reason he felt obliged to serve was that he understood that having a French Canadian in the country’s highest office would be good for national unity. It was also good for the Liberal Party. It firmed up the emerging tradition of leadership alternation and allowed the Liberals to claim that they were the only truly national party. Leveraging the status of the office of prim e minister, the Liberals had St-Laurent campaign playing the role of the national statesman, magisterially indifferent to his political rivals, whom, it was implied, were mere petty polit­ icians scheming for the spoils of power. Progressive Conservative leader George Drew had a tacit alliance with Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis that was based on the Liberals being a mutual enemy rather than on shared political beliefs. At one point, while touring southwestern Ontario in early June, StLaurent attacked Drew for making common cause with Duplessis. This, however, was a rare outburst. In general, the Liberals had St-Laurent stay positive with inspirational talk about the exalted nation rather than lower himself by engaging in partisan sniping. St-Laurent didn’t have to sling dirt at Drew - others were doing it for him, leaving his hands clean. As already m entioned, the NLF attacked Drew’s character in the pamphlet Mr. Drew on the Record. Most of the dirty work, how­ ever, was done by the Liberals’ journalist friends. The Winnipeg Free Press, for instance, wrote a series of editorials denigrating Drew.67 The Toronto Star, for

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

103

its part, hired francophone journalists to report on French-Canadian nationalist rhetoric emanating from Progressive Conservative candidates in Quebec, then published it, knowing it would cost Drew votes in English Canada. One of Duplessis’ allies was Camille Houde, the former mayor of Montreal, whose nationalist enthusiasms and anti-conscription activities had landed him in detention during the war. The day before the 1949 election, the Star’s headline blared “Keep Canada British, Destroy Drews Houde, God Save the King.” Front and centre was an unflattering photo of Houde, taken from a low angle that accentuated his expansive girth, with the caption: “This man will be one of the rulers of Canada if voters Monday elect George Drew as head of a Conservative government. He is Camillien Houde, isolationist, ex-internee, foe of Britain.” Beside it was a headshot of St-Laurent, a comparative paragon of respectability and self-control.68 Every plot needs a climax. The Liberals planned a big rally in the key electoral battleground of Toronto to cap off their successful campaign. The Progressive Conservatives had rented Massey Hall for their rally, a venue that reinforced their leaders elitist, anglophilic image. The Liberals chose a more symbolically populist venue, Maple Leaf Gardens, taking a risk that they could attract a big enough crowd that it would not look half-empty. The gamble paid off, and the Liberal rally on 21 June was an energized spectacle that generated waves of favourable publicity. It helped that the Toronto Maple Leafs had just won their third Stanley Cup in a row at home on 16 April. Torontonians were in an ex­ pansive mood, willing in the wake of their big win to cheer one of “the Habs” to victory in the political arena. As these campaign events unfolded, the Liberals repeated the same points to solidify St-Laurents image. Rural and urban, traditional and modern, com­ munal and individualistic, local and national, French and English, he had character and personality. These were not conflicting values but, rather, freefloating symbolic attributes. All could be associated with St-Laurent simultan­ eously. No need to choose between them. The St-Laurent image spun potential contradictions into a seamless semiotic comforter.69 The same blend of m odern and traditional characterized The St. Laurent Story, the documentary produced by the new prime m inisters friends in the film business.70 It began very traditionally with a trum pet fanfare and simple typeface in its title frames. St-Laurent was “a unique public figure - the man who was sought by the office” the narrator began. This was followed im medi­ ately by family photos that illustrated the three-hundred-year history of the St-Laurent family in Canada. Then came shots of Compton, which was presented

104

Paul Litt

as ethnically diverse, a Canada in microcosm. An image of the “modest prim house in which he [St-Laurent] was born” was accompanied by sprightly music, invoking the common human comedy of childhood. Next came his family’s general store, a local hub where the PM had learned “the code of fair dealing that would serve him throughout his career.” In the subsequent sequence, St-Laurent was presented as a brilliant lawyer, a respected man of affairs whose counsel was sought in the highest circles of business and government, both in Canada and internationally. It chronicled his arrival in Ottawa, positioning it as a sacrifice he, like other Canadians, made to win the war, and noting that he “never wavered in his support of an all-out war effort.” The next segment covered St-Laurent s contributions to the founding of the UN, according him the stature of an architect of the postwar world order. Shots of the 1948 Liberal convention followed, with the narrator assuring the audience that the Liberals had chosen “a worthy successor of Laurier and Mackenzie King.” To the accompaniment of marching music, St-Laurent was then shown inspecting factories, the sources of Canadas industrial might. There followed a “man-in-command” scene of him sitting at his desk, bespectacled, examining important papers - the epitome of the competent and responsible m odern manager. This was succeeded by scenes of houses under construction, the result of the vigorous Liberal response to the postwar housing shortage. Uncle Louis was returning things to normal by making homes for families. St-Laurent the compassionate humanitarian was then shown visiting rehabilitating veterans and children crippled by polio. Next he was pictured with clerics of different denominations. “Deeply imbued with Christian principles,” the narrator intoned, “the Prime Minister has always been a strong defender of religious freedom.” (Subtext: though a Catholic, St-Laurent was neither an unwitting stooge of the Catholic hierarchy nor the front man for a Vatican conspiracy.) The meeting with Truman in Washington was featured, along with the claim that St-Laurent had “endeared him [self] to the American press,” an assertion calculated to flatter Canadians that they had been noticed by their big next door neighbour. His role in completing Confederation by welcoming Newfound­ land into the federation came next. More Liberal accomplishments followed: tax cuts, high employment, and social security, illustrated by pictures of consinner goods and other trappings of the good life. The sequence concluded with a nod to St-Laurent s role in the creation of NATO. “Among the men who may be said to be fathers of the North Atlantic security pact, history will include the name of St. Laurent,” the narrator declared.

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

105

With all these weighty issues covered off, it was time to lighten things up. There followed a parade of images that signalled reassuringly that St-Laurent was “just folks.” As he was shown leaving church on the Sabbath, the script took a saccharine turn: The boy who grew up on the main street of Compton has never lost the com­ mon touch. To him the nation is founded on home, and homes mean neigh­ bours, and neighbours mean friends ... To him the friendly handclasp is an expression of neighbourliness in a society where all men are equal.

Next was family time, featuring shots of St-Laurent, first with his wife, and then with his grandchildren. “Here is not a prime minister, but the affectionate head of a family, conscious of his duties and responsibilities to the generations to come,” claimed the voice-over. The music swelled to a happy crescendo, and the narrator summed up his subject as “first of all, a protector of the home,” and “a man of peace who voices the opinions of all the men and women of goodwill in all of Canada.” In the final segment of the film, St-Laurent addressed the camera directly. His voice and facial expressions conveyed sincerity and dedication. He talked about how he, as a father and a grandfather, wanted nothing to do with war but, rather, sought peace and security for all of Canada. It was a convincing perform­ ance that addressed fears about the Cold War in familial terms to which anyone could relate. Louisian avuncularity was domestically benevolent and inter­ nationally vigilant. The St. Laurent Story concluded with a line almost identical to one made famous decades later by a Molson beer ad. In National Film Board tones of stentorian pretension, the narrator pronounced: “Here is a statesman who may truly say T am a Canadian.’” With this, St-Laurent removed his glasses and looked directly at the camera. The gesture enacted the reel-to-real synthesis by suggesting that Canadians could now see the real man directly even though the reel of film was still interpolating the gaze. The result on election day was 192 of the 262 seats in the House of Com­ mons for the Liberals, the largest electoral victory to date in federal politics. Pickersgill would later claim that, although he expected NATO and New­ foundland would be the Liberals’ leading campaign assets, St-Laurent’s win­ ning image became their biggest vote-getter.71 Had there been a major political controversy in play during the election, leadership may have taken a back seat, but no such defining issue faced the nation at the time. It is impossible to measure the impact of a leader’s image on an electoral success, but in this case it is safe

106

Paul Litt

to say that, through astute management of St-Laurent s image, combined with his performance as a campaigner, the Liberals addressed and negated potential vulnerabilities in his candidacy, built on his strengths, and created for him a persona that fit the times. The relationships they had developed with marketing and ad industries since the 1930s attuned them to the importance of image, how to construct one for St-Laurent that would resonate with the anxieties and aspirations of the electorate, and how to get the message out. The most remarkable feature of that message was its all-purpose ambiguity. St-Laurent was at one and the same time an efficient m odern executive and a traditional family guy. He dazzled powerful cabinet ministers and kibitzed with kids. He had a formidable intellect and a folksy manner. He was a paragon of meritorious individualism with a social conscience. He was a man of principle who performed ingratiatingly for audiences. Rooted in the past, he was moving Canada towards a bright future. There was something here for everyone. It was not a logical construct aimed at persuading electors with its coherence but, rather, a barrage of reassuring signs that the benefits of modernity could be enjoyed without any loss of valued tradition or stability. Uncle Lou was both old and new and resolved the tension between the two. Notes 1 This quotation is attributed to St-Laurent on a stop in Edmonton during his whistle-stop tour of western Canada in April 1949. See Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 264. 2 Cara Spittal, “The Diefenbaker Moment” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2011 ), 117. 3 While applying the concept of branding to politics is helpful in illuminating some of the influences that crossed over from business to politics, it should not be pushed too far. Unlike brands generally, in this case the brand was a person and it helped immensely if he was a good performer who could ingratiate himself with the electorate. This aspect of politics made it more like showbusiness than other forms of business. See John Street, “The Celebrity Politician: Political Style and Popular Culture,” in Media and Restyling o f Politics: Consumer­ ism, Celebrity and Cynicism, ed. John Corner and Dick Pels (London: Sage, 2003), 94-96. 4 B.K. Sandwell, “Public Affairs: The 1949 Elections,” Queens Quarterly 56, 3 (1949): 425-31. 5 C.G. Power, A Party Politician: The Memoirs of Chubby Power, ed. Norman Ward (Toronto: Macmillan, 1966), 265. 6 One concluded that, “in a real sense, the elections of 1949 and 1953 were the first Canadian elections dominated by a consciously manipulated media image of the party leader.” See Reginald Whitaker, The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party o f Canada, 1930-1958 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 237. “The [1949] campaign was an exercise in image-making,” noted another. See Patrick H. Brennan, Reporting the Nation’s Business: Press-Government Relations during the Liberal Years, 1935-1957(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 149. See also Daniel J. Robinson, The Measure o f Dem­ ocracy: Polling Market Research, and Public Life, 1930-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto

Uncle Lou, Both Old and New

107

7 8 9

10 11

12

13 14

Press, 1999), 127; Cory Baldwin, “The Branding of the Prime Minister: ‘Uncle Louis’ and Brand Politics in the Elections of Louis St-Laurent, 1949-1957” (MA thesis, Trent University, 2017), 14, passim. Robinson, Measure o f Democracy, 10, 21. Henceforth Cockfield, Brown and Co. will be referred to as Cockfield Brown. Ibid., 114, 117-25, 145. Library and Archives Canada, Henry Erskine Kidd Fonds, MG 32 G9 (hereafter Kidd Papers), vol. 1, file 1: Kidd, H.E. Biographical Data, n.d., 1943, “Henry Erskine Kidd Curriculum Vitae.” Douglas Owram’s The Government Generation: Canadian Intellectuals and the State, 1900-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 135-59, describes how the CIIA and similar voluntary organizations tried to influence public policy by net­ working public-spirited activists across the country, cultivating public opinion, and lobby­ ing government. Robinson, Measure of Democracy, 147-48; Whitaker, Government Party, 228-32. “It was taken for granted that the Liberals’ fundraising efforts consisted primarily of sys­ tematically dunning those companies that secured government contracts to supply weapons or build infrastructure projects such as the St. Lawrence Seaway, a process that was supple­ mented by corporate cash raised on St. James Street in Montreal and Bay Street in Toronto.” See Stephen Clarkson, The Big Red Machine (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005), 11. The Liberals were better funded than their rivals. According to C.D. Howe’s biographers, “Corporate contributors and individual donors were tapped for funds: the CPR, Canada Packers, Eaton’s, Swift’s, and the wine and liquor companies. Chubby Power was amazed at the Lib­ erals’ affluence; he estimated that the party spent $3 million nationally and another $3 million in the constituencies. Drew, whose magisterial good looks and ample doublebreasted suits helped the Liberals caricature him as the very embodiment of big business, did worse than Bracken had in raising campaign funds.” See Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 242. “The Dominion: No. 2 Man,” Time (Canadian edition), 14 January 1946; “The P.M. Attacks,” Time (Canadian edition), 9 December 1946. Another journalist considered St-Laurent eminently qualified except for his age but thought he might serve on an interim basis if King retired in the near future. See Austin F. Cross, “The Prime Minister Sweepstakes,” National Home Monthly, January 1946). The following month, St-Laurent was identified by New World, a Canadian imitation of Life magazine, as one of two MPs “most respected” by the press gallery. The other was Mackenzie King. See “New World Polls Capital Newsmen,” New World, February 1946. Leslie Roberts, “Who Will Be the Liberals’ Moses?” National Home Monthly, May 1948. Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 11, the Liberal Party - strategy + functions, draft papers, memo­ randa, reports, 1952-1957, “Appendix ‘H,’ REPORT OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY)’ Progressive Conservative MP John Diefenbaker also attended, as did Grattan O’Leary. See Spittal, “Diefenbaker Moment,” 119. Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan was there and observed that the politicians would “stare at the box and then it was discovered that on that little screen they were more real and impressive than they could ever be in their alltoo-palpable flesh.” See Hugh MacLennan, Cross-Country (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1972 [reprint of Toronto: Collins, 1949]), xvi. See also Raymond L. Carroll, “The 1948 Truman Campaign: The Threshold of the Modern Era,” Journal o f Broadcasting 24,2 ( 1980); Kidd Papers, vol. 60, file 20: NLF National Liberal Convention - Convention Organization Committee, draft minutes, 1948; Kidd Papers, vol. 60, file 27: NLF National Liberal Convention - Horace N. Stovin + Co. “Radio Goes to the Liberal Party Convention,” 1948. Although the Liberal

"■08

Paul Litt

J

15 16 17 18

19

20

21

22

convention was not televised, it was filmed, with footage presumably appearing in newsreels soon after. Some of it would be used in The St. Laurent Story (see below). Austin F. Cross, “Quiet, Brothers, We’re Having a Convention,” National Home Monthly, November 1948. Arthur Lower, “Historian Sees History Made,” Financial Post, 14 August 1948. Cross, “Quiet, Brothers.” This point was made in 1947 in a profile of St-Laurent written by Grattan O’Leary. “War emergencies produced him,” O’Leary explained, and “brought to politics a fresh figure of dignity.” “No public man of our time has been more free of guile, or of the posturings of the demagogue, or of the treachery and ruthlessness of the careerist,” O’Leary continued, “St-Laurent is essentially the product of humility.” See M. Grattan O’Leary, “Mr. St-Laurent,” Maclean’s, 15 February 1947. O’Leary has an account of the interview in his memoirs. See Grattan O’Leary, Recollections of People, Press, and Politics (Toronto: Macmillan, 1977), 116-18. See also Baldwin, “Branding of the Prime Minister,” 57-63. Kidd would use this point time and again in Liberal image-building efforts. See, for example, the section entitled “The Prime Minister” in the party’s election handbook, Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 5: NLF Liberal Party Handbook, 1949 (no title, distributed 8 May 1949). The Liberals’ election of a French Canadian as leader was appreciated by Le Devoir, which editorialized: “Ce geste est confirmé aujourd’hui et il constitue la preuve de la largeur d’esprit des membres anglais du parti libéral et de leur désir de nous tendre la main et nous voulons, nous prendre leur main et la serrer et coopérer pour le plus grand bien de ce pays.” See “Louis Saint-Laurent succède a M. Mackenzie King,” Le Devoir, 9 August 1948, as cited in Thirstan Falconer, “Governing the ‘Government Party’: Liberal Party of Canada Leadership Conventions of 1948,1958 and 1968” (MA thesis, University of Waterloo, 2012), 33. The reluctant draftee trope also distinguished Lester Pearson’s rise to the Liberal leadership. In addressing this topic, Pearson biographer John English discusses how the appearance of ambition was considered déclassé among Ottawa political elites at the time and quotes Christina McCall-Newman’s amusing observation that “Pearson-the-Pure-of-Heart had been designated for the succession by St. Laurent-the-Saintly and had accepted the imprimatur after a graceful show of reluctance.” In St-Laurent’s case, the depiction of the reluctant draftee had a solid basis in fact - he had shown no inclination to run for public office prior to being recruited by King. Yet his image-makers would not have made so much of it had they not felt it would resonate with the general public. Their emphasis on this point, then, says as much about the values of Canadian society at the time as it does about St-Laurent. See John English, The Worldly Years: The Life o f Lester Pearson, vol. 2 , 1949-1972 (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1992), 157-62. The McCall-Newman quotation is from Christina McCallNewman, Grits: An Intimate Portrait of the Liberal Party (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), 32. Blair Fraser wrote: “Since the Liberal convention last month the impression has spread that the Liberals chose a Left-wing platform and a Right-wing leader.” See Blair Fraser, “Where Does St. Laurent Stand?,” Macleans, 15 September 1948. Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file IT. the Liberal Party - strategy + functions, draft papers, memo­ randa, reports, 1952-1957, “Pre-Election Period Activity” (Only part of this document, from page 3 on, appears in this file. Although the file title suggests it contains only materials from 1952 to 1957, internal evidence in this document indicates it comes from 1949.) The phrase “Liberals in a hurry” was coined by Pickersgill and employed by St-Laurent in a speech in western Canada in the spring of 1949. Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 11: the Liberal Party - strategy + functions, draft papers, memo­ randa, reports, 1952-1957, “Pre-Election Period Activity.”

Uncle Lou, Both Old and New

109

23 J.W. Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole: A Memoir (Markham, ON: Fitzhenrv and Whiteside, 1994), 323; Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 11: the Liberal Party - strategy + functions, draff papers, memoranda, reports, 1952-1957, “Pre-Election Period Activity.” The shift in emphasis to the politics of image was facilitated in part by St-Laurent’s providing the Liberals with a clean slate with which to work. Mackenzie King’s image was difficult to alter after his three decades in politics. “He is disliked because people regard him as a dictatorial autom­ aton without humanness and colour,” observed one Liberal insider in 1944. See Kidd Papers, vol. 29, file 1: miscellaneous correspondence 1939-58, 1964-67, “Office Memo, From: F.W. Gross, Date: 24th March, 1944, To: H.E. Kidd, Subject: National Liberal Federation Survey’ “King or Chaos” had worked in 1935, but arguably the slogan was based on the Liberal leader’s being the least-worst alternative at the time rather than on his per­ sonal magnetism. 24 Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 11 : the Liberal Party - strategy + functions. Kidd would later write, “In 1949 we had a new star, Mr. St. Laurent, and we concentrated our campaign on him and on the success of the postwar program.” He would go on to say that the latter was secondary to the impact of St-Laurent on the election. See Kidd Papers, vol 26, file 6, Liberal Party correspondence - from E.H. Kidd - correspondence 1949, 1950, 1956,1958,1972, “M emorandum to Mr. D.R. McRobie, November 16, 1956.” Interestingly, the term “image” does not seem to have been used to describe the public projection of personality at the time. 25 Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 311. 26 Brennan, Reporting the Nation’s Business, 152. 27 Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 325. 28 Brennan, Reporting the Nation’s Business, 4,147. This support went beyond image-making to include favourable editorials, especially when the election rolled around. 29 For examples of Hutchison articles (or rather, one recycled article) boosting St-Laurent, see Kidd Papers, vol. 17, file 8: federal elections: reference material, 1949, “The Govern­ ment Leader: The Story of the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Louis S. St. Laurent,” by Bruce Hutchison, published in the Star-Phoenix (Saskatoon), 31 January 1949, and Bruce Hutchison, “The Unknown St. Laurent,” National Home Monthly, March 1949 (entitled “Canada’s New Statesman” in the table of contents). 30 See, for instance, Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 5: NLF Liberal Party Handbook, 1949 (no title, distributed 8 May 1949) for examples of Kidd quoting from press portrayals of St-Laurent. 31 The NLF had a publication called The Nation’s Business, which offered ready-made copy on St-Laurent for publications, such as small-town weeklies, that would be willing to re­ print it. 32 Kidd papers, vol. 5, file 4: NLF Advertising Strategy - Report, 1949, “Confidential - National Liberal Federation - Excerpts from Mr. H.E. Kidd’s Notes re Organization,” 22 April 1949, 33 Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), National Liberal Federation Fonds, MG 26 L, vol. 124, file: N-14-P June 28th - 1949-50-51-52-53, National Liberal Federation; Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 7: election invoices and memoranda, 1949, “P.A. Lafond to H.E. Kidd, ‘Printed Photographs of the Prime Minister,’ May 2,1949.” 34 The St-Laurent Story, 1948, LAC, Associated Screen News Ltd. Fonds, item no. 183426, consultation copy CFI-V1-41. 35 Ted Magder, Canada’s Hollywood: The Canadian State and Feature Films (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 33-38. 36 Ibid., 64-75.

n o

Paul Litt

37 Kidd Papers, MG 32 G9, vol. 26, file 6: correspondence - from 1949, 1950, 1956, 1958, 1972, “Memorandum to Mr. D.R. McRobie, November 16,1956.” 38 Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 6: NLF, Ontario distribution of campaign material, 1949 election federal campaign - report, 1949. A film about Mackenzie King had been made by Paramount Pictures for the 1935 election, so this was not the first such production (Whitaker, Gov­ ernment Party, 81). Film interests also produced a film overview of Kings career when he retired. See Kidd Papers, vol. 8, file 12: King, W.L.M., Associated Screen News Ltd. “Panorama of a Prime Minister,” Narration Script, c. 1948, “Panorama of a Prime Minister: The Newsreel Diary of Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King, Associated Screen News Limited, Production No. B823.” 39 Thomas M. Holbrook, “Did the Whistle-Stop Campaign Matter?,” PS: Political Science and Politics 35, 1 (2002): 59-66. See also Zachary Karabell, The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election (New York: Knopf, 2000). 40 This gambit was evident to perceptive observers at the time. Writing in Saturday Night in March of 1949, Wilfrid Eggleston suggested that the Liberals should emphasize leader­ ship and imitate Truman. See Wilfrid Eggleston, “A Recovery of Spirits: Liberals Accept PC. Challenge to Fight It on Personalities,” Saturday Night, 22 March 1949. When the Liberals saw the film The Truman Story, produced for the 1948 US presidential cam­ paign, they decided they needed one for St-Laurent, which led to the production of 7he St. Laurent Story. See Baldwin, “Branding of the Prime Minister,” 36. See also LAC, Louis St. Laurent fonds, MG 26, vol. 38, file: B- 10-2(c), 1949 Biographical Material, Rt. Hon. L.S. St. Laurent, Regarding film: St-Laurent Story; Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 325. 41 Dalton Camp, Gentlemen, Players, and Politicians (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970), 99,138. Camp wrote that Drew and his closest advisors regarded themselves as advocates arguing a case and the electorate as a jury assessing the merits of their pleadings. Cara Spittal notes that most of the Liberal cabinet likewise believed that substance trumped style and that they needed only to govern well for the electorate to recognize and reward their efforts. See Spittal, “Diefenbaker Moment,” 109-10. The small group of advisors and pol­ iticians running the National Liberal Federation, in contrast, had highly developed public relations sensibilities and were working to promote a positive image for St-Laurent. Their efforts, and the Liberals’ deep pockets (see note 11 above), account for the differences between the two parties in this regard. 42 Kidd Papers, vol 5, file 5: NLF Liberal Party handbook, 1949, Mr. Drew on the Record. 43 David Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 203-4. 44 The emphasis here on the meaning of the train has to be qualified by admitting that at the time rail was still a practical form of transportation. In the late 1940s it would have been possible to fly from one city to the next, then campaign by car around each stop, but this style of travel would have been expensive and logistically more complex. There was some precedent for it, but it would not become the norm until the 1960s. When it did come to the fore it signalled modernity. Its practicality aside, however, the train did signify tradition. Moreover, in the Canadian context it was a space-binding technology that harkened back to the railways role in consolidating transcontinental dominion and, thus, was associated with nation building. See Maurice Charland, “Technological Nationalism,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 10, 1-2 (1986): 196-220. 45 J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 90. “Reel-to-real synthesis” describes the interaction of media representations and five appearances in the consolidation of a celebrity reputation.

Uncle Lou, Both Old and New

111

46 47 48 49 50 51

52

53

54 55 56

57 58

59

Campaigning politicians and pop music stars enact this process when they go on the road. Both are previously well known through the media, but the fact that they are known only through media representations sows doubts about their authenticity. Live appearances demonstrate that the celebrity is real and show that he or she cares, thereby soothing anxieties about the artificiality of the media’s representations of them. The interaction of the two types of appearances confirms the legitimacy of the community formed around the celebrity, be it a fan club or a nation. St-Laurent had already experimented with making himself real for the audience when he addressed his final pre-election broadcast, on 7 April, to the women of Canada and invited them to write to him. The replies swamped his office and kept his staff busy for weeks answering them all. See Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 264. Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 334. Quoted in Whitaker, Government Party, 235. Kidd’s understanding in this regard was not shared by the elite members of the government who enjoyed cabinet posts. Baldwin, “Branding of the Prime Minister,” 62-63. Bruce Hutchison, “The Unknown St. Laurent,” National Home Monthly, March 1949. Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 5: NLF Liberal Party handbook, 1949 (no title, distributed 8 May 1949). Ian Sclanders, “How the Prime Minister Became Uncle Louis,” Macleans, January 1953. The degree to which St-Laurent was performing is debatable. Stephen Azzi notes (Chapter 3, this volume) that St-Laurent was down to earth and unpretentious in private, which sug­ gests that his public persona was not a misrepresentation; however, Azzi also describes him as an introvert, which suggests that he had to make a conscious effort to project a public persona. Pickersgill, M y Years with Louis St Laurent, 94. See Baldwin, “Branding of the Prime Minister,” 88-93, for a fuller description. The Toronto Star gave the event several pages of coverage, most of it photos, while the Globe and Mail accorded it just a fraction of a page. They had in fact been in circulation at least since the leadership convention, when the Montreal Star reported: “Good-naturedly Mrs. Louis St. Laurent and her three daughters ... posed for countless shots for photographers from all over the Dominion.” See Ethel Tiffin, “No Glamor in Politics,” Montreal Star, 7 August 1948, as quoted in Falconer, “Governing the ‘Government Party.’” According to Baldwin, the obviously staged photo-op of a candidate surrounded by children or with his or her family had yet to become a cliché. See Baldwin, “Branding of the Prime Minister,” 126. Eva-Lis Wuorio, “The First Lady,” Macleans, 15 September 1948. Ibid. Falconer, “Governing the ‘Government Party,”’ 22-25. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 264. Ewen R. Irvine, “Mr. King’s Mantle Falls on Mr. St. Laurent,” Montreal Daily Star (editorial), 9 August 1948. Reprinted in the NLF election handbook. See Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 5: NLF Liberal Party handbook, 1949 (no title, distributed 8 May 1949). Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History o f the Baby Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 5. See also Mona Gleason, “Psychology and the Construction of the ‘Normal’ Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960,” Canadian Historical Review 78,3 (1997): 442-77. The pervasiveness of the impulse to recapture normality has been questioned. See “Introduction: Recasting Canada’s Postwar Debate,” in Cultures of Citizenship in Postwar Canada, ed. Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 3-26. The issue is also touched on in

112

Paul litt

60

61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Magda Fahrni and Robert Rutherdale, eds., Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity and Dissent, 1945-1975 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008), 8-9. The sexist phrase was Dalton Camp’s. See Camp, Gentlemen, 137. Though Camp was writing some twenty years later, the notion that there had been something insufficiently masculine about the two previous prime ministers (and that the polity had suffered as a result) had been strong enough to stick in his mind. Likewise, Pickersgill would recall, “After decades of bachelor prime ministers, a family man as leader had a novel public appeal.” See Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 94. “To find a human being like themselves at the head of the state after some 30 years of austere recluses, was a new experience to Canadians,” wrote Bruce Hutchison at the time. See Hutchison, “Unknown St-Laurent.” The script of the 1948 King newsreel profile, “Panorama of Prime Minister,” reflected the same concern, insisting that, “although he never married, Mr. Mackenzie King through­ out his public career remained a family man.” See Kidd Papers, vol. 8, file 12: King, W.L.M., Associated Screen News Ltd. - “Panorama of a Prime Minister,” narration script, c. 1948, “Panorama of a Prime Minister: The Newsreel Diary of Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King, Associated Screen News Limited, Production No. B823.” Robert Rutherdale, “New ‘Faces’ for Fathers: Memory, Life-Writing, and Fathers as Providers in the Postwar Consumer Era,” in Fahrni and Rutherdale, Creating Postwar Canada, 241-67. Allan Levine, Scrum Wars: The Prime Ministers and the Media (Toronto: Dundurn, 1996), 192. A journalist would later observe: “[he] has become in the minds of millions a kind of benevolent patriarch who loves children.” See Sclanders, “How the Prime Minister.” It is interesting to consider the connection between the desire to return to “normal” and the prominent role St-Laurent s relation to children played in creating his image. Doug O wram remarked on how, during the baby boom, “Society seemed to revolve around children.” See Owram, Born at the Right Time, 5. According to another scholar, postwar Canadian modernity featured “anxieties about the corruptibility of young people, about their need for protection from moral harm, and about their role as representatives of the future.” See Mary Louise Adams, The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making o f Hetero­ sexuality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 4. The image of St-Laurent as a good paternal influence may have been extra meaningful if it soothed such anxieties. Kidd Papers, vol. 5, file 11: the Liberal Party - strategy + functions, draft papers, memo­ randa, reports, 1952-1957, “Pre-Election Period Activity.” O’Leary, “Mr. St-Laurent.” Hutchison, “Government Leader.” His failure to acknowledge Indigenous peoples who came before was typical of the times. The Nations Business, talk by Louis St-Laurent, 19 May 1949, LAC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio: Main Catalogue Fonds, ISN 229600, consultation copy A1 9906. Brennan, Reporting the Nation’s Business, 149. Whitaker, Government Party, 205. In the 15 September 1948 issue of Macleans in which the Blair Fraser profile of St-Laurent appeared, the cover featured a team of work horses at a county fair, while inside the fullpage ads that preceded the St-Laurent piece showcased the wonders of modern mobility - planes, trains, and automobiles. The magazine’s content, both editorial and commercial, combined the comforts of old ways and the wonders of modern progress, a mix very similar to that of the Liberal Party’s electoral messaging. For a discussion of how the period from the late 1940s into the 1950s blended novelty with tradition, see Christie and Gauvreau, Cultures o f Citizenship.

Unde Lou, Both Old and New

113

70 The analysis that follows is based on a close viewing of The St-Laurent Story, 1948, item no. 183426, LAC, Associated Screen News Ltd. Fonds, consultation copy CFI-V1-41. There are copies of the script in various phases of development in LAC, Louis St-Laurent Fonds, MG 26, vol. 38, file: B-10-2(c), 1949 Biographical Material, Rt. Flon. L.S. St. Laurent, Regarding film: St-Laurent Story; and LAC, Brooke Claxton Fonds, MG 32 B5, vol. 64, file: gen. S„ St-Laurent, L.S., Hon., which has a script for the film with corrections in handwriting. 71 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 86. This judgment was supported by the Gallup Poll results that were published on 8 June 1949. When asked which of the party leaders would make the best prime minister, 57 percent of decided respondents favoured St-Laurent, compared to 26 percent for PC leader Drew and 14 percent for CCF leader Coldwell. See Kidd papers, vol. 17, file 10, federal elections miscellaneous campaign material, 1949, “TheNations Business, No. 23, Ottawa, June 8,1949.” Attributing significance to such evidence is premised on certain beliefs, namely, that election campaigns make a difference in the outcomes of elections, that leadership is a critical factor in election campaigns, and that a leaders image is an important factor in winning over voters during a campaign.

114

Paul Litt

chapt er St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy ROBERT BOTHWELL

An essay about bureaucracy, like bureaucracy itself, must have many layers. As Canadian historians we expect that a contemplation of Ottawa during the period between 1948 and 1957 might have a certain shimmering quality - this was, after all, the Golden Age of the Canadian mandarinate, of Canadian diplomacy, of the well-balanced government of Louis St-Laurent. All true, though adm it­ tedly it is a very Canadian shimmering, illuminating “peace, order and good government.” If those are fundamental Canadian characteristics, then the age of Louis St-Laurent is quintessentially Canadian - maybe not “Canadas century” as prophesied by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, but, at any rate, Canadas decade, 1948-57, marked by that Canadian “to-do” list: peace, order, and good government. St-Laurent s decade was mostly peaceful, if tense, and its war - in Korea could be categorized as a “police action” and connected to order. Order, in turn, was the bridge to good government. Canadas well-ordered polity depended on good government, and good government, in turn, led on Canadas bureau­ cracy. What we miss, especially when we simplify to teach, is the edge of sarcasm that creeps in when the word “bureaucracy” is mentioned, or was mentioned, because critics at the time did not hesitate to dissect and deplore the species.1 Even “mandarin” is a double-edged sword for its derivation harks back to an imagined imperial China, a fantasy world of silks, long fingernails, and the sipping of endless quantities of tea.2 The tea, at least, was real, while the rest drew heavily on legend and imagination. And imitation, for the term “mandarin,” as applied to the upper reaches of the bureaucracy, seems to have originated in Great Britain and was duly copied to Ottawa.1

Bureaucracy is naturally hierarchical, embodied in lists, levels, and layers. The adjective “byzantine” is often applied, and, indeed, in medieval Constan­ tinople there was a bureaucratic faction or party contending for the mastery of the Byzantine Empire. Bureaucratic layers can be viewed from top to bottom or bottom to top. If we differentiate bureaucrats from politicians, contact with the political class in almost all cases means looking at an organization from top to bottom. “The political perspective draws attention to the identity, beliefs, and decisions of the top officials of [an] agency,” writes James Q. Wilson in his book Bureaucracy.4 So in the world familiar to Louis St-Laurent, the first layer, the first vision, is of the mandarins of The Land o f Afternoon, as Madge Macbeth once called the capital and its inhabitants.5We might think of it as a very Canadian conceit, because only in Canada could the Ottawa government and its denizens be described as privileged, their lifestyle luxurious, or their work habits languor­ ous. Yet, details apart, that image is not especially Canadian. It is a universal vision, not because it was or is accurate or timely - as applied to the 1950s it was neither - but because it has an enduring appeal outside the precincts of the bureaucracy. It is the outside looking in. We will return to this perception, this theme, in a moment. The second level is the world of the senior civil servants’ lunching spots of which there were several. There was the cafeteria in the Chateau Laurier - not luxurious, but exclusive, especially in terms of work, or the capacity to work. More obviously exclusive, and less actually exclusive in terms of intelligence or influence but happily shielded from outside gaze, was the Rideau Club, opposite the Parliament Buildings under the stately elms of Wellington Street, or the Parliamentary Restaurant, upstairs from the House of Commons, where polit­ icians and senior bureaucrats and journalists could dine in the same room and occasionally mingle. This is the world of Jack Pickersgill and Arnold Heeney and Bob Bryce, the most influential members of St-Laurent s bureaucratic en­ tourage. Admission was earned by hard work and long hours, not to mention old acquaintance. It helped immensely to have an academic gong, usually a masters degree, from abroad. The academic qualification signified ability, not expertise.6 The expertise, in the governments non-scientific arms, came later, from experience on the job. The role of competitive examinations should not be ignored. Academic qualifications were all very well, but they were validated, ratified, by civil ser­ vice examinations, written and oral. “O ur standards were high and the examin­ ing board of similar quality,” Mitchell Sharp, a finance department official and later deputy m inister of trade and commerce, wrote of the postwar Department

116

Robert Bothwell

of Finance. “Those of us at senior levels considered it part of our responsibilities to encourage talent and perpetuate the ideal of public service at the top levels of the [civil] service.”7 St-Laurent as prime minister was the centre of bureaucratic Ottawa, not just symbolically but locationally. Government departm ents radiated out from Parliament Hill, where they had been placed by the builders of the 1860s, and where they were still located in the 1950s. Rank, influence, and location were interrelated - are interrelated still, and in a hierarchy the vertical can also be horizontal. The centre of political and bureaucratic life was the Parliament Buildings’ East Block, where dwelt the successive clerks of the Privy Council and the undersecretaries of state for external affairs, close to the cabinet room, and, most important, close to the Prime Ministers Office across the hall. It was with these individuals, all long-serving, all well known to their prime ministerial superiors and their senior ministers, that St-Laurent came into contact. Two of them changed from bureaucrat to politician in this period, Mike Pearson from deputy minister to minister of external affairs, Jack Pickersgill four years later from clerk of the Privy Council to the ministerial post of secretary of state.8 A machine, even a bureaucratic one, requires an engine, and engines re­ quire fuel. What motivated the mandarins? At the time, the phrase “public service” would spring readily to mind. It was also a point of connection between St-Laurent and the civil servants. St-Laurent had explicitly heeded Mackenzie Kings call to serve the country as minister of justice in 1941, minister of external affairs in 1946, and prime minister in 1948. We shall discuss economic motiv­ ators below; for the time being, we should consider what “public service” signi­ fied and why “public service” loomed large as a motivator. A cynical American academic once commented, “War is the health of the state.” If we remove the sarcasm, his quip is a reasonable description of the psychological climate of the 1940s, and not just in the United States. The Great Depression and the Second World War mobilized academics and executives, neutralizing their specific prejudices against each other in the service of the greater cause of defeating fascism and winning the war. The Great Depression was the first stage. St-Laurent was an eyewitness to the Depression and, more than that, he was part of the process that analyzed it - the Royal Commission known as the Rowell-Sirois Commission - by collecting evidence and attempting to match the evidence to Canadas constitutional system.9 The war was the second stage. It overcame the “scholasticism” of the academy and recruited academicians, actual and potential, into the service of the country.10 They brought skills that could readily be converted to practical purposes. Consider recruits to the Canadian Armed Forces and to the foreign

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

117

service during and after the war, individuals with academically acquired special­ ties. They thought in terms of “area studies” - the particular history of particular places. They had language skills - Russian, Chinese, Japanese - that had obvious application. Social sciences and the humanities went to war as surely as mining engineers, physicists, and psychiatrists.11 Form, hierarchical; purpose, public service; and process, rational. Bureau­ cracy was (and is), essentially, the embodiment of rationality. It perches atop a mountain of knowledge, precedent, expertise, and argumentation. It was and is hardly infallible, but we are considering here process as opposed to result. The perils of bureaucracy were well known, especially the danger that the pol­ itician would be nothing more than the puppet of the bureaucrat. The unstated premise in that argument, however, was that the bureaucrat could dominate the politician by his (or, in rare instances, her) expertise. That expertise was the key element. Tom Kent, who would himself become a deputy minister under the Pearson government, pointed out that civil servants were not in office simply to execute but also to help devise policy. If ministers were competent and en­ dowed with an agreed political vision for the country, they would have a basis for appraising, accepting, or rejecting their advisors’ views.12 And if not, with nature abhorring a vacuum, the civil servants’ advice would likely be stamped by the minister and, if significant enough, forwarded for approval by cabinet. And, lest we forget, there were also the 95 percent of civil servants below the summit. They were different, as we shall see, but the difference was not always negative. Ministers and their deputies proclaimed, but the lower levels sustained and enforced - or not. At the very least, a pyramid requires a broad base. A broad base, however, presents a conundrum for the researcher, particularly the historian. It is the top layer that composes the files, determines the categor­ ies, and makes the policies. And its members write memoirs.13 The mandarins of the 1940s did not usually know how to type, but although they had abandoned the quill pens of earlier generations, inkwells were still a feature of their offices, dutifully filled by staff. They relied on their secretaries to receive, edit, and transm it their written communications, while keeping their schedules straight, the office in order, and the mandarin in line. Perhaps more than is realized, the real power in an office rested with a more-than-competent secretary, with the relevant superior reduced to “Noises off” behind the green baize door that proclaimed status, while the visible secretary in the front office did the actual circulation, prioritizing, and cajoling of subordinates.14 The formation of the upper-level bureaucrat was crucial to employment, elite education leading on to elite employment and elite status.15Nevertheless, bureaucrats in Ottawa and elsewhere could not and usually did not aspire to

118

Robert Bothwell

elite incomes - unless by inheritance. Contemporaries with the same brains and talent working in the private sector did better. The dollar-a-year men who took jobs in Ottawa during the Second World War for essentially no pay did so because they could afford to. This was a given. J.J. Robinette, a top-flight lawyer in Toronto, earned multiples more than the deputy m inister of justice in Ottawa, and indeed more than the chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position that for salary purposes and perquisites can be seen as an extension of the upper bureaucracy. W hen offered a place on the Supreme Court bench, Robinette accepted and then, days later, refused. The difference in income was too great. The next layers down were not necessarily badly educated, or untalented, or unambitious; sometimes their superiors were all three. There were compen­ sations. There was a zone of solid comfort, where monetary and social support encouraged stability and predictability. If you were on the way up, this was a comfortable plateau. On the other hand, if stability had superseded mobility, if civil servants were just high enough up to see over the next desk, they were not always content with the view de bas en haut, and even less content to realize that the vision was probably perpetual. What they saw does not necessarily fit with our image of the mandarin. Such people, according to an observant Ottawa journalist, saw “stupid ministers come and go, postmaster-generals [sic] who can hardly read and write getting eight times [their] salary with one-eighth of one-eighth of [their] brains ... When the civil servant gets near a deputyministership, some indigent political hack16 is shoved in over his immediate superior s head, and bang goes any hope of [an] assistant deputy-ministership and with it the good pension he had pointed toward for thirty years.”17Though this description dates from the late 1930s, it still applied in the much expanded civil service of the 1940s and 1950s.18The point is that there were some deputy ministers, and then there were others. You could easily - all too easily in some cases - be a deputy minister, but that did not make you a mandarin. Civil servants on the slopes or in the valleys of the bureaucracy did occa­ sionally receive attention from the cabinet under St-Laurent, as they had under Mackenzie King and would under John Diefenbaker. The most significant or­ ganizational change was the decision to reduce the civil service work-week from five and a half days to five. O f all the events regarding the civil service under St-Laurent, that was probably the one most noticed and the one with the broadest impact in Ottawa. There were always questions of pay and super­ annuation to engage the ministers. All these matters went to reinforce the stability of the civil service, through its reward structure, and theoretically they applied to those at the bottom.

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

119

There was, as well, “Veterans’ Preference,” for which the million-plus per­ sonnel who had served in the armed forces during the two world wars were eligible. (Veterans of the First World War were very much around in the St-Laurent period and were eligible for employment.) Veterans’ Preference, as well as other programs for veterans in education, farming, and housing, was an investment in social stability. Its significance cannot be underestimated: as a recent historian has pointed out, Canada’s combined veterans’ programs gave a fillip to military morale and performance in the crucial last stages of the Second World War as well as easing the transition to the peace to follow. But as time passed, gratitude ebbed, and other, more mundane assessments emerged.19 Equally important, the veterans were the visible sign of the transformations wrought by the Second World War, of which St-Laurent and his government were the beneficiaries. There were limits to what Veterans’ Preference could do to carve a space for ex-soldiers - it was an opportunity, not an entitlement20- and there were many veterans who did not care to, or did not have to, avail themselves of its assist­ ance. Many already had special skills - including engineers, administrators, even secretaries and managers, as well as combatants. Many had prewar uni­ versity degrees. Some, thanks to a government-provided university education, acquired the same skills after the war. The easiest to track are those who joined external affairs, for example, Ross Campbell, who not so eventually became ambassador to NATO, or Michel Gauvin, who as an ambassador would be Canada’s spectacular fix-it man in Saigon towards the end of the Vietnam War. There were, however, others; for even those who had apparently superior qualifications might have passed their “best by” date. Thus, even in the officer ranks of the civil service there were many who, by the late 1950s, were seen as an indigestible lump in departmental hierarchies - not bad enough to be fired, not good enough to be promoted. Nor were there enough parking spots in which to place marooned careers. In the sacrosanct Department of External Affairs restless juniors complained, cautiously and to each other, about the dead wood that sat immovably, except by retirement, above them.21 It could not be said that the civil servants were overpaid. They were regularly paid, certainly, and their pensions were a given - these were no small considera­ tion in a country where old age pensioners got forty dollars a month in 1957. The civil servants’ austere situation can be exaggerated, however. Ottawa salary averages are weighted downwards by the very numerous secretaries, cleaners, messengers, and elevator operators who kept departments functioning.22Those existed everywhere, but when the proportions were different, public service incomes could look enviable. A government company town, Deep River, stocked

120

Robert Bothwell

with physicists, chemists, engineers, and specialist technicians, was one of the highest-paid (if not the highest paid) communities in Canada in the 1950s. As we move through the levels of interpretation, it is hard not to notice the interrelationship between power, party, and public servant. It was noticed at the time. In 1955, a University of Toronto political scientist, J.E. Hodgetts, tapped out an essay entitled “The Liberal and the Bureaucrat.”23 It had a great impact at the time, perhaps because of its timing and perhaps because of its title: the St-Laurent government was facing its first serious political reverses, and if the government was becoming unpopular among political observers, the term “bureaucracy” added to its negativity - at least in the abstract.2'1Arrogance and complacency were the standard bureaucratic diseases, well attested in the lit­ erature.25The sting was in Hodgetts’s tail: “the long tenure of permanent officials under an unchanging dominant party produces an identification of interest and outlook,” a kind of reciprocal homogenization. Hodgetts was uneasy about the mix or, perhaps, like many Canadians, he was just bored by twenty years of rule by a single party and wondered what the alternative might be. Ennui was in the air. It was a time of conformity, or was thought to be so at the time. It was the age of “the end of ideology” according to well-known American political scientist Daniel Bell, perhaps anticipating “the end of history” that was still to come.26It was neither of these things, of course. It was, rather, what Marc Levinson has called “An Extraordinary Time,”27 a political economy that was structured by remembrance of the chaos of the 1930s and validated by the discipline of the Second World War that produced a society that had never quite been seen before. Where Daniel Bell went wrong was not to realize that there was a “deep history” where older notions and an older politics still lurked. Canada had been afflicted by populism in the 1930s, what the historian Blair Neatby shrewdly defined as “the politics of chaos.”28 Governments in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec were founded on opposition to elites and, on the whole, scorn for expertise and experts. Mainly from the right,29 critics looked at the liberal-bureaucratic mix and snorted. “The Liberal party,” one Alberta Progres­ sive Conservative complained, “is a cesspool of civil servants with Red friends.” That was certainly one way of looking at it, although at the time that point of view could be written off as a hangover from a reactionary past, which reason and order had banished. So Eldon Woolliams,30 the MP in question, was con­ sidered unusual - unusually conservative, and unusually crude, by the standards of the time.31 He was not alone in viewing civil servants with suspicion or in appealing to anti-elite sentiment when it came to public employees. In fact, as one analyst of the Canadian public service has argued, they are “the only category

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

121

of people who can be loudly and publicly insulted.”32 To gaze briefly ahead, history proved not to be linear but circular: one can certainly say that from the 1980s forward his views have come in from the cold. They are im portant ideas, representing a populist reaction that would only finally come to fruition with the election of the anti-Liberal and anti-consensus politician Stephen Harper. H arpers reactionary and populist beliefs were not ideas taken seriously in the 1950s or 1960s. If the 1940s and 1950s were largely governed by a central set of ideas, with m inor outliers left and right, founded on an unusual coincidence of favourable economic factors, how did it actually work in practice? Who had the ideas, and who transmitted them, and to whom, and by whose authority? And who en­ forced them? There is another factor too, closely related to the exercise of au­ thority. Authority is often implicit or concealed behind closed doors, but sometimes the truth will out, and from a very prom inent horses mouth. “I’m the decision-maker,” George W. Bush baldly stated. That was so. That Bush usually made bad decisions cannot obscure the fact that he or somebody else had to make them. O f course, Bush’s Law can apply to good decisions too, which brings us to the case of Louis St-Laurent. St-Laurent sat atop Ottawa’s political and bureaucratic establishment from 1948 to 1957, but he had encountered it long before. As a prominent lawyer, and as counsel to the Rowell-Sirois Commission in the 1930s, he knew the Department of Justice well. Later, as minister, he had been responsible for the fifty-four employees of the department as well as its penum bra of prison guards (over a thousand), court functionaries, including judges, and miscellaneous personnel. And then he ran the considerably larger Department of External Affairs from 1946 to 1948.33 Gifted with a quick, sharp mind and a decisive temperament, St-Laurent did not shy away from making decisions. He was also deliberative, and if there was an argument to be made prior to a decision, he was ready to listen. “Invariably clear, logical and direct,” with a m ind of “crystal clarity,” was the view of a (later) senior civil servant, Gordon Robertson.34 The Canadian dip­ lomat George Ignatieff, who saw St-Laurent up close as minister of external affairs and then prime minister, argued that his chief had “intuitive judgment,” which helped to insulate him from merely orthodox opinions, and even from the consensus of those around him. St-Laurent was open to arguments that challenged even his own well-established ideas.35 St-Laurent liked to have his briefings orally, according to J.W. Pickersgill, his clerk of the Privy Council, and to have his advisors’ views directly. The

122

Robert Bothwell

presentation of carefully crafted m em oranda by civil servants laying out alternative policies - only one of which was actually sensible or feasible, and hence acceptable - was a practice he found pointless or repugnant, again ac­ cording to Pickersgill. The prim e minister “hated to waste time,” Gordon Robertson remembered. These were admirable traits, but they omit a crucial factor: a moral bond between the prime minister and his staff. As he relied on them, they knew they could rely on him. Nevertheless, events and circumstances affected how St-Laurent related to his civil servants and how they perceived him. As a minister during the Mackenzie King regime, St-Laurent was the prim e m inisters indispensable political instrument because of his position as the principal spokesperson for French Canada. As we have seen, this engaged him not so much as minister of justice, or even as minister of external affairs, but as the second man in the government. But there was a gulf between the activities and duties of the prime minister and those of the second minister, and so it was in the 1941-48 period that circumstances demanded and produced closer and very frequent contact between St-Laurent and the officials who worked with him. There is a constant thread that runs through St-Laurenfs political and ad­ ministrative career, but it is important to note the differences that circumstances produced. St-Laurent’s career as minister was the first. The second, from 1948 to roughly 1954, was shaped by the nature of the prime ministership - neither out of touch nor out of contact but necessarily more removed. As prime minister, St-Laurent had to see the country and the government as a whole. Micro gave way to macro, and, as they did, so did St-Laurenfs appointments. Context, as always, determined contacts. The third phase, from 1954 to 1957, was a continuation of the second but it reflected St-Laurenfs declining health and spirits. Impressions from this period suggest distance and formality, as in this recollection of Alastair Fraser: “he was, I think, a very remote man.” Dale Thomson, St-Laurenfs private secretary in the mid- 1950s, and his biographer, remarked on “ [the] lack of personal contact between him and staff.” ’6 Canada had (and may still seem to have) a tradition of ministerial respon­ sibility, by which the political head of a department - or a government - is responsible for all the actions and actors of his or her department. In any large organization, it does happen that subordinates get out in front of their chiefs, speak unwisely or unjustly (or not), and are publicly criticized. Unwelcome public or political attention can terminate a career for any civil servant or any other quasi-public figure. There are plenty of examples where ministers stood

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

123

back and let it happen or even actively blamed their subordinates in public and even in Parliament. Others stood by their staff. St-Laurent exemplified the latter quality. It is best caught by an incident in New York in 1947, where St-Laurent as external affairs minister was heading the Canadian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. One of his officers, Escott Reid, made an untimely though accurate statement, and was quoted by name in the Canadian press - a grave sin in the protocol of the time (and since, where official sources go unnamed). Ottawa demanded an explana­ tion, and Reid waited anxiously for St-Laurent’s reaction. As Reid later wrote, the minister said: “Send the following telegram to Ottawa, ‘Everything Reid said he said under my instructions.’ St-Laurent.” “With these words,” Reid later commented, “St-Laurent made me his devoted admirer. I knew that here was a man who deserved loyalty because he was loyal.”37 W hen St-Laurent inherited Jack Pickersgill from Mackenzie King in 1948, he was for a time St-Laurent’s principal contact with the bureaucracy - but he was far from the only one. There were those like Reid, whom he had known in external affairs. As soon as Pearson was appointed to the cabinet in September 1948, the game of thrones, Ottawa-style, began. The opening vacancy was the deputy ministership of external affairs, still open when St-Laurent became prime minister, in November. The first gambit was a rather junior emplacement. Almost immediately on becoming prim e minister St-Laurent moved Jules Léger, a diplomat previously posted to London, to be assistant to Pickersgill. This estab­ lished a francophone presence in the Prime Minister s Office for the first time. Légers superior, the high commissioner in London, Norman Robertson (no relation to Gordon), also moved, to be cabinet secretary and clerk of the Privy Council. The clerk of the Privy Council, Arnold Heeney, then became deputy minister of external affairs: the circle was complete. There was also his successor as clerk of the Privy Council, R.B. (Bob) Bryce, who was a more recently trained and probably more functional economist than Robertson38- unlike Pickersgill, who was by education and avocation a historian. All these were “order in council” appointments - what would later be called “senior” positions, processed by a “senior appointments secretariat” in what by then was a rapidly expanding Privy Council Office. When asked how this was managed in the 1950s, Gordon Robertson snorted. It was done by Bob Bryce (clerk 1954-63), who kept a file in his desk drawer. As his successor, Robertson ( 1963-75) “did most of it [him] self”39Only later did specialists and interdepart­ mental committees and other horrors enter the scene. In the St-Laurent era, bureaucracy functioned because it had not yet been strangled by process, and process, after all, is what bureaucracies do. 124

Robert Bothwell

If we can speculate on St-Laurents worldview, it is not hard to spot differ­ ences between him and his entourage. Pickersgill, Norman Robertson, Bryce, and Arnold Heeney were all born between 1900 and 1925 - a different genera­ tion from the prime ministers. St-Laurent presumably acquired most of his beliefs and opinions in the 1890s and 1900s, probably when he was in his teens and twenties, like most people.40 St-Laurent was well prepared in law by his education in Laval University’s law faculty in the first years of the century. As a good lawyer, he mastered his briefs, a talent he later put to work chairing the cabinet as prime minister. He was reputed to have read every briefing note that came before cabinet and used his familiarity with evidence and argument to control but not dominate discussion. It was not merely a matter of intake: St-Laurent also had the gift of exposition and thus the ability to persuade his colleagues and not merely dominate them.41 One area in which prime ministers and ministers both took a natural inter­ est was in the realm of appointments - one of the most useful tools in the hand of government, conferring both salary and prestige. The most purely political appointments were senators, but the Senate was far removed from the bureaucracy; only much later would some senior civil servants move on into the Senate. At the apex there was the governor general, followed by serried ranks of justices, judges, lieutenant-governors, and commissioners of many kinds. While all of these offices touched the bureaucracy, their incumbents were seldom considered to be civil servants themselves. These were obviously areas in which St-Laurents background counted strongly and favourably. There were other areas in which the subject matter was less familiar and more complex. Like most public figures of his day, he had little preparation in economics or the other social sciences. It is not clear that this was much of a handicap in tackling economic questions in the 1940s or in coping with the Keynesian intellectuals of the dominions finance department. Canadas premier economist when St-Laurent was young was Stephen Leacock of McGill University, whose knowledge of economics was mostly uncertain.42 Worse still, where Leacock had certainties, they were antediluvian even by the standards of the nineteenth century. When it came to dealing with the economists of the finance department, St-Laurent was no worse off than his cabinet colleague, the “minister of every­ thing,” the engineer C.D. Howe, or the various finance ministers, J.L. Ilsley, Douglas Abbott, and Walter Harris - all lawyers like himself.4’ Economics be­ came an important issue during and just after the Second World War, although at every important juncture the details of finance and expenditure came second to the political necessity to win the war, no matter what the cost.

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

125

Economist or not, as a m inister and then prime minister, St-Laurent played his part in the governments negotiations for an urgent present and, it was hoped, a prosperous future. The economist (and future governor of the Bank of Canada) Louis Rasminsky recalled how useful St-Laurent s support could be in reassuring an anxious Mackenzie King on questions of international finance.44As minister of external affairs, and especially as the principal guarantor of French-Canadian views in the cabinet, St-Laurent willingly threw his weight behind the govern­ ment economists’ plans for postwar reconstruction and the rehabilitation of international finance.45As horizons broadened in the 1950s, as the need to prop up the British became less urgent, and as the governments task turned to m an­ aging a continuously prosperous economy, there was less need for St-Laurent to negotiate abroad or to deal directly with the details of government policy. Douglas Abbott with his surplus-producing budgets, C.D. Howe with his mega­ projects, and Pearson at NATO or the UN could handle matters on their own, backed in each case by strong leadership. How they did so is the subject of several other chapters in this volume. Under St-Laurent, and owing largely to the respect and admiration that St-Laurent commanded, the civil service did as well as it could. St-Laurent had a gift for evoking the best from his staff. Government as established in Canada and other liberal democracies was evidence-based and rational. It was the civil servants’ job to find facts and subject them to logical analysis, and it was the politicians’ job to receive the product and tu rn it into policy - or not. Circumstances smiled on the St-Laurent government, to be sure, but St-Laurent and his colleagues had the ability to seize the opportunity that time provided. Jack Pickersgill frequently observed that St-Laurent had made government look so easy that people concluded that anyone could do it. And so, Pickersgill would conclude, “they elected anybody!” Namely, John Diefenbaker. Pickersgill’s jibe is well known, a classic of Canadian political lore. Better, perhaps, is the rueful conclusion of Alvin Hamilton, Diefenbaker’s minister of agriculture and a talented and perceptive politician. The trouble was, ex-minister Hamilton told a group of university students in 1964,46 that the Progressive Conservatives had gazed for so long at the effortless competence of the StLaurent Liberals, and at the civil servants who surrounded them, that they expected that they too would look good when they took office in 1957, thanks to these same brilliant mandarins. Hamilton then proceeded to give chapter and verse of the bad advice the Diefenbaker cabinet had received from the mandarins. The conclusion was that there may have been something magic, something impressive, about the St-Laurent government, but whatever it was, it had been lost in translation.

126

Robert Bothwell

Notes 1 The strangest Canadian version of the “bureaucratic critique” is Maurice Henrie, The Man­

2

3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18

darin Syndrome: The Secret Life o f Senior Bureaucrats (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1990), a collection of aphorisms derived from his own experience in the bureaucracy. Actually, the term is not of Chinese origin but Portuguese, and it was used by early European travellers and merchants to describe the scholar-bureaucrats produced by the Chinese civil service examination system. The British comparison is crucial: see Jack Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 10-11. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 11. Madge Macbeth, under the pseudonym Gilbert Knox, Land o f Afternoon (Toronto: Graphic Publishers, 1924). On the academic qualification, see Doug Owram, The Government Generation: Intellectuals and the State (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 136-37. Mitchell Sharp, Which Reminds Me ...: A Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 40-41. Pearson was a Mackenzie King appointment, but it was just before he handed the govern­ ment over to St-Laurent, and it was made with St-Laurent’s hill knowledge, consent, and support. St-Laurent was counsel to the commission. Todays scholastics would doubtless employ the term “state,” as did Bourne. The recruits to the public service would have found the term insufficient, if not in fact offensive. See Michael Desch, Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence o f Social Science on National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), chap. 3. Tom Kent, A Public Purpose: An Experience of Liberal Opposition and Canadian Govern­ ment (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), 13. See James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do, and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 11. There is a novelistic treatment of the social side of offices in Ottawa in Madge Macbeth [Gilbert Knox], The Kinder Bees (1935). Obviously, there is a gender aspect to this: women were restricted to roles as secretaries, even when their actual work was the equivalent, or more than the equivalent, of that of male officers. Very few of the senior bureaucracy came from money, and none had taken their first (BA) degree outside Canada. A marginal example is Walter Turnbull, Mackenzie Kings long-term secretary, who had to be moved rather quickly from the Prime Minister’s Office. He was consoled with the deputy postmaster-generalship. This is not to suggest that Turnbull was indigent or ineffi­ cient, but he certainly had a claim on hackship. Austin F. Cross, Snobs and Spires (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1937), 30-31. One possible example is Emmett Murphy, deputy minister of public works, and a crony of C.D. Howe, the powerful minister of trade and commerce. “Murph” was considered by others in Howe’s entourage to have achieved and maintained his position by sycophancy. See Bothwell and Kilbourn, C.D. Howe, 365nl. According to Doug Owram, the historian of the department of public works, he was largely ineffective thanks to his lack of man­ darin status (Owram to author, 17 March 2019). The same could have been said of virtually all the deputy ministers in second-rank departments.

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

127

19 Jonathan Fennell, Fighting the People’s War: The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 552. See also Nicole Morgan, Implosion: An Analysis of the Growth o f the Federal Public Service in Canada, 1945-1985 (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1986), 22. 20 Peter Neary and J.L. Granatstein, The Veterans’ Charter and Post-World War II Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1998), 10. 21 Peter Hancock interview, 24 February 2019. Hancock joined the foreign service in 1957. 22 By 1952 fully a third of the 136,000 employees of the civil service were veterans. See Morgan, Implosion, 18. 23 See James Iain Gow, Paul Pross, Seymour V. Wilson, C.E.S. Franks, and O.P. Dwivedi, “The Intellectual Legacy of J.E. Hodgetts,” Canadian Public Administration 54, 2 (2011): 165-87 24 A distinction was also drawn between a “civil service” and a “bureaucracy” to the advantage of the former. See E.N. Gladden, Civil Service or Bureaucracy (London: Staples Press, 1956). 25 J.E. Hodgetts, “The Liberal and the Bureaucrat: A Rose by Any Other Name,” Queen’s Quarterly 62 (January 1955): 176-83. A sign of our changing academic culture can be found in Hodgetts’s use of literary references in a scholarly political science - a sign of what he assumed to be a common literate culture - to make his points. 26 Daniel Bell, The End o f Ideology: On the Exhaustion o f Political Ideas in the Fifties (New York: Free Press, 1962); Francis Fukuyama, The End o f History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). 27 Marc Levinson, An Extraordinary Time: The End o f the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy (New York: Basic Books, 2016). 28 Blair Neatby, The Politics of Chaos: Canada in the Thirties (Toronto: Macmillan, 1973). 29 Communists, though claiming to be based on “the people,” merely proposed to replace one set of experts with another or to coerce existing experts to do the communists’ bidding. In Canada they never got the chance. 30 Eldon Woolliams, 1916-2001, Progressive Conservative MP from Alberta, 1958-79. 31 So exceptional that when another Progressive Conservative MP told the Ottawa Journal that the Diefenbaker government would dismiss a large number of Liberal-leaning civil servants, the Progressive Conservative cabinet discussed the matter, affirmed its good rela­ tions with the civil service, and prepared to issue a repudiation. See meeting of 16 December 1957, Library and Archives Canada, RG 2, Privy Council Office, series A-5-a, vol. 1893. 32 Morgan, Implosion, 4. 33 Of the 1,086 employees of the Department of Justice in 1941, 979 were prison guards and administrators: only fifty-four were in “the main department” in Ottawa. See Canada Year Book, 1942 ( Ottawa: Kings Printer, 1942), table 13,940. The Department of External Affairs in the same year had 214. 34 Gordon Robertson, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 375. Robertson was Pickersgills assistant in the Prime Ministers Office and, subsequently, moved over to the Privy Council Office. Robertson recounts how St-Laurent was consistently referred to as “Mister” by the people he interviewed for his book. The same was true of J.W. Pickersgill, a senior civil servant and later cabinet minister, and Allan MacEachen, an MP from 1953 to 1958. MacEachen was the source for the story of MPs rising from their chairs when St-Laurent entered a room. Robertson added that, even forty years after St-Laurent ceased to be prime minister, and thirty years after his death, he still called him “Mr. St-Laurent,” such was the respect that he engendered.

128

Robert Bothwell

35 George Ignatieff, with Sonja Sinclair, The Making o f a Peacemonger: The Memoirs o f George Ignatieff (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 110. 36 Interview with Alastair Fraser, 1983, quoted in J.D.M. Stewart, Being Prime Minister (Toronto: Dundum, 2018), 62. The Thomson quote, also in Stewart, is from Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967). 37 EscottReid, Radical Mandarin: The Memoirs of Escott Reid (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 216-17. 38 Robertsons specialty had been trade, and trade negotiation, in the 1930s. 39 Robertson interview, 19 January 1988. 40 Amanda Cox, “How Birth Year Influences Political Views,” New York Times, 14 July 2014. Summarizing current social science, Cox claims that the most receptive age for acquiring ideas is between fourteen and twenty-four and, that after forty, “the impact of events is relatively small” in affecting ones mindset, especially where politics is concerned. 41 Robertson, Memoirs o f a Very Civil Servant, 100. 42 Conversation with Sidney (Sid) Pierce, Ottawa, ca. 1977. Leacock was Pierces economics professor at McGill, and on Pierces graduation secured him a teaching position at Dalhousie. Pierce commented that only when he attempted to teach economics did he under­ stand that he really knew very little of the subject. He credited Leacock for the deficiency. After quitting Dalhousie, Pierce became an expert trade negotiator for the government of Canada and an accomplished diplomat, in which capacity he would have met Prime Minister St-Laurent. 43 Brooke Claxton (McGill 1921) and Abbott (Bishop’s 1918), anglophone Quebecers in the St-Laurent cabinet, were also unlikely to have had adequate formal training in economics, at least as the next generation would have seen it. I am indebted to David Webster for the Abbott reference. 44 Bruce Muirhead, Against the Odds: The Public Life and Times o f Louis Rasminsky (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 91,107,132. 45 Back in Quebec, the nationalist premier Maurice Duplessis launched a ferocious attack on St-Laurent and the Liberals for wasting taxpayers’ dollars: “Duplessis donne à sa province,” his posters proclaimed for the 1948 provincial election: “Les Libéraux donnent aux étran­ gers.” See Georges-Émile Lapalme, Mémoires, vol. 1, Le bruit des choses réveillées (Montréal: Leméac, 1969), 311. 46 The author was one of the group, and the encounter took place in the University College Senior Common Room.

St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy

129

Part 2

Structure

____________________ chapter Thinking Confederation St-Laurent and the Rowell-Sirois Commission ROBERT WARDHAUGH AND BARRY FERGUSON

Canada experienced economic and political difficulties in the 1930s that are almost unimaginable to Canadians ninety years later. From 1930 to 1935, Con­ servative prime m inister R.B. Bennett promised, but failed, to achieve his plans for decisive national action. He invoked constitutional change, the creation of new institutions, and economic intervention. Nothing worked. His Liberal rivals, led by Mackenzie King, returned to office in 1935, promising salvation from the “chaos” of the Great Depression and Conservative rule. Yet Canada remained in dire economic circumstances that now threatened the federation. In April 1937, the country’s senior civil servant, Oscar Douglas Skelton, advised Prime Minister King that the national situation was now worse than ever, par­ ticularly for some of the provinces. “Early and definitive action by the Canadian Government to take control of the chaos that is developing throughout the Dominion seems vital,” Skelton warned. “The disintegration of Canada is pro­ ceeding fast.”1 Action came in the form of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (which was eventually dubbed the Rowell-Sirois Commission after its successive chairmen). Established on 14 August 1937, this was no ordinary royal commission established to provide the mere appearance of political action. The Rowell-Sirois Commission was created to deal with an emergency situation in Canada. The combination of an outdated federal structure that no longer met what were termed “modern” conditions along with the most severe eco­ nomic downturn the Western world had ever experienced resulted in a paralyz­ ing crisis. The provincial governments staggered under the weight of the Great

Depression, most notably in the Prairie west. The proposal to establish a general inquiry into the federal system was first enunciated by several premiers at the Dominion-Provincial Conference held the previous year. The federal govern­ ment was also spurred to act by Alberta’s default in 1936 and by the reality that both Manitoba and Saskatchewan were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The newly created Bank of Canada, along with a coterie of policy-activist civil servants in Ottawa, urged the government to take action. King needed a new national consensus and the Royal Commission was provided with a broad mandate that reflected the dire situation. The terms of reference referred to serious fiscal and administrative problems that were crip­ pling the federal system. Governmental responsibilities now extended far beyond those envisioned at Confederation in 1867, and the discharge of those duties led to expenditures that overwhelmed revenue-raising powers. The inefficient distribution of legislative powers (Ottawa had broad fiscal capacity, the provinces vast social responsibilities) and the outdated system of federal grants (which consisted of small and seldom-adjusted unconditional per capita grants as well as some negotiated conditional subsidies) led to “undue strains and stresses.” Seventy years into Canadas national existence, the commission was charged with the ambitious goal of re-examining the entire fiscal basis of Confederation.2 An examination of dominion-provincial relations would inevitably raise fundamental issues of regionalism for Canada. As a result, the membership of the Royal Commission had to demonstrate regional representation. The regionalist credentials were obvious for the three senior commissioners: Newton Rowell, former Liberal leader of Ontario and federal cabinet minister in the Union government; John W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press; and Supreme Court Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret from Quebec. However eminent they were, given their prominent records, none was uncontroversial. Two junior commissioners - political scientist Robert MacKay from Dalhousie University and economist Henry Angus from the University of British Columbia - were selected to represent the Maritimes and Pacific Coast, respectively. But the inquiry would not be a mere five-man show. The Rowell-Sirois Commission was unique to Canadian history in its breadth and scope not only in terms of the subjects studied but also in terms of the expert advisors involved. A group of senior government officials, dubbed the “Ottawa Men,” played important roles in the work of the Rowell-Sirois Commission. These officials included Under-Secretary of External Affairs O.D. Skelton, Deputy Minister of Finance Clifford Clark, Bank of Canada governor Graham Towers, and the banks chief economist Alex Skelton (the son of O.D Skelton), each of whom had supported the creation of the commission. The younger Skelton was pivotal

134

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

because he served as secretary of the commission. The Rowell-Sirois Com ­ mission was planned around a program of extensive research studies, originally designed by Alex Skelton, that called on the expertise of Canadas burgeoning university-based social science intelligentsia. These experts included the likes of W.A. Mackintosh, John Deutsch, and Donald Creighton. Even the legal coun­ sel for the commission was notable for regional prominence and national status. James M. Stewart from Nova Scotia and Louis St-Laurent from Quebec were nationally recognized corporate lawyers. Personnel decisions for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations were political and were made by the federal cabinet on the advice of civil servants. When it came to Quebec representation, the process was even more selective. O.D. Skelton was influential in all the decisions representing English Canada, but he deferred to Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s Quebec lieutenant, Ernest Lapointe, when it came to Quebec. Louis St-Laurent, the leading lawyer in Quebec City (and already a favourite legal consultant of the federal government), was one of Skeltons initial suggestions for a commis­ sioner to represent Quebec.3 Lapointe, however, decided upon Thibaudeau Rinfret, a political Liberal in the past (he had run as a Laurier Liberal in 1908) whose brother, Fernand, was a federal cabinet minister. Rinfret was highly credible in Quebec as a consistent defender of provincial autonomy on the Supreme Court. He was acceptable to the Union Nationale government of Premier Maurice Duplessis.4 The first official meeting of the Royal Commission was held in Ottawa from 8 to 10 September 1937. It began by attending to such details as staffing and compensation. The selection of legal advisors became an immediate point of contention between Newton Rowell and Mackenzie King. Rowell was not en­ thusiastic about the need for outside legal counsel, but he relented, agreeing eventually that the constitutional issues that would inevitably arise would neces­ sitate the support from other lawyers. These appointm ents generated discus­ sion at the top levels of government because they triggered issues of legal patronage and involved large fees. The issue highlighted the tension within royal commissions between their political and advisory functions. The prime minister assumed the government would make the selections, but Rowell stood firm. He was “convinced that in order to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding by the provinces about the impartiality of the counsel, the Commission rather than the Dominion government should choose and appoint its own counsel.”5 Louis St-Laurent was appointed in response to Rinfret’s recommendation to Lapointe and with Rowells support. It was not an easy sell. The fifty-fiveyear-old St-Laurent accepted reluctantly due to his busy law practice. He agreed

Thinking Confederation

135

on the condition that he would be engaged for only a portion of the commission’s work.6 James Stewart, a leader in the Halifax legal and business worlds, was secured despite his Tory affiliations and despite King’s preference for another Nova Scotia lawyer and former Liberal MP, J.L. Ralston. St-Laurent and Stewart were hired at the going rate for senior legal counsel: $ 150 per day plus expenses. (In comparison, the senior commissioners worked gratis while MacKay and Angus received per diem compensation that replaced their professional salar­ ies.) The job would involve a pay cut for St-Laurent, who agreed to the work more out of a sense of ambition and duty than income. By the mid-1950s, Louis St-Laurent had long been at the top of the legal profession. Starting in 1911, St-Laurent appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada on nearly sixty occasions. He took cases to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) “almost annually” between 1920 and 1940. He was hired by both the federal and Quebec governments on a number of high-profile cases that clarified the constitutional division of powers, particularly over taxation issues.7 In response to Ottawa’s entry into the field of income taxation in 1917, Quebec took the lead in testing the intrusion into an area that was by custom if not law reserved to the provinces. In 1922, Quebec backed the challenge to federal taxation powers by supporting the case of a Quebec farmer and prov­ incial cabinet minister, Joseph-Eugène Caron, who was charged for not paying his federal income tax. St-Laurent argued Caron’s case, claiming that precedent existed to limit the right of one level of government to tax incomes earned from another. Any intrusion by Ottawa into direct taxation was beyond its constitutional authority. Both the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee rejected the arguments. It was a “serious defeat” to the provincial rights position, but the ruling was an instructive clarification of the federal right to tax by any means.8 St-Laurent was also involved in arguing the most significant cases related to Conservative prime minister R.B. Bennett’s New Deal legislation of 1935. The package of national regulations over labour conditions, marketing, and un­ employment insurance was both a call to state economic intervention and a marked intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. In 1936, under Newton Rowell’s lead, St-Laurent argued the federal position in a comprehensive reference to the Supreme Court put forward by the new Liberal government. The federal team was opposed by an array of lawyers representing most of the provinces, and it did not fare well against entrenched constitutional precedent. The Supreme Court’s judgments were generally negative regarding most of the federal legisla­ tive proposals. Only farm credit legislation and a limited array of retail trade

136

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

regulations passed scrutiny.9 Rowell did not continue with the appeal to the Judicial Committee in London, having taken up the post of chief justice of Ontario in the interim. As a result, St-Laurent took the lead. Although unsuccess­ ful, the experiences cemented St-Laurenfs reputation as a top constitutional law expert and, according to his biographer and associate Dale Thomson, strengthened his commitment to effective state intervention and regulation.10 St-Laurent s legal work resulted in the acquisition of strong and informed views about Canadian federalism. Some of these he set out in his 1931 presi­ dential address to the Canadian Bar Association. Two years into the Depression, St-Laurent recognized that the economic crisis was “all but paralyzing the usual activities of our institutions, political, social and economical.”11 St-Laurent was concerned about the “departure from ordinary British constitutional practice” in the forms of federal legislation providing assistance to the provinces. He feared that the enabling legislation through the delegation of powers to the executive branch of the federal government represented the triumph of practical needs over crucial principles. St-Laurent urged the legal profession to remain the guardians of constitutional principles of parliamentary scrutiny and the division of powers.12 Certain questions about Canadas constitutional status grew in St-Laurent s mind as the Depression ravaged the country. He was particularly concerned about the impact of the 1926 Balfour Declaration regarding the “equality of status” of Great Britain and the dominions. Its implementation worried him, particularly a 1929 “Conference of Jurists” examining the cessation of the Colonial Laws Validity Act and the subsequent wording of the 1931 Statute of Westminster. The Quebec lawyer investigated the question of whether Canada had entered into a new constitutional world without realizing the full implica­ tions for Canadian federalism. Quoting copiously from the Statute of West­ minster, St-Laurent investigated the question of w hether the recognized autonomy of each level of government could be undermined. He worried that the British Parliament might be entitled to intervene in federal or provincial legislative matters without due respect for each level of governmental authority. After consideration, he concluded that the autonomy of each level had been settled in Hodge v. the Queen, the 1884 decision in which the “conception of the true character and position” of the provinces as sovereign legislative entities was defined. St-Laurent concluded that the “constitutions of the provinces” were not threatened by external decisions.13 St-Laurent also raised concerns about the future of appeals to the Judicial Committee in light of the Statute of Westminster and other declarations. The way to avoid the danger of British legislation or JCPC decisions becoming

Thinking Confederation

137

isolated from established Canadian federal practice was for the Supreme Court of Canada to become the final court for constitutional questions. He dismissed the idea of an imperial legal tribunal: the best solution was for the Canadian court to be “really supreme.”14St-Laurent recognized that the federal structure in Canada had been shaken by the changes in the imperial constitutional order as well as by changes in the balance of Canadian federalism. As a federalist, he was concerned with defending the jurisdiction of both levels of government, the primacy of the legislative over the executive branch, and the danger posed by the burgeoning costs to the treasuries of all governments. He did not share the widespread notion held by many academic lawyers in English Canada at the time concerning the deleterious effects of provincial rights, nor did he pine for decisive centralization.15 The Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations was beset with challenges throughout its existence, and, as legal counsel, Louis St-Laurent was called upon to deal with one of the first to emerge. Thibaudeau Rinfret missed the October 1937 meetings because he had fallen ill, after which he soon re­ signed. Rowell understandably fretted that the “failure to find the right replace­ ment from Quebec might seriously jeopardize the whole enterprise.”16He urged the prime minister to look to the most prominent lawyers in Quebec: Louis St-Laurent or A rthur Vallée. But again, St-Laurent declined. On 2 November, Prime Minister King met with Rowell and Dafoe to discuss the situation. The names that emerged were Léon-Mercier Gouin, an academic lawyer then teach­ ing at the small Université d’Ottawa; René Morin, prominent in provincial business circles as chair of the Banque Canadienne Nationale; and Joseph-M. Tellier, the chief justice of Quebec.17After consulting with the Quebec caucus and St-Laurent, Ernest Lapointe was determined to recruit the leading Quebec notary, Joseph Sirois. While not otherwise well known in Quebec or the rest of Canada, Sirois was acceptable to the Duplessis government. St-Laurent knew Sirois professionally and socially, and went to work convincing him to accept the job. St-Laurent was successful and the Quebec position was filled.18 Public hearings for the Royal Commission commenced on 29 November 1937 in Winnipeg. Since St-Laurent and Stewart shared the duties of legal counsel, it was agreed that they would divide the cross-country hearings, except on a few occasions. The original plan was to use Stewart for the hearings in the west and St-Laurent in the east. But Stewart, who had chronic limitations due to childhood polio, broke his leg two weeks earlier and could not travel.19 St-Laurent attended the first set of hearings in Winnipeg and then Regina. As it turned out, he played a more active role than expected: “Looking very much the highly-paid eastern Canadian lawyer in his well-cut conservative suit, his 138

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

dark hair graying at the temples, and his salt-and-pepper moustache neatly trimmed,” he “questioned witnesses closely and became involved in lengthy debates on their briefs.”20 St-Laurent s contributions to the inquiry were framed by his experience as a constitutional lawyer, his evolving views of federalism, and his own regional biases. During the public hearings in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, he argued in defence of the traditional central-Canadian position and against the vocifer­ ous western criticisms of the National Policy, including protective tariffs, railway development, and immigration. But the Quebec lawyer was affected by the “tales of woe” he heard emerging from the Prairie region. The provincial submissions and testimony in both Winnipeg and Regina provided the most extensive studies produced to that time of the wests fiscal and economic crisis, which they saw as the cumulative result of both the heavy costs of the period of expansion after the 1890s and the catastrophic slide since 1929. The submissions of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments argued that the British North America Act, 1867, was no longer adaptable to the major problems of contemporary govern­ ment, including areas of dominion as well as provincial responsibility. The result was a constitutional impasse: “O ur constitution as it stands has ceased to be an effective instrum ent of government,” the M anitoba governm ent asserted. Referring to the series of Privy Court decisions in the 1920s, the BNA Act had been subjected to judicial interpretation rather than legislative enactment. The burgeoning demands on governments (often referred to as “modern conditions” and including the rapidly increasing costs of services such as roads, hospitals, and schools) made it vital to reallocate powers effectively, especially in the area of taxation and social services.21 The commission was hearing as much about history and economics as about constitutional matters. The provincial briefs in Winnipeg and Regina argued that the distressed state of public finances was caused not only by the Depression but also by the development of the Prairie economy within the broad framework of national policies. Settlement policies and railway building had proven costly, while the tariff had imposed a continuing tax on westerners as buyers of m anu­ factured goods from Quebec and Ontario. Manitoba and the other Prairie provinces had to sell their natural resources in world markets shaped primarily by international forces. Meanwhile, they had to deal in an atmosphere of pro­ tected markets, regulated freight rates, and burdensome monetary and credit policies.22 By the 1930s, the provinces were in desperate financial straits due to seemingly unavoidable and unsustainable debt loads and relentless demands to provide at least minimal public assistance to the unemployed and financial bailouts to local governments.23

Thinking Confederation

139

In the social realm, provincial governments faced considerable limitations in their capacity to adopt let alone pay for policy alternatives and innovations. The provinces had a burden of debt as a result of the cumulative costs of build­ ing up education, transportation, local government, and other public services in the previous decades. They argued that Ottawa should assume responsibility for costs that were generated by national policies and international circum­ stances (including relief and unemployment costs) while the provinces should be enabled to generate revenues for the maintenance of social services at a level comparable with the more prosperous sections of the nation. The alternative was repudiation of debt by the Prairie provinces and the migration of their populations into the wealthier provinces, thereby overwhelming their social services. Only a reforging of the nature and purpose of Confederation could alleviate the distress in the west and restore the unity of the nation.24 The criti­ cisms of national policies were not new but they were being expressed system­ atically and in a way that emphasized the outm oded federal policies and governmental powers in the context of the crash of the 1930s. Louis St-Laurent was shocked by the seriousness of the economic plight of the Prairie provinces, but he was not convinced that a new direction was re­ quired. He showed no sympathy for criticisms of monetary and tariff policies. The usually restrained lawyer was at his most animated in response to the arguments of the agricultural economist A rthur Upgren from the University of Minnesota about monetary policy that maintained a high exchange rate and harmed exporters such as wheat farmers. The Winnipeg Free Press reporter J.B. McGeachy described St-Laurent as relentless. He was like an “amiable but en­ thusiastic terrier after a rabbit.”25 St-Laurent deduced from Upgren’s data that Manitoba had indulged in excessive borrowing in the boom years after 1900 and was only experiencing the consequences in the bad years of the 1930s. He also drew out the admission that a depreciated currency would have increased the costs of servicing foreign debt.26 In response to a sharp critique of the National Policy, and in particular of data provided by Manitoba that supported the Policy’s deleterious “fiscal burden” on the west, St-Laurent pointed out that the evidence failed to take into account sales taxes and customs duties. He bluntly asked Manitoba’s experts why the province supported the tariff by vot­ ing in a majority of Conservative MPs in the federal elections of 1891, 1911, and 1930.27 Commissioner Robert MacKay also commented on St-Laurent’s performance in Winnipeg. He wrote to his wife that he and Henry Angus had spent some time in “coaching” St-Laurent on economic and policy issues. MacKay thought that, while St-Laurent was “not doing a bad job,” he was clearly a “lawyer and not an economist.”28

140

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

The public hearings in Regina reinforced the criticisms made in Winnipeg. Saskatchewan’s report and governmental testimony left the commission with no doubt about the provinces grim circumstances. St-Laurent was taken aback by the “saga of personal tragedy, loss of morale in whole communities, and public bankruptcy wrought by the Depression on the Prairies.”29His awakening sympathy, however, did not prevent him from pursuing critical questions about Prairie grievances over national tariff and m onetary policies, although he was somewhat more restrained in Regina than in Winnipeg. The more practical core of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan cases, however, was their demand for relief from “modern conditions.” Manitoba’s provincial treasurer Stuart Garson argued for “a new financial policy based upon the right of all citizens of Can­ ada to have equal and adequate social services.” This “new principle” seemed to pass with little comment, but it would in fact become the centrepiece of the Rowell-Sirois Report.30 After the Manitoba and Saskatchewan hearings, St-Laurent and Stewart alternated in their attendance at the sessions. Stewart attended the hearings in the M aritim e provinces, British Columbia, and Alberta, while St-Laurent witnessed the drama-filled hearings in Toronto and Quebec City. The Toronto hearings at the end of April 1938 drew considerable national attention. The Ontario Liberal government of Mitchell Hepburn had, since late 1937, engaged in political guerrilla warfare with the federal Liberal gov­ ernment of Mackenzie King. The Ontario premier plotted with Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis to withstand demands emerging from the west as a result of the Royal Commission and a consequent “raid” on the federal treasury.31 Yet Ontario had agreed to participate in the commission and it submitted a wellargued response. Hepburn, however, refused to return from his home in time for the commission’s arrival. W hen he did appear, he offered what he described as “a long deep note of discontent.” This “note” consisted of a critique of the commission and its personnel, a rebuttal of the concerns over national policy (especially the question of the costs of the tariff as raised by the Prairie prov­ inces), and complaints about how Ontario had been overtaxed to support the other provinces. Ontario’s case amounted to a defence of the status quo and a criticism of federal intrusion into provincial taxation (particularly the income tax).32Hepburn concluded his remarks, which were less subtle and logical than those in the Ontario brief, by opposing the growing need for social services in general and a uniform standard through federal programs in particular. “Equality between provinces is impossible,” he asserted. “The provinces are fiscal entities and governments, like individuals, must learn to manage within their means.” Social services should only exist on a contributory basis.33

Thinking Confederation

141

Newton Rowell hosted the Rowell-Sirois Commission on several occasions in his home city. For his part, the premier of Ontario entertained the commis­ sion at a famously raucous dinner at Hepburns second home, the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. If St-Laurent made an appearance at the dinner he, like Rowell and Dafoe, left early and did not participate in the after-dinner party that marked the notable occasion.34 The informal and relaxed atmosphere, with inhibitions loosened through drink and song, seemed to provide a bonding experience for those involved. The Ontario cabinet ministers and senior officials at the party apologized for the premiers speech and attitude. The tone of the remainder of the hearings improved considerably, although Ontario’s position was strongly argued by Deputy-Treasurer Chester Walters and its chief consultant, McMaster University economist Kenneth Taylor, and others. When the Ontario hearings ended, Hepburn called Duplessis to urge him to appear before the commission.35 As the hearings drew to a close, Newton Rowell fell ill, succumbing to a heart attack and then a severe stroke. While there was hope for a time that Rowell might recover, he was in no condition to complete the hearings and, in fact, he never recovered. Vice-Chairman Joseph Sirois took over. As the Rowell-Sirois Commission travelled to Quebec City, and in the aftermath of the Ontario theatrics, there was concern as to what might be the re­ action from the Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis. The premiers of Ontario and Quebec had worked to create a united front against Ottawa and its Royal Commission, and the hearings provided a national spot­ light. The situation was further destabilized when Rowell took ill and Sirois stepped in. With Rinfret’s resignation due to poor health, and the appointment of the more reserved Sirois, St-Laurent’s role in representing Quebec on the commission increased. Not surprisingly, he was expected to play an important role in his home province. But neither St-Laurent nor Sirois wielded influence with Duplessis, and they worried about the reaction they would receive from the Quebec government. While in English Canada Duplessis’ opposition would be cast as mere provincial obstructionism and narrow parochial selfishness, the issues went much deeper and touched the nerve of French-Canadian national­ ism. How could the changes demanded in the west (which were tantam ount to remaking the federal system by transferring powers of taxation to Ottawa) be reconciled with the responsibility of the Quebec government to protect con­ stitutional rights as well as the social system that shielded French Canadians? According to biographer Dale Thomson, when the commission reached Que­ bec, “the role of St-Laurent took on added importance in the delicate situation. Besides trying to obtain the co-operation of the Union Nationale government, [St-Laurent] had to bolster the spirits of his friend Sirois, who was horrified at 142

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

being thrown into the centre of the controversy and was concerned over finding himself at odds with an important segment of Quebec opinion.”36 Sirois served as acting chairman when the hearings opened on 12 May, and St-Laurent was present as legal counsel. It was notable that the commission was given a meeting room in the Palais de Justice, since the nearby Hôtel du Parlement committee rooms were occupied by the Quebec Tax Commission, whose hearings opened at the same time. The Palais was more than adequate but the symbolism was obvious. Symbolism turned to reality, however, when Premier Duplessis refused to appear before the commission. Duplessis confirmed that his government did not recognize the constitutional right of the federal government to conduct the inquiry and therefore did not recognize the legal authority of the Rowell-Sirois Commission to call on attendance by the prov­ incial government. The government’s terse, eleven-page statement was read by J.E. Beaulieu, KC, who had been considered as a Quebec representative on the commission. Confederation was “un pacte d’une nature nettement con­ tractuelle” between the provinces that could not be revised by federal action alone. This statement was controversial enough as constitutional law but rather beside the point in that the inquiry was investigative rather than legislative.37 St-Laurent participated in the examination of the many private groups that did appear before the Rowell-Sirois Commission. He drew out the limitations and contradictions in some of the testimony of Quebec organizations like the Montreal Board of Trade, the Chambre de Commerce de Montreal, and, most notable, the Société St. Jean Baptiste (SSJB) de Montreal. While he was merely quizzical in poking Owen Lobley of the Board of Trade for its support of higher levels of direct taxation, he was more assertive in pointing out contradictions and limitations in the St. Jean Baptiste Society’s decentralist and anti-statist views of the Constitution and social policy.38 Hector Lalonde, the St. Jean Baptiste Society spokesman, argued that Con­ federation was both a pact of the two principal ethnic groups and an agree­ ment among the founding provinces and that, therefore, it was unchangeable without unanimous agreement. Among other points he argued that Confed­ eration established linguistic duality regarding the use of French and English throughout Canada, which had been “violated” in subsequent decades, an obvious reference to the Schools Questions in New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Ontario. Angus and St-Laurent, meanwhile, worked away at the contradictions between the two positions. How could Confederation be a pact between two people and four provinces when there were in fact only three colonial govern­ ments and one of them was a combination of English and French? On the issue of language rights, it was provincial rights over education that trum ped

Thinking Confederation

143

the original federal declarations. Similarly, when the SSJB representative, Herman Bastien, claimed the “faits sociaux” of Quebec - chiefly its civil law and its Roman Catholic values - had to be recognized as essential to any major constitutional changes, St-Laurent bore down to clarify specifically which Quebec laws reflected the defence of family and conservative values.39Another interesting exchange resulted in St-Laurent clashing with Quebec womens groups over the provinces failure to grant the franchise. The austere lawyer was as querulous as ever in the face of the earnest advocates of womens enfran­ chisement. He based his argument on the right of the province (and therefore the current electorate) to decide the question of voting rights.40 As was so often the case, St-Laurent was a strong cross-examiner. While Rowell played host to the commission in Toronto, both Sirois and St-Laurent undertook these duties in Quebec City. A luncheon hosted by the lieutenant-governor was held during the first day of hearings. The engagement was followed by a cocktail party in the Quebec Speakers Chambers. There, the commissioners were handed an invitation to join Premier Duplessis for dinner at the Chateau Frontenac. Not to be outdone by Hepburn, the occasion proved to be an even more rowdy affair. Only this time, there was none of the senti­ mentality of the Toronto soirée and the evening ended on a particularly sour note! “The dinner was called for eight and the guests were punctual,” MacKay reported, “but the Premier let them wait for some time before he received them, and when he did so he was drunk. His remarks at dinner were most provocative, and much of the abuse he poured forth was directed at Dafoe, who seemed to symbolize all that Duplessis found wrong with Confederation.”41 After “considerable welkin-ringing,” the Quebec premier began to embarrass his guests with “a good deal of vulgar banter.” MacKay recorded that Duplessis had arrived “late and drunk” and that he was “thoroughly insulting” to every­ one, including his own cabinet ministers, the commissioners, and even the chief justice of Quebec. Unlike Hepburn, MacKay noted that Duplessis “wasn’t even funny”42Rather than ending with communal songs, revelry, and alcohol-induced bonding, the night concluded, in the recollection of commission-staffer Donald Creighton, with “Duplessis hurling champagne glasses at the chandeliers with such accuracy that the restaurant was soon in semi-darkness and the floor and tables littered with broken glass.” It was an unsettling evening. John Dafoes report on the evening glossed over the seamier aspects that preoccupied MacKay’s. He pointed out that Duplessis “is really a French counterpart of Hepburn & like him a far from negligible person.”43 Over the ensuing weekend, Sirois and St-Laurent guided their colleagues through some of the great sites of Quebec City. St-Laurent took his colleagues on a visit to the Plains of Abraham.

144

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

He later hosted the avid golfers Angus and MacKay for a round at the Mont­ morency Club followed by a dinner for all the commission staff.44 With the provincial hearings complete, the commissioners worked through the evidence in the fall of 1938 and began writing the report in the early months of 1939. While legal counsel was prepared to offer advice on emerging questions, neither St-Laurent nor Stewart were involved in the writing. By early June, the commissioners had the outlines of a report. They were wrestling with their central recommendations, or what Dafoe referred to as the “crux of the whole show.” Dafoe was excited by the innovative ideas being put forward. The plan, he observed, “which at first struck me as too good to be true ... seems to be standing pretty well to pounding.” It was so innovative that it “may take the country’s breath away at first.”45 The plan, devised by Skelton and Angus, called for a shift in the very nature of the dominion contributions for social services away from “conditional” grants (the contemporary norm in such federations as the United States and Australia) and back towards “unconditional grants” that had been in effect at the time of Confederation, albeit in very small amounts. But in order to finance this provi­ sion of grants without strings, on a much grander scale than the old 1867 for­ mula, the plan relied on the transfer of all direct taxes, income, corporate, and estate taxes to the dominion. This means of funding would signal a major change of practice though not of assigned powers. There were other notable aspects of this fiscal plan, including debt relief for the provinces and mechanisms to control future debt, but the central aspect was the transformation of the fiscal basis of the Canadian government.46 What worried Robert MacKay, and undoubtedly the other commissioners, was the recurring concern as to “how far Sirois will go with us on finances.” Both Dafoe and MacKay knew that it would take Sirois some time to digest the proposal before he would reach a conclusion. While Dafoe was confident that Sirois would come around, he admitted that the Quebecer seemed to be in “some mental distress.”47 The central issue involved the fiscal relationship between the dominion and the provinces, including the unemployment problem, taxation, and federal transfers. The issues were significant, so much so that the two coun­ sels were called to Ottawa in order to offer advice. Specifically, they were brought in to help persuade the cautious Sirois to accept “emotionally” what he had already agreed to “rationally.” Sirois wavered to the extent that he prepared a thirty-four-page memo dissenting from what he perceived to be the centralizing thrust of the fiscal plan.48 The meetings with St-Laurent and Stewart held on 12-13 June 1939 were crucial to the overall success of the Rowell-Sirois Commission. The two legal

Thinking Confederation

145

advisors had read over the drafts of the report and it seems likely they reviewed Siroiss memo. They concluded that the fiscal plan was constitutionally and politically acceptable. St-Laurent was more expansive in his comments than Stewart and more authoritative in tone. St-Laurent warned that the draft of the introduction “was misleading and unnecessarily provocative.” He advised that “rather than suggest the recommendations would require sacrifices, it should stress the economic shift which has taken place from self-sufficiency to inter­ dependence, and the necessity of recognizing [that] .”49 On the crucial matter of the fiscal plan and its central recommendation for a transfer of direct taxes and corporate taxes to the dom inion in return for large and needs-based uncon­ ditional grants to the provinces, St-Laurent “saw no objection.” He favoured the federal take-over of taxation jurisdictions and did not share Sirois’s concerns over Quebec losing access to estate taxes. St-Laurent agreed that debt refunding for provinces and municipalities should be highlighted while any appearance of federal control over future provincial borrowing should be avoided.50Notably, St-Laurent gave his approval that the plan did not in anyway represent an attack on provincial autonomy. W hen asked specifically about the plan’s acceptability to the government of Quebec, he replied that he did not know. If the plan were represented as an attack on Quebec’s “autonomy and ideals, it would be rejected.” Regardless of how Duplessis would react, in St-Laurent’s view the plan in itself “was not open to that criticism.” The astute lawyer did note that Quebec would not appreciate having to “plead fiscal need before an outside body,” such as a grants commission. This m inor observation was an implicit criticism of one of the main institutional changes the commission had been considering and one that would fade over time. St-Laurent also warned against any declarations of “fundamental rights,” as were being ambitiously bantered about by Dafoe, Angus, and MacKay. Again, the consideration of such a declaration diminished over the following months.51 The consultations that took place on that June weekend with St-Laurent and Stewart were a critical litmus test for the Rowell-Sirois Commission.52 Above all, the counsellors reassured the commissioners about the acceptability and indeed the viability of the main fiscal plan, particularly to Quebec. They helped produce general agreement by bringing Sirois into line with the others. Sirois pondered the issues for several days but eventually rallied to the majority point of view. “Sirois is rather cross with me,” St-Laurent noted, “but he’ll get over it because the decision is right.”53Dafoe, who had worried over potential divisions in a harmonious group of commissioners, expressed relief that “we are now an undivided family again.”54With the central plan accepted, drafts of Books I and 2 were near completion by the beginning of summer in 1939, although it would

146

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

take nearly a year to complete the rewriting.55 An election in Quebec in the autumn and a Liberal victory removed Duplessis as an obstacle to the commis­ sion’s progress. But the meetings also effectively ended St-Laurent’s role with the Rowell-Sirois Commission. The two legal counsellors had no hand in out­ lining or drafting the report itself. The Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations was distributed to the provincial governments on 11 May 1940. By this time, the Second World War had dominated headlines and governments for nine months. Its impact on the commission was inevitable and unfortunate. The issue of a dominion-provincial conference to consider the report was debated throughout the autumn of 1940 and finally held in January of 1941. The confer­ ence to discuss the Rowell-Sirois Report failed due not only to the provincial obstructionism of what were deemed “the Three Wreckers” (Premier Hepburn of Ontario, Prem ier Aberhart of Alberta, and Prem ier Pattullo of British Columbia) but also to the King governments intention to unilaterally invade the provincial tax fields (personal and corporate income taxes and succession duties) as a temporary wartime measure. The move effectively took the place of the commissions recommendations, even though they took federalism in a very different direction. When Ernest Lapointe died suddenly in November 1941, St-Laurent was convinced to take up the mantle, and he entered the King cabinet as minister of justice. Early in 1943, when confidence increased about an eventual Allied victory, the federal governments emphasis shifted from wartime planning to postwar reconstruction, including plans for social security. With the Rowell-Sirois Report scuttled, a piecemeal approach was taken. Health care insurance, family allow­ ances, and comprehensive veterans’ benefits became central to Ottawa’s social policy agenda in 1944-45.56 The civil servants who had thrown their weight fully behind Rowell-Sirois were finding that they could now achieve their aims of centralization in taxation without the National Adjustment Grant scheme recommended in the report. The problem was that the tax rental agreements were a temporary fix and intended as a war measure. As a result, Rowell-Sirois was back on the agenda at another dominion-provincial gathering held at the war’s end in 1945. Ottawa’s proposals for reconstruction presented at the August 1945 Dominion-Provincial Conference became known as “the Green Book.” They included a health insurance scheme and changes to the unemployment and old age pension plans. But the social programs were linked to the tax and fiscal arrangements being worked out with the provinces. In return, federal officials proposed that the provinces should forgo the imposition of personal income

Thinking Confederation

147

taxes, corporation taxes, and succession duties, leaving to Ottawa the full and exclusive access to these revenue sources. Ottawa proposed to pay each prov­ incial government twelve dollars per capita annually, increased or decreased in proportion to the value of gross national production per capita as compared with that of 1941. This proposed annual payment would, however, be subject to an irreducible minimum equal to twelve dollars per capita of the 1941 popu­ lation. The federal government wanted to avoid seeking an am endment to the BNA Act in order to introduce these tax changes so provincial governments would have the right to withdraw from the arrangement at any time. However, it was suggested that the provincial governments commit themselves to an initial trial period of three years. But again, the conference failed. An attempt was made to reconvene the conference in 1946 but that also collapsed. As P.E. Bryden put it, “Canada thus entered the post-war period without a blueprint for action. Instead of coordinated activity, ad hoc arrangements governed the sharing of tax fields and the responsibility for expensive social policies, and the uncoordinated statutory subsidies remained the only way in which provincial inequalities were balanced.”57 In any case, federal thinking was increasingly dominated by the full-employment and counter-cyclical fiscal policy project of Keynesianism, epitomized by the 1945 White Paper on Employment and Income. Growth rather than redistribution, and a robust market economy rather than a remaking of the federal relationship, became the basis of national policy.58 Federal politicians and civil servants feared an economic recession at wars end. Indeed, the majority of their economic planning for some time was based on this assumption. Instead, Canada entered a period of economic boom, and it soon dawned on federal officials that the growth was sustainable. The prosperity of the postwar era pushed the Rowell-Sirois Report further into the policy background. The criticism was raised that Rowell-Sirois had been shaped by the Depression: it was established to deal with the economic crisis; it used Depression-era statistics to determine who would qualify for the National Adjustment Grants; and its recommendations were based upon the assumption of the continuation of Depression conditions. But the Second World War abruptly ended the crisis and the wars end ushered in prosperity.59 The civil servants wanted not only to take over provincial tax realms but also to avoid the difficulties surrounding constitutional amendments. Increasingly, they came to view Rowell-Sirois as “impractical” and “unrealistic.” Robert Bryce in the Departm ent of Finance claimed “that the Sirois proposals involved too great a transfer of constitutional power to be acceptable to provincial govern­ ments, and that a continuing solution to the problem of the use of taxing powers should be sought without constitutional change by applying the principles of

148

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

the wartime agreements.”60 The more powerful provinces would never tolerate a federal commission deciding on the amounts of adjustment grants. The governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia, meanwhile, were not giving up on Rowell-Sirois. Regardless, they did not believe that con­ stitutional amendments were necessary to implement the recommendations. Winnipeg Free Press reporter Grant Dexter argued vehemently that a crucial point was being lost in the discussion: “Rowell-Sirois attempted to create condi­ tions of social equality among the provinces; citizens would receive a minimum level of social services no matter in which province they resided. The tax-rental agreements, on the other hand, offered increases based on the national income which mitigates the thing somewhat but doesn’t touch the basic point that the provinces are unequal.”61 Bitter negotiations over the tax rental agreements marred dom inion-provincial relations in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War. Federal officials now “rejected” Rowell-Sirois. Fiscal need grants were undesirable, they argued, due to the “difficulties of devising a satisfactory ‘fiscal need’ formula and the wrangling that would u n ­ questionably ensue every year over its application.”62 Prime Minister Mackenzie King was not comfortable with the direction dominion-provincial relations were taking. He became increasingly critical of the civil servants he believed were wielding too much influence and pushing their centralist agenda. But King was at the end of his career, and a new genera­ tion of politicians and civil servants increasingly directed policy.63 This new generation included Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent, who won the Liberal leadership in 1948 and the federal election in 1949. The tax rental agreements were due to expire in 1957, but the complexities of fiscal issues ensured that the two levels of government were in a constant state of negotiation. An increasingly influential member of this new governmental generation, Jack Pickersgill, argued that the direction effectively absorbed the spirit of Rowell-Sirois: “Instead of returning to the Rowell-Sirois plan,” Pickersgill commented, “the Liberal gov­ ernment combined the principle of tax rental of the wartime agreement with the Rowell-Sirois concept of fiscal need in a new plan for payments from the federal treasury.”64 The old supporters of Rowell-Sirois, including Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia, scoffed at the assertion and claimed that the tax rental formula resulted in “an unequal standard of social services for the different provinces.”65 In preparation for the Dominion-Provincial Conference of 4 December 1950, the civil servants who had once championed Rowell-Sirois now put for­ ward their own interpretation of events, which would come to dominate the historical narrative. Clifford Clark and Bob Bryce admitted that the tax rental

Thinking Confederation

149

agreements did not attempt to achieve a m inimum level of social conditions across the provinces but that they were still “undoubtedly the offspring of Rowell-Sirois.” Poor timing had shelved the commission’s recommendations. It was now apparent that the recommendations were based on Depression conditions that no longer existed. The wealthier provinces had balked at the notion of a federal finance commission doling out the grant amounts in 1941. They would not agree now that the Depression was over. In an attempt to avoid the charge of inconsistency, the finance departm ent claimed that Canadian federalism was indeed following the course charted by Rowell-Sirois. Officials argued that the report was “in itself a form of tax rental agreement.” The prov­ inces agreed to vacate their most important direct tax fields in return for adjust­ m ent grants, debt relief, and reduced relief expenditures. The report, they claimed, had “already been partially implemented by the 1941 and 1947 tax agreements.” As a result, “whatever may have been the merits of the recom­ mendations of the Rowell-Sirois Commission in the context of 1939, they are, in many respects, no longer relevant.”66 In his opening remarks at the 1950 Conference on Dominion-Provincial Relations, Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent noted that in 1945 the federal gov­ ernment had laid before the premiers “a comprehensive, integrated series of proposals.” Canada, however, was now faced with “an entirely new perspective.” It seemed more profitable, St-Laurent proposed, to “proceed step by step, dis­ cussing the more urgent problems first and endeavouring to work out suitable understandings and arrangements as we go along.” The prime minister suggested that the tax rental agreements be renewed for a further five-year period and that the guaranteed m inim um revenues of provinces be increased by some 50 percent to correspond to the increase in the nations production and population since the war.67 But the dominion-provincial fiscal framework could not continue on an ad hoc basis. A new framework had to be put forward. By 1955, the St-Laurent government moved towards “equalization” as this new framework.68 “A distin­ guished royal commission, headed by Mr. Rowell and afterwards Mr. Sirois, recommended certain changes in our constitution, which were found impos­ sible to accept,” St-Laurent announced. “We now seek some solutions that do not invalue basic changes in our relations between governments.”69The central idea was that Ottawa would levy personal and corporation income taxes and estate duties but would remit to the provinces the proceeds of certain levels of these taxes. These proceeds were not the actual yield of the taxes. Instead, their average yield, per capita of population, would be calculated for the two richest provinces (Ontario and British Columbia), and remittances to the other

ISO

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

provinces would be made up to the same level. This “equalization” was a way of ensuring “that all provinces could afford roughly comparable levels of public services without the poorer provinces having to handicap themselves further by imposing substantially higher levels of taxation or income wealth that the richer provinces needed.”70It was decided to separate the subsidy or fiscal need element of the tax rental agreements from the estimated yield of the taxes rented.71 St-Laurent realized the scheme would be attractive because it offered more money to the provinces than they would receive under the tax rental agreements. The problem, however, was that the principles of provincial auton­ omy, not to mention the national vision, were once again obscured by short­ term financial gain. The scheme ignored “the fiscal need principle.”72 Louis St-Laurent was not one of the main players in the history of the Rowell-Sirois Commission. But, as legal counsel, he played a crucial role at a critical time in representing Quebec and convincing Joseph Sirois about the merits of the recommendations, most importantly the “fiscal need principle” that was its m ost im portant single argument. St-Laurents views changed throughout his career as a constitutional lawyer, but his work with the Royal Commission convinced him that the Great Depression pushed the Canadian federation into crisis. It impressed upon him the deep regional tensions that threatened Confederation outside Quebec. The experience introduced him to innovative solutions to deal with the crisis. While St-Laurent helped create the interpretation that the tax rental agreements and then the equalization system were extensions and products of Rowell-Sirois, the lessons of the commission for federalism were not lost in his path towards cooperative rather than central­ ized federalism.

Notes 1 Memo, Skelton to King, 20 April 1937, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Mackenzie King Papers, series J-l, vol. 243. This arresting memorandum is cited in H.B. Neatby, Mackenzie King: The Prism of Unity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 187, and Norman Hillmer, O.D. Skelton: A Portrait o f Canadian Ambition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 276. 2 Canada PC 1908,14 August 1937. The order is reprinted in full in Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, Report, Book I: Canada 1867-1939 (Ottawa, 1940,1954), “Terms of Reference,” 9-11. 3 The others were Montreal banker Beaudry Leman, Université de Montreal economist Édouard Montpetit, banker and financier Aimé Geoffrion, and McGill University law professor Frank Scott. 4 See “nominations aux postes de la commission,” LAC, Ernest Lapointe Papers, MG 27 III, B10, vol. 16, file 39.

Thinking Confederation

151

5 Margaret Prang, N. W. Rowell: Ontario Nationalist (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 490. 6 Skelton to St-Laurent, 22 April 1938, LAC, Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (hereafter RCDPR), commission correspondence, vol. 3, file 4. 7 Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 67-71. 8 The episode is examined in detail by Shirley Tillotson, Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), 70-73. She notes that the Judicial Committee was more sympathetic to the provincial position; it explained that there might be circumstances in which federal taxation was aimed at intruding into prov­ incial areas of spending but that merely taxing income was not an intrusion. 9 Prang, N. W. Rowell, 485-86; John T. Saywell, The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping o f Canadian Federalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 205-18. 10 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 72-75. 11 St-Laurent, “Presidential Address,” Canadian Bar Review 9, 8 ( 1931): 525. 12 Ibid., 526-29. 13 Ibid., 529-34, at 533 and 534. 14 Ibid., 534-37, at 537. 15 On the dominant tenor of centralizing constitutional thought in the 1920s and 1930s, see R.C.B. Risk, “The Scholars and the Constitution,” Manitoba Law Review 23 (1996): 496-523. 16 Rowells remarks are cited in Prang, N.W. Rowell, 490-91. The original remarks are found in Rowell to King, 28 October 1938, LAC, Mackenzie King Papers, C3729. Dafoes views are noted in Rowell to Lapointe, 29 October 1937, LAC, Ernest Lapointe Papers, MG 27 III B10, vol. 16, file 39. 17 Morin to King, 3 November 1937, LAC, Mackenzie King Papers, C3728; Rowell to Dafoe, 12 November 1937, LAC, Rowell Papers, vol. 89, C938. See also Rowell to Lapointe, 29 October 1937, LAC, Ernest Lapointe Papers, MG 27 III B10, vol. 16, file 39; 2 November 1937, 4 November 1937, LAC, Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King (https://www. bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics-government/prime-ministers/william-lyon-mackenzie -king/Pages/search.aspx); Commission Minute Book, 6-7 October 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 7; Rowell to Lapointe, 29 October 1937, LAC, Ernest Lapointe Papers, vol. 16, file 39; Rowell to MacKay, 5 November 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 8, “Rowell” file. 18 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 94-97; and Sylvio Normand, “Joseph Sirois,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16. The official appointment was by Order-in-Council PC 2880, 18 November 1937; Rowell to Dafoe, 19 and 23 November 1937, LAC, Rowell Papers, C938. 19 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 94-97; Barry Cahill, The Thousandth Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 121; MacKay to Rowell and Rowell to MacKay, 12November 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 8; Commission Minute Book, 27 November 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 7. 20 MacKay to Rowell and Rowell to MacKay, 12 November 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 8; Commission Minute Book, 27 November 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 7. On the work of the two counsels, see Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 94-97; and Cahill, Thousandth Man, 121-23. 21 Government of Manitoba, Manitoba’s Case, A Submission Presented to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, Part 2 (Winnipeg: Queens Printer, 1937), 12,43,40-41, 42-43.

152

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

22 RCDPR, Transcript o f Hearings, 29 November 1937, 11-12, and for details see Manitoba’s Case, Part 4, 15-17, 19-22, plus tables. 23 Manitoba's Case, Parts 3 and 7,85. See Winnipeg Free Press, “Commission Hears Dominion Monetary Policy Criticized,” 30 November 1937, 1; Winnipeg Free Press, “Farm Slump Blamed,” 1 December 1937, 2. In general, see James A. Jackson, The Centennial History of Manitoba (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970), 231. 24 Manitoba’s Case, Parts 6 and 7, “Municipal/School Finance and the ‘Treasury Burdens.’” See the summary in Richard Simeon and Ian Robinson, Society and the Development o f Canadian Federalism, vol. 71 of Macdonald Royal Commission Research Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 84-85. 25 J.B. McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” Winnipeg Free Press, 1 December 1937; RCDPR, Transcript o f Hearings, 30 November, quotation 120,122fF, esp. 162-63. 26 R.M. Fowler, “Precis of Hearings,” 30 November 1937, York University Archives, Robert M. Fowler Papers, Box 2,3; RCDPR, Transcript of Hearings, 30 November 1937,133-34. 27 McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” 1 December 1937; RCDPR, Transcript o f Hearings 30 November 1937,162ff, 196E-F. 28 Robert to Kathleen, 30 November, 4 and 5 December 1937, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol 10; Newton to Nell, 27 November 1937, LAC, Rowell Papers, vol. 89; Government of Saskatchewan, Submission by the Government o f Saskatchewan (Regina: Queens Printer, 1937), pt. 2, 6-8, pt. 12, 330. 29 McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” 11 December 1937; Newton to Nell Rowell, 10 Decem­ ber 1937, LAC, Rowell Papers, vol. 89; Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 94-97. 30 R.M. Fowler, “Summary of Hearings,” Winnipeg, 1 December 1937, York University Archives, Robert M. Fowler Papers, 4-5, quotations 5. 31 Hepburn Papers, 14 February 1938, Archives of Ontario, RG 1-13; John T. Saywell, “fust Call Me Mitch”: The Life o f Mitchell F. Hepburn (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 377-78. 32 McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” 3 and 4 May 1938; Fowler, “Summary of Hearings,” 5 May 1938. 33 “Text of Ontario Submission,” Globe and Mail, 4 May 1938,8. See also Neil McKenty, Mitch Hepburn (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), 161. Also quoted in Christopher Armstrong, The Politics o f Federalism: Ontario’s Relations with the Federal Government, 1867-1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 212. 34 Robert MacKay to Katherine MacKay, 8 May 1938, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10; Saywell, Just Call Me Mitch, 382-84; McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” 8 May 1938. 35 Robert to Kathleen, 8 May 1938,15 May 1938, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10. MacKay s 15 May letter is cited at length in Saywell, Just Call Me Mitch, 383; Prang, N. W. Rowell, 495-96; Christopher Armstrong, The Politics of Federalism: Ontario’s Relations with the Federal Government, 1867-1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 216. 36 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 97-98. 37 “Statement by the Province of Quebec,” LAC, RCDPR briefs, brief no. 341A. See also McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” 11 May 1938; Fowler, “Summary of Hearings,” 12 May 1938. 38 Transcript of Hearings, 12 May 1938, 8209-20ff, 8241. 39 Transcript of Hearings, 13 May 1938, 8259ff, 8282-85, and 8286-92. 40 McGeachy, “Confederation Clinic,” 15 May 1938; Transcript o f Hearings, 13 May 1938,8318 and 14 May 1938, 8381-83 and 8386-87; Fowler, “Summary of Hearings,” 13 May 1938.

Thinking Confederation

153

41 Murray Donnelly, Dafoe o f the Free Press (Toronto: Macmillan, 1968), 173-74, a depiction originating from MacKay in Robert to Kathleen, 15 May 1938, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol 10. And see Jack to Alice, 13 May 1938 and 15 May 1938, University of Manitoba Archives (hereafter UMA), Dafoe Papers, 22/1. 42 Robert to Kathleen, 15 May 1938, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10. 43 Donald Creighton, Canadas First Century (Toronto: Macmillan, 1970), 232; Dafoe to Alice Dafoe, 13 May 1938, UMA, Dafoe Papers. 44 Dafoe to Alice Dafoe, 15 May 1938, UMA, Dafoe Papers, box 1; Robert to Kathleen, 15 May 1938, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10. 45 “Autobiography” LAC, Angus Papers, 267, 269; Dafoe to G.V. Ferguson, 8 May 1939, 17 May 1939,19 May 1939, UMA, Dafoe Papers, vol. 2; Bert to Kay, 9 May 1939,14 May 1939, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10. 46 The fiscal plan, which was called “Plan One,” was unveiled in the report: Canada, Report o f the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1940), Book 11,81-86. 47 Bert to Kay, 9 May 1939, 14 May 1939, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10; “Autobiography,” LAC, Angus Papers, 267,269; Dafoe to G.V. Ferguson, 8 May 1939,17 May 1939,19 May 1939, UMA, Dafoe Papers, vol. 2. 48 Bert to Kay, 8 June 1939, n.d. [likely 10] June 1939, MacKay to Fowler, 2 August 1963, Fowler to MacKay, 6 August 1963, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 10. See also Dafoe to Ferguson, 14 June 1939, UMA, Dafoe Papers, vol. 2; “Autobiography,” LAC, Angus Papers, 282-83. 49 Commission Minute Book, 12 and 13 June 1939, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 7. 50 Commission Minute Book, 12 and 13 June 1939, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 7. 51 Ibid. 52 See “Précis of Studies,” 17 and 18 November 1938, UMA, Dafoe Papers, vol. 14. 53 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 101-2. 54 Commission Minute Book, 12 and 13 June 1939, LAC, MacKay Papers, vol. 7; “Auto­ biography,” LAC, Angus Papers, 282; Dafoe to Ferguson, 14 June 1939, UMA, Dafoe Papers, vol. 2. 55 Eggleston, While I Still Remember, 248-50; Wilfrid Eggleston mise, diary entries, May-June 1939, LAC, Eggleston Papers; “Autobiography,” LAC, Angus Papers, 282ff; J.A. Corry, My Life and Work: A Happy Partnership - Mémoires o f J.A. Corry (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University, 1983), 106-7. 56 See Raymond Blake, From Rights to Needs: A History o f Family Allowances in Canada, 1929-92 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009); Peter Neary, On to Civvy Street: Canada’s Rehabilitation Program for Veterans o f the Second World War (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011); and Fleather MacDougall, “Into Thin Air: Making National Health Policy, 1939-45,” in Making Medicare: New Perspectives on the History of Medicare in Canada, ed. Gregory P. Marchildon (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 41-69. 57 P.E. Bryden, “The Obligations of Federalism: Ontario and the Origins of Equalization,” in Framing Canadian Federalism, ed. Dimitry Anastakis and P.E. Bryden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 75-79. See also Garson to C.S. Walter, 14 April 1943, Manitoba Archives, Garson Papers, P-2356, file 3. 58 The White Paper was written in April 1945 by W.A. Mackintosh; its impact has long been emphasized. For recent overviews, see Hugh Grant, W.A. Mackintosh: The Life o f a Canadian Economist (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 268-98, especially 285-88;

154

Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

and Robert A. Wardhaugh, Behind the Scenes: The Life and Work o f William Clifford Clark (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 248-53 and 261-65, on Clarks reasons for supporting full employment and family allowances. The White Paper is easily accessible online at http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/. Garson to Sandy Skelton, 11 February 1942, Skelton to Garson, 26 February 1942, Archives of Manitoba, John Bracken Papers, GR 119. Bryce, “William Clifford Clark, 1889-1952,” 421. Grant Dexter, “Memo to George [Ferguson] and Brucie [Hutchison],” 26 September 1945, Queens University Archives, Grant Dexter Papers. Alex Skelton, “Dominion-Provincial Conference Co-ordinating Committee Meeting,” 25 April 1946, LAC, RG 19, vol. 537. Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, LAC, 31 January 1946. Jack Pickersgill, The Liberal Party (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1962), 122. Memorandum on review of dominion-provincial financial arrangements, 20 October 1950, LAC, Dept, of Finance, RG 19, vol. 3440. Memorandum on federal-provincial financial relations, 4 August 1950, LAC, Dept, of Finance, RG 19, vol. 3440. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 302. As quoted in Bryden, “Obligations of Federalism,” 81. Louis St-Laurent, Proceedings o f the Federal-Provincial Conference 1955, 3 October 1955. Tom Kent, A Public Purpose: An Experience of Liberal Opposition and Canadian Government (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1988), 12-13. Robert B. Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times: Canada’s Department o f Finance through the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1986), 269. As quoted in Bryden, “Obligations of Federalism,” 81.

Thinking Confederation

155

The Liminality of St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy P.E. BRYDEN

Each of Canadas prime ministers has come to Ottawa with his or her own par­ ticular set of strengths, whether as a champion of the underdog, like John Diefenbaker, or a labour negotiator, like Brian Mulroney, or as a social-media savvy cheerleader like Justin Trudeau. W hen Louis St-Laurent arrived in Ottawa as the newly appointed m inister of justice, he brought no political experience and even less ambition. Instead, he delivered a sterling reputation, a deep sense of responsibility, and a fine legal mind. The law would be St-Laurents territory: dropped into Lapointe’s now-empty chair as m inister of justice, St-Laurent would “command confidence throughout Canada in that post,” satisfy both the “judiciary and the Bar,” and solve the prime m inister’s dilemma of having to shift current cabinet ministers around.1 As newspaper reports commented at the time, “if ever there was a case of a job seeking the man, this is it.”2 First in King’s cabinet, and then as prime m inister himself, St-Laurent’s judicial experience led him naturally into negotiations over intergovernmental responsibility. The debates over jurisdiction, the questions revolving around powers and taxes and shared programs seemed natural spaces for St-Laurent’s pre-Ottawa experience to shine most brightly. As this chapter shows, while his abilities and knowledge lured him into the m uddy and contested inter­ governmental battlefields, the results were more transitional than they were determinative. Rather than clearly marking a particular approach to intergovern­ mental relations, St-Laurent instead made possible an important postwar re­ orientation. On the one hand, he represented a clear and welcome break from the intergovernmental approach of his predecessor, characterized as it was by

the heavy-handed centralization deemed necessary by war. On the other, how­ ever, he foreshadowed the great intergovernmental debates of Canadas second century, when cooperative federalism secured social policy gains and constitu­ tional brinksmanship marked negotiations over the intergovernmental guide­ lines. His prime ministership was thus an important liminal moment between the great push of centralization during the war years and the arrival of mega­ constitutional politics and the powerful decentralizing impulses of the 1960s. St-Laurent resembled neither King nor Trudeau in his approach to intergovern­ mental relations. He marked a firm break from the former’s approach and made possible the latter’s.

St-Laurent came to politics through the law, like many of his colleagues in Ottawa and in provincial capitals. Unlike others, however, law was not a hurdle that had to be cleared in order to achieve a political ambition but, rather, a path that led, in his case unexpectedly and belatedly, to Parliament. In particular, it was his legal handling of intergovernmental issues that landed him in cabinet. Having remained politically neutral for the first five decades of his life - at least insofar as his public actions attested - his reputation in the courtroom brought him to the attention of the Ottawa elite. Conservative prim e minister R.B. Bennett’s belated response to the Depression, a collection of legislative proposals designed to enable Keynesian social and economic interventions on the part of the federal government, was one of the first items on the agenda when the Liberals returned to power in October 1935. To continue with the Bennett “New Deal,” as the legislation was collectively known, would surely b eta admit Liberal shortcomings; to eliminate it would be another demonstration of Liberal stasis in the face of economic calamity. Clearly, the only solution was to refer the whole collection to the Supreme Court to obtain a legal opinion on whether the legislation was even constitutional or whether it fell outside the jurisdiction of the federal government. In deciding on this course of action, Mackenzie King’s government was not only “shifting the burden of responsibility for the disposition of the New Deal, at least temporarily, from itself to the judiciary” but also potentially curtailing its future constitutional manoeuvrability.3 There were suspicions at the time that King was simply trying to get out of implementing the legislation: his government was accused of telegraphing that sentiment to the court by phrasing the review question in the negative - “is this Act ultra vires the federal govern­ ment?” - rather than the other way around. The appointment of federal counsel was thus imperative if the King government was to maintain the appearance of

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

157

legitimacy. The selection of St-Laurent, along with co-counsel Newton Rowell, would surely “satisfy Canadian public opinion and is a guarantee that the best argument possible will be presented to the Court,”4 promised Ernest Lapointe, the minister of justice. At the Supreme Court in 1936 and then again the following year at the Judicial Committee, St-Laurent was clearly the junior partner on the constitu­ tional file. His defence of the constitutionality of the Employment and Social Insurance Act, which contained key elements of Bennetts interventionist pro­ posals (and, incidentally, key elements of what would become the Canadian social welfare state in the postwar years), was shaky. Arguing first that the legis­ lation should be upheld under the national dimensions doctrine created by the privy councillors in the Watson court, a somewhat questionable reading of the limited circumstances under which federal authority could be used, he was im­ mediately attacked by the justices of the Canadian court. Did St-Laurent not realize the difference between the “national dimension” argument and the “emergency power” argument, asked the chief justice? Apparently not. A “flail­ ing St-Laurent” was thrown a lifeline as his argument careened in a different direction - towards federal tax power. It became central to the argument he presented to the law lords in London.5 In both courts, though, he came out on the losing side of the argument. Regardless of the quality of the defence, however, there is little doubt that the federal government was hoping to lose. King had been critical of the legis­ lation on the campaign trail, and the Liberal Party had come to the conclusion that it was beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government to legislate; when first the Supreme Court and then the Judicial Committee confirmed this con­ clusion, the prime minister was not surprised.6 But if St-Laurent and Rowell had been used as covers for the federal resistance to legislating in ever-expanding areas, they both earned their rewards for their services. The same year that the Judicial Committee ruled most of the New Deal legislation ultra vires the federal government, King appointed a royal commission to investigate the workings of Canadian federalism, naming Rowell chair and appointing St-Laurent counsel to the commission. The combination of presenting, and losing, a case for the extension of fed­ eral power in the New Deal cases, and subsequently serving on what would become known as the Rowell-Sirois Commission, was to have a lasting effect on St-Laurent’s view of intergovernmental relations in Canada. If the court proceedings had convinced him of the constitutional constrictions that had grown around the federal governm ents manoeuvrability, the royal commis­ sion hearings led him to support a shift towards centralization of power. The

158

P.E. Bryden

exigencies of war created a num ber of spaces in which the federal govern­ ment could expand its de facto jurisdiction, as it did with the Wartime Tax Rental Agreements, and its constitutional authority, as it did through am end­ ment in introducing unemployment insurance in 1941. But St-Laurent had become convinced that another roadblock to federal action needed to be re­ moved, and that was the JCPC as the final arbiter of Canadian appeals. In this he was far from alone: the decisions on the New Deal cases, and in particular the implication of jurisdictional immobility in the conclusion that the BNA Act still “retain [ed] its watertight compartments,” had raised the ire of many in both the legal community and elected politics.7 The process to end appeals to the JCPC began with a Conservative motion in the House of Commons in the spring of 1938, a year after the disastrous New Deal decisions. “For all practical purposes,” Charles Cahan intoned, the sovereignty of Canada in civil and constitutional matters now resides in the judicial committee. Its members assume a final veto power over all the important legislation of this parliament. They arrogate to themselves the right to weigh the motives of members of this parliament in enacting such legisla­ tion, and although personally ignorant, except through meagre press reports, of the social, industrial and commercial conditions prevailing throughout this dominion, they arrogate to themselves a prescience and clairvoyance which entitles them to substitute their political judgments, and even their personal preferences, for the deliberate legislative enactments of the elected represent­ atives of the people who sit in the parliament of Canada.8

Even the Liberals were in general agreement with the sentiment; after a further period of study, the question of the constitutionality of ending appeals was finally submitted to the Supreme Court in early 1940. By the time the case was finally - ironically - appealed to the JCPC, St-Laurent was firm in his conviction that Canada needed a greater degree of constitutional autonomy as well as protection for the evolving centralization that had been achieved during wartime. He was also, by that time, the somewhat unlikely replacement for Ernest Lapointe, both in the office of minister of justice and as confidante of the prime minister. The British law lords had expressed concern about ending appeals from the dominions since the subject was first broached by Cahan in the House of Commons; indeed, the lord chancellor had even approached Minister of Jus­ tice St-Laurent about the possibility of creating a branch bench in Canada from which the privy councillors could hear Canadian cases at closer proximity.

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

159

St-Laurent was unmoved. If such a proposal was formally made to the govern­ ment of Canada, he wrote, at the same time that the JCPC was considering the validity of abolishing appeals, it would “give the impression that it was a last minute effort by the UK to retain some sort of superior right.”9 W hen the JCPC did hear the appeal in the fall of 1946, it sided with the Supreme C ourt and agreed that the Statute of Westminster had altered the context for Canadian lawmaking. It was “a prime element in the self-government of the Dominion that it should be able to secure through its own courts of justice that the law should be one and the same for all its citizens.”10 But if the JCPC had cleared the way for the abolition of Canadian appeals, an amendment to the Supreme Court Act was still required, and, as was the case with so many other policy decisions, Prime Minister Mackenzie King was reluctant to act. It was more than a year after the Judicial Committee decision that cabinet even discussed the issue of moving forward, debating the degree to which it should eliminate appeals. Should all appeals be abolished? Should constitutional issues be reserved for a JCPC decision? According to King, “St-Laurent himself,” by this time out of the justice portfolio and serving as minister of external affairs, “held the wiser view of reserving constitutional questions by the government.” In this view, he stood alone among the Quebec ministers, who otherwise favoured absolute abolition. Taking a different tack entirely, King raised the issue of electoral implications. Just what will we be doing if we make it possible for Duplessis, Drew and Macdonald or Gibson together on another question, as an illustration of how the Liberal Govt at Ottawa is trying to get everything in its own hands here; take away fairplay from the provinces and concentrate it to a Court in Ottawa under their influence. I said you are only giving them one more chance to play us on that idea of centralization of control, etc.

It was best, he thought, to leave the whole matter to the Liberal convention in the summer, when the decision to abolish appeals could be undertaken by “Liberals throughout the country.” And, not incidentally, be tasked to Kings chosen successor, Louis St-Laurent.11 And so it was that the man who had forged a successful career in the law before agreeing to serve in an Ottawa preoccupied with the crisis of war found himself, less than a decade later, the prim e minister of a nation with several open constitutional issues and a cantankerous group of provincial premiers spread across the country. In the field of foreign affairs, the practitioners looked forward to more dynamic leadership under St-Laurent than had been the norm

160

P.E. Bryden

under King; there were similar expectations in intergovernmental affairs. His own views on the latter had been established on the battlefield, as it were; in both courtroom and commission hearing, St-Laurent had come to the con­ clusion that a strong central government was necessary and that it required constitutional guarantees. And one way to secure this was through the elim­ ination of appeals to the Judicial Committee and the achievement of an in­ dependent judiciary. He had also seen, from the sidelines, the costs of inaction and circumspection, and, unlike his predecessor, was prepared to make some decisions. -fc Once in the Prime Minister’s Office, St-Laurent was able to establish his own strategies in intergovernmental relations, no longer tied to the caution of the King era.12Indeed, from the outset, St-Laurent was celebrated as different from his predecessor; perhaps not quite the anti-King, but certainly cut from very different cloth. The new prim e m inister moved quickly on constitutional issues, especially after winning his own mandate seven months after emerging victorious from the Liberal leadership convention of 1948. One of the first orders of business in the new Parliament was debate on the legislation that would end appeals to the JCPC. Despite concern from the Progressive Con­ servative benches that such a move needed more study, the Liberals pressed ahead with all the advantages their even larger majority gave them. It was, according to a sceptical Globe and Mail, “the shortest debate on such an im port­ ant issue in recent years.”13 The new legislation not only secured the Supreme Court as actually supreme but enlarged its size from seven to nine jurists. It was the calm and comforting “Uncle Louis” persona that had emerged during the election in the spring of 1949 who was able to reassure the House that he understood the “far-reaching implications involved in abolition of appeals.” He understood that it was “extremely im portant to have the right kind of court,” and he had come around to the position of the Canadian Bar Association that the decisions of the JCPC should five on in precedent, but he was not prepared to slow down the move to judicial independence.14 King might have moved cautiously, but Uncle Louis would be decisive. The legisla­ tion passed, received royal assent on 10 December, and came into force on 23 December 1949.15 Abolition of appeals was far from the only issue occupying the attention of the Ottawa elite following St-Laurent s election. Indeed, the whole constitu­ tional docket was open for reassessment. From St-Laurents perspective, this was a perfect opportunity to “recover the initiative,”16 especially in the face of

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

161

criticism that the abolition of appeals had meant that “the court of ultimate jurisdiction [was] now a creature of the Dominion Government.”17In fact, the prime minister mused, while the process of moving towards a domestic amend­ ing formula would “take a long time,” now was the time to begin it. To calm the uncertain, he assured everyone that it could be undertaken in stages. First, he proposed, specific amendments could be sought regarding the office of the lieutenant-governor and the right to amend the BNA Act legislatively in areas in which the federal government had sole jurisdiction. The latter could be done “without consulting the provinces,” after which time both levels of government could meet in conference to discuss amendments to ways in which social secur­ ity was shared between Ottawa and the provinces.18 In St-Laurent’s mind, it was all very straightforward: “we bring back to Canada the right to amend ...; we do not impinge in any way on the jurisdiction of the Provincial Legislatures ...; we leave it to the Courts to say whether or not anything we attempted to do would impinge on a right or privilege of a Province.”19 Perhaps in the sleepy days of summer following a massive electoral victory, it all did seem straightforward. St-Laurent would certainly not be the first prime m inister to leap into his initial session of Parliament with an optimistic view of the accomplishments possible, but on this particular file he brought more insider insight than his predecessor and perhaps than any other previous prime minister. He was expected to know what was possible. Not only was he a veteran of intergovernmental conferences, which was the case with most of those who had preceded him, but he also had vast experience in the ways of the courts. He was also, undoubtedly, optimistic at what was possible now that the Mackenzie King restraints had been eliminated. And he was, at the end of the day, wrong about almost everything. While it was true that in the late 1940s and 1950s virtually everything in the constitutional docket was open, it was definitely not true that accomplishing lasting solutions would be easy. Among the issues that were spread out before the St-Laurent government in the fall of 1949 were the possibility of agreement on a general amending formula for the British North America Act (which would pave the way towards bringing home - or patriating - the Constitution), the need to move forward towards intergovernmental agreement on the social security issues that were increasingly becoming central to the federal governments dossier, and the need to reach agreement with the provinces on tax-sharing.211While St-Laurent wanted to secure the initiative on all of these matters, and had gone so far as to buttress the analytical powers of the capital by hiring a new batch of PhDs,21 he also wanted to achieve success. Creating the right “climate for Government action,” as one of his advisors suggested, would be instrumental.22And in order

162

P.E. Bryden

to do that, there might be some need to “provide an additional incentive to the provinces to attempt to arrive at a general amending procedure,” like, for ex­ ample, some input into Supreme Court appointees.23 But the end result would be worth it: agreement on “a m ethod of amendment” would not only secure for Canada “responsibility for all our national affairs,” but it would also “relieve the United Kingdom Parliament of an embarrassing obligation.”24 St-Laurents first strategy was to establish a common cause, probably im ­ possible on either social security or taxes, which would necessarily involve some shifting of constitutional authority, but attainable when it came to amend­ ing the BNA Act. St-Laurent wrote to premiers suggesting that the amendment would “give the Canadian Parliament the same jurisdiction over the purely federal aspects of our constitution that the provincial Legislatures already pos­ sess over the provincial constitutions, while giving both to provincial rights and jurisdiction and to the historic rights of minorities an express assurance of legal protection which we feel they should have.”25 He was conciliatory in prep­ aration for the first meeting, reaching out to key premiers to figure out in advance the best way to proceed.26 St-Laurent, in an even more expansive mood, and in an effort to mark his approach to intergovernmental relations as distinct from that of his predecessor, opened up discussion with his cabinet colleagues about how to deal with the provinces. On 16 December 1949, the cabinet committee on the DominionProvincial Conference agreed that opening positions should be provided by both federal and provincial government representatives;27 by 20 December, St-Laurent questioned the desirability of the federal government making spe­ cific proposals at all;28 at the opening of the conference, his assistant Jack Pickersgill had finally convinced him that a federal proposal “would simply serve as a target for attack by one or more of the premiers,” and St-Laurent al­ lowed the provinces to offer their constitutional proposals on a clean table.29 In choosing not to table federal proposals, St-Laurent secured his place as different from King, but he also jeopardized his commitment to securing the initiative. The conference ended up being something of a cat-herding exercise, with each province coming to the table with a different priority. Nova Scotia had a four-part scheme for dividing sections of the act into different ways of securing amendment; Alberta wanted some sections repealed entirely; Quebec wanted to do everything possible - including duplicating some sections of the BNA Act - to both secure and illustrate “the complete equality of the provinces and the Provincial Legislatures with the Federal Government and Parliament.”30 By insisting that he would let the premiers’ proposals set the agenda, rather than directing discussion in the m anner of the 1945-46 Dominion-Provincial

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

163

Conference, St-Laurent had opened his government up to some of this chaos; nevertheless, it was time to “start anew,” he said. Surely there were “things that we can agree upon as the right results without having... to convince... the other that the other thing is entirely wrong.”31 Despite little being accomplished other than an agreement on four categories of amendments, St-Laurent was seen to have navigated this first intergovernmental conference effectively. He was lauded, at least by some, for “the wonderful m anner in which [he] handled the conference,” which was a “masterpiece” on the prime minister’s part.32 At least at that first meeting, the premiers and prime minister were able to agree on the need to amend the Constitution in order to make it “a Canadian document” and that the amendment procedure had to work for the entirety of the document, not just parts. Throughout, St-Laurent demonstrated his char­ acteristic flexibility and a willingness to allow a fairly extensive degree of prov­ incial autonomy on issues that were purely provincial.33 Throughout the rest of the year, they worked on sorting the sections of the BNA Act into categories - those that would need unanimous agreement to change, those that could be changed solely by either the federal or the provincial governments, and those that would need a more limited degree of agreement. The federal officials, wary of utilizing King-era tactics that had “smacked of autocracy and clearly [were] a psychological error,” moved cautiously.34As Gordon Robertson said, although the process was “going slowly,” he hoped that the fall conference of first m in­ isters would be able to “end on a note that would indicate a genuine measure of accomplishment.”35 It did not. But one of the reasons that it did not was a subtle shift towards something that most scholars have identified as being more characteristic of the second than of the first century of Canadas national life. Discussions over the amending formula under St-Laurent became muddied by the intrusion of a variety of other issues that elbowed their way into conversations, both formal and informal, in the 1950s. And as those other taxation and social service ques­ tions emerged as topics of discussion alongside the amending formula, inter­ governmental discussions began veering perilously close, without realizing it, to mega-constitutional politics.36 This would be the clear approach follow­ ing the Confederation of Tomorrow Conference in 1967; now, under Louis St-Laurent, it was merely emergent and increasingly inevitable. There were too many possibilities facing the two levels of government in the decade and a half after the Second World War not to treat them together. But whether any of the politicians at the table had the stomach for what that would entail was an­ other question altogether.

164

P.E. Bryden

The first issue to emerge was that of the tax-sharing arrangement. Begun on a temporary basis in 1942 as the Wartime Tax Rental Agreement, it was re­ newed in 1947 for a further five-year term. By the 1950s, premiers were already gearing up for another round of negotiations. Premier Frost of Ontario broached the issue first, noting that as one of the two provinces “retaining the right” to impose corporate, income, and estate taxes - the other being Quebec - there might be ways to simplify the “present system without waiting for the [full First Ministers’] Conference in the fall.”37He also suggested discussing overlap­ ping jurisdiction on various social security fronts, like Old Age Pensions and relief, and was “prepared to start now” if St-Laurent was ready.38While the prime minister might not have imagined leaping quite so quickly into social security, by the fall meeting of the Committee of the Whole of the Constitutional Con­ ference, there was agreement that first ministers would open up discussion on “fiscal and social security measures and other matters” at a meeting in Ottawa at the end of the year.39 Did St-Laurent prioritize these three interrelated issues in any particular order? His original goal definitely seems to have been a process for constitutional amendment: it flowed naturally from the end of appeals, fell squarely in his own field of interest, and seemed within his grasp. Cementing a tax agreement was probably his second objective as it had a sensitive time frame in that a new agreement needed to be in place before the 1947 agreements ended. With seven of the nine provinces having signed agreements with Ottawa originally, the real issue was whether Ontario and Quebec could be induced to join the rest of the provinces (Newfoundland having signed an agreement as soon as it became a province in 1949). Those negotiations could be handled bi- or perhaps trilaterally. That left social security as probably St-Laurent s third priority but still definitely achievable.

Thus, beginning sometime in m id-1950, three lines of negotiation opened: the Constitution, taxation, and social policy. Only the first had officially been on the prime m inisters radar when he took office and only taxation absolutely had to be addressed. To that end, it was in the summer of 1951 that representa­ tives of Ontario and Quebec met privately in Montreal to try to figure out a way to “approach a fiscal arrangement with the Federal Government.” They met to discuss a new tax-sharing proposal that St-Laurent had put on the table at the December 1950 Federal-Provincial Conference, and they did so with “under­ standing, goodwill and an earnest desire to avoid any action which would impair

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

165

national unity.”40 This meeting gave Ontario’s premier Frost greater insight into Quebec’s position, allowing him to function as something of a go-between with St-Laurent and Duplessis. St-Laurent “saw the danger of Quebec’s isolation immediately” and emphasized that he had “no intention of encroaching on fiscal rights or powers of any of the provinces.”41 Despite the fact that Frost was confident he had convinced Quebec of the merits of signing on to the next round of tax rental agreements, he had underestimated the degree to which Duplessis was prepared to pay for the independence of his province. Inevitably, Quebec again did not sign onto the agreements, but it had not been for lack of effort. The tax agreements posed challenges for the St-Laurent Liberals, and Quebec would remain an issue in the next round as well. Having refused to accept rental payments for the tax fields that Ottawa had been occupying in the province of Quebec since 1942, the provincial government found itself in need of cash. In 1954, Duplessis became the first premier to impose a provincial income tax, thereby subjecting Quebecers to double taxation and a heavier tax burden than people in other parts of the country experienced.42What Duplessis now wanted was for the amount of tax collected by the province to be allowed to count against money collected by Ottawa in the same field. The result would be a sharing of income tax revenue in Quebec rather than an increase in tax levels. Ottawa would get less money, Quebec would get more, and individuals would pay the same amount. According to Duplessis, “the other provinces and the federal authorities, in our humble opinion, cannot possibly object to the proposal we are making; first, because the amount collected by the province is financially less than the grant offered by the federal government and, secondly, because, as everyone agrees, the province is only exercising an indisputable right.”43Still, it was an unlikely proposition for St-Laurent to accept. It came as no surprise when the prim e m inister wrote to all of the prov­ incial premiers early in 1955 and informed them of his rejection of Quebec’s proposal. “If the federal government had accepted this suggestion,” he wrote, “we would have felt obliged to make the same concession to any other province, and this would have meant that the effective rate of federal taxation in each province would have been set by the provincial authorities and would have differed from one province to another.”44 Essentially, St-Laurent was arguing that the provinces could not set the federal levels of taxation. Nevertheless, since the tax rental agreements as they currently stood were not etched in stone, St-Laurent was prepared to amend the existing federal in­ come tax law to go part way towards addressing Quebec’s concerns. After a good deal of discussion between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Department of

166

P.E. Bryden

Finance, and with the apparent intervention of Toronto businessman Walter Gordon, St-Laurent accepted the wisdom of reaching a temporary agreement with Quebec.45 The current law allowed taxpayers who paid provincial income tax to claim as a deduction 5 percent of the federal tax. In 1955, the prime m in­ ister proposed to increase that deduction to 10 percent and allow all people living in a province that had introduced a provincial income tax to claim the deduction.46Further changes to the method by which taxes were shared between the two levels of government would wait until a full federal-provincial confer­ ence could be convened later in the year.47 Provincial governments that had supported Ottawa’s attempts to establish national policy were outraged at the apparent retreat contained in St-Laurent s latest proposal. Since 1940, Saskatchewan’s deputy provincial treasurer A1 Johnson noted, Ottawa had assumed responsibility for full employment and a variety of social policies and had divided the tax fields in a m anner that would provide it with the necessary fiscal resources. Now, St-Laurent was claiming that the only reason taxes were shared was “to make it financially possible for all provinces, whatever their tax base, to perform their constitutional functions themselves and to provide a reasonable Canadian level of provincial services without an abnormal burden of taxation.”48 Tommy Douglas agreed. From the Saskatchewan premier’s perspective, by turning “along a path which leads back to the old dog-eat-dog days of provincial rivalry and federal impotency[,] Ottawa has hoisted the white flag of surrender over the forts of full employment and a high level of national prosperity.”49 Had St-Laurent been an unwilling participant in these fiscal negotiations? The original federal strategy, part of its post-1949 efforts to first recover and then maintain the initiative in the intergovernmental field, had been to propose a second option for tax-sharing - one that offered tax-sharing terms that were more favourable to Ontario and Quebec but that still allowed the federal gov­ ernment access to the fields of income, corporate, and estate taxes. And then wait. Frost interfered with that approach, encouraged face-to-face negotiations, and ultimately forced St-Laurent to agree to regular intergovernmental m eet­ ings and a recognition of provincial constitutional rights to tax as conditions of the big provinces’ tax agreement.50 But if St-Laurent was not a participant in the preliminary Montreal meetings between the two premiers, his presence in the PMO was the catalyst to their being held in the first place. St-Laurent had created an environment within which alternative ways of reaching a viable solution were on the table. Indeed, he had put them on the table in the first place by offering an “Option 2” in the resolution of the 1952 round of tax rental agreements.

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

167

Having opened the door to something other than the single federal offer, he also opened it to other participants offering solutions. First Ontario did that, to no avail, and then Duplessis himself stirred the pot - this time, with results. It was certainly in marked contrast to the approach to intergovernmental rela­ tions spearheaded by Mackenzie King. In the heated environment of wartime Canada, the federal government was in a position to make “take-it-or-leave-it” proposals. Dialogue was not required. It was somewhat ironic that the prime minister most associated with indecisiveness would be the one who drew lines in the intergovernmental sand, but it was precisely that approach from which St-Laurent strove to distinguish himself. In doing so, however, he had opened up the opportunity not only for discussion and input from provincial quarters but also for mega-constitutional politics. As Tommy Douglas’s comments indi­ cated, tax policy was intimately bound up with constitutional change and with social policy. Indeed, social policy was raised at exactly the same time that the constitu­ tional amendment was being discussed: Frost had hoped that Old Age Pensions could be placed on the agenda way back in 1950. St-Laurent agreed that “other social security issues” would be included. One of the reasons that St-Laurent is so often regarded as a reluctant leader in social policy issues is that he had a hand in minimizing some of the proposals that were made. Old Age Pensions is one such case. There had been unanimous intergovernmental agreement in 1951 to eliminate the means test for those over seventy, for example. The federal Old Age Pension resolution, however, was curtailed somewhat by St-Laurent himself and did not include the original elements of a reduction in the age of eligibility for women and a reduction in the years of residency required for blind applicants. It was obviously a cleaner resolution, but it was also a more limited one.51 Health insurance suffered a sim ilar fate: raised by the provincial pre­ miers, it was never championed by St-Laurent in ways that would be necessary to secure its implementation. By 1954, the federal government had based its financial position on the assumption that there would be no new social wel­ fare programs “which they hoped would not, and thought would unlikely, occur unless public sentiment built up rapidly.”52Funnily, public sentiment (in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Ontario, at least) had been building steadily, and some form of health coverage appeared in the agenda in the mid-1950s. Finance Minister Walter Harris, charged with guarding the nation’s purse, naturally wanted St-Laurent to adopt a cautious approach at the 1955 confer­ ence. Perhaps, he had suggested, the prime minister might “go so far as to outline

L

168

P.E. Bryden

possible stages of a plan, without, however, committing the federal government to action regarding it.” If done early enough in the conference proceedings, Harris suggested, it would “ensure the retention of the initiative by the federal government and would create the impression in the public m ind that the federal government had made a more or less definite proposal, and that if action failed to result, it was not because of lack of initiative and interest on the part of the federal government.”53 As an issue that clearly would not go away, it was better for Ottawa to feign interest than to ignore health insurance entirely. With social policies dominating the intergovernmental agenda at the end of St-Laurent’s term, it is not surprising that they colour his reputation in this area. It is, however, unfair. St-Laurents record in intergovernmental alfairs is more complex than an emphasis on those items that were not accomplished would suggest. He was the first prime minister in the m odern multi-front era of intergovernmental affairs and, however unevenly or incompletely, set the tone for the approach that would be followed by subsequent first ministers. Unlike any leader before him, St-Laurent faced a complex array of conversa­ tions with provincial premiers: he had been prepared to discuss the Constitution, but neither taxation nor social policy were intergovernmental issues of his making. D istinct from his predecessors, and especially divergent from Mackenzie King, St-Laurent was both equipped and willing to wade into inter­ governmental conversations. Indeed, where King resisted those confrontations, St-Laurent not only engaged, but engaged on multiple fronts at the same time. While trying to secure agreement on a constitutional amending formula, the federal government was also discussing both tax agreements and social policy innovations. This might not have been St-Laurents choice, but neither did he reject the concurrent discussions. The points of contact between the federal and the provincial governments had exploded in the decades following the Second World War. Still, they were handled in parallel - not quite together, not quite the mega-constitutional discussions of the post-Centennial era, but at least in the same conference rooms, at roughly the same time. St-Laurent had, for better or worse, launched the beginning of the m odern era of intergovernmental rela­ tions in Canada.

Notes 1 Mackenzie King Diary, 4 December 1941, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics-government/prime-ministers/wiIliam Tyon-mackenzie-king/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=23522&. 2 Quoted in Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 18.

St-Laurents Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

169

3 W.H. McConnell, “The Judicial Review of Prime Minister Bennett’s ‘New Deal,’” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 6,39 (1968): 46-47. 4 Ibid., 47. 5 John T. Saywell, The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 211-12. 6 Mackenzie King Diary, 12 September 1935, LAC, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/ politics-government/prime-ministers/william-lyon-mackenzie-king/Pages/item.aspx? IdNumber=16291&; Mackenzie King Diary, 5 April 1937, LAC, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/ eng/discover/politics-government/prime-ministers/william-lyon-mackenzie-king/Pages/ item.aspx?IdNumber= 17804&. 7 Saywell, Lawmakers, 226-29. 8 House of Commons, Debates, 8 April 1938, 2151. 9 Robert Stevens, Independence o f the Judiciary: The View from the Lord Chancellors Office (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 153. 10 Attorney General for Ontario v. Attorney Generalfor Canada [1947] A.C. 127 at 155. 11 Mackenzie King Diary, 5 March 1948, LAC, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics -government/prime-ministers/william-lyon-mackenzie-king/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber =318698c. 12 A great deal has been written about intergovernmental relations in the postwar period, although there is perhaps less on the St-Laurent era than on subsequent prime ministerial eras. Scholars have been particularly interested in social policy, fiscal federalism, and constitutional negotiations as theatres for understanding the federal-provincial relationship. See Keith Banting and Stan Corbett, eds., Health Policy and Federalism: A Comparative Perspective on Multi-level Governance (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001); Kenneth Bryden, Old Age Pensions and Policy-Making in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1974); Robin W. Boadway and Paul A.R. Hobson, eds., Equalization: Its Contribution to Canadas Fiscal and Economic Progress (Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queens University Press, 1998); Keith Banting, Douglas Brown, and Thomas Courchene, eds., The Future o f Fiscal Federalism (Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queens University, 1994); John T. Saywell, The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Gerald Baier, Courts and Federalism: Judicial Doctrine in the United States, Australia and Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006). For an analysis of one provinces relationship with the StLaurent government, see P.E. Bryden, “A Justifiable Obsession”: Conservative Ontario’s Rela­ tions with Ottawa, 1943-1985 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), chaps. 3 and 4. 13 Frank Flaherty, “Privy Council Appeals Abolished by Commons; Hoist Plea Negatived,” Globe and Mail, 28 September 1949, 3. 14 “This Plan Will Take Time,” Globe and Mail, 26 September 1949, 6. 15 Anne Roland, “Appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: A Canadian Perspective,” Commonwealth Law Bulletin 32,4 (2006): 578. 16 St-Laurent to Pickersgill, ca. 19 August 1949, private collection in author’s possession, J.L. Granatstein papers, Louis St-Laurent files. 17 Gordon Robertson to Norman Robertson, 17 September 1949, LAC, MG 31 E87, Gordon Robertson Papers, vol. 29, file: BNA Act - Amendments to, n.d., 1900,1935-1952. 18 St-Laurent to Pickersgill, ca. 19 August 1949, private collection in author’s possession, J.L. Granatstein papers, Louis St-Laurent files. 19 Ibid.

170

P.E. Bryden

20 Pickersgill to St-Laurent, 19 July 1949, private collection in author’s possession, J.L.

Granatstein papers, Louis St-Laurent files. 21 George Gathercole to Frost, 12 June 1950, Archives of Ontario (hereafter AO), Office of

the Premier: Frost general correspondence, RG 2-23, vol. 38, file: Dom-Prov Conference, 1950 meetings. 22 J.L. to Pickersgill, 25 August 1949, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 84, file: Conferences - Dom-Prov vol. 1 - pers. and conf. 23 Gordon Robertson to Norman Robertson, 17 September 1949, LAC, MG 31 E87, Gordon Robertson Papers, vol. 29, file: BNA Act - amendments to, n.d., 1900, 1935-52. 24 St-Laurent to Frost, 14 September 1949, AO, RG 3-24, box 5, file: dom-prov, BNA Act (Amending, II), 1949,1950. 25 St-Laurent to Leslie Frost, 14 September 1949, LAC, Gordon Robertson Papers, MG 37 E87, vol. 29, file: constitutional conferences, 1949-50. 26 Frost to St-Laurent, 8 December 1949, LAC, MG 31 E87, Gordon Robertson Papers, vol. 29, file: constitutional conference of fed and prov governments, January 1950 - corres­ pondence with premiers. 27 “Dominion-Provincial Conference on Constitutional Amendment: Procedure at Open­ ing Session,” 16 December 1949, LAC, Paul Martin Papers, MG 32 B12, vol. 38, file 3. 28 Ibid., minutes of the Cabinet Committee on the Dominion-Provincial Conference, 20 December 1949. 29 J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1975), 117-18. 30 R.G. Robertson, notes on the meeting of the Committee of Attorney General of the Constitutional Conference of the Federal and Provincial Governments, 12 January 1950, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 222, file: constitutional conference, 1950. 31 Quoted in Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 282. 32 J.W. Heffernan to St-Laurent, 15 February 1950, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 84, file: conferences - dom-prov - vol. 6c - agenda -Mr. St-Laurent’s signature. 33 Pickersgill to St-Laurent, 22 September 1950, and R.G. Robertson to Pickersgill, 8 March 1950, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 222, file: constitutional conference, 1950 (vol. 2). 34 Memo for R.G. Robertson, 5 April 1950, LAC, MG 31 E87, Gordon Robertson Papers, vol. 29, file: conference of federal-provincial governments, December 1950 - planning (1 of 2), n.d., 1946-50. 35 R.G. Robertson, Programme for the Second Session of the Constitutional Conference, 13 September 1950, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 222, file: constitutional conference, 1950 (vol. 2). 36 Peter H. Russell, Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People? 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). See also, Government of Australia, Papers on Parliament, June 1995, https://www.aph.gov.au/~/~/link.aspx?_id=F959AB590DD44A 9E8207B8FD165539A9&_z=z. 37 Frost to St-Laurent, 3 February 1950, LAC, MG 31E87, Gordon Robertson Papers, vol. 29, file: conference of federal-provincial governments, December 1950 - correspondence re agenda. 38 Ibid. 39 “Meeting of the Committee of the Whole of the Constitutional Conference of Federal and Provincial Governments,” Quebec, 28 September 1950, AO, RG 4-2, file 47-9. 40 Report of the meetings of the PMs of Ontario and Quebec, 23 July 1951, AO, RG 6-116, box 21.

St-Laurent's Intergovernmental Relations Strategy

171

41 Ibid. 42 Shirley Tillotson, Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise o f Canadian Democracy (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), 268. 43 Duplessis to St-Laurent, 1 November 1954, AO, RG 6-115, UC container 3-4, box 4, file: 1955 conference - preliminary meeting - October 15/54, translation of copy. 44 St-Laurent to Frost, 14 January 1955, AO, RG 6-115, UC container 3-4, box 4, file: 1955 conference - preliminary meeting - October 15/54. 45 See Burns, Acceptable Mean, 108-12; and Perry, National Finances, 1955-56, 18-19. 46 This was a betrayal of a promise made to the Liberal Opposition in Quebec, “who had been privately assured by the federal finance minister that the 5 percent credit was not negoti­ able.” See Stevenson, Unfulfilled Union, 134. 47 St-Laurent to Frost, 14 January 1955, AO, RG 6-115, UC container 3-4, box 4, file: 1955 conference - preliminary meeting - October 15/54. 48 A1 Johnson to Douglas (quoting from St-Laurent letter of 14 January 1955), 26 January 1955, Saskatchewan Archives, T.C. Douglas Papers, R 33.4, file IX.12e - Ontario and Quebec. 49 Ibid.; T.C. Douglas, “Mr. St-Laurent Turns Back the Clock,” Provincial Affairs Series, 1 February 1955. 50 Meeting of the Committee of the Whole of the Constitutional Conference of Federal and Provincial Governments, Quebec, 28 September 1950, AO, RG 4-2, file 47-9. 51 “Old Age Pension Resolution” amendments in St-Laurent s hand, LAC, MG 31 E87, vol. 4, file: personal, PMO, n.d., 1915, 1945-53. 52 Summary of discussions... at Ottawa, Friday, 150ctober 1954, AO, RG 6-115, UC container 3-4, box 4, file: 1955 conference - preliminary meeting - October 15/54. 53 Davidson to senior National Health and Welfare staff, 20 September 1955, LAC, RG 29, vol. 1372, file 1-1.

172

P.E. Bryden

____________ chapter St-Laurent The Last Father of Confederation? DAVID MACKENZIE

Once retired from public life and returned to his law practice in Quebec City, Louis St-Laurent kept a low profile and only rarely shared his reflections on his long and varied career. W hen asked what stood out among all his accom­ plishments he revealed that it was the bringing of Newfoundland into the Can­ adian Confederation: “I have always regarded that union as the most important achievement of my years in public life.”1 St-Laurent participated in Newfoundlands union with Canada as minister of external of affairs and chair of the cabinet committee in charge of the nego­ tiations, as acting prime minister, and, ultimately, as prime minister. The man he succeeded as Liberal leader, Mackenzie King, spoke of St-Laurent s role: “I happen to know something of the zeal which he showed in upholding the cause of union. From the very beginning he made the cause of union his own. He spared neither time, energy, nor aught of his great abilities in seeking to bring about the happy result which in this house we are rejoicing over today.”2 St-Laurent approached the issue with his usual even temperament, integrity, and sound judgment. “The key to Mr. St. Laurents character,” wrote the influ­ ential journalist Bruce Hutchison in a 1949 article in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, “is his ability to sort out the essentials from the trivial, to see great affairs in simple terms. His mind, so unlike Mr. King’s, is rapid but never complicated.” Hutchison added that St-Laurent was “instinctively aware of public opinion, the limitation of government power, [and] the possible thing in practical pol­ itics.”3 During his efforts to bring Newfoundland into Canada he needed to utilize all of these characteristics.

St-Laurent came to the question of Newfoundlands Confederation with Canada well after the process had already begun. In his early years in Ottawa he appears to have shown relatively little interest in the matter, as Canada con­ structed air and naval bases on the island and Labrador and invested millions of dollars in developing and maintaining a military establishment there. At the same time the United States was building its own military establishment in Newfoundland, and this growing American interest was guaranteed to set off alarm bells in Ottawa. For defence and strategic reasons, therefore, as well as for the more traditional economic and social ones, Canadians were taking more of an interest in Newfoundland and its future, and, by the end of the war, there was a small but determined group in the Ottawa establishment, centred in the Department of External Affairs, that had come to the conclusion that the time was right to pursue union between the two countries.4 Consequently, when St-Laurent became minister of external affairs on 4 September 1946, he became directly involved in determining Canadas future relationship with Newfoundland. Newfoundland was in constitutional limbo as it had surrendered its do­ minion status in 1933 and returned to a kind of colonial status under the control of the British government - a situation that was to remain until the country was again self-supporting. The British government instituted several studies of Newfoundland s constitutional and economic situation during the war and, in 1945, announced that an elected national convention would be established to discuss and make recommendations on the choices to be placed before the people of Newfoundland in a referendum. By the time this National Convention was elected in the summer of 1946 the British government had come to the conclusion that Confederation with Canada was the best solution, and the hope was that the Canadians would offer a sympathetic ear, especially if, as antici­ pated, the National Convention decided to send a fact-finding mission to Ottawa to explore the possibility of union.5In response, in the fall of 1946 the Canadian government created two committees: an interdepartmental committee to study and report on the possibilities of Confederation and a cabinet committee to oversee the whole process.6St-Laurent, as secretary of state for external affairs, was appointed chair of this cabinet committee and, from that moment, assumed the direction on the Canadian side of the whole process leading to Confederation. By chance St-Laurent happened to be acting prime minister in August 1946 when J.R. “Joey” Smallwood, recently elected as a pro-Confederation member of the National Convention, was in Ottawa looking for information, connec­ tions, and support. He arrived unannounced at the Prime M inisters Office in the House of Commons and, instead of Mackenzie King, he spoke briefly with

174

David MacKenzie

St-Laurent. St-Laurent already had come to the conclusion that union was in the best interests of both nations, and he told Smallwood as much. St-Laurent “impressed me deeply as a courtly and gracious man,” Smallwood later re­ corded in his memoirs, and in “very general terms, he expressed the hope that it might turn out feasible for Newfoundland and Canada to join together in Confederation.”7It is not clear what St-Laurents impressions were of Smallwood, but he never wavered from his position of support for Confederation.

The new interdepartmental committee, with representatives from the Depart­ ments of External Affairs, Finance, Reconstruction and Supply, the Bank of Canada, and others, met several times over the fall of 1946 to discuss issues of Newfoundland s public debt, provincial financing, and, more generally, how the island and Labrador would fit in as a province in the dominion. But the early major questions were essentially political: Should Ottawa accept a delegation from the National Convention and was the government of Canada prepared, at this time, to offer terms of union to Newfoundland? St-Laurent raised these questions in cabinet near the end of December. First, he noted, no delegation sent by the National Convention (rather than by the Newfoundland govern­ ment) would have the authority to negotiate terms of union, so Ottawa had to be careful with how far to take these discussions. Second, the estimates of the interdepartmental committee revealed that a Newfoundland provincial govern­ ment would need considerable financial aid - more than any other province - to raise and maintain public services. It was a delicate situation: How generous could Ottawa afford to be to meet the approval of the Newfoundlanders w ith­ out upsetting the other provinces? With these questions in mind the cabinet agreed to inform the British government that Ottawa would welcome a dele­ gation from the National Convention - they all agreed that “Newfoundland should, in due course, enter Confederation” - but there would be no firm offer at this stage.8 Work continued in Ottawa studying the value and ramifications of C on­ federation for Canadians, although St-Laurents part in these deliberations appears to have been minimal. In Newfoundland the National Convention continued its proceedings, and, after considerable debate, it agreed to dispatch two delegations on fact-finding missions to London and Ottawa. In the spring of 1947 the first delegation was sent to London to determine what kind of arrangements Newfoundland could anticipate should the Newfoundlanders decide either to continue the Commission of Government or return to selfgovernment.9 They discussed a num ber of issues, including trade relations,

The Last Father of Confederation?

175

Newfoundland’s debt, the repayment of its loans to Britain, reconstruction proposals for Newfoundland’s economy, and the future of foreign leased bases on Newfoundlands territory, but Britain’s severe financial problems, especially concerning its trade relations with the North American states, overshadowed all the conversations. As Sir Humphrey Walwyn, Newfoundland’s governor, earlier wrote, a little indelicately, “this is the one country in the world that has suffered no privations or shortage in the war and it is unthinkable that people in Newfoundland should sit back and expect a large handout from blitzed, bombed, blacked-out, and six year [war] and financially embarrassed Great Britain and very many people think like this too.”10In the end, the British praised and thanked the Newfoundlanders for their magnificent war effort but, in re­ turn, could only promise to maintain support for Newfoundlanders at present levels should they continue the Commission of Government - but little more. The British had already come to see Confederation with Canada as the best solution to Newfoundland’s problems, so it is unlikely that they would have been overly generous to Newfoundlanders even if they had been able. It was a disappointing trip for many members of the National Convention, especially for those who supported the return of self-government, but for those who were leaning towards Confederation it made any overtures from Canada even more important. The second delegation from the Newfoundland National Convention arrived in Ottawa in June 1947. The prime m inister welcomed the Newfound­ landers at the first meeting, held in the Railway Committee Room in the Par­ liament Buildings, and speeches were delivered from both sides. St-Laurent suggested that Bung and Gordon Bradley, the leader of the Newfoundland delegation, have themselves photographed in front of a picture of the Fathers of Confederation, but King refused, believing “this was going a little too far.”11 From that point King played little role in the discussions, and all subsequent meetings were chaired by St-Laurent. In addition, subcommittees were created to examine the different aspects of union, statistics were distributed, and ques­ tions raised and answered, all in an effort to assess the viability of Newfoundland as a Canadian province. Not surprisingly, the financial arrangements remained the greatest sticking point. St-Laurent approached union with Newfoundland in a straightforward way. As he had done on other occasions, he weighed the pros and cons of the issue and, in this case, came to a decision that Confederation was a good idea for both Canada and Newfoundland. The strategic value of Newfoundland was demonstrated during the war, and in the unfolding Cold War its value in the defence of North America would be maintained. Union of the two countries

176

David MacKenzie

would also bring Newfoundlands airports and airspace under the Canadian umbrella and enhance Canadas bargaining position in the burgeoning field of international civil aviation. Confederation would also secure the Newfoundland market for Canadian goods (Newfoundland was already a major Canadian trading partner) and remove Newfoundland as a potential competitor and prevent the country falling into the hands of the United States either through an economic union or complete annexation. In addition, there were the intan­ gibles: there was a sense that Newfoundland would make Canada a stronger and more prosperous nation and that bringing it in would round off Confedera­ tion and finish a process begun in the 1860s.'2 The only question was the cost; for St-Laurent, as for many Canadians, it was a price worth paying. St-Laurents support for Confederation did not mean that political consider­ ations or tactics were irrelevant, but once decided he believed that the govern­ ment should move ahead on the matter without delay. As he later said in the House of Commons, my own personal view with respect to these negotiations has been that it would be a serious responsibility to do or say anything which would prevent the entry of Newfoundland into Canada. I may be an optimist, but I do be­ lieve that the Canadian nation is destined to occupy an im portant place in world affairs. I do believe, further, that that place in world affairs would be better preserved by a territory which extended right out to the broad ocean and if access thereto was not closed to Canada by another sovereignty over the territories of Newfoundland and Labrador.13

As a result, he was determined to move forward on the issue and willing to make what he believed to be a generous offer to the Newfoundlanders, adding that “I think we would have been remiss in our duty to future generations of Canadians not to have done so.”14He also believed that, beyond making an offer of union, the Canadian government could do nothing to influence the vote of the New­ foundland people, but, equally, Canada could not back out if the government and people of Newfoundland replied that they wanted Confederation. As a Liberal MP from Quebec and a leading French Canadian in the govern­ ment, St-Laurent was equally well aware of the issue of the Labrador boundary. The issue had a long history, and the 1927 decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London, which gave Newfoundland a significant amount of territory, still rankled many, especially in Quebec. St-Laurent had followed the case (strongly supporting the Canadian side) and, according to his biographer, the JCPC decision likely pushed him in the direction of supporting

The Last Father of Confederation?

177

the abolition of all Canadian appeals to that body.15 Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, re-elected in 1944, was another staunch critic of the JCPC decision, and he called on St-Laurent to stand firm on the Labrador issue. His views were echoed by several Quebec MPs.16During the war, Duplessis had demanded that Labrador be handed over to Quebec in compensation for the cost of Canadas defence of Newfoundland.17By 1947, with the discussions of union with New­ foundland evolving, Duplessis again raised the issue with St-Laurent. The 1927 decision was wrong, and had been made without the participation or consent of Quebec, and now was the time to correct this wrong. “It goes without saying,” Duplessis informed St-Laurent, “that we would always be happy to collaborate in the demarcation and establishment of a boundary line, a frontier, in con­ formity with our rights.”18 As the discussions became more serious he added a constitutional issue: that the provinces, especially Quebec, needed to be con­ sulted before any action was taken as Confederation would require an amend­ ment to the British North America Act - an action that Ottawa could not undertake unilaterally. Both St-Laurent and Duplessis desired the acquisition of Labrador, but, beyond that, there was less agreement. St-Laurent wanted Newfoundland in Confederation and that would also bring in Labrador; Duplessis was less an advocate of Confederation than he was of Labrador s union with Quebec. For Duplessis, separating Labrador from Newfoundland and attaching it to Quebec should be the goal; for St-Laurent it was enough to bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation. There were some prelim inary discussions of buying Labrador as a way of propping up the islands finances, but all talk of partitioning Newfoundland was quickly dismissed. As the Canadian high commissioner in St. Johns wrote to Lester Pearson, St-Laurents undersecretary of state for external affairs, when Newfoundland unites with Canada “Labrador automatically becomes an integral part of Canada. There would be no logic in buying it a second time.”19 St-Laurent agreed, but the disagreem ent with Duplessis remained as one more component of the growing rift between Ottawa and Quebec City. There were others who shared with St-Laurent the ultimate goal of union with Newfoundland but who were becoming less determined to see it through. Prime Minister King had been quite enthusiastic about it during the war, but, after the war, as the goal became reachable, his support began to waver. King expressed his concerns to St-Laurent. “I told St. Laurent I thought we ought to be very careful in what we said,” King wrote in his diary, “that we would be raising questions with the provinces as to their right as to what was to be done; also that other parties in the House would have to be considered. We could not

178

David MacKenzie

regard this as a party matter but [it] must be regarded as a national one.” Indeed, King continued, “I can see only trouble ahead in having to deal with this ques­ tion at this time. Newfoundland is certain to be a great financial responsibility.”20 King later spoke on the telephone with Pearson and repeated his concerns in his diary: “these Maritime provinces would all want their say; unless we were pretty sine we would get a solid backing with them, we better not raise a Maritime issue. That it would hurt us there.” For King it was clear where the government’s fault line ran: “I could see from Pearsons and have seen from St. Laurents presentation that External Affairs will want to have Newfoundland brought in at once. Every effort made to have Newfoundland brought in at once.”21 As a result, there were divisions within the Canadian government as to how far to take the negotiations with the Newfoundland delegation. But the discussions with the Newfoundlanders lasted for most of the summer, and the longer the delegation remained in Ottawa the more its members implored the Canadians to agree to make a more formal offer of terms of union. To return home empty-handed after so much time, it was argued, would lead to questions about the value of the whole effort and play into the hands of those in the National Convention who opposed Confederation. Several members of the Newfoundland delegation were already eager to return to St. Johns and they wanted something to show for all their efforts. The Canadians began to re-evaluate the course of action established by the cabinet earlier that year. After all the studying undertaken by the interdepart­ mental committee and its subcommittees, all the exchanging of information, and all the discussions between the two groups, a much clearer picture had emerged of how Newfoundland would fit within the Canadian federation. In addition, the Canadians were sympathetic to the entreaties of the Newfound­ landers and realized that a more formal offer would likely boost the potential support for Confederation in Newfoundland. But the political questions re­ mained: first, whether or not to assemble a formal offer of terms and, second, if an offer were to be made was it proper to offer these terms to a delegation that did not officially represent the Newfoundland government? King’s earlier concerns over upsetting the Maritime provinces and for trying to keep the whole affair out of party politics by seeking an all-party agreement also needed to be considered. The differing perspectives on the Newfoundland question played out in cabinet over the summer. St-Laurent repeatedly underlined the benefits to Canada of union with Newfoundland, the importance of grasping the oppor­ tunity that the present situation offered, and of the serious negative consequences if Canada failed to act. C.D. Howe, the minister of trade and commerce, was

The Last Father of Confederation?

179

ready to go along; as one civil servant later recalled, it was easy for Howe. “Well this iron ore looks pretty good,” he said, referring to Labrador. “Let’s do it.”22 Others were less sure. Mackenzie King warned of the adverse reaction of the provinces and the provincial leaders, especially when they learned of the extra financial transfers that Newfoundland would need.23 In this regard he was supported by Finance Minister J.L. Ilsley, who was well aware of the financial issues and demonstrated much less enthusiasm for the whole project. The Nova Scotian was also concerned about the impact in his home province if New­ foundland were given overly generous financial terms. As one member of the interdepartmental committee later recalled, Ilsley was “never enthusiastic” about Confederation with Newfoundland and “had to be persuaded.”24 Matters were complicated on 10 August, with the death of Frank Bridges who was not only the minister of fisheries but also New Brunswick’s representa­ tive in the cabinet. King especially was concerned about proceeding with the negotiation of terms, first, because he wanted no decision to be made without the approval of a New Brunswicker in cabinet and, second, because he did not want the talks with Newfoundland to become a political issue in the by-election that was scheduled in Bridges’ old New Brunswick riding. St-Laurent and King viewed the situation differently, with the former arguing that union “should be settled on its merits.” King took a more political perspective: if the terms were announced before the by-election “we would be asked why we were treating strangers better than our own people and supporters.” In his diary he added: They would all question the terms. We would have utter chaos in Canada, and the Government would be beaten, and we would be further away from federation with Newfoundland than ever. Unless we could make perfectly sure of winning the forthcoming by-election, I felt it would be much better to let the present delegation go back and tell their people that we could not agree to their terms.25

King’s views prevailed and, as a result, the whole process of discussions stalled, with the Newfoundlanders wanting an offer that they could take home as soon as possible and the Canadians determined to drag things out until after the successful conclusion of the by-election, scheduled for 20 October. But by late August it was agreed that things had evolved to such a degree that an offer of union would have to be made - just not until after the by-election and New Brunswick had a representative in the Canadian cabinet.26 The Newfoundlanders were able to return home, without official terms, but with all the documents that they had assembled over the previous months. These

180

David MacKenzie

documents - known as the “Black Books” - became the focus of considerable debate in the National Convention.27 For their part, the Canadians finished their official proposed terms of union, which were to be sent to the Commission of Government in St. John’s, essentially as an offer to the government and people of Newfoundland rather than as a product or specific arrangement made with the representatives of the National Convention. In the meantime, Milton Gregg won the New Brunswick by-election and was swiftly brought into cabinet as minister of fisheries. On 28 October, with the new minister present, St-Laurent gave the cabinet a full overview of the proposed terms of union, balancing them as “the least that could reasonably be offered if Newfoundland were to function effectively as a Province and, at the same time, the most that, in the circum­ stances, the government of Canada should make available considering the government’s over-all position and relations with the provinces.”28 The cabinet approved the terms and this official offer was sent to the govern­ ment of Newfoundland at the end of October. The “Proposed Arrangements for the Entry of Newfoundland into Confederation” set out a basis for union of Newfoundland with Canada and dealt with many issues, including public services and public works, defence, Newfoundland’s debt and surplus, taxes, subsidies, and other financial arrangements.29The Canadians sat back, waiting for the Newfoundlanders to respond.

The arrival of proposed terms sparked months of debate across Newfoundland, culminating in the two referendums set up to determine the country’s future form of government. The story of these referendum campaigns is well docu­ mented and need not be reviewed here as St-Laurent played no role in either of them. His only contribution was to add his support to the government’s deci­ sion not to oppose the inclusion of Confederation on the referendum ballot. But even here he found himself at odds with the prime minister. St-Laurent saw no reason not to inform the British government, through the high commissioner in London, that Ottawa would welcome the placing of Confederation on the ballot, but King was adamant that no such statement be made. If word leaked that Canada had discussed this with the British, he argued, it could lead to disaster for the Confederate cause. King dismissed St-Laurent’s views as emer­ ging from his great faith in his Department of External Affairs; in his diary he wrote that St-Laurent referred to his department “as though it was some council of learned men so much wiser than anyone else.”30 The differences between the two leaders widened as the referendum ap­ proached in the spring of 1948, with King increasingly hoping for the victory

The Last Father of Confederation?

181

of the responsible government forces. Once a responsible government was restored in St. Johns, he believed, it would be better able to negotiate terms of union with Canada. St-Laurent, on the other hand, believed that Canada and Newfoundland were moving towards Confederation and that, having come so far as to make an official offer of terms of union, it would be unreasonable at this stage to turn back. “In this,” King wrote, “I think he is quite wrong.”31Where the two appeared to come to an understanding concerned what should be done if Confederation won but only with a slim majority. Two days before the second referendum they met and agreed that “unless there is something more than a poor majority” Newfoundland should not be taken into Confederation.32 But neither was clear as to what actually constituted “more than a poor majority.” The first referendum, held on 3 June 1948, saw the vote divided three ways, with a return to responsible government gaining 44.5 percent of the vote to 41.1 percent for Confederation and 14.3 percent for maintaining the Com­ mission of Government. Commission of Government was dropped from the ballot, and in the second referendum, held on 22 July 1948, the people of Newfoundland voted in favour of Confederation by a margin of 52.34 percent to 47.66 percent. Mackenzie Kings reaction to the vote is well known - he was anxious and advised caution, questioning the wisdom of proceeding with the union. St-Laurent gave no hint of doubt about the outcome. Canada had made an offer to the people of Newfoundland; they had the opportunity to read, study, and debate it for months and now a majority of Newfoundlanders had voted in its favour. Moreover, the British government was clear that it accepted the outcome and expected Canada would do the same (although leaving it to Ottawa to decide).33St-Laurent had been asked in the House of Commons what constituted a clear majority, and he had put the responsibility for deciding on the shoulders of the Newfoundland government. If the constituted authorities in St. Johns declared that the people of Newfoundland had voted in favour of Confederation then he believed that the Canadian government would be obliged to accept the decision.34 It would be impossible to turn back now and rescind the offer made. In cabinet St-Laurent stressed that, in addition to a clear majority (i.e., the 52 percent), the vote for Confederation was much higher in the second refer­ endum compared to the first. He also added that Confederation was the first choice in eighteen of the twenty-five electoral districts in Newfoundland. It is not clear, but St-Laurent s intention here may have been to assuage King’s earlier concerns by pointing out that, had a responsible government been reintroduced in Newfoundland, a Confederate party would likely have won a majority in the

182

David MacKenzie

first election and then proceeded with Confederation on its own. In any event, the prime minister had overcome his initial reluctance, arguing that, “in the circumstances, the government could hardly do other than accept the result as the verdict of the people of Newfoundland.” With that the cabinet agreed to accept the results of the referendum and to welcome Newfoundland as the tenth Canadian province.35 Once all the votes were counted the government advised the Commission of Government that Ottawa would welcome an appointed delegation repre­ senting the government of Newfoundland to undertake the final negotiations of terms of union. The interdepartmental committee was reconstituted and several subcommittees were established to examine various issues, including administrative services, the fisheries, transportation and communications, and the important financial questions. Overseeing all this work was the re-established cabinet committee, which included St-Laurent, Howe, Ilsley, Pearson, Minister of National Defence Brooke Claxton, and a few others.36 St-Laurent was once again named chair of the Canadian team. The difference this time was that on 15 November he became prime minister, further enhancing his prestige and authority in the talks. The Newfoundland delegation was headed by the com­ missioner for justice, Sir Albert Walsh, and included Smallwood, Gordon Bradley, and three other prominent Newfoundlanders. They commenced their work in August - studying the proposed arrangements and preparing their own reports - and arrived in Ottawa for the first meeting with the Canadians on 6 October 1948. Walsh did most of the talking for the Newfoundland delegation, at least in the formal settings, while behind the scenes Smallwood was involved in just about every aspect of the discussions. St-Laurent spoke for the Canadians, al­ though on occasion Howe or Claxton carried on the negotiations. Overall the talks were cordial and reasonable and there was willingness to compromise on both sides, and it was not uncommon for Canadian officials to attend private meetings of both delegations. One participant recalled the differences in style and temperament between St-Laurent and Howe, with the latter arriving at meetings only to declare: “Well, what’s on the agenda today?” Walsh would bring up a problem or suggestion and Howe would respond bluntly, “No we can’t do that, what’s the next item?” which, in turn, shocked the Newfound­ landers. St-Laurent was much more the diplomat and far more courteous with everyone, and things moved along much more smoothly when he presided.37 Don Jamieson, the anti-Confederate Newfoundlander and future Liberal cab­ inet minister, watched the proceedings from the Press Gallery and later wrote

The Last Father of Confederation?

183

that St-Laurent s “vision and sure negotiating touch made him ideal for the task. Ever respectful and sensitive to the Newfoundlanders and their needs, he achieved success where another less tactful, less visionary leader would have failed.”38 The second round of discussions was more official and specific, even though the basic agreement of 1947 remained on the table. It was also less of a “negotia­ tion” than a discussion, in the sense that the individuals involved were not trying to establish some kind of new relationship with Newfoundland - they were turning it into a province like all the others.39 There were several issues that remained to be settled, including guaranteeing Newfoundland s denominational school system, providing for the sale of margarine, and the future administra­ tion of the fisheries. But the greatest tensions rose over financial matters. There were many unknowns regarding the new provincial government meeting its financial obligations without federal help, at least in the short term. With tariffs falling under federal jurisdiction, Newfoundland’s customs revenues would now be collected by Ottawa, removing one of the main sources of provincial revenue. At the same time, St. Johns would be responsible for raising the level of public services in the province and just how much that would cost was a major question. How much the new province would need by way of transitional grants became the single biggest cause of tension in the negotiations. Most of the terms were agreed to, but the gap between the delegations on the financial issue threatened to derail the whole process. The Newfound­ landers said more was needed to ensure the viability of the provincial gov­ ernment; the Canadians responded that they had gone as far as they could go without angering the other provinces. It fell to St-Laurent to raise the matter in cabinet, and he informed his colleagues on 3 November that “unless some substantial additional assistance were forthcoming from the federal govern­ ment, it was likely the negotiations would have to be broken off.”40 St-Laurent was unwilling to take that step; as he told the Newfoundlanders, it “was assumed that both the Canadian and Newfoundland representatives wished to find some solution which would make the provincial financial position manageable.”41 On 9 November he dismissed the idea of calling on the British to take over part of Newfoundlands sterling debt with Canada contributing an equal amount to Newfoundland, saying that there was some doubt as to whether or not the British would agree, and, even if they did, it could take years for the plan to come to fruition. For St-Laurent it was clear that Ottawa would have to assume this responsibility, and he suggested raising the transitional grants by $16.5 mil­ lion, spread over eight years, bringing the total in transitional grants to just

184

David MacKenzie

over $42 million. Even then, he added, the new provincial government still faced a deficit unless it introduced a new provincial tax of some kind.42

The Newfoundlanders acknowledged that this was probably about as far as the Canadians were willing to go, but what made it easier to agree to the terms was the inclusion of Term 29 - and it was here that St-Laurent likely made his biggest contribution to the success of the negotiations. Thanks to the lack of precision in the forecasts for the Newfoundland provincial governments ability to provide and maintain public services (and its need for subsidies from Ottawa) it was agreed to include a term calling for the establishment of a royal commis­ sion within eight years of union to examine Newfoundland s financial situation to see if additional financial assistance was necessary. St-Laurent has often been credited with originating this new term,4’ an early version of which was included in the 1947 proposed arrangements. Smallwood later wrote that, without Term 29, “there would have been no Confederation,”44 because it was Term 29 that made it possible to break the impasse over subsidies and to move ahead with the final arrangements. The Terms of Union were signed on 11 December 1948, a few weeks after St-Laurent became prime minister. Only one Newfoundlander, Chesley Crosbie, an influential St. Johns businessman and leader of the anti-Confederate Econ­ omic Union Party, refused to sign. The terms brought Newfoundland into Con­ federation with all the benefits and responsibilities of a province, including seven seats in the House of Commons and six senators, the implementation of the Canadian Constitution and laws, the division of assets and the extension of federal services, and the agreed transitional payments. St-Laurent signed for Canada, and, as he did, he must have felt a mixture of satisfaction and relief in attaining the goal he had made his own for more than two years. Agreement also needed to be reached on the constitutional process for confirming the union, and this process raised a few questions as well. Section 146 of the BNA Act provided for the entrance of Newfoundland into Con­ federation, but it called for an address to come from the Newfoundland legis­ lature. Since there was no legislature in Newfoundland, this section would need to be amended to permit union to take place. At first the British government supported this course of action for it had little desire to open for debate in the British House of Commons the whole question of Confederation. It was the Canadians who objected. St-Laurent clearly opposed amending Section 146, which would be “politically objectionable whether or not legally sound.”45 It

The Last Father of Confederation?

185

would also lead to two debates in Ottawa: first on the amendment and, second, on the Terms of Union. Instead, he argued, the terms should be approved by the Canadian government (and the Newfoundland government, although he believed this was not legally necessary), and then an address (with the Terms of Union attached) should be made to London for the British government to confirm by statute. This way the Canadian government would debate the issue only at one stage in the process and the British government would debate only whether or not to confirm - not the contents of - the terms themselves.46 Ultimately, this process was agreed to, and in early 1949 St-Laurent easily shepherded the address through the House of Commons. The only delay came when Progressive Conservative leader George Drew proposed an amendment calling on the governm ent to consult with the provinces. Drew was out­ flanked by a back bench Liberal who introduced a sub-amendment calling for the consent of the provinces. This was more than Drew wanted, and he was forced into the embarrassing situation of joining with the Liberals to defeat the amendment, and the original address passed with overwhelming support in the House.47 One last m atter that confronted St-Laurent was the establishment of a provincial government in St. John’s and whether or not the Commission of Government should be continued at least in the short term. He was less sure about how to proceed in this instance, other than wanting a “formula which would reduce any possibility of public criticism to a minimum, yet provide the basic machinery necessary for administration during that period.”48 As a result, St-Laurent was drawn into Newfoundland politics and the competition that was developing for the key provincial positions. He considered the idea of maintaining the Commission of Government for a transitional period, but the Newfoundlanders, Smallwood and Bradley in particular, were adamant that a lieutenant-governor be selected immediately. The new lieutenant-governor would then appoint a provincial executive to set up a government to govern the province until elections could be held. Smallwood was insistent that he be chosen as the first premier and Bradley be taken into the Canadian cabinet. While the pronouncements caused a little embarrassment for the government, St-Laurent saw the logic of the situation. Smallwood and Bradley were the leaders of the Confederate movement and could claim to be the logical candidates; equally, both were Liberals (and had attended the Liberal convention the previous August). There was some disagreement over who should be selected lieutenantgovernor, and ultimately St-Laurent decided upon Sir Albert Walsh, with cabinet

186

David MacKenzie

approving on 24 March 1949.49 Walsh would bring to the job considerable administrative experience both in the Commission of Government and as head of the Newfoundland delegation to Ottawa, but part of St-Laurent’s reasoning was also that he was a Roman Catholic (while Smallwood and Bradley were both Protestants), and it was hoped that a more religiously balanced leader­ ship would have a “reassuring effect” on the large Catholic population of New­ foundland, which had tended to vote against Confederation.50Walsh was then to select a premier for the province and, in his letter to Walsh, St-Laurent noted that, “from everything I hear, the Lieutenant-Governor, whoever he is, will probably feel that Mr. Smallwood should be invited to form the provincial Executive Council pending the election.”51 Walsh agreed to become lieutenantgovernor for only a few months, when he would step aside in favour of Sir Leonard Outerbridge. In the interim, he appointed Smallwood as the first premier and St-Laurent invited Bradley into his cabinet, appointing him secre­ tary of state.52

St-Laurent never paid as much attention to Newfoundland after Confedera­ tion as he did in the years leading up to it, and he showed less concern over the integration of Newfoundland into the Canadian family. The province had to be considered during St-Laurent’s final three federal elections in 1949, 1953, and 1957, and there was campaigning and organizing to be done in the new province. The Liberals started with important advantages, not least of which was the disorganized state of the Progressive Conservatives. Both provincially and federally the pro-Confederates followed Smallwood and Bradley into the Liberal Party, leaving the anti-Confederates to gravitate to the Progressive Con­ servatives. The latter group was far less cohesive, and it was hard to run on an anti-union platform after union had taken place.53 Progressive Conservative leader George Drew promised a trans-Canada highway, provincial autonomy, the maintenance of mothers’ allowance and pensions, and even hinted at the possibility of renegotiating the term s of union, with little success. He played up the fact that his grandmother was a Newfoundlander, but he could not break through the Liberal wall.54Conversely, St-Laurent could campaign on a pro-Canada platform and count on Joey Smallwood to rally support all across the island. Then, in June 1953, with Bradleys resignation from the cabinet and appointm ent to the Senate, the Liberals parachuted J.W. Pickersgill into Bradley’s riding of BonavistaTwillingate. Pickersgill assumed Bradley’s portfolio as secretary of state and

The Last Father of Confederation?

187

became a strong voice for Newfoundland in cabinet. The team of Smallwood and Pickersgill also ensured overwhelming Liberal support across Newfound­ land, even through the disastrous election of 1958.55 O f all the Liberal strong­ holds of the 1950s, Newfoundland was one of the most dependable. St-Laurent’s declining attention to Newfoundland affairs was less a matter of lack of interest and more a reflection of his views about how the province fit in the federation. St-Laurent wanted Newfoundland as a province, but a province like all the others, and he did not believe that Newfoundland should be treated any differently from the rest once Confederation was completed. This view led to some disagreement with the new provincial government as Premier Smallwood and many others believed that Newfoundland needed special and ongoing help to raise its basic level of public services to match that of the other provinces. But for St-Laurent, to give Newfoundland special terms would invite demands from the other provinces - especially in the Maritimes - for equal treatment. In addition, St-Laurent was less driven to address the problems that faced the new provincial government in St. Johns, some of which arose from the Terms of Union. The gradual loss of Newfoundland’s control over fishing policy, for example, sparked disruption in the fishing industry and in the lives of tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders. As Raymond Blake has argued, Ottawa’s response was to treat the symptoms rather than the illness itself, in that it was aimed more at supporting the well-being of the fishers than at helping to build a strong fishing industry.56 Likewise, the influx of Canadian goods into the Newfoundland market helped bring down price levels but it also negatively affected local manufacturers. But for St-Laurent, Confederation was all about providing services and raising living standards up to the level in the Maritimes and less about introducing a development strategy for Newfoundland busi­ nesses or industrial growth.57 By the late 1950s, serious tensions erupted between Ottawa and St. Johns over Term 29, even before it was time to establish the royal commission to examine Newfoundland’s financial position. The responsibility for establishing it was clear, but St-Laurent showed little enthusiasm and hesitated, despite re­ peated promptings from St. John’s. St-Laurent believed (correctly) that the only outcome of the commission would be a call from Newfoundland for a great boost in federal subsidies and other financial assistance.58By the time the com­ mission reported in July 1958 the Liberals were in opposition and it was left to the Diefenbaker government to deal with the fallout. St-Laurent, who played a central role in devising Term 29, was spared the responsibility of dealing with its conclusions, but it is not certain that he would have acted significantly

188

David MacKenzie

different from Diefenbaker when it came to fulfilling the recommendations of the Royal Commission or in resisting Newfoundland’s demands for greatly increased subsidies.

The date for Newfoundland’s entrance into Confederation was set for 31 March 1949, and on that day the event was more acknowledged than celebrated in St. John’s. A small ceremony was held in Government House and Albert Walsh was sworn in as lieutenant-governor, followed by the swearing in of Joey Smallwood as the first premier. In Ottawa the moment was marked with a ceremony at the base of the Peace Tower, with speeches from St-Laurent and Bradley, and the two politicians carved the first strokes of the Newfoundland coat of arms on the blank tenth shield in the arch of the tower - left empty for just such an occasion after the rebuilding of the House of Commons after the 1916 fire. The governor general and former prime minister King were there; crowds gathered, and “O Canada” and “Ode to Newfoundland” were sung. It was right that St-Laurent should be asked to oversee the ceremonies, not only because he was prime minister but also because he was the leading Can­ adian behind the achievement of union with Newfoundland. He provided the leadership and a steady hand, responding to problems with flexibility but always with the ultimate goal firmly in view. From the beginning, one observer later wrote, “he exerted a positive influence on the entire process.” And while the title of “last Father of Confederation” is usually credited to Joey Smallwood (and it is hard even to imagine St-Laurent seeking out such an epithet), St-Laurent certainly earned the right to be so credited. W ithout St-Laurent’s contributions, “the union would not have been accomplished,”59 and Canada would be that much smaller today on account of it. Serious issues arose in Newfoundland in the years after Confederation - the battle over offshore rights, the Churchill Falls agreement, the collapse of the cod fishery - that were unforeseen during the union negotiations. But others emerged because of what was left undone in 1947-49: the lack of planning for the reconstruction of Newfoundland’s economy and for the development of the natural resources of Labrador; the failure to consider the effect that union would have on small Newfoundland businesses; and the debacle over Term 29.50 These issues were left unfinished by union, and St-Laurent must shoulder some of the responsibility for them as well. It was not, therefore, quite the “perfect union,” but it was, in any event, an extraordinary achievement, and it is not surprising that St-Laurent would later look back on the union of Newfoundland and Canada as one of his greatest

The Last Father of Confederation?

189

accomplishments. The bringing in of foreign territory and people on such a scale surely has to rank as one of the single greatest episodes in the history of Canadian international relations. It is even more impressive when compared to many of the attempts at union between other states and peoples; Newfound­ land was brought into Canada without a single shot fired in anger and with no one killed before, during, or after its implementation. The protests in New­ foundland were few and most opposition died away very quickly.61 In the rest of the country there was little complaint from any of the provinces over the fact of union or of the way it was done. The lack of public enthusiasm in 1949 should not obscure these truths. Seventy years later Newfoundlanders are still Newfoundlanders, but the bonds with Canada remain strong.62

Notes 1 St John Chadwick, Newfoundland: Island into Province (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), ix. 2 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 16 February 1949, 598. 3 A copy can be found in Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Brooke Claxton Papers, MG 32 B5, vol. 153, file: “Elections 1949.” 4 See David Mackenzie, Inside the Atlantic Triangle: Canada and the Entrance o f Newfound­ land into Confederation, 1939-1949 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 22-114, 127-63. 5 See S.J.R. Noel, Politics in Newfoundland (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 221 -48; Peter Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929-1949 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1988), 44-108. 6 The cabinet committee on Newfoundland (through to 1948) minutes can be found in LAC, R.A. MacKay Papers, MG 30 E159, vol. 4, file: “Cab. Com. on Nfld minutes”; for the inter­ departmental committee minutes, see vol. 2, file: “ICCNR: Minutes of Meetings July 46 Feb. 47.” Many of the documents are reproduced in Paul Bridle, ed., Documents on Relations between Canada and Newfoundland, vol. 2 ,1940-1949, Confederation (Ottawa: Department of External Affairs, 1984) (hereafter DRCN). 7 J. R. Smallwood, I Chose Canada: The Memoirs of the Honourable Joseph R. “Joey”Smallwood (Toronto: Macmillan, 1973), 243. See also Richard Gwyn, Smallwood: The Unlikely Revo­ lutionary (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), 77-78. That same day Smallwood also began a life-long association with J.W. Pickersgill, of the Prime Minister s Office. Pickersgill later wrote that Smallwood “made a lasting impression” on St-Laurent. See J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 77. 8 Cabinet conclusions, 27 December 1946, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 7. 9 See the minutes of these meetings in National Archives, United Kingdom (hereafter NA), Dominions Office Papers, DO 35/3448. 10 Walwyn to P.A. Clutterbuck, 12 April 1945, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, Records of the Commission of Government, GN 1/3 box 1-4 (1946), file 3/46. 11 J.W. Pickersgill and D.F. Forster, eds., The Mackenzie King Record, vol. 4 ,1947-1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 53.

190

David MacKenzie

12 For a review of Confederations benefits, see David MacKenzie, “The Terms of Union in

Historical Perspective,” Newfoundland Studies 14,2 (1998): 221-23. 13 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 19 June 1948, 5550.

14 Ibid. 15 Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 91-2. 16 See the speech by MP Frederic Dorion (Charlevoix-Saguenay), Canada, House of Com­ mons, Debates, 6 February 1948,940-44. See also Chadwick, Newfoundland, chap. 11; and A.M. Fraser, “The Labrador Boundary Dispute,” in Newfoundland: Economic, Diplomatic, and Strategic Studies, ed. R.A. MacKay (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1946), 460-83. 17 See the clippings in LAC, Department of External Affairs, RG 25 G2, vol. 2404, file 486140c, pt. 1. 18 Duplessis to St-Laurent (my translation), 22 March 1947, DRCN, vol. 1, doc. 1324. 19 J.S. Macdonald to Pearson, 15 March 1947, LAC, MG 30 E159, vol. 2, file: “ICCNR, General Correspondence and Memo, Pt. Ill, Mar-April 47.” 20 Pickersgill and Forster, Mackenzie King Record, 4:49. 21 Ibid., 50. 22 Paul Bridle interview, Ottawa, 1 June 1982. 23 See, for example, Cabinet Conclusions, 18 July 1947, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 10. 24 Mitchell Sharp interview, Ottawa, 4 June 1982. 25 Pickersgill and Forster, Mackenzie King Record, 4:76. 26 Cabinet Conclusions, 25 August 1947, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 10. 27 See James Hiller and Michael Harrington, eds., The Newfoundland National Convention 1946-1948: Debates, Papers, and Reports, 2 vols. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995). 28 Cabinet Conclusions, 28 October 1947, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 11. 29 For the “Proposed Terms,” see DRCN, doc. 442, 681-714. 30 Pickersgill and Forster, Mackenzie King Record, 4:343. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., 4:344. 33 Norman Robertson to St-Laurent, 2 July 1948, LAC, MG 30 E159, file: “Legal Procedure for Admission of Nfld, 1947-49.” 34 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 78-79. 35 Cabinet Conclusions, 27 July 1948, LAC, RG 2 16, vol. 13. 36 The cabinet and interdepartmental committees’ minutes can be found in LAC, MG 30 E159, vols. 2-4. 37 Elmer Driedger interview, Ottawa, 14 June 1982. 38 Don Jamieson, No Placefor Fools: The Political Memoirs o f Don Jamieson, vol. 1, ed. Carmelita McGrath (St. Johns: Breakwater Books, 1989), 137. 39 See Noel, Politics, 241-61; Neary, Newfoundland, 313-45; MacKenzie, “Terms of Union,” 229-34. 40 Cabinet Conclusions, 3 November 1948, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 14. 41 Minutes of Cabinet Committee and Newfoundland Delegation, 10 November 1948, LAC, MacKay Papers, MG 30 E159, vol. 4, file: “Nfld-Canada Discussions, Minutes of Meeting, 1948.” 42 Cabinet Conclusions, 9 November 1948, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 14 (see also 15 November 1948). See Raymond B. Blake, Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates Newfoundland as a Province (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 31-36.

The Last Father of Confederation?

191

43 Paul Bridle interview, Ottawa, 1 June 1982; Elmer Driedger interview, Ottawa, 14 June 1982; Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 81. 44 Smallwood, I Chose Canada, 418. 45 SSEA to High Commissioner for Canada in the UK, 22 July 1948, LAC, RG 2 18, vol. 129, file; “N-18 1948 (June-July).” 46 Governor Macdonald to Sir Eric Machtig, 31 July 1948, NA, DO 35/3465. See also the memo of the conversation with St-Laurent, 22 October 1948, in the same file. 47 See Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 257; and Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 81-82. 48 Blake, Canadians at Last, 41. 49 Cabinet Conclusions, 24 March 1949, LAC, Privy Council Office, RG 2 16, vol. 16. 50 Blake, Canadians at Last, 42. 51 St-Laurent to Walsh, 8 March 1949, LAC, Louis St-Laurent Papers, MG 26 L, vol. 66. 52 See Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 83-85; Blake, Canadians at Last, 41-43. 53 Noel, Politics, 279-80. 54 See the clippings in LAC, Brooke Claxton Papers, box 153, file: “George Drew - Clippings,” especially Winnipeg Tribune, “Drew Attacks Terms of NewTand Union,” 13 May 1949, and Toronto Evening Telegram, “Pledge of Autonomy Is Rallying Nfld to Drew’s Banner,” 12 May 1949. 55 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 181-85. 56 Blake, Canadians at Last, 181. 57 Sean Cadigan, Newfoundland and Labrador: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 242; Blake, Canadians at Last, 181. 58 Raymond B. Blake, Lions or Jellyfish: Newfoundland-Ottawa Relations since 1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 29-30. 59 Jamieson, No Placefor Fools, 137. 60 On the post-Confederation issues see Blake, Canadians at Last and Lions or Jellyfish. 61 Blake, Canadians at Last, 22-24. 62 For a recent discussion of the issues facing Newfoundland seventy years after Confedera­ tion, see Raymond B. Blake and Melvin Baker, Where Once They Stood: Newfoundland’s Rocky Road towards Confederation (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2019), 305-8.

192

David MacKenzie

chapt er

^

Defence, Development, and Inuit St-Laurent's Modern Approach to the North P. WHITNEY LACKENBAUER

A few months after his government had been re-elected in 1953, Louis St-Laurent rose in Parliament to move the second reading of the bill to create the D epart­ ment of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Declaring that the legislation would effectively “give a new emphasis and scope to work already being done, an d ... indicate that the government and Parliament wish to see greater emphasis made a continuing feature of the operation of government,” the prime minister followed with this famous observation: Apparently we have administered these vast territories of the north in an almost continuing state of absence of mind. I think all honourable members now feel that the territories are vastly important to Canada and that it is time that more attention was focused upon their possibilities and what they will mean to this nation. We in the southern part of Canada have been so busy in recent years that we have given little close attention to the north country. In the thirties we were concerned with economic problems; then during the war years there was little that we could devote ourselves to but to the tasks o f war. Since the war, the growth and development in every province and the prob­ lems of the cold war have absorbed practically the whole of our attention.1

If the end of the Second World War rejuvenated national interest in the economic potential of the Canadian North, the Cold War had amplified the strategic significance of the region. The increasing tempo of civilian and m il­ itary activity in the N orth in the postwar period intensified the need for close

coordination among federal departments and between civil and military ac­ tivities. “The Canadian northland lies between the two greatest powers in the world,” St-Laurent explained. This necessitated “joint measures” with the United States to secure the northern approaches to North America, “carried out under the principle of full respect for the sovereignty of the country in which they are carried out.” The creation of this new department for northern affairs would symbolize “the actuality of the exercise of Canadian sovereignty in these north­ ern lands right up to the pole.”2 St-Laurent’s landm ark speech extolled the production and potential of northern mining, potential fisheries, and the possibilities of water power. He ended with a brief reference to the needs of the Inuit population (“Eskimos” as they were known in non-Inuit, or qallunaat, circles at the time) - a group of Canadians typically overlooked and neglected by the federal government. The introduction of family allowances, the increasing reliance on imported tech­ nologies, and the crash of the fox fur market brought Inuit into a more dependent relationship with the state. The government, aware of the changing nature of the North, scrambled to address the problems of insufficient game resources, a health crisis that saw a large portion of the Inuit population in Southern sana­ toria, and a failing traditional economy.1 The St-Laurent government did not ignore Inuit. Jean Lesage, St-Laurent’s energetic and mercurial minister of northern affairs and national resources, declared: The objective of government policy is relatively easy to define. It is to give the Eskimos the same rights, privileges, opportunities, and responsibilities as all other Canadians; in short, to enable them to share fully the national life of Canada. The broader needs - and they are immediate needs - are health, education and a sound economy. They are not separate problems, each is re­ lated to the other. It is not enough to cure disease, the cause of disease must be removed and this is largely a m atter of education and improvement of eco­ nomic conditions. Education must be provided, but this depends on good health and the needs of the economy. A sound economy means a diversified economy not based on the white fox alone; but for new occupations, both health and education are required. In providing health, education and the broad economy the complications are infinite.4

That last sentence revealed the issues facing the St-Laurent government. Officials could easily identify key challenges facing the Arctic, but the interaction between these variables meant that the question of Northern development was

194

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

not a simple problem with obvious answers. The situation was at least compli­ cated - knowable, but replete with “known unknowns.” Given the complexity of the problems and the lack of experience in delivering government services into a dynamic region in a state of major socio-cultural and economic flux, the situation was also filled with “unknown unknowns,” where cause and effect could only be deduced in retrospect. This would require experimentation and response, and in chaotic situations where cause and effect were unclear, the government would have to act and then try to identify emerging patterns to help prevent future crises and discern new opportunities. The Liberals made the case that Canadians would no longer tolerate inaction, and they linked humanitarian and welfare state ideas to emergent Arctic futures. Some historians have recently used anti-colonial frameworks to assert that postwar liberal m odernist assumptions precluded m ade-in-the-N orth leadership and solutions that would have been more culturally appropriate and thus better for Northerners. (I typically include myself in this category.) By extension, most of the academic literature is highly critical of the federal government, seeking to expose its “totalizing” agenda,5 chastising its colonial and “high m odernist” mentalities (in such fields as education, fledgling train­ ing and employment programs, the delivery of health services, and develop­ ment of settlements), or accusing it of outright duplicity (often in terms of the High Arctic relocations and other coercive settlement efforts). By contrast, the government officials who served at this time paint a more benevolent por­ trait of a government seeking to anticipate and address a range of emerging security, economic, and hum anitarian concerns. In his memoirs, former NW T commissioner Gordon Robertson described a period of tremendous uncertainty, marked by a rising awareness of the need to support N orthern Indigenous peoples - but with no clear idea of what that would, could, or should look like. Accordingly, he portrayed a period of ex­ perimentation as federal decision makers, policy makers, and practitioners grappled with emerging, complex problems related to economics, education, culture, health, and other policy domains - the types of challenges that aca­ demics, from their late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century perch, think should and could have been solved if only people then thought how they do today. For decision makers at the time, however, the present and future was far less clear - an acknowledgment that might encourage a reappraisal of the as­ sumptions, logic, and uncertainty that framed and animated Northern policy during the St-Laurent era. In short, rather than seeking to make normative judgments about how 1950s policy decisions were “good” or “bad” from a twenty-first-century perspective, this chapter examines how leading decision

Defence, Development, and Inuit

195

makers during the St-Laurent era understood the Northern policy space across three broad sectors - sovereignty and defence, economic development, and Inuit policy - and laid the foundation for a m odern Northern strategy.

Administering Canada's Northern Inheritance to 1953: "An Almost Continuing State of Absence of Mind" Canada inherited whatever rights Great Britain had to the Arctic in 1870 and to the High Arctic in 1880, but it governed its Northern territories in a “fit of absence of m ind” until after the Second World War.6 The delivery of services to Inuit and other Northern Indigenous groups remained minimal, with the government preferring to leave responsibilities for welfare and education to the Hudsons Bay Company and missionaries. The prevailing logic that In­ digenous peoples were “best left as Indians” or left “in a state of nature” prevailed until the Second World War.7American military development in the Canadian North in this period was prom pted by the conviction that the region repre­ sented a continental security frontier. Naturally, it resurrected fears about US encroachment on Canadian sovereignty.8 Although the Americans withdrew at the end of the war and confirmed Canadian ownership over Yukon and the significant infrastructure they left behind, the dictates of geography placed the Arctic at the centre of Cold War superpower geopolitics soon thereafter. In popular opinion and in the eyes of Canadian officials, the American security agenda again seemed to threaten Canadian sovereignty. Although recent schol­ arship emphasizes that the North American neighbours found solutions that affirmed Canadas terrestrial sovereignty,9there is no denying that the American behemoth largely dictated the pace of military modernization in Canadas North throughout the 1950s and the major socio-economic, cultural, and environ­ mental impacts that flowed from it.10 Wartime developments in the North also awakened Canadian officials to the federal governments obligations to Northern residents.11 The introduction of the Canadian social welfare system gave Northern Indigenous Canadians access to family allowances and old age pensions, while a growing reliance on imported technologies and the crash of the fox fur market brought Inuit into a more dependent relationship with the state. The administrative machinery to oversee these changes was severely lacking.12 The real power base remained Ottawa. From 1922 to 1953, various versions of the bureaucracy responsible for the Northwest Territories (NWT) and Yukon were provided directly from the nations capital. Although police, trading, and mission posts had spread into the farthest inhabited reaches of the Canadian

196

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

Arctic during the interwar period, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), a handful of Department of Transport radio operators, and a pair of doctors at the mission hospitals at Chesterfield Inlet and Pangnirtung represented the only year-round government employees in the Eastern Arctic. The few federal agencies with offices in the Western Arctic and along the Mackenzie River made the situation similar in the northwest. Administration of the territories was a case study of “bureaucracy in inaction,”13 marked by general indifference and government austerity. The Northern administration was buried in the Lands, Parks, and Forests Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources beginning in 1937, where it would remain for thirteen years. The postwar period brought preliminary advances towards the implemen­ tation of a new N orthern vision. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King asked professional diplomat Dr. Hugh Keenleyside to succeed Charles Camsell as deputy minister and NW T commissioner. Keenleyside wrote in his memoirs: The awakening general interest in the Arctic was in part the result of political and defence considerations that marked the period of the Cold War. But additional recognition of its importance came also from a new appreciation of the economic possibilities of that region. And the more admirable aspect of humanity s split personality was illustrated by a growing appreciation of the social responsibility of those living in a more favourable environment for the welfare of others of our common destiny who had been existing in halfforgotten isolation beyond the horizon of the N orth.14

Keenleysides vision was progressive and proactive, including the reorgan­ ization of the Northern administration into Yukon, Mackenzie District, and Arctic divisions; more generous grants to the territories; modest Indigenous health and education reforms; and the establishment of an Advisory Com m it­ tee on N orthern Development (ACND) to coordinate interdepartm ental cooperation.15Unfortunately, his agenda did not resonate with Robert Winters, appointed minister in 1950 by St-Laurent. His preoccupation was with resource development (reflected in the new name of the Department of Resources and Development), leaving the com m issioners reformist agenda on hold. C on­ sequently, Keenleysides replacement, General Hugh Young, received little backing from 1950 to 1953.16All the same, one of Keenleysides most important ideas was implemented. It was designed to reduce the power of the Ottawabased public service and to give voice to the local population. In 1951, the NWT Council was expanded to eight members, three of whom were elected (all non-

Defence, Development, and Inuit

197

Indigenous representatives from the Mackenzie District), who sometimes met in Yellowknife.17 In the words of journalist John David Hamilton, “Keenleysides reorganization and his fledgling social program made the St-LaurentLesage-Robertson revolution of the 1950s much easier to accomplish.”18 In the wake of a resounding election victory in August 1953, the St-Laurent government decided to adopt a more active Northern affairs policy. The previ­ ous January, Secretary of State Lester Pearson had complained in cabinet that the Americans had invested as much (or more) than Ottawa in Canadas Arctic Archipelago and that “everything pointed towards an increase in U.S. activity in the Arctic during coming years.” Would our superpower neighbour question our claims to “relatively unexplored areas”? Even if Canada had legal sover­ eignty, were we content to let the Americans exercise de facto sovereignty? Cabinet requested the reinvigoration of the ACND to consider Arctic develop­ ment initiatives that “might be employed to preserve or develop the political, administrative, scientific and defence interests of Canada in that area,”19and it resumed its meetings accordingly.20 Awakened by Pearsons sovereignty con­ cerns, as well as the US request to build experimental early warning radar sta­ tions in the Western Canadian Arctic in anticipation of a broader network,21 the government decided to take action. On 16 September, the prime minister summoned Gordon Robertson - a resourceful thirty-six-year-old mandarin serving as assistant clerk of the Privy Council - to his office and announced that he wanted a new team to manage Northern affairs. The minister was going to be Jean Lesage, a bright young member from Quebec, who had no ministerial experience but who had been in Parliament for eight years and parliamentary assistant to the secretary of state for external affairs and later to the minister of finance. Lesages deputy minister should be someone who knew government and who was young and vigorous: me.22

The Lesage-Robertson partnership revealed itself as the successful union of two rising stars. Lesage, who would go on to initiate Quebec’s “Quiet Revolu­ tion” in the 1960s, played a leadership role in the quiet revolution in Northern administration and development in the preceding decade. “Lesage was com­ pletely bilingual, with a well-developed and quick intelligence, interested in new ideas, and able to probe them with a lawyer’s skills and a politician’s awareness of what would be publicly acceptable and what would not,” Robertson remem­ bered.23Lesages biographer Dale Thomson noted that Robertson proved a most able advisor to develop a new federal policy for territorial administration and economic development, with his exceptional “knowledge of the government’s

198

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

functioning, and particularly of preparing presentations to cabinet,” proving “invaluable assets to a novice minister.”24 During the fall of 1953, Robertson set to work drafting the parameters of a “new” Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources (DNANR). “The effect of the bill will not be to establish a new department of government, nor to extend the scope of government in any way, nor even to add new functions to those discharged by the department affected by the bill,” St-Laurent explained. Instead, it was intended “to give a new emphasis and scope to work already being done, and to indicate that the government and parliament wish to see such greater emphasis [on the administration and development of the northern territories] made a continuing feature of the operation of government.” It was a significant moment: This will be the first time that this designation “northern affairs” will have appeared in the name of a department o f the government of C anada,... [an indication] of the growing interest in the importance of these northern ter­ ritories. The functions of the departm ent will remain essentially the same as those of the department of resources, except that hereinafter responsibilities in relation to the north will be more fully and clearly spelled out. The m inis­ ter will have the specific duty to co-ordinate the activities of all government departments in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. It will also be his responsibility to promote measures for further economic and political de­ velopment ... and to develop knowledge of the problems in the north and the means of dealing with them through scientific investigations and technological research.25

The Opposition’s “general support for the measure” guaranteed its quick passage into law.26 The new minister and deputy minister faced a steep learning curve, and framing a m odern Northern strategy would require energy, imagination, and resourcefulness. Robertson was double-hatted as deputy minister and commis­ sioner of the Northwest Territories, while “Jean Lesage became, in effect, u n ­ elected premier of that vast area. Rapidly establishing a harmonious working relationship, he and Robertson spent much of the first winter getting to know the department and its personnel, division by division.”27 It was still a small department, with a total Northern Administration and Lands Branch staff of 376, with 150 based in Ottawa and the rest “thinly scattered in the larger settle­ ments of the Yukon and the Mackenzie,” including four junior administrative officers in the NW T (none above the treeline and none in Arctic Quebec). “Not

Defence, Development, and Inuit

199

a single social worker concerned with the North was employed in the North or in Ottawa,” R.A.J. Phillips noted. “The entire northern budget for capital and operating expenses in that first year of the new department was four million dollars.”28 The reorganized (and expanded) N orthern Adm inistration and Lands Branch soon featured a territorial division to administer all parts of the North below the treeline and an Arctic division to look after the area above it, with an education and an engineering division serving both regions. “The newly organized branch was not intended to create revolutions,” Phillips observed, “but to react to change that had taken place silently in the North during the years of national indifference.”29Robertson, who was “fifteen years younger than the youngest branch director in the departm ent” and had never administered m ore than a dozen staff, recalled: “My new empire sprawled all across Can­ ada, with nothing in the Arctic except the challenge to do something about it. But what?”30

The Military North: Simple Contexts and the Domain of Best Practice Cold War strategic realities - including the Korean War and the Soviet detona­ tion of its first hydrogen bomb - forced Ottawa to balance sovereignty con­ siderations with continental security imperatives. Although de jure (legal) sovereignty in the Arctic was not in question, concerns persisted about de facto sovereignty with the Americans, as Pearsons appeal to cabinet in January 1953 confirmed.31 Three weeks before St-Laurent gave his landmark December 1953 speech in Parliament, newly elected US president Dwight Eisenhower had ad­ dressed a joint sitting of the House of Commons and Senate on North American security. “This continent, of course, is a single physical and geographical entity,” Eisenhower observed while trum peting the “informed and intelligent co­ operation” that exemplified Canada-US relations. Continental defence was a common “challenge to both our peoples,” and “defensively, as well as geograph­ ically, we are joined beyond any possibility of separation.” As allies and neigh­ bours with shared interests and values, Eisenhower emphasized the need for prompt, joint action “to protect our North America from any surprise attack by air.” In a worsening Cold War context, “Canada and the United States are equal partners and neither dares to waste time.”32 With this messaging, Eisenhower effectively laid the groundwork for the United States’ boldest continental defence initiative: the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line that would stretch across the North American Arctic and provide advanced warning of Soviet bombers transiting the polar regions to strike at

200

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

the political and industrial heartland. Following successful experiments in the Western Arctic, the Canada-US Military Studies Group recommended in June 1954 that a radar network be built stretching from Alaska to Baffin Island. The St-Laurent administration consented to these plans, with the Americans committing to pay for and build the entire DEW Line, three-quarters of which was in Canada. With an ambitious target date of July 1957, there was no time for Canada to carefully ponder its options. Cabinet endorsed the plans in Janu­ ary 1955,33and it signed an advantageous bilateral agreement with the Americans that May. Canada maintained ownership of all lands affected while the US bore the full cost of construction, subcontracting to Canadian companies and hiring Canadian civilian technicians and support staff.34 In short, the deal negotiated by the St-Laurent government confirmed rather than detracted from Canadian sovereignty, reaffirming that the Arctic Islands explicitly belonged to Canada35 and “offering financial subsidies to the Canadian economy and contributing to the development of the Canadian frontier.”36 The long-term socio-cultural and environmental impacts of military projects were less favourable. As the boldest megaproject in Arctic history to that point, the DEW Line dramatically altered the military, logistical, and demographic characteristics of the Canadian Arctic. According to the 1955 Canada-US DEW Line agreement assessment: “The Eskimos of Canada are in a primitive state of social development. It is important that these people be not subjected unduly to disruption of their hunting economy, exposure to diseases against which their immunity is often low, or other effects of the presence of white men which might be injurious to them.”37 In retrospect, the thought that Inuit could be insulated from military megaprojects seems both absurd and naïve. Defence activities created or exacerbated dependencies on wage employment and Western goods, encouraged the concentration of Inuit in permanent settlements, and set up unsustainable expectations given the “boom-and-bust” cycles associ­ ated with construction work. By drawing Inuit and other Northern peoples into the web of modern life, the military’s expanding postwar footprint changed socio-economic and cultural geographies as well as leaving a toxic environmental legacy that would fall to later governments to address.38

"A Problem of Development": Complicated Contexts and the Domain of Experts Addressing the need for more appropriate government policies relating to resource and economic development, planning for Northern settlements, and the delivery of government services proved another key preoccupation of the

Defence, Development, and Inuit

201

St-Laurent government. “The population of the territories is still small in rela­ tion to their area, but it is growing percentage-wise quite rapidly,” the prime minister noted in his December 1953 speech. “It is a healthy growth based upon proven resources that are being used and are providing a livelihood for the population.” Drawing an analogy to something that Southern Canadians could recognize, he suggested that the growth and development of the territories is perhaps somewhat reminis­ cent of what took place in the Canadian west at the end of the last century. They have not yet reached the stage of full bloom which occurred when the west filled up in the early years of the century, but they have reached a stage where it is clear that the north, just as certainly as had the west fifty years ago, has a great future for the benefit of the Canadian nation.39

Despite St-Laurent s strident rhetoric, the challenge lay in uncertainty. The “best practices” derived from the settlement of the Canadian west did not apply to the territorial North. Environmental conditions and demography precluded an agricultural frontier north of 60. “In the north the basic industry for growth and development is mining,” the prime minister observed. Resource surveys, modern extraction technologies, and growing international demand for re­ sources made him optimistic. “Up to the present, development has been held up by the remoteness of the area, the problem of transportation, the rigorous nature of the climate, and the toughness of the terrain,” St-Laurent noted, “but from what I know of the geology of the territories,... the resources there are sufficient to give confidence that the present output will be quite dwarfed by the developments of the future.”40 There were small pockets of resource development across the territorial North, but much work remained to realize the dream of a modern, diversified regional economy. Mining remained the economic backbone of the Yukon,41 and gold mining fuelled the booming NWT town of Yellowknife and the uran­ ium mine at Port Radium (which reached peak production in 1954).42 By combining the N orthern Administration and Lands Branch with the Depart­ m ent of Mines and Resources, DNANR hoped to capitalize on the natural re­ source riches embedded in the Canadian Shield. With gold production in Yellowknife resurgent and prospectors flooding to the NWT, “it didn’t take a genius to tell the Ottawa mandarins that the rules had to be changed to make it easier to develop northern resources,” Hamilton observed.41New bureaucratic machinery would allow federal authorities to frame and implement a compre­ hensive, reformist Northern strategy that would extend transportation networks

202

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

northward, promote Northern resource development, and leverage the economic growth occurring across the continent. Surveying vast uninvestigated areas of the Northern territories served as an essential precondition to extending the resource frontier. The Geological Survey of Canadas efforts expanded exponentially in the 1950s, with aircraft mapping most of the 300,000 square kilometres of barren lands west of Hudson Bay in three years, most of the far northern Queen Elizabeth Islands in 1955, and the southern half of the Mackenzie basin in 1957.44 This aerial mapping led to the discovery of occurrences of gold, silver, nickel, copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and asbestos as well as pegmatite containing lithium, beryllium, niobium, and tantalum. New mining operations, such as the North Rankin Nickel Mine on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay, the Pine Point lead-zinc mine south of Great Slave Lake, and various properties in Yellowknife, went into production thanks to these surveying efforts.45Northern affairs personnel also launched a vigorous campaign to arouse public interest in the region as a means to attract staff and more budgetary support.46 Federal officials also identified improved transportation infrastructure to carry Northern resources to Southern markets as well as more deliberate com­ munity development as perquisites to regional economic development. Federal investments extended the Whitehorse-Mayo highway to Dawson, began to extend the Mackenzie highway to Yellowknife, and subsidized various develop­ ment roads, anticipating the “roads-to-resources” agenda of the Diefenbaker government. Furthermore, government-negotiated reductions in freight rates helped to lower costs of shipping by boat and air.47 Officials deliberated fre­ quently on how settlements should and could be designed and planned to pro­ mote and benefit from the new, “modern Arctic,” discussing the interconnectedness between housing, public infrastructure (such as power supply, water supply, airstrips, and utilidors), and public health as well as possibilities of integrating administrative, commercial, and military interests.48 Development plans for Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island and the relocation of the town of Aklavik in the Mackenzie Delta to Inuvik exemplified high m odernist planning assumptions that swept the globe during the middle decades of the twentieth century, with ambitious urban models designed to simultaneously overcome the “hostility” of a Northern environment and catapult Northerners into conditions of modern living.49 The challenge of creating a diversified economic base for Northern Indigen­ ous peoples represented a more complicated challenge. The fox fur trade oscil­ lated wildly, and the introduction of family allowances helped to even out the impact in the postwar period. Nevertheless, trappers’ income was “not only low

Defence, Development, and Inuit

203

but precarious,” and the N orthern affairs administration identified an urgent requirement to open new economic opportunities. “Some new means of broad­ ening the Eskimo income need not affect the traditional way of life significantly, and may indeed, capitalize on the skills of that life,” Minister Jean Lesage explained in 1955. There was no desire to impose a single model to which all Inuit should conform. Nevertheless, as Inuit settled in communities, local game resources could not support the subsistence of larger populations. Wholesale reliance on a hunting and trapping lifestyle would no longer be viable. Instead, a diversified economy could include Inuit soapstone carvings, the collection and marketing of eiderdown and tanned sealskins for use in handicrafts, sewing, and furniture. Other proposed opportunities included boat-building projects at Lake Harbour (Kimmirut) and Tuktoyaktuk, animal and poultry husbandry, commercial fish­ ing, coal mining, whaling, and tourism. In other cases, such as Inuit employment at weather stations, airfields, and radar posts, the nature of the work imposed “a complete break with traditional ways and entail [ed] sharp changes both in social organization and in standards of living.” Denying Inuit the ability to par­ ticipate in these projects would be “foolish,” Lesage asserted, precluding them from useful work in their own country. “Through their knowledge of the north the Eskimos will make an im portant contribution to Canada,” he proclaimed, now that the “path of national development [has] led us to the north ... The de­ velopment of these lands will require the assistance of their oldest residents.”50

Responding to Illness among the Inuit During the St-Laurent era, federal officials devoted unprecedented attention to devising a new policy to guide the government s relationships with Inuit. De­ clining fur prices and caribou populations, improper housing for people dying of diseases, abhorrently high infant mortality rates, and well-publicized reports of starvation painted a bleak picture of Inuit life that needed to be redrawn through concerted government action. Charting a pathway forward fell to the Department of Resources and Development (DRD) and then to the DNANR, which adopted a different approach than the Department of Indian Affairs (as J.R. Miller reconstructs in Chapter 20, this volume). “I have been quite impressed by what I have read and seen in films about the Eskimos,” the prime minister stated in December 1953. “They seem to be a very sympathetic group of people.” He anticipated a role for the DNANR in determining “what can be done to integrate the native Eskimo population into the development, and probably the administration also, of parts of these north­ ern areas.” In this respect, he saw a role for more state intervention in their lives:

204

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

Having a dem onstration of what they can do, it is probably a responsibility that the Canadian people would want to have their government discharge to provide them with opportunities for developing their talents and making themselves real citizens of the Canadian nation. It is for all these reasons that it has been felt that it would be desirable to have an energetic young minister ... [whose] principal responsibility will be to devote his attention to the north­ ern affairs of this nation in that area which is 40 per cent of the area of the whole of Canada.51

As minister, Lesage quickly discerned with his senior officials that “a major human problem had been developing in the North for several years and that, unless effective measures were taken, the next generation of Aboriginal people would be trapped in lives of increasing hardship and worsening health with no means of escape.”52Reports of distress and starvation among certain Inuit groups (mainly in the isolated Keewatin interior), a combined result of the closure of local trading posts and of a failure in subsistence game supply, created a new­ found sense of urgency. But what should the new federal policy look like? Gov­ ernment experts, as well as non-Indigenous non-governmental stakeholders, discussed and debated options in the ACND, the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, and other government fora. While missionaries and other advocates sought protections so that modernization would not destroy Indigenous ways of life, federal officials (in departments with conflicting mandates) considered policies that would suit their overarching agendas for socio-economic development, a mixed economy, and the extension of federal programs to Inuit as Canadian citizens.53Discrete aspects of “the Eskimo problem” were complicated, but overall it was complex and even chaotic. There were many known problems (dismal health indicators, the collapse of the fur trade, and a lack of education opportun­ ities to allow those Indigenous peoples who wanted to participate in the wage economy do so) as well as many unknowns. The assimilationist vision that had dominated Indian affairs policy in Southern Canada had never extended to the North, and the absence of government officials in the region until the late 1950s stood in sharp contrast to the Indian agent-dominance on reserves south of 60.54 Accordingly, official responses to the challenges of the “human problem” in the Indigenous North reflected the Northern administrations tendency to sway “between nominal egalitarianism and excessive paternalism,”55 as well as “con­ tradictions and conflicts embedded in government policy” during this period.56 In the spring 1955 issue of the Beaver magazine, Jean Lesage laid out the government vision for Inuit affairs, articulating elements of a policy foundation that would prevail for decades to come. The overall objective was simply “to

Defence, Development, and Inuit

205

give the Eskimos the same rights, privileges, opportunities, and responsibilities as all other Canadians; in short, to enable them to share fully in the national life of Canada.” This was an unabashedly liberal project that fit with the prevail­ ing hum anitarian and political assumptions of the 1950s.57 There could be no rolling back the clock, and Lesage intimated that counter-factual reflections about what life would be like without outside contact were counterproductive: It is pointless to consider whether the Eskimo was happier before the white man came, for the white m an has come and time cannot be reversed. The only realistic approach is to accept the fact that the Eskimo will be brought ever more under the influences of civilization to the South. The task, then, is to help him adjust his life and his thoughts to all that the encroachment of his new life must mean. In some places the encroachment has been slight. For those who can continue in the native way of life successfully - or can follow it more successfully than any other - little change may be necessary or desir­ able, so long as that condition lasts. Adjustment to our way of life must be related in character, time, and degree to the developing situation in each area, provided it is m ade quite clear that adjustment does not mean the loss of the identity of the Eskimos’ culture.38

This was not the rant of a simple colonizer insistent that all Inuit must jettison their “primitive” ways so that they could be assimilated and receive the glorious virtues of “civilized” Southern Canadian society. It pointed to inevitable change,59 but it also left conceptual space for Inuit who wanted to continue to live on the land. It also emphasized the importance of Inuit cultural identity and its pres­ ervation when “adjusting” to outside influences. Such adjustments “will take time,” the minister anticipated, “but there can be no other acceptable result in the long run.”60 Lesage also built a rational case for why Southern Canadians should worry about Inuit at a time when the mere evocation of “Indigenous rights” did not have political or popular resonance. “It is obviously something more than sentimentalism which creates the demand for a vigorous attack on the dilem­ mas of a changing Eskimo society,” he insisted. First, geography and history drew Inuit and their homeland into Canada. “The moral responsibility is the greater because, for so long, men were content to change the ways of the north without stopping to reckon, let alone pay, the price of their influence.” This was Canadas mom ent to take responsibility. Previous contact with Euro-Canadians had already disturbed “the well-established pattern of their society,” and “the vastly increased measure of contact today and in the immediate future are the

206

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

responsibility of the nation as a whole.” In his view, failing to accept this re­ sponsibility would deny Inuit “the opportunity to participate freely in the life and activities of the nation.” Language about “climbing the ladder of civilization” confirmed the “evolutionary” assumptions of anthropologists at the time, but the overall message sought to bolster Inuit health, welfare, and (ultimately) empowerment. Upon sober reflection, the minister argued that the government could not simply stand aside and leave Inuit to fend for themselves at this stage in history. “It would involve segregation and isolation from the increasing activity throughout the north,” he noted: It would involve, moreover, the denial of the most hum ane services we can provide. The natural food sources of the Arctic are limited and the primitive Eskimo was a part of the balance of nature. As soon as we take measures to provide against starvation, to eradicate tuberculosis, to end infant exposure and the elimination of elderly dependents, and to improve health generally, we upset that balance.

Canadians would not tolerate policies that “ensure the preservation of the ‘primitive’ Eskimo” by failing to provide basic material necessities for survival and sacrificing the lives of fellow Canadians.61 Lesage also questioned the assumption that Inuit inherently “regret the change” associated with adopting aspects of Southern life. In universalist lan­ guage typical of the era, he suggested that “all men want to be free in the sense of not being kept under external restraint, but they also want to have free access to all avenues of hum an endeavour.” In his view, the point was not to convert Inuit into qallunaat (kabloona or “white” people) - only that they have the op­ portunities that are available to all other Canadians. “In their present in-between state the Eskimos have received a few, a very few, of the benefits of our civiliza­ tion,” he lamented. They had received food, tools, and clothing in exchange for furs, but Southern “contacts and ideas” had taken much more from them. Ottawa provided family allowances, old age pensions, and relief, but the broader con­ stellation of interconnected needs related to health, education, and a viable economy produced “infinite” complications. “The area is enormous, the popula­ tion small, communication extremely difficult,” Lesage observed. “The patterns of the rest of Canada would be impossible to apply on grounds of cost alone.”62 Such a situation demanded innovation, particularly when there were no es­ tablished “best practices” to offer as simple solutions. Inuit health was a case in point. “In recent years determined attack has been made on disease, particularly tuberculosis, involving local diagnosis with evacuation in m ost cases for

Defence, Development, and Inuit

207

treatment outside,” Lesage observed.63 In 1955, the Eastern Arctic Patrol ship C.D. Howe had evacuated 421 TB patients and 92 other medical cases to South­ ern hospitals, which meant that more than 800 Inuit were receiving treatment in Southern Canada at that time.64 Histories documenting the cultural disloca­ tion and trauma associated with removing Inuit from their homelands so that they could receive treatment in Southern sanatoria reveal fears associated with “being evacuated to the Land of No Return.”65To assume that decision makers at the time were oblivious or dismissive of these costs and fears, however, is erroneous.66 Federal officials had vigorously debated the appropriateness of applying a “Western” health model on N orthern Indigenous peoples and concomitant implications for families and communities during the late 1940s and early 1950s.67 The N orthern Health Services Division, created in 1954 within the Department of National Health and Welfare to coordinate health care in the territories and northern Quebec where medical services often fell “seriously below the stan­ dards generally acceptable in Canada,”68 recognized that there were no simple solutions. The evacuation of tuberculosis victims to Southern sanatoria was “more than an administrative problem,” Lesage explained: It is sociological. Doctors and administrators are reluctant to remove patients from their environment. If they do not do so, however, the likelihood of re­ covery from tuberculosis is reduced; in some cases the alternative is simple: the patient will die. All those concerned with the north are aware of signifi­ cant statistics reflecting the consequences of attempting to treat advanced tuberculosis in far northern hospitals without the services of trained special­ ists and the complete facilities that are available in the south. The compromise between the paramount medical problem and the important sociological problem is treatment of disease in its most serious stages in the south with rehabilitation stations in the north. This is a good example of the special kind of problem which the geography of the north imposes and it is an example of the kind of solution which m ust be found.69

There were no ideal solutions, and decision makers had to weigh a series of imperfect options. Thus, while ethnocentrism and liberal assumptions help to explain the problems associated with the anti-tuberculosis campaign and Inuit health care more generally, so too do challenges associated with the logistics of program delivery, fiscal parsimony and economies of scale, divisions of admin­ istrative responsibility, and the legacies of non-government actors in Northern policy-making and program delivery.70

L

208

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

The federal governments decision to relocate starving Inuit populations to areas where resources apparently existed in abundance represented the most direct intrusion of the increasingly interventionist state in the lives of Northern Indigenous peoples. By the early 1950s, Canadians had more access to informa­ tion, and reports that hundreds of Inuit were starving in the Keewatin Barrens and Ungava sparked a popular and political reaction. “In another time, the plight of the aboriginals might have gone unnoticed, but this was the right period for humanitarian action,” Hamilton later noted.71 Canadians would not tolerate having their government stand back and allow fellow citizens to starve to death. Was the solution to make people, in desperate situations where local resources could no longer sustain, dependents on the state, or to create opportunities to move them to other areas where they might enjoy a better quality of life? Offi­ cials faced this dilemma when confronted with reports of a growing Inuit population facing starvation around Port Harrison (Inukjuak) along the eastern coast of Hudson Bay, and Caribou Inuit in the Keewatin District faced starva­ tion after the caribou migration failed to arrive. Farley Mowaf s publication of 7he People o f the Deer (1952), an account of famine and epidemics plaguing the Ihalmiut and a strong denunciation of government neglect and inaction, raised this as an unavoidable political question.72 The details of Inuit relocations during the 1950s have been told in detail elsewhere, although interpretations of government motivations are hardly uni­ form.73 Were the relocated “pawns of history” moved by officials for state sovereignty reasons or for “social reformist ideologies,” historian Alan Marcus asked, or “did they become victims of a humanitarian effort gone wrong”?74The High Arctic relocations have received the most scrutiny, with analysts debating whether the prim ary motive was sovereignty (with Inuit serving as “human flagpoles”) or welfare and economic concerns.75 Although the preponderance of official records indicate that the governments primary intent for the reloca­ tions was to relieve the pressures on Northern Quebec game and provide Inuit with a means to continue their hunting and trapping lifestyle, the plan was also “an experiment to determine how well Eskimos from southern areas could adapt themselves to conditions in the High Arctic.”76 In theory, this logic seemed appropriate to the complex context facing federal officials. If Inuit faced the prospect of starvation around Inukjuak because local resources could not sus­ tain a growing population, the government could not simply let them die or move them to adjacent areas in Quebec, where they would simply overwhelm the resources of their neighbours. “Game resources do not adequately and reli­ ably support the present population in many places,” Lesage observed in 1955. “Game tends to decrease in abundance while population is increasing, and

Defence, Development, and Inuit

209

under the health and welfare programs which are being extended every year, the rate of increase may become greater.” This was one of the ironies that confronted policy makers: Inuit populations would no longer be allowed to fluctuate according to cycles of prosperity and famine, with “the responsibility of the m odern state” precluding it from leaving Inuit to succumb to the “balance of nature” as had traditionally been the case. Consequently, a growing population would increasingly stress wildlife resour­ ces, forcing even more government involvement.77There was no simple answer that would allow these Inuit to remain in their traditional homeland without giving up their traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle. Facing complexity, “known unknowns,” and “unknown unknowns,” the federal government em­ braced the realm of experimentation.78Ultimately, the federal government’s 2010 apology for the High Arctic relocations and unfulfilled promises associated therewith has officially embedded this history as one of government failure.79 Competing ideas about education - whether Indigenous peoples should be encouraged to pursue a traditional, subsistence lifestyle (which required min­ imal formal education) or whether they should receive more Western-style education to prepare them for wage employment - also generated fierce debate in the 1950s.80 The Catholic and Anglican churches, which had run residential mission schools in the western NW T since 1867 and in the Eastern Arctic since 1876, had a vested interest in defending an approach to education dedicated to keeping “the natives native” and in church-run institutions.81 Past practice, the mobile nature of traditional Indigenous life, and the costs of delivering educa­ tion programs in the Arctic bolstered their case. “The main difficulties in es­ tablishing an educational system in the Far North are the prohibitive costs of operating schools and the nomadic character of the population,” the Indian Missionary Record asserted in 1955, costing more than $600/year per student in some Arctic schools. In seeking to implement a more effective education program for “Indians” and “Eskimos” in the NWT, however, Lesage suggested that the considerations were both “economical and human.” Educating the Natives represented “one of the most pressing human problems” in the eyes of government officials, with Lesage affirming that “if it is true that we have a right to the natural resources of the North, it is also equally true that we have the responsibility of bringing civilization [to] the natives, while protecting them against too abrupt [a] transition.”82 Striking a balance would prove difficult. Rather than emphasizing the value of isolating Indigenous children from their “nomadic” parents so they could be “civilized,” Lesage s 1955 message was sensitive to the needs of people dedicated to following a “traditional life” while simultaneously offering opportunities to

210

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

those Inuit who wished to embrace wage labour in a modern, industrializing North. “Boarding schools entail long separation from both parents and from the traditional ways of life, and can result in a student returning home ill fitted for the life he must lead,” the minister cautioned, a reflection of the messages offered by the missionaries and the RCMP.83 To expand access to Western schooling, Lesage announced a new educational policy in March 1955 that involved “an extensive program of construction of schools and hostels to pro­ vide better education for children in the N.W.T.”84 The following year, the DNANR assumed responsibility for the nine “Indian schools” operating in the NWT (previously administered by the Indian Affairs Branch) and established a single integrated system of day and residential schools in the territory, while also funding church-run residential hostels.85 Senior civil servants like Bent Sivertz cautioned that “bringing education to Eskimos is a formidable task” and that settlement-based schools would bring together Inuit who would “starve unless the government provides food, clothing and shelter - and extreme paternalism of this kind would destroy the people.”86 Although not the govern­ ment s intent, the new education policy did just that, actively contributing to Inuit migration into settlements over the ensuing decade.87 In a recent study, historian Joan Sangster suggests that Lesage’s exposition in the Beaver epitomized liberal modernization theory. “Offering what might be an incipient version of citizens plus,”’ she observes, “he suggests that the Inuit should be not only absorbed into the Canadian polity with equal ‘rights, privileges, opportunities and responsibilities,’ but also allowed to maintain their cultural identity.’” She asserts that Lesage’s prognosis reveals a philosophy that “Indigenous peoples should be helped to adapt to the inevitable triumph of the market, given opportunities for new employment (such as in northern airfields), and educated to take over their own administration in a rational, efficient manner.” She notes the minister’s worries that Inuit might “lose all sense of initiative and self-reliance in this economic transition up the ladder of civilization,”’ and chastises his gendered narrative that casts Inuit men as “bread­ winners” and “negotiators with the public political world.”88 Sangster s points are all indicative of parts of Lesage’s message. They are equally revealing in what they do not include and in how her critical summary compresses the complex dynamics with which Lesage and his staff grappled. The St-Laurent government did not espouse or impose a simple, economic mod­ ernization doctrine. Instead, it sought to balance a traditional “state of nature” philosophy and modernist pressures promoted by competing government of­ ficials and non-government stakeholders within the ACND and the Committee on Eskimo Affairs during the 1950s.89 Ultimately, the “totalizing” force of the

Defence, Development, and Inuit

211

m odem liberal state may have radically transformed Inuit life in the second half of the twentieth century, but the assertion that a simple ideology of progress drove the St-Laurent government into attempting “to absorb In u it... into dom­ inant social forms” does not reflect the historical record.90Instead, policy makers acknowledged tensions, contradictions, and conflicts in their plans. They also realized that the complex context in which they were operating forced them to experiment and proceed accordingly. When listing the possibilities for economic diversification, Lesage noted that some initiatives “may not prove to be feasible but the basis on which they are being examined is that no reasonable chance should be ignored.”91 Instructive patterns might emerge if the government took the chance on experiments that could fail, allowing them to sense and respond to what worked - and what did not. A similar logic related to the issue of Inuit self-sufficiency, where Southern “experts” lamented that m odern disruptions were underm ining traditional Inuit systems of control and empowerment. “The same report is heard com­ monly throughout the North,” Lesage wrote: The Eskimos are losing their self-reliance and initiative, and there are no longer any leaders in the camps. The traders deplore it, but thus far they have not encouraged any sign of Eskimos acting as middlemen in trading. The R.C.M.P. deplore it, but their duty is to administer Canadian law and the Eskimo who attempts to follow the traditional legal practices is likely to end [up] in jail. The missions deplore it, but they must oppose the old pagan be­ liefs. The doctors deplore it, but they cannot approve the shamans’ methods of healing. It is not surprising therefore that the Eskimo is losing his in­ dependence, when initiative in so m any fields leads only to no end o f trouble, and the appealing solution is to do nothing. At the same time the government is providing care for the aged, the blind, the indigent, and family allowances and education for the children, responsibilities which used to be those of the relatives. There is nothing to replace these lost responsibilities .92

There is nothing boastful about this image of the colonial, “civilizing” state disrupting traditional social orders. In the new order, Lesage observed, “the various white men on the scene” tended to give direction, thus depriving Inuit of individual and collective agency. In Lesage s view, it seemed obvious that “an effort to place the direction of local affairs in the hands of the Eskimos is desirable.”93 Ironically, policy implementation seemed to move in the other direction, at least in the short term. Concomitant with the new government focus on

212

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

Northern resource development, Ottawa officials extended “full-scale colonial administration to the territorial North” with remarkable speed.94 Bent Sivertz, who created the Arctic Division at DNANR, recalled how the departm ent quickly “hired six northern service officers [NSOs] and created six divisions. We hired social workers, writers, and Inuktitut language teachers. When there was a report of starvation we sent help: sometimes one of our people chartered a plane and went in with food and equipment; sometimes the police were asked to go by dogsled. No two cases were the same.”95 Although N orthern af­ fairs directed the NSOs “to encourage the Eskimos to take responsibility for local decisions to as great an extent as possible,” was this not “just one more” white man going North “issuing orders to the Eskimo”? In Lesages view, the “remedy” was not in confining authority to these men (as was the case with Indian agents down South) “but rather in returning local responsibility and authority to the people.”96 What would this look like in practice? “It would be rash to offer a blue­ print,” Lesage humbly admitted. “It will doubtless be necessary to proceed from trial to revision repeatedly, looking not to the day when the pattern will be set for all time but to the day when revisions will be suggested by the Eskimos.” He cautioned that “any supposition that such fundamental new concepts will take hold rapidly and effectively would be naïve.” Rather than expecting typical town councils akin to Southern Canada, he envisaged something “more along the lines of a town meeting with many talks with men and women of prestige to make sure that support will be forthcoming,” dealing with practical topics such as sanitation and the administration of relief. Community committees and local councils would emerge along these lines in the 1960s, followed by com­ prehensive land claim and self-government agreements, and ultimately negotia­ tions leading to the creation of the territory of Nunavut in 1999.97

When Prime Minister St-Laurent called a federal election on 10 June 1957, he was confident that he would be re-elected. His government’s record on Northern affairs had been innovative and progressive, and would certainly not be a liabil­ ity. But his “government party” had run its course. John George Diefenbaker, the charismatic Conservative leader, took office with a minority government and largely adopted the Northern path laid by his Liberal predecessors. He would unveil his “Northern Vision” the following year, campaigning on a theme of national development that pledged significant federal investment in infrastruc­ ture to facilitate Northern resource development. “The Liberal government of Louis St-Laurent recognized in the expanding American economy opportunities

Defence, Development, and Inuit

213

to market northern resources and found in the strong state instruments de­ veloped during the war the means to promote northern resources development,” Abele noted. “Diefenbaker gave vivid political expression to the same economic strategy.”98 The nuanced approach to Inuit policy that acknowledged uncertainty and sought to create space for traditional and m odern ways of life changed more dramatically. The late 1950s marked “a grudging change from a policy of keep­ ing the native ‘native,’ to one of tutelage and advancement by a still paternalistic government,” historian Richard Diubaldo noted. “Oftentimes, government effort would be m uddled and frenzied, long on compassion but short on understand­ ing. Gains would be made, but a price would be paid.”99 After the Progressive Conservatives took over in 1957, the Northern affairs administration abandoned a balanced approach, adopting a more decidedly liberal modernist agenda. “It becomes increasingly evident that Arctic lands will no longer support the trad­ itional hunting and trapping economy of the Eskimos; even less will they support the rapidly growing Eskimo population,” the departmental report for 1957-58 declared. “Consequently, new outlets must be found to preserve the Eskimos’ economic independence and to perm it them to share in the rising living stan­ dards of the country.” The solution was “wage employment in mining, trans­ portation, administration, and defence installations.”100 Although “neither the economic development strategy nor the programs to ameliorate Native people’s ‘disadvantaged’ position succeeded in their longer term objectives,” Abele ob­ served, “the explanation for the short-term administrative success and longer term political failure of these federal designs did not become clear until the Native people’s version of northern history was revealed in the 1970s.”101 Sovereignty. Continental defence. Improved Northern administration. Eco­ nomic development. The welfare of Indigenous peoples in a changing world. The St-Laurent government’s pioneering efforts to conceptualize a modern Northern strategy grappled with many of the core challenges that would domin­ ate Northern policy-making for the rest of the twentieth century. Most signifi­ cantly, they continue to frame Canada’s Arctic and Northern policy framework deliberations today.102The St-Laurent-Lesage-Robertson revolution represented a pivotal period in framing and articulating priorities for Canada’s “modern North,” laying the foundation for John Diefenbaker’s “Northern Vision,” which cast Northern development as a full-fledged nation-building exercise. The sali­ ent change came much later with acknowledgment that a “by Northerners, for Northerners” approach should inform and even drive Arctic policy development, a philosophy that inspires current efforts to co-develop a strategy that reflects the social and economic priorities ofNorthern leaders and Indigenous peoples.103

214

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

Notes 1 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1953,696-97. 2 R. Gordon Robertson, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau

(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 115. 3 On the early 1950s, see, for example, Frank Tester and Peter Kulchyski, Tammarniit (Mis­

4 5 6

7

8

9

10

11 12 13 14 15

takes): Inuit and Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994); R. Quinn Duffy, The Road to Nunavut: The Progress o f the Eastern Arctic Inuit since the Second World War (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press); David Damas, Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers: The Transformation o f Inuit Settlement in the Cen­ tral Arctic (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002); Diamond Jenness, Eskimo Administration II: Canada (Montreal: Arctic Institute of North America, 1964); and Richard J. Diubaldo, A Historical Overview of Government-Inuit Relations, 19001980s (Ottawa: Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1992); Robertson, Memoirs o f a Very Civil Servant. Quoted in R.A.J. Phillips, Canadas North (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 170. For example, Peter Kulchyski and Frank Tester, Kiumajut (Talking Back): Game Manage­ ment and Inuit Rights, 1900-70 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), 7. For a sweeping overview, see Shelagh Grant, Polar Imperative: A History o f Arctic Sovereignty in North America (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2011). See, for example, Ken Coates, Best Left as Indians: Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queeris University Press, 1991); and William R. Morrison, “Canadian Sovereignty and the Inuit of the Central and Eastern Arctic,” Études/Inuit/Studies (1986): 245-59. See Ken Coates and W.R. Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II: The US Army o f Occupation in Canadas Northwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); and Shelagh Grant, Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1988). See, for example, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable: Mackenzie King, Canadian-American Bilateral Relations, and Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest, 1943-1948,” in Mackenzie King: Citizenship and Community, ed. John English, Kenneth McLaughlin, and P.W. Lackenbauer (Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2002), 151-68; and Whitney Lackenbauer and Peter Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: The Department of External Affairs, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-68,” in In the National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department o f Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009, ed. Greg Donaghy and Michael Carroll (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011), 101-20. See, for example, Kevin McMahon, Arctic Twilight: Reflections on the Destiny o f Canadas Northern Land and People (Toronto: Lorimer, 1988); and P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Matthew Farish, “The Cold War on Canadian Soil: Militarizing a Northern Environment,” Environmental History 12, 3 (2007): 920-50. Diubaldo, Historical Overview o f Government-Inuit Relations, 100. See Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 188-210. Jenness, Eskimo Administration, 2:49. Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, vol. 2, The Bridge of Time (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1982), 308-9. Grant, Sovereignty or Security, 198-205. On the ACND, see Daniel Heidt and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds., The Advisory Committee on Northern Development: Context and Meeting

Defence, Development, and Inuit

215

16

17 18 19

20

21

22 23

24

25 26 27 28

29 30 31

Minutes, 1948-71, Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security No. 4 (Calgary and Waterloo: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies/Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism, 2015 [rev. ed. 2019]). ACND meetings were not held for more than three years, reflective of a lack of overall federal coordination of a Northern affairs agenda. By 1950, the DRD had a total staff of twenty-one in Yukon and about one hundred in NWT, with a total budget of $5 million. “Those few field officers of the Resources Department, together with the R.C.M.P., were responsible for virtually all the tasks of administration from the municipal to the federal level, from garbage collection to the grand designs of manifest destiny,” long-time Northern affairs administrator R.A.J. “Bob” Phillips recalled. “What they could do was understand­ ably limited.” See Phillips, Canadas North, 157. John David Flamilton, Arctic Revolution: Social Change in the Northwest Territories, 19351994 (Toronto: Dundurn, 1994), 63. Ibid., 59. Cabinet Conclusions, 22 January 1953, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, series A-5-a, vol. 2652, item 12560, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics-government/cabinet -conclusions/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber= 12560. Robertson considered the ACND “the most important single instrument in achieving the prime ministers objective of making government more effective in the north. Graham [Rowley], as its secretary, was an invaluable combination of Arctic lore, administrative vigilance, and good advice.” See Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 126. Cabinet Conclusions, 26 February 1953, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, series A-5-a, vol. 2652, item 12560, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics-government/cabinet -conclusions/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=12633. Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 108. Ibid., 115. “I never had any doubt who should be the minister from Quebec,” Jack Pickersgill recalled. “Jean Lesage had been in Parliament for about eight years, had been outstandingly useful as Parliamentary Assistant successively to the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister of Finance, and had become a highly competent debater in the House.” See Jack Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 205. Dale Thomson noted that, “to Prime Minister St-Laurent, C.D. Howe, Douglas Abbott, and other senior ministers, [Lesage] was the fair-haired boy, and they were anxious to have him succeed. That meant no mistakes.” See Dale Thomson, Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution (Toronto: Macmillan, 1984), 55-56. St-Laurent, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1953,696. George Drew, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1953, 717. Thomson, Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution, 56. Phillips, Canada’s North, 169. As Robertson notes, there was no federal office or Canadian official stationed in the entire Canadian Arctic, apart from RCMP constables and RCAF personnel at Resolute Bay. Phillips, Canadas North, 171. Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 109. Although the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS) agreement confirmed Canadian owner­ ship of the Arctic Islands, Robertson noted that “it was still embarrassing to have to rely on another country for the transportation, construction, and supply of stations in our own territory and for the communications with them.” See Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 112.

216

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

32 Address by President Eisenhower, House of Commons, Debates, 13 November 1953, 26,27. 33 NSC 159/4, quoted in Michael Evans, “The Establishment of the Distant Early Warning Line, 1952-57” (MA thesis, Bowling Green University, 1995), 61. 34 Alexander W.G. Herd, “As Practicable: Canada-United States Continental Air Defense Cooperation 1953-1954” (MA thesis, Kansas State University, 2005), 86 . 35 The legal status of the Arctic waters in the Arctic Archipelago (the Northwest Passage) and in the Arctic Basin beyond posed a more intractable dilemma than questions of terrestrial sovereignty. On these developments, see Adam Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock and Icebergs: A History o f Canadas Arctic Maritime Sovereignty (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016). 36 Michael Evans, “The Establishment of the Distant Early Warning Line, 1952-1957: A Study of Continental Defense Policymaking” (MA thesis, Bowling Green University, 1995), 72,76. 37 Annex to Exchange of Notes (5 May 1955) between Canada and the US Governing the Establishment of a Distant Early Warning System in Canadian Territory, Canada, Treaty Series 1955, no. 8 (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1955). 38 Environmental Sciences Group and UMA Engineering Ltd., DEW Line Cleanup: Scientific and Engineering Summary Report (Canada: Minister of National Defence, 1995); Lackenbauer and Farish, “Cold War on Canadian Soil,” 927-32; Myra Hird, “The DEW Line and Canadas Arctic Waste: Legacy and Futurity,” Northern Review 42 (2016): 23-45. 39 St-Laurent, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1953, 698. 40 St-Laurent, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1953, 696-97. 41 By 1953, silver was the most important metal in the territory ($5,245,000), with lead and zinc worth $6,120,000 and gold $2,400,000. See Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 128-29. During the 1950s, the Northern Canada Power Commission completed a hydro-electric plant at Mayo to serve lead-zinc mines in the Keno area and began construction of a similar plant in Whitehorse. 42 Morris Zaslow, The Northward Expansion o f Canada, 1914-1967 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988), 320. 43 Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, 57. Hamilton noted that Robertson “had no previous ex­ perience in the North and was the purest of Ottawa mandarins. A native of Saskatchewan, he studied at Oxford and Toronto before joining External Affairs. He served the Privy Council from 1945 to 1953 and, by reputation, was eminently qualified to understand the changes in the machinery of northern administration that had been put in place by his predecessors, Dr. Keenleyside and Major-General Hugh Young.” He also explained how “Robertson picked as his chief administrator Bent Sivertz, an assistant to both Keenleyside and Young. Sivertz was from Victoria, a former schoolteacher, merchant marine officer, and navy commander who had been in Ottawa since the end of the war.” See Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, 65. 44 Zaslow, Northward Expansion of Canada, 313-14. 45 W.W. Nassichuk, “Forty Years of Northern Non-Renewable Natural Resource Develop­ ment,” Arctic 40,4 (1987): 275-77,279-81. 46 “Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources Major Achievements since 1953,” LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 231, file: Northern Affairs and National Resources Department, 19571958. On Bob Phillips’s key role in this public information campaign, see Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 139, who notes that the “ultimate tribute to the success” of this effort was Diefenbaker s adoption of his “northern vision.”

Defence, Development, and Inuit

217

47 “Economie Significance of Action Taken in Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources in Past Three of Four Years,” LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 231, file: Northern Affairs and National Resources Department, 1957-1958. See also Zaslow, Northward Expansion of Canada, 314-16. 48 See, for example, Robert Robson, “Housing in the Northwest Territories,” Urban History Review 24,1 (1995): 3-20; Patrick Gerald Nixon, “Eskimo Housing Programmes, 1954-65: A Case Study of Representative Bureaucracy” (PhD diss., University of Western Ontario, 1984); and Michael Corley Richardson, “Community Development in the Canadian Eastern Arctic: Aspects of Housing and Education” (MA thesis, University of Alberta, 1976). 49 See, for example, Matthew Farish and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “High Modernism in the Arctic: Planning Frobisher Bay and Inuvik,” Journal o f Historical Geography 35, 3 (2009): 517-44; and ACND minutes in Lackenbauer and Heidt, Advisory Committee on Northern Development. 50 Jean Lesage, “Enter the European V: Among the Eskimos (Part II),” Beaver, Outfit 295 (Spring 1955): 6-7, 9. On similar concerns about the fur trade in the Mackenzie District, see “Economic Significance of Action Taken.” Participants in the ACND meeting on 6 February 1956 reached a “general agreement that the cure for the economic and other ills of the territories lay in genuine development, including such things as the railway, rather than in patchwork and artificial solutions such as price supports for furs.” See Gordon Smith, “The Advisory Committee on Northern Development, Especially in Connection with Sovereignty,” in Lackenbauer and Heidt, Advisory Committee on Northern Development, 53. 51 St-Laurent, House of Commons, Debates, 8 December 1953, 700. 52 Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 117. 53 See, for example, Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, 65; and Diubaldo, “Historical Overview of Government-Inuit Relations,” 36-37; Peter Clancy and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds., Shaping Arctic Policy: The Minutes of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 (Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America, 2019). 54 See Coates, Best Left as Indians. 55 Qikiqtani Truth Commission (QTC), The Official Mind o f Canadian Colonialism (Iqaluit: Qikiqtani Inuit Association, 2013), 32. 56 Tester and Kulchyski, Tammarniit (Mistakes), 343. 57 See Tina Loo, “Hope in the Barrenlands: Northern Development and Sustainability’s Canadian History,” in Ice Blink: Navigating Northern Environmental History, ed. Stephen Bocking and Brad Martin (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2016), 223-60. And, more generally, see Michel Ducharme and Jean-François Constant, eds., Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). 58 Lesage, “Enter the European,” 4. 59 On this theme, see P. W hitney Lackenbauer, “At the Crossroads of M ilitarism and Modernization: Inuit-Military Relations in the Cold War Arctic,” in Roots o f Entanglement: Essays in Native-Newcomer Relations, ed. Myra Rutherdale, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, and Kerry Abel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 116-58. 60 Lesage, “Enter the European,” 4. 61 Lesage, “Enter the European,” 4-5. Some Northern affairs officials were uncomfortable with the fast pace of action. In an early 1955 memorandum, James Cantley, the secretary to the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, questioned the efficacy and even the legitimacy of the expanded state role. “We should never delude ourselves into believing that Eskimos are just waiting to be shown a better way of life,” he cautioned: “their present way suits them

218

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

62 63 64 65

66

67 68

69 70 71 72

73

very well so long as they can be assured of the necessities and a few small luxuries.” To provide a modicum of control over how Inuit spent their income and to prevent excessive dependency, he again recommended the HBC and the RCMP. “Once the break from the traditional ways has been made, there can be no turning back,” Cantley warned. “How will [Inuit] regard all these plans we are making on their behalf?” See Cantley to Robertson, 13 January 1955, LAC, RG 22, vol. 298, file 40-8-1(5). The memorandum was not well received, and Alex Stevenson replaced Cantley as the secretary of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs soon thereafter. See Damas, Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers, 48. Lesage, “Enter the European,” 5. Ibid. Minutes of the 28th meeting of the ACND, 25 October 1955, in Lackenbauer and Heidt, Advisory Committee on Northern Development, 366. See Pat Grygier, A Long Way from Home: The Tuberculosis Epidemic among the Inuit (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994); and Frank Tester, Paule McNicoll, and Peter Irniq, “Writing for Our Lives: The Language of Homesickness, SelfEsteem and the Inuit TB ‘Epidemic,’” Études/Inuit/Studies 25,1/2 (2001): 121-40. See, for example, “Trudeau Apologizes for ‘Colonial,’ ‘Purposeful’ Mistreatment of Inuit with Tuberculosis,” CBC News, 8 March 2019. P.G. Nixon, “Early Administrative Developments in Fighting Tuberculosis among Can­ adian Inuit: Bringing State Institutions Back In,” Northern Review 2 (1988): 69. QTC, “Aaniajurliriniq: Health Care in Qikiqtaaluk” (Iqaluit: QTC, 2013), 22. Lesage, “Enter the European,” 5-6. Nixon, “Early Administrative Developments,” 70. Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, 58. Farley Mowat, People of the Deer (Boston: Little Brown, 1952). During a debate in Parliament over the book’s veracity, Minister Lesage dismissed Mowat as a liar and denied the existence of the Ihalmiut. See House of Commons, Debates, 19 January 1953, 1243. Although the factual basis of much of Mowat’s narrative remains the subject of debate, Canadian author Margaret Atwood observed that People o f the Deer generated support for Indigenous peoples in much the same way that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring later did for the environmental movement, serving as “a wake-up call, the spark that struck the tinder that ignited the fire from which many subsequent generations of writers and activists have lit their torches, often ignorant of where that spark came from in the first place.” See Greg Quill, “Farley Mowat’s Legacy: Our Supreme Storyteller,” Toronto Star, 11 May 2012, https://www.thestar.com/ entertainment/books/article/1176847—farley-mowat-s-legacy-our-supreme-storyteller. The High Arctic relocations have been well documented in previous studies, most of which were written to encourage the federal government to apologize to and compensate the relocated Inuit. See, for example, Zebedee Nungak, “Exiles in the High Arctic,” Arctic Circle (September/October 1990): 36-43; Alan R. Marcus, Out in the Cold: The Legacy o f Can­ ada’s Inuit Relocation Experiment in the High Arctic (Copenhagen: International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs, 1992); Tester and Kulchyski, Tammarniit; René Dussault and George Erasmus, The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953-55 Relocation (Ottawa: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1994); and Alan R. Marcus, Relocating Eden: The Image and Politics of Inuit Exile in the Canadian Arctic (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1995). For critical responses, see F. Ross Gibson, “No Reason to Apologize to the Natives,” Arctic Circle (September/October 1991): 8 ; Doug Wilkinson, “The Paradox of the Inuit Relocates,” Arctic Circle (Summer 1993): 32-33; and Gerard Kenney, Arctic Smoke and Mirrors (Prescott, ON: Voyageur Publishing, 1994).

Defence, Development, and Inuit

219

74 Alan R. Marcus, "Inuit Relocation Policies in Canada and Other Circumpolar Countries, 1925-60,” report for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (December 1995), http:// pubhcations.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/bcp-pco/Zl -1991-1-41 - 149-eng.pdf. 75 See, for example, Shelagh Grant, Errors Exposed: Inuit Relocations to the High Arctic, 1953-1960, Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security (DCASS), no. 6 (Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America, 2016); and Magnus Gunther, The 1953 Re­ locations o f the Inukjuak Inuit to the High Arctic - A Documentary Analysis and Evaluation (Ottawa: Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1992). The minutes of the ACND and Committee on Eskimo Affairs, internal policy shaping bodies where participants had no incentive to conceal a substantive motivation like sovereignty, strongly support G unthers interpretation. For a recent framing of the debate, see P. Whitney Lackenbauer, ed., Human Flagpoles or Humanitarian Action?Discerning Government Motives behind the Inuit Relocations to the High Arctic, 1953-1960 (Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America, 2020). 76 R.G. Robertson to C.M. Drury, Deputy Minister of National Defence, re: relocation of Inuit families at Resolute Bay, LAC, RG 22, A-l-a, vol. 298, file 40-8-1, pt. 4. 77 QTC, Official Mind o f Canadian Colonialism, 53. 78 The whole notion that officials considered the relocations as “experiments” has generated intense academic scrutiny and even vilification. Historian Shelagh Grant conceded that, “for the most part, the term experiment’ was employed in the context of a pilot study”’ to see if Inuit from Northern Quebec would thrive in the High Arctic, in which case the re­ locations might be "considered relatively benign if the Inuit had fully understood the terms, if there had been no undue risk of injury or death, if they were free to return whenever they wished, and if the project was planned for the benefit of the Inuit.” See Grant, Errors Exposed, 12, 14. Based on highly encouraging field reports, the Committee on Eskimo Affairs considered the Resolute experiment a success, prompting the second phase of re­ locations in which another thirty-four people moved from Inukjuak to Resolute in 1955. See Report re: Economic Development and Actions taken in 1953 and proposed for 1954, n.d., LAC, RG 22, A-l-a, vol. 298, file 40-8-1, pt. 5. Indeed, civil servants touted Resolute as a model for Inuit relocation programs - in contrast to the Craig Harbour experiment, which they decided should not be replicated. See C.M. Bolger, “Relocation of Eskimo Groups in the High Arctic,” ca. 1960, NWT Archives, 263, N-1992-023, box 24, file 10, relocations - movement of Inuit 1953-1968. 79 “Apology for the High Arctic Relocation: Speaking Notes for the Honourable John Duncan,” 15 September 2010, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/l 100100016115/1534 786491628; Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, “Government of Canada Apologizes for Relocation of Inuit Families to the High Arctic,” News Release 2-3389,18 August 2010. 80 Robertson, Very Civil Servant, 117. See also Clancy and Lackenbauer, Shaping Arctic Policy. 81 Lesage biographer Dale Thomson notes that “a mere 5 per cent of Eskimo children and 15 per cent of Indian children received any formal education” in 1954, prompting Lesage and his officials to develop “a plan to have 50 per cent in state-run schools within ten years.” According to Thomson, Lesage and Robertson “decided to share the task of w inning... over [the churches], the former dealing with the Roman Catholics, the latter with the Angli­ cans.” He recounts how Lesage met with his cousin, Oblate Sylvio Lesage, in Fort Norman in 1954 trying (in vain) to convince the missionary that the changes were necessary. “The negotiations were to prove extremely difficult and Lesage was denounced to the prime minister as anticlerical,” Thomson noted. “Finally, the Roman Catholic bishop gave way,

220

P. Whitney Lackenbauer

82 83 84 85

86

87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102

103

on condition that church-run residences be built for the students and separate classrooms be set aside for Catholic children wherever possible.” See Thomson, Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution, 57. “N.W.T. Indian Schools under Northern Affairs Dept.,” Indian Missionary Record 18, 1 (1955): 1. Lesage, “Enter the European,” 5-6. Press Release, Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, 28 March 1955, LAC, RG 22, vol. 298, file 40-8-1(6). R.J. Carney, “Relations in Education between the Federal and Territorial Governments and the Roman Catholic Church in the Mackenzie District, NWT, 1867-1961” (PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1971). Cabinet funded the implementation of the combined day school and hostel program over a six-year period. See Cabinet Conclusions, 23 March 1955, LAC, RG 2, vol. 2657, reel T -12184. Speech by B. G. Sivertz, “Development of the North - Sociological Developments,” 25 Octo­ ber 1954, NWT Archives, Alexander Stevenson Fonds, acc. N-1992-023, box 23, file 7. On this process, see Duffy, Road to Nunavut; and Damas, Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers. Joan Sangster, The Iconic North: Cultural Constructions o f Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016), 90. Inuit were not invited to participate in such deliberations until after the Liberals were voted out of office. See Clancy and Lackenbauer, Shaping Arctic Policy, xviii-xxiii. Kulchyski and Tester, Kiumajut, 7. Lesage, “Enter the European,” 9. Ibid., 7-8. Ibid. Frances Abele, “Canadian Contradictions: Forty Years of N orthern Political Develop­ ment,” Arctic 40,4 (December 1987): 312. Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, 65. Lesage, “Enter the European,” 7-8. See Duffy, Road to Nunavut-, P. Whitney Lackenbauer and André Légaré, “A More Accurate Face on Canada to the World’: The Creation of Nunavut,” in Reconsidering Confederation: Canada’s Founding Debates, 1864-1999, ed. Daniel Heidt (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2018), 263-90. Abele, “Canadian Contradictions,” 312. Diubaldo, “Historical Overview of Government-Inuit Relations,” 30. DNANR, Annual Report Fiscal Year 1957-1958 (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1958), 25. Abele, “Canadian Contradictions,” 314. See Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, “Toward a New Arctic Policy Framework,” https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1499951681722/1537884604444; and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, “Arctic Policy Framework: Discussion Guide,” http://publications.gc.ca/collections/coUection_2018/aanc-inac/R74-37-2017-iku.pdf. See Mary Simon, “A New Shared Arctic Leadership Model” (Gatineau: Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 2017), http://publications.gc.ca/coUections/coUection_2017/ aanc-inac/R74-38-2017-eng.pdf.

Defence, Development, and Inuit

221

______________chapte "But There Is Another Source of Liberty and Vitality in Our Country" St-Laurent and Regional Development MICHEL S. BEAULIEU

Speaking to the Canadian Club in Toronto in March 1950, Louis St-Laurent outlined his vision of how Canada could develop: On the subject of liberty, allow me to say again that I am one of these “unrepentants” who still believe that free enterprise is essential to a sound nation. I believe that liberty is necessary in order to provide a choice of activity for enterprise; but I also believe that entrepreneurship and even audacity are necessary to achieve the greatest development of the vast resources of a new country such as ours .1

Louis St-Laurent was a frank, to-the-point speaker. He believed in capital­ ism and fought a good fight against those on the left, such as the CCF, who challenged the view that only private enterprise could generate wealth. But St-Laurent brought something new to his generally liberal-conservative perspec­ tive: a sensitivity to the needs and concerns of the regions of Canada, those rural and semi-rural areas that were removed from the capitalistic, intellectual, and cultural capitals of Canada. “There is another source of liberty and vitality in our country,” he told an audience in 1950: It is our federal regime with its provincial and municipal administrations, free from any central direction and free to act within the framework vested in them by the constitution ... In my opinion, our country’s health and vigour is based as much on the way our local institutions fulfil their obligations as the

way in which we in Ottawa look after political problems of a more general nature .2

Too often, regional development is discussed as a pious wish, or as some­ thing John Diefenbaker might have inaugurated with his “New National Policy.” A background paper on “Federal Regional Economic Development Organiz­ ations” originally prepared for the government of Canada in 2011 characterized the period as having “no explicit regional development policy or program aimed at reducing regional differences in economic growth and employment.”3 Louis St-Laurents speeches shed an abundance of insight into his character, those issues he felt were important, and both how he viewed regional development and why he held the perspective he did. Rather than adopt a centralized con­ cept of Canadian liberalism, St-Laurent advocated regional autonomy, free enterprise, and the role of the state in supporting both. Ottawa had a place in ensuring the success of the nation and of the individual, but St-Laurent promoted recognition that both regional differences and the freedom for the individual to act within the Constitution for the betterment of the nation were necessary. For St-Laurent, Canadas success was based on something greater than the sum total of its parts, but it could not be realized without the cooperation of both provincial and municipal administrations. Ottawa alone would not be able to engender the health and vigour necessary to the development of Canada’s resources. Regional development was necessary, as part of a larger national strategy, to ensure an economically strong Canada welded by a strong national identity and sovereignty. The corollary was also true: a strong national identity and sovereignty would ensure the country would be a bastion of liberalism in the fight against communism. To allow his long-time assistant (and then minister), J.W. Pickersgill, to claim all the credit for St-Laurents speeches, or to assume that his thoughts on regional development materialized only after he became prime minister, is to dismiss what little has been written on the subject.4St-Laurent, perhaps because he was born and raised in an area distant from power centres, was long concerned by the development of the “regions.” In his discussion about St-Laurents writing and oratory while studying at the Séminaire Saint-Charles-Borromée in Sher­ brooke, for instance, Dale C. Thomson suggests this is where he cultivated a style that was obvious in his speeches while prime minister. Thomson, who had access to speeches no longer part of the archival record, characterized them as “simple and straightforward, with few embellishments that marked the writings of most of the other students and that were so characteristic of late nineteenth century writing.”5

St-Laurent and Regional Development

223

It proved to be an approach and style that persisted, honed while he studied law at Université Laval, and continued in his writings and speeches after school. St-Laurent’s bilingualism, as well as his skills in rhetoric and argument, also distinguished him as a student and, later, as a lawyer. His reputation was built on how he displayed these skills before the highest courts.6Interestingly, it was his involvement in the establishment of the Canadian Bar Association in 1914 and as its first French-Canadian president in 1930 and 1931 that the seeds of St-Laurent’s approach to regional development can first be seen.7 Speaking in his first address to a national audience at the meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in 1920 he claimed: “A national spirit cannot attach to the soil alone; it must comprise the men who dwell upon it, the institutions which make them a body politic, and also the private laws which crystallize their attitude towards each other and methods of realizing hum an progress.”8 At the annual conference of the Association of Canadian Clubs in Quebec in 1929, he further built on the idea that the ‘“broad national spirit’ that the [local] Canadian Clubs aimed to develop” required “legitimate pride in the accomplishments of the ‘two parent races of the Canadian people,’ plus a com­ mon pride in the national wealth they shared.” The result, he argued, would be the “development of the immense national treasure-house.”9 St-Laurent’s earnest desire to understand regional issues further developed as a result of what he witnessed during the Great Depression. In particular, as Thomson writes, “the social and political ferment it fostered reflected his respect for law and order and his strong sense of responsibility.” The disparities between regions and the “inclination of many Canadians to blame their political system for their unhappy state,” Thomson suggests, bothered St-Laurent on many levels, as did the dichotomous views between English and French Canada about the role and responsibility of the federal government.10 St-Laurent eschewed the hyperbole of those such as Abbé Groulx and others who clamoured for “achat chez nous” policies that reeked of xenophobia, and he accepted some of the complaints about the economy of Quebec being con­ trolled by others. In his early speeches, however, he argued that the fault lay in encouraging “others” and “neglecting our own [companies] ... Let us sup­ port our own business and we will succeed in transforming our economic system.”11While he was specifically referring only to Quebec in his speech to the Séminaire Saint-Charles-Borromée alumni in 1933, he highlighted themes of entrepreneurship, maître chez nous, and how vibrant regional economies directly related to the success of the nation. What he learned from his participation in the Rowell-Sirois Commission in 1937-38 further led him to believe that the problems facing Canada were far more of an economic and financial than a

224

Michel S. Beaulieu

constitutional nature (for more detail, see Wardhaugh and Ferguson, Chapter 6, this volume). St-Laurent’s speeches between 1942 and 1946 reveal someone who still viewed his place in Ottawa was temporary, who still saw himself more as a lawyer than as a politician. It is evident that a shift did occur after 1946 as he increasingly found himself engaged in postwar planning.12 St-Laurent shared the general assumption that, if no changes were to occur, the Second World War would be followed by an economic slump similar to what had occurred after the First World War. These ideas developed further while he served as secretary of state for external affairs. Most of St-Laurent s speeches during this time touched upon the economic situation and anti-communism. (In fact, one got the idea upon reading - or hearing - St-Laurent, that much of the worlds ills could be attributed to on­ going Russian aggression and the ups and downs of the United Nations.)13 Typical was his address to the National Dairy Council of Canada meeting in Quebec in March 1948. St-Laurent used the occasion not only to alleviate con­ cerns about the recent general trade agreement but also, speaking near the Plains of Abraham, to draw a direct connection between the matters being discussed at the meeting and the historic importance of the events of 1759 and the allied discussion in Quebec in 1943 and 1944. “Many other conferences and conven­ tions are constantly taking place here and most of them,” he told delegates, “I am happy to say, tend to nourish and develop that tree of nationhood rooted in the Plains of Abraham and now spreading its benevolent branches over a happy land.”14 While protecting free enterprise and protecting the right of individuals to make decisions were at the heart of fighting tyranny, communism, and dictator­ ships, the federal governments contribution to this fight was to facilitate the conditions that would make such activities possible while ensuring that no region was left underdeveloped. “My conception of democracy,” St-Laurent told delegates, “is that it constitutes, in action at least, a way of life whereby free men co-operate together to achieve results for their own benefits and for the benefits of their fellows which either could not be achieved at all or could be achieved only in a much less complete and practical way by the individual and isolated efforts of each.”15 The speeches of 1948 were building towards the National Liberal Conven­ tion in August. As others have written, as the choice of the outgoing prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, few had any doubt of St-Laurent’s victory (aside from the man himself).16St-Laurent used the convention not only to outline his dedication to tackling the threat of communism abroad but also

St-Laurent and Regional Development

225

to establish a vision of national unity that would be a central element of his speeches until 1957: National unity is, and must be, the cornerstone of our policies; but national unity does not consist merely in the absence o f friction between two major races of the Canadian population. Canadian unity also depends upon the prom otion of that degree of social security and social justice which will make every Canadian, every one of us realize and have reason to realize that it is good for him, for members of his family, that they are Canadians . 17

How would national unity be strengthened? In the months since becoming prime minister, St-Laurent spoke on a num ber of occasions about the threat of communism. That ideology, he argued, would not be able to do much damage as long as there was peace and stability. As St-Laurent would tell an audience at Kennedy Collegiate in Windsor: “I am convinced that the main defense against Communism is in the maintenance of freedom and the provision of social se­ curity and enlarged opportunities for the mass of ordinary people.”18While this speech may have been vague on details, St-Laurent used his first official tour as prime minister to western Canada to further develop and articulate this concept. This was not a coincidence.19 Ostensibly, he wanted to connect with western Canadians to give them “some indication of the processes of the mind of the man who is their prime minister.”20 He had long come to view his speaking engagements, radio broadcasts (which predated his elevation to prime minister), and tours as necessary not only for the realpolitik reasons of rebuilding Liberal support in the west but as a genuine opportunity for Canadians to get to know him and for him, in turn, to hear their concerns.21 It was a desire that directly evolved from what he witnessed and heard during the Rowell-Sirois Commission in western Canada. A concern for regional development also shaped why western Canada would be St-Laurent s first destination. The two-week tour was structured so that each stop featured one non-partisan engagement and one Liberal meeting. St-Laurent insisted, though, that no speech at any stop would be a boilerplate. In Edmonton, in what in fact was a pre-tour stop, he spoke of the discovery of oil as “nothing short of an answer to a national prayer.”22With its oil, coal, and “untold mineral wealth in your north,” Alberta, in St-Laurent s view, seemed “to be just at the beginning of a great era of economic expansion and industrial development.”23 This being the case, he also expressed his belief that Albertans had the “right to a full share in shaping of National policies,” and he encouraged them to vote for the Liberals in the upcoming election to ensure they were represented.

226

Michel S. Beaulieu

In Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, and Winnipeg he spoke of the role of the federal government in preventing the exploitation “of the majority by selfish interests” and its role in creating the conditions “under which people [would] be encouraged to act on their own initiative” and build their regional economies.24 The push for regional economy in these speeches con­ tinued to build until it reached a crescendo at his last stop in the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur.25 St-Laurent began by reflecting that he believed he had achieved one of his main goals: to “know at first hand Canadas people, their problems, their achieve­ ments, and their hopes for the future.”26Discussing the war-driven demographic increase between 1941 and 1947, the thriving “new” pulp and paper communities of Marathon and Terrace Bay, and employment figures, he remarked on the record of expansion in the region. As in every stop during the tour, he also acknowledged the industrial gains made during the war years, which, he stated, “are now being consolidated and expanded... over such a broad range of indus­ trial activity.”27“The industries of the region and their continued development,” he told the crowd, “represent an important source of United States dollars.”28 Similar comments were also made of Steep Rock Lake, then Canadas largest iron ore mine. After further compliments about other industrial activity and reflection on the sacrifices of the region in the Second World War, he laid out his vision of its development for the future. “As you know,” St-Laurent reminded his standing-room only audience, “our great preoccupation at the present time is to adjust ourselves to the new and pressing economic requirements of the post-war world.”29Echoing a now familiar theme, what had impressed him throughout his tour “of the Western Provinces of C anada... [was] the enterprise and flexibility which the producers of C an­ ada [were] displaying meeting the post-war challenge.”30 St-Laurent reiterated that cooperation with the United States, the St. Lawrence system, the trans­ continental highway, and rail and air connections were all central facets to regional, western development and Canadian development.31 “After years of re­ construction,” he concluded, “one big cloud appeared on the domestic horizon; our very prosperity had combined with our dislocation of trade, world produc­ tion and world markets, to throw our own external trade out of balance.” The answer, and “the whole of Canadian trade - and Canadian prosperity,” he argued, “depended on a new resourcefulness and new energy and bold initiative on the part of the government.”32By this point, what he told the crowds in Fort William and Port A rthur were parts of a well-honed theme. In early 1949 St-Laurent also tackled growing claims by opponents - both federal and provincial - that he was advocating for the destruction of provincial

St-Laurent and Regional Development

227

rights and the centralization of power in Ottawa.33 W hether discussing the re­ sources of western Canada, the linking of Newfoundland and its integration into Canada, or the importance of the fishing industry and the division of taxa­ tion, Canadians, he believed and argued, want the kind of relation ... between the Dominion and Provincial govern­ ments which will enable all the provinces, and not just the Province of Ontario, to give to the people of their province the kind of social services and other opportunities that all Canadians desire to have ... Now one of the best ways - though not the only way - to offset the effect of the concentration of industrial wealth in certain areas is to see that all people in all the provinces benefit from the exploitation of the great commercial and industrial oppor­ tunities of our country .34

These opportunities were also central to the national unity required to fight communism. St-Laurent also argued that his political opponents sought to fight com­ munism through repressive laws. In a speech in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, he said that there were two ways communism could be combatted. Government could use laws, but he argued that these repressive instruments would result in the very erosion of democracy and liberty the communists hoped to achieve. The other way to fight communism - his and the Liberal way - would be to “proclaim our faith in our free institutions by making those free institutions w o rk ... to proclaim our faith in social justice by working day and night to end injustice, exploitation and oppression.”35The North Atlantic Treaty, he continued, would offer the best “guarantee of national security, social stability and the greatest opportunity for peaceful development and social progress.”36Such peace and security would allow Canada to “concentrate our energies and our resources on our programme of national development and social security.”37 Following the Liberal election victory, these themes would be reiterated and, in some instances, shared by provincial leaders. As Dale Thomson points out, St-Laurent and Leslie Frost, for example, had similar views on economic development, social legislation, and federal-provincial relationships.38Speaking at a public meeting in Sarnia, Ontario, in April 1950, St-Laurent would quote former Sarnia resident and prime minister Alexander Mackenzies comments from 1851 that Canada stood on the threshold of prodigious expansion.39Sarnia’s position as “the gateway to the Upper Great Lakes” marked it, he argued, as a “strategic site in our national development.”40 Other regions of the country, though, were also now taking their place in the development of the nation, and

228

Michel S. Beaulieu

he said that those “in Sarnia know better than most others what these discov­ eries [could] mean to industry and to Canada.”41 To partially meet that end, St-Laurent reorganized his cabinet. By 1950, the Department of Reconstruction and Supply and the Department of Mines and Resources were both gone as, Pickersgill later reflected, they had become “un­ wieldy and unintegrated.”42 Both were abolished and replaced by a number of new departments much better suited to St-Laurents vision: the Departments of Resources and Development (including administration of the Northwest Territories and Yukon, the National Parks, and the Trans-Canada Highway); Citizenship and Immigration (which included Indian affairs); and Mines and Technical Surveys. However, these new departments were not symptomatic of a desire for centralization or standardization. As St-Laurent told the Club de Réforme de Montréal in April 1951: Le mot unité n’est pas synonyme de centralisation ou d’uniformisation, et nous croyons que l’unité peut et doit exister sans affecter l’autonomie des provinces. Car l’unité nationale, en definitive, signifie unité de pensée, unité d’intérêts sur les questions de portée nationale ... Nous savons que toute atteinte à l’autonomie d’une province constituerait une menace à l’unité nationale et nous, qui avons tant contribué à cette œuvre, dont nous sommes fiers, ne voudrions pas pour un instant la mettre en danger .43

Another western tour in September 1952 only confirmed St-Laurents position that individual ingenuity, importance of community, and resource development had significance both regionally and federally. At the beginning of the tour, while speaking in Trail, British Columbia, he had told a full crowd: “War showed us that we could turn out as well-made and as useful essential products as anyone else... Tremendous development taking place from one end of the country to another has made it even clearer that we need fear no honest competition and that we need no longer be timid ... One cannot deny that we have been blessed with a tremendous quantity of natural resources.” For St-Laurent, these natural resources placed regions at the fore­ front of Canadas postwar prosperity.44 “The period upon us,” he argued, “is the period of national development.”45 The Liberals would fight the general election of 1953 on the well-established motto: “Unity, Security, Liberty.”46St-Laurents address to the Ontario Plowmens Association Banquet in October 1952 foreshadowed his campaign speeches and provides a great analogy for what this meant. He began by speaking about the historic role of the plough, reminding delegates of the biblical verse about

St-Laurent and Regional Development

229

“Beating swords into plow-shares.” Ploughing, he continued, was the first stage of cultivation and, as ploughmen, those in attendance had a role in the cultiva­ tion of Canada. “For too many years now,” St-Laurent argued before the International Plow­ ing Match Banquet in Ottawa, “the world has lived under the symbol of the sword.”47 The plough he contended, was a symbol of peace: “in war it was and is as potent a weapon as the sword.” Ostensibly speaking about food and the importance of the farmer and agricultural industry, the conversation turned quickly to its relationship to security, prosperity, and how “those who own land and work it have a tangible stake in the future of their nation.”48 Just as the “traditional aim of the plowman is to plow a straight furrow’... the aim of the plowman is also the aim of the peacemaker and the straight furrow of the peacemaker is the pursuit of justice ... In the search for peace and justice the same qualities required for the cultivation of the soil are also needed patience, perseverance and singleness of purpose.”49 Four months later, speaking to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, St-Laurent would reflect on “Canadas position in the world” and how, since the outbreak of the Second World War, Canadas attitude towards the world had changed. In addressing criticisms over his government’s track record, he returned to his argument that Canada is not a great power but it is nevertheless a real power in the world, and public m en and responsible citizens both have a duty to see that the power is exercised not only for the common advantage of all Canadian citizens of today but with a proper sense of responsibility toward future generations of Canadians .50

St-Laurent continued, saying “that the door to our relations with the rest of the world hangs upon two hinges, one hinge called peace, the other called trade.”51 The root of that success, as ever, rested on continued domestic security and prosperity. “If the hinge of peace were to break down,” he argued, “Canadians would be involved in the horrors of atomic war. If the hinge of trade were to become rusted, Canadians would suffer a dreastic [sic] decline in their standard of living.”52A strong, national economy resulted in strong regional development and vice versa. Central, though, were stable political institutions and “main­ taining a proper balance between the freedom of individuals and the wellordered co-operation between them.”53 It was in this speech at the Canadian Club in Ottawa that St-Laurent would also establish another one of the central themes of the election campaign: Wilfrid

230

Michel S. Beaulieu

Lauriers idea that the twentieth century belonged to Canada. A keen student of history, he would remark: “Canada is one of the few countries in the world today where human enterprise can stage great new dramas of hum an activity on scales comparable to those which were performed during the last century in the lands just south of our own frontiers.”54Once again, though, this m ani­ fest destiny would only be possible if Canadians committed to “work for peace in the world,” which could only be possible through global trade and “the strength of our own people, the stability of our institutions, and the wealth of our resources.”55And what did St-Laurent mean by “the strength of our people”? On that he was very clear: “I mean social and economic, as well as political stability.” What did he mean by “husbanding the wealth of our resources”? Again, St-Laurent was unequivocal: I do not mean we should allow them to remain buried and idle like the talent of the unfaithful servant, but that we should use them widely and in such a manner that, instead of depleting them to the cost of the generations that will come after us, we will have increased their productivity in proper proportion to the increases in our population .56

While St-Laurent contended that natural resources were being used “pretty good,” he argued that the federal government and regions “must not lose sight of the fact that our children and grandchildren are going to be part of a nation of millions more than there are Canadians alive today.”57 Speaking to the Annual Convention of the Canadian Lumbermens Associ­ ation of Montreal in 1953, St-Laurent contended that the proper development of natural resources would be central to ensuring a broad “base of wealth out of which a high standard of living can be obtained, and the high cost of our defence needs and social services can be met.”58While acknowledging provin­ cial jurisdiction of natural resources, the federal government, he argued, had an important role to “try and do what [it could] to promote and foster the con­ servation and the wise use of resources.”59 Considering the industry’s reliance on export markets and international stability, he reminded those at the conven­ tion of the importance of the federal government’s role in securing trade agree­ ments and treaties. This role would become fodder in speeches given after Parliament was dissolved and the 1953 campaign began.60 St-Laurent did not balk at tackling regional economic issues during the campaign. For example, speaking about the situation in Cape Breton, and coal mining in general, he acknowledged “the pains associated with the readjust­ ment,” or modernization. “But when this great project has been concluded,” he

St-Laurent and Regional Development

231

promised, “the coal mining industry will be on a sounder footing than it has been for many years, and this whole region will reap benefits.”61 St-Laurent also addressed infrastructure and transportation investment, including the tourist trade and general economic benefits of a new ferry service between North Sydney and Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland.62 Such responses were part of St-Laurent’s long-term vision for Canadas success. “By the application of wise policies,” he told those in Sydney, “we can often help a great deal but in the long run prosperity local or national depends upon the energy and initiative of the people themselves.”63 A few days later in Winnipeg he would highlight the stark difference in vision between himself and his main opponent George Drew. The former premier of Ontario, he con­ tended, had time and time again demonstrated a lack of concern for national interests, having thwarted attempts “at effective co-operation between the fed­ eral and provincial governments for the benefit of all the people of Canada.”64 “Mr. Drew,” St-Laurent argued, “never seems to have been able to understand what almost everyone knows in Manitoba, or in most of the other provinces, namely that a considerable part of the earnings of the great corporations, with head offices in Ontario and Quebec, are derived from business done in other provinces.”65 Further, he argued, “the profits of those businesses are centred in one or two provinces and there is no effective way for a province like Manitoba to tax for people of this province an appropriate share.”66 Although focused on the issue of taxation and what would become equalization, St-Laurent articu­ lated the difference between Drews centralization of power and his more nuanced role of the federal government supporting viable and long-term regional economic development. “The only other place where the policy of strength­ ening the financial position of every province,” he would state in his second national broadcast during the campaign, “would be called centralization is in Alices Wonderland.”67 Although he rarely focused on it (aside from his election campaign speech in St. Johns in late June 1949),68St-Laurent frequently mentioned Canadas new­ est province, Newfoundland, between 1949 and 1953 (see David MacKenzie, Chapter 8, this volume). He often reminded Canadians that Newfoundlands entry into Confederation was the fulfilment of the dream of the “Fathers of Confederation.”69 However, during the 1953 campaign stop in St. Johns he did not shy away from addressing those who were less than enthusiastic about Can­ ada and who, in his words, “shake their heads about what Mr. Smallwood is doing.” Echoing the speech he made to the Séminaire Saint-Charles-Borromée alumni twenty years earlier, St-Laurent challenged those who “take a gloomy view of the future,” arguing that “there can be no hope for this region

232

Michel S. Beaulieu

[Newfoundland], or for any other part of Canada unless there are venture­ some people who are willing to take some risks in order to achieve great gains.”70 Not surprisingly, St-Laurent would choose the future of the fishery as the main focus of his presentation. He linked it deftly to peace, unity, trade, social security, development of resources, and the record of the government. “I think it is fair to say,” St-Laurent argued, “that in the Atlantic provinces at least, it [fisheries] has not kept pace with m odern progress and that the Government, both Federal and Provincial, must be prepared to take vigorous action to put the fisheries on a basis where they can sell their products profitably in world markets at world prices.”71 The solution, St-Laurent emphasized, would not be painless, nor be found quickly. As in every part of Canada it would also not be the result of “special favours.” The government and its representatives would “see that they got their full and fair share of the advantages of our common Canadianism.” “Special favours for none,” St-Laurent would end his St. John’s speech, “but equal opportunities for all.”72 Conservation and development as the key to the growth of Canada’s di­ verse regions would become central to St-Laurent’s vision during the campaign. In Edmonton, he would talk both about the role of the city and Alberta’s sig­ nificant role in the national economy. Edmonton, he told voters, “is the gateway to the new north” and the reason that the federal government had undertaken the strategic development of transportation (e.g., railways and airlines).73 “You have something we would all like to have,” he remarked, “but every reasonable person understands why you want to be sure Alberta keeps all it needs.”74 Later that month in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, St-Laurent would address the problems in the town and county of Lunenburg by highlighting the appoint­ ment of their representative Bob Winters as the minister of resources and de­ velopment in January 1950.75Speaking about the importance not only of fishing but also of agriculture and transportation improvements, he would dismiss M.J. Coldwell as “promising everything including the kitchen sink,” and Solon Low as “telling his audiences that Social Credit is the cure for all our problems.”76 It was George Drew’s lack of pan-Canadian interest, though, that St-Laurent spent much of his attention addressing. St-Laurent asked those in Bridgewater to think about the fact that “not once in his [Drew’s] opening speech of the campaign in which he outlined his party’s program did he mention the fishing industry and the fishermen.”77 By July, it had become a well-established refrain and strategy in St-Laurent’s speeches throughout the country to highlight the centralism of Drew and the Progres­ sive Conservatives. “Whatever the reason [,] the Conservative program is in the sharpest contrast,” St-Laurent told the crowd, “with Liberal policy[,] which

St-Laurent and Regional Development

233

seeks to further the well-being of all sectors of our national economy and which has never overlooked the fishing industry.”78 While he did point to Lib­ eral programs introduced to develop the fishing industry, and highlighted its general expansion since the end of the Second World War, he insisted that “the main credit belonged] to the fishermen without whose initiative, hard work and courage, these gains could not have been made.”79 Such sentiment, which by itself could be viewed as election pandering, is entirely in keeping with St-Laurenfs well-established vision that the conditions for individual success led to economically strong regions, which meant an economically strong Can­ ada and greater national unity. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the first acts of the 22nd Parliament was the establishment of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Reflecting during the election campaign of 1957, St-Laurent told supporters in Edmonton: “our aim in doing this was to make a concerted attack on the whole questions of northern development by giving one Minister the duty of co-ordinating the activities of all the federal departments interested in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.”80 Under ministers such as Jean Lesage and George Prudham, a variety of regional programs were established that provided a framework that contributed to the development of the Canadian welfare state.81It was also during St-Laurenfs tenure that the process of transforming the regional m inistry also began.82 St-Laurenfs position on regional development had not changed: what did change was government policy. Ironically, his continued belief that altruism was es­ sential to development and unity may have suffered from a period of rapid economic development in the west that led to the rise of strong - coincidently non-Liberal - sectarian premiers.83 In his New Years address in 1956, St-Laurent began to lay the foundation for what would become major themes in his speeches in the run-up and during the general election campaign of 1957.84 As he would reiterate to delegates to the Canadian Construction Association Conference less than a month later, “the discovery and exploitation of the oil and gas resources of the western provinces has become a major industry requiring great capital expenditures in itself... never have Canadians been so conscious of natures bounty.”85 There are changes apparent in his speeches during 1955, 1956, and 1957. Could they be contributed to the oft-discussed and unproven suggestion that St-Laurent had tired of campaigning? Had the Liberals become arrogant? St-Laurenfs opponents certainly tried to paint both these pictures. Some have used the events surrounding his last campaign speech at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto as evidence.86 Can the action of fifteen-year-old William Hatton,

234

Michel S. Beaulieu

who m ounted the stage carrying a banner emblazoned with “This Can’t Be Canada” and then proceeded to rip up a picture of St-Laurent, really be added, as Peter C. Newman writes, “to the image of the Liberal Party as an unrepentant arrogant group of old men, willing to ride roughshod over voters”?87 Judging from those speeches, everything suggests that St-Laurent believed in a Liberal victory. His itineraries also reveal a robust schedule during 195556 and during the election campaign of 1957. Having been in power since 1949, he could confidently remark to the Hamilton Junior Chamber of Commerce in March 1957: “As we look back we have every reason to believe that many wellestablished lines of Canadian development can be confidently projected into the future.”88 In a speech very much rooted in the recent findings of the Royal Commission on Canadas Economic Prospects, led by Walter Gordon, St-Laurent proudly argued that “all parts of Canada will share in the greatly expanded prosperity of the nation.”89 Once again using the mantra, “Unity, Security, Freedom,” St-Laurent would use his first national broadcast of the campaign to ask Canadians to stay the course. “There is a special aspect of our national unity,” he reminded Canadians, “that I should like you to think about. I mean the development in Canada of economic unity, under which we are strongly bound together by mutual interest and all the manifest commonsense [sic] reasons why we should work together - and why, too, as members of the same national family, we should share the fruits of our work.”90 St-Laurent chose Winnipeg for his opening address of the 1957 general election campaign because it was a “fine vantage point from which to survey the Canadian scene - to the East, to the West, and to the North.”91 “To me,” he told the audience, “the most gratifying aspect of our recent and present eco­ nomic progress is that it reaches right across Canada.”92 Highlights included the expansion of steel mills and automobile plants in Ontario, oil and gas in the west, power and aluminum in British Columbia, thousands of kilometres of pipelines, large-scale power projects “for almost every province,” new railway lines, the St. Lawrence Seaway, base metals in Atlantic Canada, and “a concerted effort... [that was] being made, in almost every province, to bring more of our gas, oil and mineral wealth to the surface.”93 As he had in his stop during the 1953 election campaign, in Edmonton, St-Laurent once again spoke about pipelines. Quoting from his former speech, he reminded supporters that, despite opposition that delayed the project, a pipeline was now being built.94 Edmonton, he remarked, was the “Gateway to the North.” All Canadians, he continued, “are keenly interested in the trem en­ dous possibilities for Canada in the opening of the treasure-trove the North ...

St-Laurent and Regional Development

235

And while there are still all sorts of new worlds to conquer within the four corners of Canada, the N orth is beckoning us.”95 “We Liberals are members of a national family, each with a very personal interest in the welfare of every other member of the family. W hen we assist one area, or one group [,] then we feel that we are helping every area and all our fellow-citizens.”96 In Chatham, for example, he reminded voters that “the basis of Canadas future must be a strong, stable economy, with a proper balance of agriculture, industry and other oc­ cupations, operating efficiently as one great well-coordinated unit.”97In Atlantic Canada he emphasized linking provinces, creating connections to the rest of Canada, and the importance of education. In Newfoundland, he focused upon the fishing industry, unemployment insurance, and Diefenbaker s lack of inter­ est and understanding.98 In Quebec, he emphasized what power development, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the TransCanada Pipeline, air travel, and roads would mean for those in the province.99 What made the Liberals different from the Conservatives, he told voters in Montreal, was that they were not a party “based on sectional interests and [that] caters to special groups.”100 In outlining Liberal accomplishments, St-Laurent reminded those present that it was the Liberals who promoted pipelines for the betterment not only of Alberta but also of Quebec, Ontario, and Atlantic Canadians.101 Significantly, lost in the aftermath of the hoopla following the incident that interrupted his final speech in Toronto was the following: “Oh, I know the Leader of the Diefenbaker Party says his party now has a programme of national development. Well, what are the Conservatives going to develop that we are not already developing?”102 There can be no doubt that the 1960s were “an intense” period of regional planning and development.103 However, the election of John Diefenbaker in 1957 should not be seen as the turning point some historians have suggested. As Frances Abele says about N orthern regional development, Diefenbaker merely gave “vivid political expression to the same economic strategy.”104 Similarly, “there is no magic to the year 1957, especially when provincial ruraldevelopment policies are considered.”105While Diefenbaker would receive much fanfare for his “roads to resources” initiative and other propaganda surround­ ing his “new National Policy,” St-Laurent, in reality, deserves much of the credit for, as he suggested at the Ontario Plowmens Association Banquet in October 1952, ploughing (pun intended) the field of regional development during his time in office.106 By the time St-Laurent left office in 1957, he had spent close to a decade shep­ herding a significant period in Canadian economic development and social growth.107 While St-Laurent had inherited a strong economy, he was also heir

236

Michels. Beaulieu

to a country with regional divides and diverse economic and social concerns.108 St-Laurent s speeches reveal that complex thinking about regional development had long been centre-stage in determining how to tackle regional economic disparities and to strengthen Canadian unity. Speaking for the last time as leader to the National Liberal Convention in January 1958, he defiantly told delegates: “Liberal policies have created a positive unity based upon social security and social justice which have brought us closer to the ideal of equality of opportunity and have made Canadians realize more than ever before that it is good for us and our families that we are Canadians.”109 St-Laurents closure of debate on the issue of the TransCanada Pipeline in 1956 may have played into the decade-long m antra of centralization and abuse of provincial rights espoused by his political opponents, but it was not incon­ sistent with his vision. As he told Robert Mayhew when presented with a plan to abolish a subsidy to the fishing industry in 1949: “Do you really think it is the right thing to d o ? ... I think it is right too ... and I think we should do what feels right, and then face the political consequences afterwards.”110 Canadians, the media, and generations of historians have been taken in by John Diefenbaker’s overwhelming majority and his ideas of a “new National Policy” and “Northern Vision,”111forgetting that St-Laurents vision had formed the basis for the adop­ tion of a new region (Newfoundland) and for the implementation of big infra­ structure projects (such as the Trans-Canada Highway [1949] and the St. Lawrence Seaway [1954]) that purposely linked isolated regions, as well as opening up the N orthern territories. St-Laurent ensured that governments would no longer grant “special fa­ vours” for regions, maintaining that there would be “equal opportunities for all” through the introduction in 1957 of a formal system of equalization pay­ ments (see P.E. Bryden, Chapter 7, this volume). Ironically, a Liberal FrenchCanadian politician from Compton, Quebec, would lose an election to a western Canadian politician partially because he refused to play Progressive Conservative politics when it came to a much needed nation-building infrastructure project that was essential to the economic vitality of many regions of Canada.

Notes 1 Louis St-Laurent, Les conséquences de la Guerre froide pour le Canada [Consequences of the Cold War for Canada] (Ottawa: Division de l’information, Ministère des affaires exté­ rieures, 1950), 8 , speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto, 27 March 1950, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/primeministers/ h4-4015-e.html.

2 Ibid.

St-Laurent and Regional Development

237

3 Jean Dupuis, “Federal Regional Economie Development Organizations,” publication no. 2011-05-E, 17 March 2011, revised 25 September 2014, Ottawa, Library of Parliament, 1. 4 In addition to playing an important role in his speech crafting before becoming a member of Parliament himself, J.W. Pickersgill’s memoir provides quite a bit of insight through his observations. Working closely with St-Laurent while in the Prime Ministers Office, he observed that Mackenzie King found speech writing to be “a tedious process,” but for St-Laurent, he reflected, “the French and English versions were equally important. The theme of his speech was usually only settled orally, and a draff was then prepared by one of the secretaries, generally me [Pickersgill], St-Laurent then read the draft by himself. Occasionally he rejected it entirely, indicating a different line he would like to take, and a new draft had to be prepared; but usually he made few changes.” See J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 60. 5 Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 39. For those who undertake research on St-Laurent, it is regrettable that, unlike most prime ministers, the archival materials available are sparse. 6 Ibid., 68-71. 7 Ibid., 81, 86 , and 89. 8 St-Laurent quoted in ibid., 82. 9 Ibid., 88 . 10 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 92. 11 Louis St-Laurent quoted in ibid., 92-93. 12 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 35. 13 See LAC, MG 26 L, vols. 250-255/6. On his time as secretary of state for external relations, see Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 60-70; and Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 216-40. The term “ups and downs” has increasingly been used to describe the activities of the United Nations on a host of issues, ranging from womens rights to world security to economic policy. See, for example, Richard C. Hottelet, “Ups and Downs in UN History’ Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 5,4 (2001): 17-25. 14 See Remarks to National Dairy Council of Canada, Quebec, 1 March 1948,6-7, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 255. 15 Remarks to National Dairy Council of Canada, Quebec, 1 March 1948,9, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 255. Later that month he would use an occasion to address the Hamilton Junior Cham­ ber of Commerce to build on the ideas outlined to the Dairy Council. See National and International Unity, an Address by Right Hon. Louis S. St-Laurent, Secretary of State for External Affairs, to the Junior Chamber of Commerce, Hamilton, Ontario, 14 March 1948, Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 255. 16 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 45-48. 17 Address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, National Liberal Convention - 7 August 1928,3, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 255. For the Hamilton speech, see National and Inter­ national Unity, an Address by Right Hon. Louis S. St-Laurent. 18 Address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Kennedy Collegiate - Windsor, Ontario, 12 March 1949,15, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 258. 19 See LAC, MG 26 L, vols. 258-59. Speeches were given in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Saskatoon, Brandon, Winnipeg, Fort William, and Port Arthur. 20 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 71. Thomson describes St-Laurent s western tour in April 1948 as part of his effort to give Canadians “some indication of the processes of the mind of the man who is their prime minister.”

238

Michel S. Beaulieu

21 See Robert Wardhaugh, Mackenzie King and the Prairie West (Toronto: University of To­

ronto Press, 2000). 22 Notes for speech by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, Edmonton, 11 April 1949, 5, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 258. 23 Ibid., 5-6. 24 Notes for speech by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, Vancouver, Wednesday luncheon, 13 April 1949,2, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 259. See also ad­ dress by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Hotel Vancouver - Station CKMO, 13 April 1929. He also spoke to the Vancouver Board of Trade and Canadian Club. 25 See “Preliminary Notes for Prime Minister Speech - Fort William Luncheon - Canadian Club, April 22nd, 1949” (Western Tour), Fort William, and “Notes for Address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, Port Arthur, Ontario, April 22,1949” (Western Tour), Port Arthur. Both in LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 259, PM /1949. 26 “Notes for Address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, Port Arthur, Ontario, April 22,1949,” 1. 27 Ibid., 2. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 3. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., 6 . 33 Notes for Prime Minister, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 13 May 1949, election campaign, Lunen­ burg, and notes for Prime Minister, Halifax, 14 May 1949, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 260. 34 Notes for Prime Minister, Halifax, 14 May 1949,8-9, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 260. See vols. 261-63 for a variety of speeches in, for example, Timmins or Owen Sound, Ontario; Quebec City; and St. John’s, Newfoundland, on the subject. 35 Ibid., 18. 36 Ibid., 20. 37 Ibid. 38 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 276. 39 See notes for speech by Prime Minister at public meeting in the Collegiate, Sarnia, Satur­ day, 22 April 1950, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 266. 40 Ibid., 4. 41 Ibid., 8 . 42 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 105. 43 Notes pour une causerie du très honorable Louis S. St-Laurent au Club de Réforme de Montréal le 21 avril 1951,11, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 270. 44 Speech by Prime Minister, 1 September (Labour Day) 1952, 8 , LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 275. 45 Ibid. 46 Notes for the Prime Ministers address, St. Anselme, 20 July 1953, 2, election speeches, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 281. 47 Notes for speech by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, International Plowing Match Banquet, Ottawa, 10 October 1952, 3, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 276. 48 Ibid., 5. « Ibid., 6 .

St-Laurent and Regional Development

239

50 Notes for address by the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Louis St-Laurent, Canadian Club, Ottawa, 16 January 1953,2, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 277. 51 Ibid., 3. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 5. 54 Ibid., 9. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. Examples used in the speech included the aluminum industry in the Lake St. John district of Quebec; the resolution of issues surrounding smelting and agriculture in Trail, British Columbia; the lumber industry in Campbell River; the petrochemical industry in Edmonton and its expansion central to, for example, the synthetic rubber industry in Hull, Quebec. 57 Ibid., 11. 58 Prime Ministers notes, Annual Convention, Canadian Lumbermens Association, Montreal, 9 February 1953, 6, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 277. 59 Ibid., 6. 60 For example, in Hamilton, Ontario (waterways and the St. Lawrence Seaway); Thetford, Quebec (markets for the products of mining); and Sydney, Nova Scotia (Cape Breton coal and new transportation and transportation infrastructure). See Prime Minister s notes for speech on board ship in Hamilton Harbour, 26 June 1953,1, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279; notes du Premier Ministre pour son discours à Thetford Mines, le 20 juillet 1953, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 277; and Prime Ministers notes for speech in Sydney, Nova Scotia, 1 July 1953, 5, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279. 61 Prime Ministers notes for speech in Sydney, Nova Scotia, 1 July 1953, 4, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279. 62 Ibid., 5. 63 Ibid., 6. 64 Prime Ministers notes for address, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 8 July 1953, 6, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Second National Broadcast, Trans-Canada Network, address by the Right Honourable Louis St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, Vancouver, BC, 9 July 1953,3, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279. 68 St. Johns was the location of St-Laurents 5th National Broadcast during the 1949 election campaign. He visited St. John’s and St. George in the Port-au-Port peninsula on 24 June 1949. 69 Notes of Prime Ministers speech at St. John’s, NL, 2 July 1953,2, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279. 70 Ibid., 5. 71 Ibid., 12. 72 Ibid., 13. 73 Notes of Prime Minister’s speech at Edmonton, Alberta, 13 July 1953, 3, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 279. 74 Ibid., 5-6. 75 Prime Minister’s notes for an address, Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, 24 July 1953,4, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 280. 76 Ibid., 5-6. 77 Ibid., 6. 78 Ibid., 7.

240

Michel S. Beaulieu

79 Ibid., 10.

gO Notes for address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, Edmonton, Alberta, 30 April 1957,2, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 293. gl See Brett Fairburn, “A Preliminary History of Rural Development Policy and Programmes in Canada, 1945-1995,” March 1998, http://nre.concordia.ca/ftprootFull/rhistory.pdf. g2 See Donald A. Wright, “Regionalism, Politics and Canadian Unity in the Age of a Global Economy,” Acadiensis 22, 2 (1993): 177-85; and Jack Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). g3 Historians, Penny Bryden in particular, have also rightly focused on St-Laurent s approach to social policy between 1955 and the election of 1957. See Penny Bryden, Planners and Politicians: Liberal Politics and Social Policy, 1957-1968 (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1997), 3-26. Others have defined the election of 1957 as, to borrow from David Smith, the regional decline of a national party in western Canada. See David E. Smith, The Regional Decline o f a National Party: Liberals on the Prairies (Toronto: Uni­ versity of Toronto Press, 1981). The election certainly laid the foundation for decades of debates surrounding the issues of centralization and perennial claims by the Tories and CCF of Liberal ignorance of western grievances. 84 Cabinet du Premier Ministre Canada, Message du Nouvel an du très hon. Louis-S. St-Laurent, Premier ministre du Canada, 31 décembre 1956, New Year’s Message, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 291. 85 Address to Canadian Construction Association, Toronto, 21 January 1957, 3, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 291. 86 John Meisel, The Canadian General Election of 1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 160. 87 Peter C. Newman, Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963), 55. See also Meisel, Canadian General Election o f 1957, 160. 88 Canadas Second Century, address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, to the Hamilton Junior Chamber of Commerce, Hamilton, Ontario, 7:30 p.m., 18 March 1957,9, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 292. 89 Ibid., 6 . 90 First National Broadcast by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, QC, Prime Minister of Canada and Leader of the Liberal Party, 29 April 1957,1-2, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 293. 91 Notes for address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, 8:00 p.m. CDT, 29 April 1957, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 292. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Notes for address by the Right Honourable Louis S. St-Laurent, Prime Minister of Can­ ada, Edmonton, Alberta, 30 April 1957,1-2, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 293. 95 Ibid., 2. 96 Ibid., 8 . 97 Election campaign, Chatham, 5 June 1957, 3, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 297. 98 Notes for address by the Prime Minister, St. John’s, Newfoundland, 30 May 1957, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 296. 99 To those in French Canada, he would invoke the second commandment in his national French broadcast on 30 April: “Aime ton prochain comme toi-même.” See, for example, Allocution du premier ministre le très honorable Louis S. St-Laurent au réseau français de Radio-Canada, le mardi 30 Avril 1957,4, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 293. '00 Notes of the Prime Minister, Montreal, 3 June 1957,2, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 295.

St-Laurent and Regional Development

241

101 See Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent at Kennedy Collegiate Gymnasium, Windsor, ON, 5 June 1957, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 297; and notes of the Prime Minister, Montreal, 3 June 1957,3, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 295. 102 Notes for Toronto speech, 7 June 1957, 5, election campaign, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 297. 103 See, for example, Ira M. Robinson and Douglas R. Webster, “Regional Planning in Canada: History, Practice, Issues, and Prospects,” Journal o f the American Planning Association 51, 1 (1985): 23-33. 104 Frances Abele, “Canadian Contradictions: Forty Years of Northern Political Development,” Arctic 40,4 (1987): 312. 105 Fairburn, “Preliminary History of Rural Development,” 13. 106 David A. Douglas, “Contexts and Conditions of Community Economic Development in Canada: Government and Institutional Responses,” in Community Economic Development in Canada, ed. David A. Douglas (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1994), 87; and Fairburn, “Preliminary History of Rural Development,” 13. 107 As Gordon Robertson has stated, St-Laurent provided “the most consistently good, finan­ cially responsible, trouble-free government the country has had in its entire history” See Gordon Robertson, Memoirs o f a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 10. See also Bruce Muirhead, Dancing around the Elephant: Creating a Prosperous Canada in an Era o f American Dominance, 1957-1973 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007). 108 See Daphne Meredith, Brenda LePage, Gordon Cherwoniak, Maha Spek, Marc D’Eon, and Rhonda Laing, “Rural Economic Development in Canada with an Emphasis on the Western Canadian Landscape,” Working Papers Series No. 183, Territorial Cohesion for Development Working Group, Document, Rimisp, Santiago, Chile, June 2016; Pierre Camu, “Aspects of Social Differentiation in Canada,” in A Social Geography o f Canada, ed. Guy M. Robinson (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991), 48-60; Raymond B. Blake, “Regional and Rural Development Strategies in Canada: The Search for Solutions,” submission to the Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada, March 2003,197; and Paul Phillips, “A Post-Mortem on Regional Policy in Canada ”Acadiensis 21,1 (1991): 196. See also Jim Silver, “Globalization: Constitutional Considerations,” presented to the Can­ adian Plains Research Centre, Gorsebrook Institute Conference on the Constitutional Future of the Prairie and Atlantic Regions of Canada, University of Regina, 8-10 November 1991. 109 Address by the Right Honourable L.S. St-Laurent, National Liberal Convention, 14 January 1958, 7, LAC, MG 26 L, vol. 297. 110 St-Laurent quoted in Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 263. 111 For more on Diefenbaker’s “vision,” see Ken Coates, Canadas Colonies: A History of the Yukon and Northwest Territories (Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 1985); and K. J. Rea, The Political Economy o f the Canadian North (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968). Raymond Blake is correct when he says that, “until the late 1950s the problem was never recognized as one of systemic underdevelopment in rural areas”; instead, strategies focused “on increasing productivity in farming and fishing in an attempt to raise incomes and, hence, living standards in such areas.” See Blake, “Regional and Rural Development,” 189.

242

Michel S. Beaulieu

_________________ chapter__I _L St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality MARY JANIGAN

It was that canny politician J.W. Pickersgill who summed up Louis St-Laurent s approach to governing with an apt comparison to his predecessor. Whenever Mackenzie King detected an almost insoluble problem, he did nothing until everyone agreed there was a problem. So when King found a solution, even if it was not topnotch, everyone concluded that he was a great statesman. In contrast, St-Laurent often found a solution before most Canadians, including some of his cabinet colleagues, even knew there was a problem. And how did St-Laurent fare with this talent? “The verdict of the Canadian people was that Canada was an easy country to govern, and that anybody could govern Canada,” declared Pickersgill as he comforted St-Laurent in the months after his election loss in June 1957, “and they decided to let anybody try.”1 Pickersgill perceived what so many Canadians did not recognize, then and now. This deceptively avuncular corporate lawyer had dragged Canadian fed­ eralism, along with some dubious premiers, from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. The prime minister came late to politics, relatively unscathed by partisan discord, and he brought a common-sense approach to the nations predicaments. W hen he recognized that the tax rental deals with the provinces, which were a legacy from the Second World War, had become a threat to fed­ eration harmony, he revised his strategy. Instead of pacts with individual prov­ inces to collect three key taxes, the rigorously analytical St-Laurent devised and oversaw the search for an alternative system. He was involved every step of the way, sometimes leaving the lead to Finance Minister Walter Harris but always on top of the file and pivotal to the solution.

The result was the equalization program, which ensured that the poorer prov­ inces could deliver roughly similar levels of services for roughly similar levels of taxation. With their revenue needs (partly!) met, even poorer provinces could now introduce and support social programs such as hospital care and, eventu­ ally, Medicare that would be partly funded by Ottawa. At first glance, this ingenious transfer scheme looked simple - partly because federal cabinet members opted for a formula that they could explain to their constituents if they were pushed. However, during the months before and after the enabling legislation passed on 31 July 1956, federal politicians were rarely pushed because most Canadians did not understand what St-Laurent had ac­ complished. Equalization grants were non-conditional, and they were calculated using an apparently neutral formula. Provinces did not have to fill out applica­ tion forms. The programs very existence resolved a difficult confrontation with Quebec, which had refused to allow Ottawa to collect its taxes in peacetime. As a result, it had lost generous compensatory federal grants. With equalization, any province that did not rent its taxes to Ottawa was no longer penalized for its assertion of autonomy. St-Laurents solution modernized the creaky Canadian federation. Since the early years of the Second World War, most provinces had undertaken compli­ cated one-on-one negotiations with Ottawa every five years, forging tax rental deals that allowed Ottawa to collect their personal and corporate income taxes and succession duties in return for compensatory grants and a share of the col­ lection. With every cycle of negotiations, the deals exacerbated the fiscal differ­ ences am ong the provinces and between the provinces and the federal government. The prolonged bargaining was a nightmare that usually started two years before the agreements expired. Worse, because Quebec stayed aloof from Ottawa’s schemes after the war, its tax revenues became increasingly dis­ connected from what Ottawa would have granted as compensation. Equalization eased the mutual resentments. Now every poorer province received grants to compensate for revenue inequality, whether or not it rented its taxes to Ottawa. Thirty years later, a senior official claimed that the separa­ tion of the compensatory grants from the estimated tax collections was StLaurent s "own decision, reached after lengthy discussions with finance.”2 But St-Laurent was already familiar with the principle of equalization because of his work as francophone counsel for the Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations in the late 1930s (see Wardhaugh and Ferguson, Chapter 6, this volume). As well, John Deutsch, the federal official who worked most closely with the prime minister on equalization, had headed the research division of that commission. Both men were well aware of the models for fiscal sharing

244

Mary Janigan

that prevailed in other federations such as the United States and Australia. The Royal Commission itself had suggested National Adjustment Grants to assess each province’s p er capita fiscal needs in order to equalize provincial spending. I argue that St-Laurent and Deutsch were more involved in the design of equalization than some senior officials have acknowledged. In the initial months of 1955, the prime minister chaired a cabinet committee that scrutinized pos­ sible approaches - and Deutsch, who was then secretary of the Treasury Board, worked on the details.3 Indeed, P.E. Bryden asserts that equalization was Deutsch’s “brainchild,” although she does not make the connection of Deutsch to Rowell-Sirois.4 Although the equalization program has expanded today to include many more revenue sources and calculations, the basic principle remains the same: Ottawa shares federal taxpayers’ money with poorer provincial governments to foster equity and to create fiscal ties that bind. The introduction of equaliza­ tion ranks among the most important accomplishments of St-Laurent’s career. He preserved the federation, defusing resentments in Quebec while bringing fiscal relief to the poorer provinces. Those obscure transfers became a nation­ building lifeline - even though few Canadians recognized his achievement, either then or now. Pickersgill asserts that the prime minister viewed the pro­ gram “as his crowning achievement in federal-provincial relations, to which he had devoted so much of his time and energy since 1945.”5 But if St-Laurent received little credit for these transfers, he also underesti­ mated the extent of the nationwide discontent that they provoked. He assumed that the federation was ticking along nicely: theoretically, when the first equal­ ization cheques were mailed on 1 April 1957, the nine poorer provinces would be gratified (Ontario alone did not receive equalization). True, most premiers accepted the principle of equalization. But some provinces, poorer and richer, especially the struggling Atlantic provinces and Ontario, vigorously objected to the amounts that they were receiving - or not receiving. Ontario premier Leslie Frost maintained that Ottawa was keeping too many tax dollars for itself when his government needed the money for infrastructure and services. He cannily linked his demands for an increased share of personal income tax under the tax rental deals with a call for special subsidies for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. After an unsatisfactory First Ministers’ Conference to discuss equalization and the tax rental deals in early March 1956, Frost was ominous: “It will not be too long before the Federal Government regrets the action it took today.”6 The premier was effectively invoking provincial rights against what he viewed as a federal revenue grab.

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

245

St-Laurent did not properly address those damaging complaints of unfair treatment, partly out of concern for Ottawa’s bottom line. In retaliation, in late April 1957, Frost threw his powerful campaign team behind Progressive Conservative leader John Diefenbaker. The premier made supportive speeches in different communities, occasionally on the platform with the Tory leader, lauding him as the “only one man who can find that just solution [of the tax­ sharing problem ] for the little m en and the little wom en of Canada.”7 Equalization, that well-meaning remedy for the ills of fiscal federalism, became an improbable issue in the June 1957 federal election, and it contributed to StLaurents loss. It was a deeply ironic dénouement for the prime ministers in­ geniously m odern remedy for sharing. St-Laurent had been familiar with the issue of fiscal inequality in federations for decades. In February 1937, Prime Minister Mackenzie King established the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, which is now known as the Rowell-Sirois Commission, in response to fiscal crises. Manitoba and Saskatchewan were facing bankruptcy. Perhaps worse, many provinces lacked sufficient revenues to fulfill their most basic social and economic responsibilities in their Depression-era world. The commissions task was to undertake “a re­ examination of the economic and financial basis of Confederation and of the distribution of legislative powers in the light of the economic and social develop­ ments of the last seventy years.”8 It was a m am m oth task - and both francophone counsel St-Laurent and John Deutsch played key roles in its investigation. The Rowell-Sirois Commission pried into the innards of Canadian federalism along with examinations of how other nations handled social and economic inequality. By the time the commis­ sion report was tabled in Parliament in May 1940, it had collected many studies on Australia, along with others on Argentina, Switzerland, and the United States. The thousands of pages on federalist approaches to inequality among member states remain astonishing - and St-Laurent was familiar with them. The commissioners had concocted a plan for an ideal federation in which Ottawa centralized key revenues and then redistributed them to ensure that each province had sufficient per capita funds to provide for its citizens. The redistribution would be calculated through a well-meaning but clumsy scheme for National Adjustment Grants: Ottawa would assess each provinces spending on specific programs to determine its per capita fiscal needs in comparison with the national average. The proposal was very roughly modelled on the Australian approach and would become another model for equalization - albeit with a different formula for establishing provincial needs.

246

L

MaryJanigan

Such centralization was controversial - and St-Laurent played a pivotal role in the commissioners’ unanimous acceptance. When the commissioners were finalizing their report, chair Joseph Sirois considered writing a minority opinion - because he wanted to preserve the provinces’ constitutional right to impose income taxes and, especially, succession duties.9 After prolonged discussions with St-Laurent and anglophone counsel James McGregor Stewart, however, Sirois concluded that only a national government with control over key revenues could effectively help “Canadians in need in every part of the country.”10 But permanent centralization of revenues through constitutional amendments was unrealistic. Instead, in the midst of war, the federation partners concluded short-term tax rental deals with Ottawa that effectively emulated the commis­ sion’s approach. By the early 1950s, however, that approach, which cemented Ottawa’s fiscal control, was losing its attraction. Quebec was isolated and increasingly aggrieved: the province had lost more than $76 million in federal compensatory grants between 1947 and 1952 alone because of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis’ line in the sand.11 As the only province that did not sign the 1952-57 tax rental deals, it was leading the postwar provincial resistance to Ottawa’s use of its spending power: effectively an anti-Rowell-Sirois movement. The assertion of provincial rights was as old as Confederation itself. But this powerful Quebec nationalist movement was developing because of the clash of two postwar forces. On one side, there was Ottawa’s push to centralize revenues and use its spending power to stimulate the economy and to fund social security measures for all citizens. Politicians were uneasily aware that voters in the largely anglophone provinces were impatient with the Liberal government’s failure to significantly expand social security. On the other side, there was Quebec’s grow­ ing alarm as Ottawa started to spend in areas of provincial responsibility, nudg­ ing into its place in the cultural heart of French Canada. This was an encroachment on Quebec’s territorial version of federalism with its emphasis on the provincial duty to protect language and culture.12 Duplessis fought back. In 1953, he established the pivotal provincial Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems, which Judge Thomas Tremblay chaired. In late 1953, well before their final report, the commissioners urged Duplessis to resist Ottawa’s fiscal domination. The province was also experiencing “an increasingly difficult time finding enough revenue to finance all of the highways, bridges, schools, and hospitals that were required.”13In 1954, Duplessis finally introduced a provincial income tax equal to 15 percent of the federal income tax. It was a direct challenge: Quebec taxpayers would be hit

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

247

with “double taxation” unless Duplessis could accomplish “the difficult task” of convincing the St-Laurent government to allow them to deduct their provincial tax from their federal tax.14 Duplessis also contended that Quebec had priority in the field of direct taxation. “A lively struggle ensued between the two governments.”15 After months of fierce skirmishes, St-Laurent delivered a particularly tough challenge to Duplessis at the Quebec Reform Club on 18 September 1954. He was open to suggestions to settle the dispute, but he refused to recognize Quebec’s claim to priority over direct taxes. He also made a startling assertion: “Quebec is a province like the others.”16Journalist Bruce Hutchison maintained that StLaurent did not consult his cabinet before he made those off-the-cuff remarks, which offended many Quebecers.17 The reaction startled St-Laurent: he knew that the situation was untenable. He had not created the impasse with Quebec, but he had certainly deepened it. The dispute was now a threat to national unity. He had to find a gracious exit. The two men m et privately at Montreal’s Windsor Hotel in early October to draff the outlines of a compromise. At a cabinet meeting in January 1955, the prime minister argued that the only solu­ tion to the standoff was to make an offer that would be available to all provinces. As the cabinet records reveal, the prime minister concluded: “No matter how far the Federal government went, the government of Quebec would not be satisfied... [But] any serious Federal proposal, even though it might not satisfy Mr. Duplessis, would at least show the people of Quebec that the Federal au­ thorities had honestly tried hard to meet their point of view and had sought to relieve, at least in part, those who suffered from double taxation.”18 Accordingly, Ottawa offered to reduce its income tax by 10 percent for all provinces in which a provincial income tax was levied and to apply that move retroactively to Quebec for 1954. On 19 January 1955, Duplessis accepted this truce. In a subsequent telephone call with St-Laurent, he also agreed to delete the assertion of provincial priority in direct taxation from the provincial income tax act.19 That scuffle “had wider significance. For the first time since the war, Ottawa had to draw back and temper its new national policy [of tax rental ac­ cords and com pensatory grants] to take the dem ands of a province into account.”20 Prime Minister St-Laurent knew that he had to rethink the renewal of the tax rental agreements, if only to halt Quebec’s continued isolation. In his later book on those agreements, federal bureaucrat R.M. Burns dated the official birth of equalization to the aftermath of St-Laurent’s settlement with Duplessis. In a pivotal letter to the other premiers after that pact, on 14 January 1955, the prime minister explained that Ottawa was not wedded to the principle of the

248

Mary Janigan

tax rental deals “to the exclusion of any better alternative arrangement if one could be found.”21 But Ottawa “had no intention of abandoning the objective of the tax rental agreements which is to make it financially possible for all provinces, whatever their tax base, to perform their constitutional functions themselves and to provide a reasonable Canadian level o f provincial services without an abnormal burden o f taxation. That is the foundation of the policy of the federal government.”22 After quoting St-Laurent, Burns, who was the then director of the federalprovincial relations division in the finance department, emphasized: “This was the first official acknowledgement by the federal government of its adoption of equalization as a basic and explicit principle of its fiscal program, as distinct from the rental of the income tax fields, since its acceptance of the Rowell-Sirois recommendations in 1941.”23 That was true. There had been adjustments to the subsidies for the struggling Maritime provinces in the 1920s and 1930s in the name of generosity. But StLaurents letter, which recognized the concept of fiscal inequality among the provinces - and how to measure it in terms of the tax revenues required to perform necessary services - was an explicit recognition of ideas that the federal bureaucracy had quietly mulled since 1941, whenever the tax rental agreements came up for renewal. (Senior finance and Bank of Canada officials had also worked behind the scenes with the staff of the Rowell-Sirois Commission.) A subsequent history of fiscal policy by former Privy Council clerk Robert B. Bryce downgraded the influence of the Rowell-Sirois report on the creation of equalization. Bryce conceded that the report “did have an important but indirect effect in leading to [the] tax rental agreements.”24 But he argued that the report and its proposals for National Adjustment Grants did not “have any significant influence on the introduction of equalization grants in 1957.”25 In­ stead, Bryce asserted that St-Laurent simply wanted to separate the “fiscal need” element of the individual provincial tax rental agreements from the estimated yield of key taxes in each province. Bryce said that this was “Prime Minister St-Laurent s own decision, reached after lengthy discussions with Finance, and it reflected his view that the inclusion of such a subsidy in the tax rental agree­ ments was seriously unfair to Quebec ... I was the secretary to the Cabinet at the time and very much involved in the discussions on the subject.”26 This assertion that the proposed National Adjustment Grants did not have “any significant influence” on the introduction of equalization is questionable. The cabinet records show that the prime minister wanted to be closely involved in the introduction of equalization. And it is equally clear that consideration of the proposal for National Adjustment Grants was an im portant part of the

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

249

introductory process. Indeed, federal officials reassessed that idea as part of their deliberations. The initial challenge was to figure out how transfers to meet the needs of the poorer provinces, including Quebec, could operate. Cabinet documents indicate that, in mid-March of 1955, St-Laurent set up the nucleus of a cabinet committee to work with an interdepartmental committee of officials to prepare for upcoming federal-provincial discussions on the tax rental deals and equal­ ization as well as unemployment assistance. St-Laurent acted as chair of this committee along with Finance Minister Walter Harris and Justice Minister Stuart Garson. The three politicians first oversaw preparations for a preliminary meeting with provincial representatives in late April.27They agreed that federalprovincial fiscal arrangements would be the “main item, of course” on the agenda (the full Federal-Provincial Conference was scheduled to kick off on 3 Octo­ ber).28 It was an im portant topic. Officials took over during the summer of 1955, churning out memos on how to design transfers to the poorer provinces. On 17 June, an unnamed bureaucrat outlined “some possible lines of approach” that included “Plan C: Equalization Payments Applicable to All Provinces.” Among the advantages of Plan C, the memorandum argued, Ottawa “could not be held to ransom” by provincial governments because Ottawa alone would determine equalization payments. As well, the use of revenues from income taxes and succession duties in a formula to establish grants to the poorer provinces “generally produces results easier to understand and to explain.”29The choice was blunt: if Ottawa wanted “absolute and formal control,” it should retain the tax rental deals, “and Ontario’s signature would become essential”; if ending the fiscal isolation of Quebec was far more pivotal, Ottawa could drop the tax rental deals, minimizing “the possibility of a recurrence of the recent personal income tax imbroglio with Quebec.”30 By late August, however, R.M. Burns was backing away from his support for the seemingly radical course of Plan C: that is, equalization with no tax rental deals. He wanted to preserve as much of the tax rental deals as possible, arguing that such efforts “might at least have the merit of salvaging some of the control and much of the tidyness [sic] that has existed since 1941.”31 The deals would survive one more round - but the times were changing. As Burns later ruefully reflected: No longer was there over-riding concern with central fiscal and economic controls which had been considered so vital from 1941 on. W hether this was a conscious conversion to a new spirit of federalism, a response to Quebec demands, a realistic assessment of changing provincial and public attitudes,

250

Mary Janigan

a reaction to the political hazards of Keynesian management, or merely an unwillingness to continue to be pushed by the provinces to provide more revenue at federal political expense is not determinable. Undoubtedly all these factors influenced different people at different times. The important point is that willingness to relinquish a measure o f control existed, even though it was not unanimous ... The basic ground rules were changing and the ideas that were sacrosanct in the 1941-52 period were no longer inviolable in 1955-56.32

Meanwhile, other officials were examining different models to remedy fiscal inequality. In early September, Economic Policy Division official E. A. Oestreicher prepared a thirty-two-page package for Deputy Finance Minister K.W. Taylor. He analyzed: • The Australian Commonwealth Grants Commission: “The most important criticism ... refers to the complexity of its method.” • The Rowell-Sirois reports proposed National Adjustment Grants, which were based on fiscal expenditures: “The basic dilemma is that the secular growth in national income encourages demands for an expansion of gov­ ernmental activities ... there could come about a growing dependence on transfers from the federal government.” That is, the more that a province spent, the more that it could demand. • The controversial Ontario proposal for sharing that was tabled at the Dominion-Provincial Conference of 1945-46: “An unusual feature of this proposal is that the funds ... are raised by provincial governments solely and are to be administered jointly with the federal government.” • The American system of variable grants for specific programs such as public health and hospital construction: “In certain instances, the poorer states cannot really afford to take advantage of the federal offer. If they do, it sometimes results in a distortion of their services in favour of those subsidized by the federal government.” 35

By mid-September, the bureaucratic proposals reached cabinet. St-Laurent favoured the principle of equalization as the solution to the federations woes.34 John Deutsch was “its main advocate” within the bureaucracy.35Finance Minister Harris, however, was receiving conflicting advice about the plan “from highly competent and respected senior advisors in his department.”36 (That is also evident from Burns’s memo in favour of the retention of the tax rental deals.) Harris was torn. Pickersgill recounted that St-Laurent “became impatient with

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

251

Harris for the only time in their close relationship that I can recall.”37 Initially, Harris brought ambiguous advice to cabinet. He explained that the principle behind the tax rental deals was still sound - but it “would not seem to be in the national interest” to isolate Quebec.38 The cabinet might consider the replace­ ment of the tax rental deals with equalization based on the tax potential in two or three provinces with the highest tax potential or on the wealthiest province or on the national average.39 Even the dry cabinet records show that Harris was non-committal. (After many talks with Pickersgill and others, Harris did come to support equalization whole-heartedly.) There were ominous hints of the trouble ahead during that cabinet dis­ cussion, which was eventually joined by senior officials, including Deutsch and Burns. But St-Laurent did not pay enough attention, perhaps because there seemed to be little opportunity or money to fix two of those issues. One “dis­ turbing political problem” was that Quebec would get more than $40 million “while no payment was made to Ontario.”40British Columbia and Prince Edward Island would receive less money under any future formula than under the tax rental deals (this was fixable).41New Brunswick wanted the formula to recognize “the lower tax potential of certain provinces in other taxation fields as well.”43 All the Atlantic provinces wanted more cash. W hen the Federal-Provincial Conference opened on 3 October 1955, the prim e minister was dignified, eloquent - and prepared to remedy past diffi­ culties. Fiscal arrangements were “the heart of our problem ... The public now expects both levels of government to do things which require high taxes.”43He reviewed the history of efforts to share funds to ensure “some reasonable degree of equity and stability in the revenue of the various provinces. The latter involved some recognition of the fiscal need of those provinces whose tax potential is less than others.”44 Then he paid tribute to the Rowell-Sirois Commission for its “serious and scholarly effort,” which included the call for constitutional changes that “were found impossible to accept.”45 As yet, St-Laurent explained, Ottawa had no definitive proposal. But it favoured payments that would be determined by the yield of a set of standard taxes “to bring the revenue per capita up to some specified level defined in terms of what all provinces or certain provinces might obtain from those sources.”46 Provinces could continue the tax rental deals if they wished, while Ottawa would likely provide a stabilization guarantee to ensure a m inimum payment so that no province lost money on any new deal. The premiers had mixed reactions. Ontario premier Leslie Frost warned that overly large subsidies to poorer provinces could “destroy enterprise and productivity in the province from which the revenue is taken.”47New Brunswick

252

Mary Janigan

premier H.J. Flemming cited the Rowell-Sirois Commissions proposal for National Adjustment Grants and then asked for grants based upon 85 percent of the average per capita personal income in Canada.48 Saskatchewan premier T.C. Douglas, who was an ardent Keynesian, wanted Ottawa to continue the tax rental deals so that it would have the revenues to combat depressions and to maintain high levels of employment.49 A month later, federal official Burns diligently compiled a sixteen-page federal memo that summarized the provincial positions and posed twelve de­ tailed policy challenges, including the possibility of extra payments for the Maritimes. He concluded that, if equalization payments were based upon the tax collection in the wealthiest or the two wealthiest provinces, then “equaliza­ tion can probably provide sufficient [revenues] for all provinces.”50 Officials clearly lacked acute political instincts for the seriousness of this Maritime dilemma. Equalization went back to the full cabinet twice for lengthy discussions dur­ ing December 1955. On 7 December, the ministers weighed possible approaches, struggling to placate New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Should they adopt a two-pronged formula that used the average per capita personal income in the four wealthiest provinces - along with the revenues from the three taxes - to determine equalization? “In effect, this would mean the payment of an additional subsidy.”51 They decided that an extra grant of fifty cents per capita for every $100 below the average per capita personal income would only aggravate Quebec because “it would be said th a t... federal authorities recognized they had taxed more than they should in the three main fields.”52 Perhaps worse, the proposal to base grants on personal income “was arbitrary in nature and could be criti­ cized as derisively sm all... [and] seemed so full of problems.”53They abandoned the notion. But St-Laurent and his ministers would regret this failure to address Maritime grievances. Two weeks later, cabinet ministers went back to their original plan, playing with formulas. W hat about using the average yield of those three taxes from the populations in Ontario, British Columbia, and a sufficient portion of Quebec to bring the total up to one-half of the Canadian population? That would not work. “Equalizing to the top half was a difficult concept to understand and almost impossible to explain in public.”54Ministers quailed at the very thought. The cabinet decided to base equalization on the average per capita collections of personal and corporate income taxes and succession duties in the two wealth­ iest provinces. The discussions were reaching an end. In early January, at three separate meetings, cabinet revised a letter outlining Ottawa’s basic approach, which

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

253

St-Laurent eventually sent to the provincial premiers.55 The prim e minister offered an amendment, which was rejected because it might have committed future Parliaments to financial obligations. But it was an indication of the extent of his involvement. The plan was formulated. Now St-Laurent moved into the spotlight. The 10 January 1956 Speech from the Throne singled out the proposals to the provinces on fiscal relations. One day later, the prime m inister tabled Ottawa’s letters to the premiers in the House of Commons. One day after that, during the debate on the Speech from the Throne, he outlined the basic approach under which every province except Ontario would receive equalization grants. “In examining the question of fiscal need, it has seemed to us that a system of applying a kind of provincial means te s t... would not be acceptable or workable in a country with our history and traditions,” St-Laurent explained in his reply to Conservative leader George Drew’s criticism. “We want something more objective than a provincial means test.”56 That is, Ottawa did not want to pry into what each province was spending to determine the size of its grants. Instead, it would look at what it could collect in tax revenues. The prime minister’s demeanour was low-key, and it puzzled journalist George Bain. “There was no fire, and very little that was new,” he observed. “Most parliamentary observers rated it one of his poorest performances. He sounded like a man who was tired or bored, or both.”57 St-Laurent was likely exhausted. As his biographer Dale C. Thomson noted, he was not in an “imaginative frame of m ind” from early December onward. He was suffering from “the fatigue that appeared to recur annually, making his burdens seem almost unbearably heavy.”58 On 15 February, the prime m inister led the discussion on fiscal arrange­ ments in cabinet. The ministers agreed that any reference to fiscal need in an invitation to the premiers for a follow-up meeting “could not be interpreted as a permanent refusal in principle of the proposals put forward by the Maritime provinces, although no definite commitments should be made.”59Ottawa simply could not deal immediately with those Maritime requests for extra grants based upon average per capita personal income. Cabinet also decided that Finance Minister Harris would discuss key technical issues in the equalization offer with the continuing committee of federal officials and then brief St-Laurent and key regional ministers in-depth on the answers.60The prime minister was taking an abiding interest in equalization, including its detailed workings. He should have seen the disasters ahead. Ottawa had promised in October 1955 to hold a final conference on fiscal arrangements, so the cabinet reluctantly scheduled another federal-provincial meeting for March.61The ensuing one-day

254

Mary Janigan

gathering broke up acrimoniously. Behind closed doors, Ontario premier Leslie Frost warned: “There is no recognition in the formula of the fact that it costs money to earn m oney... We simply cannot afford many oftheservicesthe other provinces now have.”62 His demands were huge: “Taking a strictly realistic view of our needs, Ontario should have at least $100-million more from these three main tax fields.”63 In public, he delivered a terrible verdict: “They were wrong in 1945, they were wrong in 1952, and they are wrong today [Frost is citing the dates that previous tax rental agreements were contemplated]. And they will find out how wrong they are in about five years when they come face to face with the realization that today’s lack of foresight will bring this country to the brink of economic disaster.”64 The Maritime premiers were equally unsettled by the small size of their grants. New Brunswick’s Hugh John Flemming explained that nothing had been done for his region “in which the rate of economic growth has been so low ... The improvement of the relative position of the Atlantic Provinces can only be done by a supplementary formula which takes into consideration a province’s lack of taxable capacity in the other direct tax fields available to provincial governments.”65 Nova Scotia premier Henry Hicks lamented the limitations of the formula because it fell “far short of equalizing per capita revenue from all sources.”66 St-Laurent had already ruled out the Maritime pleas. And he could not convince Frost to change his mind about the limits of generosity because the premier wanted his taxpayers’ funds for his government. But St-Laurent did not need Frost’s consent to send equalization cheques from the federal gov­ ernment to the poorer provinces. On 14 June, cabinet changed the wording of the bill “to make clear that a tax rental agreement was not a required feature” of equalization.67That is, Quebec would receive equalization even though it did not sign a tax rental deal. On 12 July, ministers rejected Frost’s demand that Ottawa offer an additional $250 million to the provinces, including $100 mil­ lion more for Ontario in its tax rental deal: “The Federal government had gone as far as it could.”68 To compensate, Frost reluctantly revived the province’s corporation tax along with some previously discontinued levies.69 Ottawa’s enabling legislation passed at the end of July 1956. The first cheques went out in April 1957. In 1957-58, equalization pay­ ments were $139 million, including a $46.4 million peace offering to Quebec. It was a godsend for the poorer provinces, although the Maritimes remained unhappy with the size of their grants. The new program commenced as the tax rental agreements reached their last renewal. All provinces signed the 1957-62 tax rental deals, except Ontario and Quebec. Ontario rented only its personal

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

2 55

income tax, but it remained unsatisfied with its share of the tax that Ottawa collected. Quebec stayed out of this last postwar pact without penalty. There would be no more deals. But St-Laurent had seriously underestimated the extent of Frost’s dissatis­ faction. In the spring of 1957, the Ontario premier turned his quest for a higher percentage of the personal income taxes into an issue in the June 1957 federal election campaign. Frost had previously worked well with St-Laurent. Now, he went to war, denouncing “what he regarded as the pig-headedness of the St-Laurent government.”70 The prem ier spoke frequently on behalf of the fed­ eral Tories. At a rally with Diefenbaker at Toronto’s Massey Hall in late April, he explained that he had turned against the federal Liberals because “this province is vitally interested in what is happening down at Ottawa, with spe­ cial reference to the question of taxation.”71 He added pointedly: “It is not a matter of the Federal Government giving Ontario or the Provinces anything. That is the patronizing attitude in Ottawa. All that we ask is a reasonable part of our own.”72 The premier shrewdly coupled his demands with the stipulation that the “chronically poor” Atlantic provinces should also get an extra adjustment grant, “which softened the overt tax-grab component” of his plan.73“So effective was Frost at driving home his twin messages - more tax room for the wealthier provinces, equalization grants for the poorer provinces - that fiscal concerns became identified as a key battlefield in the federal election.”74 Diefenbaker reinforced the theme. At a rally in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, for one, he promised “more just” fiscal arrangements and “term ed sacred the provinces’ rights under confederation.”75 It was electoral dynamite. In a Gallup Poll of almost two thousand Can­ adians in May 1957, the Liberals had the support of 37.9 percent compared to the Progressive Conservatives at 26.3 percent.76 That represented an increase in the Liberal lead from 35.2 percent in March 1957 (the Progressive Conserva­ tives had also increased their standing from 23.3 per cent).77But St-Laurent lost the election. There were many reasons for the defeat, not least the perception of Liberal arrogance. But Frost almost certainly made the difference: in Ontario, the Liberals plummeted from fifty-one seats to twenty-one. Four Ontario cabinet ministers lost their ridings, including Finance Minister Harris. The Globe and Mail concluded that the electorate agreed “with the Frost-Diefenbaker conten­ tion that the provinces and municipalities deserved a better share of tax rev­ enues.”78 The Tories gained one seat in New Brunswick and swept ten of the twelve seats in Nova Scotia, which had been a Liberal bastion.

256

Mary Janigan

Diefenbaker got the message. His new government promised grants-in-aid for the Atlantic provinces in late November 1957. In late January 1958, after Frost sent stern reminders to Diefenbaker of his political debts, the federal Progressive Conservatives raised every provinces share of the personal income tax that Ottawa collected.79 St-Laurent was left to m ourn the quirks of history. He had rectified the ills of fiscal federalism, kept the provinces together, and overhauled how the federa­ tion worked in the twentieth century. The angry provincial protests had merci­ fully died down for an all-too-brief interlude. Few Canadians had noticed. But when politicians in Ontario and Atlantic Canada raised the spectre of inequity during the federal election campaign of 1957, Canadians paid attention. It is only now that we can salute St-Laurent s introduction of equalization as a masterstroke of sharing that he had understood and advocated for much of his career. It is a poignant grace note to a remarkable life.

Notes 1 J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 328. 2 Robert B. Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times: Canadas Department o f Finance through the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986), 269. 3 P.E. Bryden, “The Obligations of Federalism: Ontario and the Origins of Equalization,” in Framing Canadian Federalism: Historical Essays in Honour o f John T. Saywell, ed. Dimitry Anastakis and P.E. Bryden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 81. 4 Ibid. Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English also declare that equalization was Deutsch’s “brainchild” in their Canada since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 152. 5 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 307. 6 William Kinmond, “Meeting Was Abortive; Premier Frost Declares,” Globe and Mail, 10 March 1956, 1. 7 Roger Graham, Old Man Ontario: Leslie M. Frost (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Ontario Historical Studies Series, 1990), 332. 8 Terms of Reference, Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, Book 1 (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1954), 9. 9 R.M. Fowler to R.A. MacKay, 6 August 1963, correspondence and personal reminiscences of the Rowell-Sirois Commission 1963, files of R.A. MacKay, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), MG 30, vol. 10, series E 159,4. 10 Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 102. 11 Michael D. Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution: Liberalism versus Neo-Nationalism, 1945-1960 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1985), 199. 12 Richard Simeon and Ian Robinson, State, Society, and the Development o f Canadian Federalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 125,129,140-45.

St-Laurent and Modem Provincial Equality

257

13 Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 199. 14 Ibid. 15 Paul-André Linteau, René Durocher, Jean-Claude Robert, François Ricard, Quebec since 1930 (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1991), 282. 16 Le Devoir as quoted in Conrad Black, Duplessis (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), 436. J.W. Pickersgill quotes a slightly different version of the remarks: St-Laurent believed “that the province of Quebec can be a province like any other.” See Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 256. 17 Bruce Hutchison, Mr. Prime Minister: 1867-1964 (Don Mills, ON: Longmans Canada, 1964), 300. 18 Federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, Quebec, Cabinet Conclusions, 13 January 1955, Top Secret, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2657, file 14090,4. 19 Federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, Quebec, Cabinet Conclusions, 20 January 1955, Top Secret, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2657, file 14108, 5. 20 Linteau et al., Quebec since 1930,282. 21 Louis St-Laurent to all provincial premiers with the exception of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, 14 January 1955, as quoted in R.M. Burns, The Acceptable Mean: The Tax Rental Agreements, 1941-1962 (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1980), 111-12. 22 Louis St-Laurent to all provincial premiers with the exception of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, as quoted in Burns, Acceptable Mean, 111-12 (emphasis mine). 23 Burns, Acceptable Mean, 112. 24 Robert B. Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times: Canadas Department o f Finance through the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986), 218. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 269n21. 27 Federal-Provincial Conference 1955, preparation, Cabinet Conclusions, 18 March 1955, Top Secret, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2657, file 14236,10. 28 Federal-Provincial Conference 1955, preliminary meeting of 26 April, unemployment as­ sistance, Cabinet Conclusions, 20 April 1955, LAC, RG 19, series A-5-a, vol. 3880, file 14290. A second meeting in Ottawa on 20-21 June concentrated on unemployed employables. 29 Federal-Provincial Fiscal Relations, some possible lines of approach, 17 June 1955, confi­ dential, Interdepartmental Committee for the Federal-Provincial Conference, 1955, Plenary Conferences Conference [sic], 3 October 1955, agenda, briefing material, LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (55/2)-2: 8 . 30 Ibid., 9-10. 31 Some Problems in Application of an Equalization Formula, RMB (R.M. Burns), August 30,1955. Plenary Conferences Conference [sic], 3 October 1955, agenda, briefing material. LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (55/2)-2: 5. 32 Burns, Acceptable Mean, 122 (emphasis mine). 33 Fiscal Need Grants (signed E.A. Oestreicher), Plenary Conferences Conference [sic], 3 October 1955, agenda, briefing material, LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (55/2)-2: 11, 21,22-23,27. 34 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 309. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., 310.

258

MaryJanigan

38 Federal-Provincial Conference, fiscal arrangements, Cabinet Conclusions, 21 September

1955, Top Secret, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2658, file 14579,21 (emphasis mine). 39 Ibid. 40 Federal-Provincial Conference, fiscal arrangements, Cabinet Conclusions, 21 September

1955, Top Secret, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2658, file 14579, 24. 41 Ibid., 23. 42 Ibid., 20. 43 Proceedings of the Federal-Provincial Conference, Ottawa, Plenary Conferences Confer­ ence [sic], 3 October 1955, summary record of proceedings, LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (55/2)—3: 13. 44 Ibid., 14. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 17. 47 Ibid., 21. 48 Ibid., 50-51. 49 Ibid., 82. 50 Points for decision, signed RMB (Burns), 3 November 1955, Plenary Conferences Con­ ference [sic], 3 October 1955, summary record of proceedings, LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (55/2)-3: 14. 51 Federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, Cabinet Conclusions, 7 December 1955, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2659, file 14742,23. 52 Ibid., 25. 53 Ibid., 26. 54 Federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, Cabinet Conclusions, 21 December 1955, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2659, file 14769, 13. 55 Federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, Cabinet Conclusions, 3 January 1956 and 5 Janu­ ary 1956, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 5775, file 14777,14779, and 14797,2-4 (3 January), 2-3 (5 January), and 13 (later on 5 January). Cabinet decided that all ten letters would bear the date of 7 January 1956. 56 George Bain, “PM Says Offer Based on Picture of Nations Needs,” Globe and Mail, 13 January 1956,1-2. Bain’s article is dated 12 January 1956. 57 Bain, “PM Says Offer Based.” 58 Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 412-13. 59 Federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, possible resumption of conference, Cabinet Con­ clusions, 15 February 1956, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 5775, file 14882,3. 60 Ibid., 4. 61 Ibid., 3. The record indicates: “If it were not for the statement in the [October] communiqué, the Federal government could probably have proceeded to implement its proposals without a further conference. It now seemed necessary, however, to offer an opportunity for such a meeting to the provincial governments.” 62 Plenary Conferences, conference of 9 March 1956, formal statements, LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (56/l)-4: 3, 7. 63 Ibid., 7. 64 William Kinmond, “Meeting Was Abortive: Premier Frost Declares,” Globe and Mail, 10 March 1956, 1. The headline was “5 Hours of Disagreement: Ottawa Ends Tax Talks, $640,000,000 Limit, Harris Tells Provinces,” Globe and Mail, 10 March 1956,1.

St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality

259

65 Plenary Conferences, Conference of March 9, 1956, formal statements, LAC, RG 19, vol. 3880, file 5515-04 (56/l)-4: 2, 10. 66 Ibid., 1. 67 Legislation, Federal-Provincial Tax-Sharing Arrangements Bill, Cabinet Conclusions, 14 June 1956, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 5775, file 15157,2. 68 Fiscal arrangements with provinces, request from the premier of Ontario, Cabinet Con­ clusions, 12 July 1956, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 5775, file 15203, 16. 69 Graham, Old Man Ontario, 322. 70 Ibid. 71 “Always Backs a Winner: Frost Pledges Support to Diefenbaker Drive,” Globe and Mail, 26 April 1957, 5. 72 P.E. Bryden, “The Obligations of Federalism,” in Framing Canadian Federalism, ed. Dimitry Anastakis and P.E. Bryden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 87. 73 Ibid., 86. 74 Ibid., 87. 75 Langevin Cote, “Unity under PC’s: Diefenbaker Defends Rights of Provinces,” Globe and Mail, 5 June 1957,7. This is presumably Côté, although the Globe and Mail did not punc­ tuate it. 76 Canadian Gallup Poll, May 1957, no. 258, https://searchl.odesi.ca/#/details?uri=%2Fodesi %2Fcipo-258-E-1957-05.xml. 77 Canadian Gallup Poll, March 1957, no. 256, http://odesi2.scholarsportal.info/documentation/ Gallup/marl957-256.txt. 78 Grey Hamilton, “Liberals Hit by Landslide in Ontario,” Globe and Mail, 11 June 1957,1. 79 Graham, Old Man Ontario, 337.

260

Mary Janigan

chapter St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State LUC JUILLET AND LUC BERNIER

Louis St-Laurent governed during a remarkable period of prosperity for Can­ ada. He took office as the horrors of the Second World War receded and as international trade revived. Brimming with confidence, the country was em ­ bracing a new role in the world and strong sustained economic growth was giving Canadians and their government new means to build a better future. Taking note of this prosperity, some observers of the period have quipped that times were so good that the country hardly needed to be governed.1That opinion obfuscates the reality that fast-paced growth presents a host of chal­ lenges for governments: even the blessings of growing resources have to be acted upon, channelled, and adequately controlled to bear fruit. A combination of public entrepreneurship and sound management is needed to seize oppor­ tunities with maximum impact and limited waste. This chapter examines St-Laurenfs performance as a public entrepreneur and administrator. Moving beyond the moniker of “chairman of the board” that was applied to his performance, we ask: What contribution did he make to the adm inistration and m odernization of the public service? How did St-Laurent respond to the challenges presented by the fast-paced growth of the public service during his tenure? To what extent did he leave his mark on the administration of the Canadian government? As his government seized the opportunities presented by prosperity, was St-Laurent himself a creative and entrepreneurial force in the creation of new agencies and the completion of key national projects?

To answer these questions, the remarkable economic and fiscal conditions that benefited the St-Laurent government must be appreciated. Through a com­ bination of favourable circumstances and difficult decisions, St-Laurent managed to combine an exceptional growth in government with a fairly cautious fiscal policy. Relying on some key public servants, he took a historic step in strength­ ening and centralizing the control of public spending and administrative policy, most evidently by enacting the Financial Administration Act, 1951. His decision to strengthen the central control of administration and spending was an early step in a decades-long process that eventually transformed the federal public service but that hardly solved all the problems that bedevilled it.2 However, despite acknowledging the severity of the problems, he often dithered and ul­ timately failed to address the personnel problems afflicting the postwar bureau­ cracy. St-Laurent did engender notable projects that showcased his government’s entrepreneurial vigour, such as the creation of the Canada Council for the Arts or the construction of the TransCanada Pipeline. He was an efficient manager of cabinet decision m aking and he ultim ately supported the entrepreneurship of his ministers, but he often proved a reluctant innovator, valuing prag­ matic caution and displaying little entrepreneurial drive himself. On the whole, St-Laurent’s legacy as a public administrator appears rather mixed.

Governing in Exceptional Times St-Laurent was prime minister during times of dramatic growth for the Can­ adian state, growth initially made possible by the favourable fiscal consequences of the end of the Second World War. Despite the cost of veterans’ pensions and expenditures related to reconversion to a peacetime economy, the end of the war still resulted in a precipitous decline in total government spending. As demonstrated in Figure 12.1, by the time St-Laurent assumed office, the return to a peacetime economy translated into significant and sustained growth in national income, consumption, and trade, leading to an expanding tax base and, consequently, growing tax revenues. The net result was highly favourable budgetary conditions. Immediately after the war, the drastic decline in military expenditures al­ lowed Mackenzie King’s government to pursue a policy of simultaneously re­ ducing the national debt, expanding peacetime expenditures, and lowering corporate and personal income tax rates. St-Laurent initially chose to continue this policy, including keeping Douglas Abbott, Mackenzie King’s last finance minister, until 1954. In its first budget, 1949, his government raised the basic personal am ount exempt from the income tax, reducing the num ber of income

262

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

FIGURE 12.1 Federal revenues and expenditures, 1939-60

tax payers by 17 percent. Yet, inflation and a growing economy resulted in growing government revenues despite these higher exemption levels.3 In fact, from the moment St-Laurent took office in November 1948, federal revenues began to grow rapidly, a trend that continued during his entire tenure. The start of the Korean War forced new choices on the St-Laurent gov­ ernment. Should the government revert to borrowing to finance the war effort or should it increase taxes to raise even more revenues? Without additional funds, would military spending have to come at the detriment of other program spending, thereby curtailing the government’s ability to pursue a more ambi­ tious social agenda? Benefiting from a fast-growing economy, St-Laurent and Abbott decided that the government could have it all. In a remarkable decision, the St-Laurent government decided to avoid borrowing as much as possible, espousing instead a “pay-as-you-go” policy, which required the government to attempt to cover the totality of its growing expenditures, including war-related spending, through tax revenues.4 As a result, the three budgets from 1950 to 1952 introduced a series of tax increases, including a 5 percent increase in corporate taxes in 1950, a 20 percent defence surcharge on corporate and personal income taxes in 1951, and a new old age security tax in 1952 to fund the newly introduced universal old age pen­ sions. In one of his most notable changes in tax policy, St-Laurent also increased the (hidden) federal sales tax from 8 to 10 percent in 1951. Fearing the sales tax’s socially regressive effects, Canadian governments had not raised that tax since 1936, but Abbott now argued that the additional revenues were needed

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

263

and that low-income Canadians were sufficiently protected by existing exemp­ tions on some basic goods.5 As a result of these tax increases, government revenues continued to grow significantly after 1950, outstripping the pace of military spending and allow­ ing Ottawa to continue to spend on new infrastructure and social programs while also making surpluses and reducing the national debt.6 From 1947 to 1954, the government posted an exceptional string of budget surpluses. With the exception of the 1920s, these budgets represented the only period since Confederation in which the federal government posted surpluses for more than two consecutive years.7 Moreover, although the government reported deficits in 1954, 1955 and 1957, these remained relatively small, averaging 0.4 percent of Gross National Product (GNP), and the national debt continued to shrink in relation to the economy. While it stood at 68.5 percent of GNP when St-Laurent assumed the office of prim e minister, the debt fell to 28.3 percent of GNP by the time he left office.8 Because of real growth rates averaging 5.2 percent from 1948 to 1957, these efforts at overall fiscal restraint did not have to come at the expense of new spending. In fact, during the decade St-Laurent spent at the head of the government, federal spending more than doubled, reaching nearly $5.5 billion in 1957. This growth in expenditures touched almost all areas of government activ­ ity. In social and health services, where Paul Martin Sr. served as a minister for the duration of the St-Laurent government, programs were launched or ex­ panded to support the creation of new hospitals by provincial governments, provide federal pensions to older Canadians, and deliver income support to families, persons with disabilities, and the blind.9 As a result, expenditures for the Department of National Health and Welfare alone increased from $333 million in 1947 to $663 million in 1958.10 Launched in 1952, federal old age pensions were already costing $474 million by 1957, representing about 9 percent of the federal budget. The government also made historic investments in national infrastructures. Under the Trans-Canada Highway Act adopted in 1949, the St-Laurent govern­ ment negotiated federal-provincial cost-sharing agreements to fund the comple­ tion of a truly national highway system, covering between 55 percent and 83 percent of the construction costs, depending on the province. This investment is the most significant federal intervention in highways in Canadas history.11 The St-Laurent government also built the St. Lawrence Seaway at a total cost of $336 million, which remains one of its most enduring legacies.12 The seaway not only delivered a major improvement to Canadas commercial infrastructure,

264

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

it is also considered to be one of the ten m ost im portant public works pro­ jects of the twentieth century.13 Moreover, during his last four years in office, St-Laurent doubled federal spending on air travel infrastructure and services.14 Finally, in light of the emergence of the Cold War, NATO, and NORAD obligations, and, more generally, Canadas growing international stature, the St-Laurent government maintained significant defence spending throughout its tenure. Unlike the Second World War, the end of the Korean War did not result in a precipitous decline in defence expenditures. Total defence-related expenditures represented 45 percent of the federal budget in 1953 and they still represented about 36 percent of the federal budget in 1957, amounting to $1,793 billion.15 In sum, the years of the St-Laurent government were a remarkable period for public finances and government intervention. Benefiting from a windfall from the end of the Second World War and then a fast-growing economy, the government was able to pursue an overall fiscal policy that was rather conserva­ tive while still engaging in a historic expansion of government spending. This exceptional growth presented St-Laurent with some significant administrative challenges. The expansion of the federal public service placed the administrative systems of the prewar era under severe strains that demanded serious attention and called for administrative reforms.

St-Laurent and Public Service Reform Prime ministers are rarely the main driving force behind large-scale adm inis­ trative reforms. For elected officials eager to make a difference in the lives of citizens and to secure re-election, improving staffing systems, financial plan­ ning or management controls rarely constitute priorities. With the exception of cases in which financial savings are promised through the cutting of bu­ reaucratic waste, the reduction of red tape, and proverbial “efficiency gains,” politicians naturally tend to focus on the substance of policy rather than on its administration. Yet, ensuring a competent public service, the adequate control of public resources, and the effective delivery of services is im portant for providing good government and the ability to deliver on electoral commitments. Moreover, significant mismanagement of public resources invariably reflects badly on the government at the helm of the public service and may prove to be politically damaging. As a result, elected officials must still pay attention to the public service, the quality of its personnel, and the integrity of its administrative systems.

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

265

Furthermore, political will can be as important as technical expertise to ensure the success of administrative reforms. Even when they are proposed and led by senior public servants, large-scale system-wide reforms typically require the support of the government. By their very nature, these system-wide changes disrupt the work of government and require significant resources and new legislation. They can also affect the distribution of influence among the senior leadership of the public service and may well require political involvement to overcome resistance. For these reasons, in the history of the Canadian public service, administrative reforms have been most successful when politicians have respected the expertise of public servants, while public servants have remained conscious of political realities and benefited from substantial political backing.16 Such conditions were not always present during the St-Laurent years. As can be expected, one of the first areas in which the rapid expansion of government programs created im portant administrative challenges was the control of money. In the late 1940s, the secretariat that supported the Treasury Board was still a very small division of the Department of Finance. The board itself focused on the approval of expenditures, including m inor routine trans­ actions. Already in the 1930s, as their num ber grew, many transactions were being approved by ministers without being scrutinized, and the government struggled to keep track of the state of its finances through the year.17 The on­ slaught of spending brought about by the postwar expansion of government made matters worse. The explosion in spending also renewed parliamentary interest in financial management. The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee became more active, scrutinizing public finances and publicly voicing its concerns. In doing so, it was greatly assisted by Watson Sellar, the auditor general, who dog­ gedly chastised the government for its poor financial management. Politically, defence spending seems to have been the most contentious area, occupying a large part of the work of the Public Accounts Committee in the late 1940s and early 1950s.18However, the inadequacy of financial controls was a much broader problem, going well beyond the defence portfolio. In addition to public spending, personnel recruitment and management is another area directly affected by the expansion of government intervention during St-Laurent s tenure. When St-Laurent became prime minister, the federal bureaucracy counted about 118,000 employees. As shown in Figure 12.2, when he left office, the num ber of employees exceeded 195,000, an increase of 65 percent. However, even these numbers do not give a full picture of the staffing challenges faced at the time. First, in the late 1940s, over twenty thousand ap­ pointments to the public service were made each year. Over St-Laurent s tenure,

266

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

FIGURE 12.2 Number of employees in the federal public service, 1939-60

Source: Statistics Canada, series Y211-259.

the annual num ber of appointments averaged about eighteen thousand, sug­ gesting a high level of turnover.19 At a time when recruitm ent and appoint­ ments were still centralized in the Civil Service Commission, this level of staffing represented a significant challenge and could hardly guarantee a high-quality workforce. The recruitment of personnel was also dominated by temporary appoint­ ments and the use of the federal public service to provide war veterans with employment outside the military. Since 1918, federal staffing legislation has given preference in hiring to war veterans and their widows.20 For many years after the Second World War, this preference was used extensively and, in 1948, war veterans still represented 63 percent of all male appointments to the public service. During St-Laurenfs entire tenure, about 38 percent of male appoint­ ments were given to veterans.21 While no one was disputing that veterans deserved special consideration, concerns emerged as early as 1946 about the consequences of the veterans’ preference for the efficiency of the public service. That year, the Royal Com ­ mission on Administrative Classifications in the Public Service, headed by Walter Gordon, argued that the preference was too rigid and more generous than what was being offered in the United States and the United Kingdom, and that some amendments should be considered to ensure the present and long-term efficiency of the public service. These concerns remained through the 1950s, leading Arnold Heeney to say in 1958 that the stringency or over­ riding character of the veterans’ preference had become a cause for “general

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

267

concern,” forcing the public service to turn away Canadians with outstanding qualifications in favour of less qualified veterans.22 The postwar federal workforce was also largely constituted of temporary appointments that did not come with benefits, that needed to be regularly re­ newed, and that could be terminated by a simple administrative decision. When St-Laurent came into office, the num ber of temporary appointments exceeded permanent ones by a five-to-one ratio.23 While the proportion of permanent appointments slowly improved over St-Laurent s tenure, it took until the begin­ ning of the 1960s for the public service to be staffed by a majority of permanent employees.24 Needless to say, building a m odern, professional bureaucracy on temporary appointments was hardly ideal, although for the fiscally cautious St-Laurent, this staffing model had the advantage of making cutbacks easier to implement if the government were ever to face an economic downturn.25How­ ever, problems of personnel quality were so severe that deputy ministers some­ times found it impossible to delegate responsibilities for lack of competent subordinates.26 Finally, in addition to problems of staffing and expenditures, the public service increasingly encountered problems in properly organizing itself, man­ aging the performance of its employees at junior and intermediate levels, and dealing with increasingly vocal staff associations. These problems stemmed partly from the lack of central management capacity. In 1908, in order to end political patronage, Parliament gave the authority for staffing the public service to a largely independent Civil Service Commission (CSC).27However, over time, the CSC became the de facto central personnel agency, assuming responsibility beyond staffing, such as recruitment, classification, training, pay scales, the es­ tablishment of new organizational divisions in departments, and so on. On most of these issues, it made recommendations to the Treasury Board, which itself made recommendations to the full cabinet. The result of this central management system was that the CSC, an agency at arm’s-length from senior departmental leadership and with limited contact with the government, was playing a central role in the management of the public service. Meanwhile, the Treasury Board, the central authority over administra­ tive matters, actually lacked significant administrative support and struggled to deal with a growing volume of transactions, let alone impart some overall stra­ tegic direction to the bureaucracy. This situation might have been tolerable for a small public service, but it was certainly problematic for managing a fast­ growing interventionist state. Politicians and senior public servants were well aware of these problems by the time St-Laurent became prime minister. Already in 1946, the Gordon

268

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

Commission officially had identified most of them, although, for people in Ottawa, it was merely stating the obvious. By the late 1940s, there was already talk of a crisis of personnel in the public service and its leadership, including at the Department of Finance, which was acutely aware of deficiencies in finan­ cial management. To address these problems, as could be expected on such matters, St-Laurent sought to rely on a few trusted public service leaders, espe­ cially Clifford Clark, Bob Bryce, and Arnold Heeney, to propose and lead re­ forms.28 The end results were uneven. While St-Laurent took key steps to strengthen central administrative capacity and controls over both personnel and financial matters, he failed to deliver a fundamental revision of the staffing legislation, the Civil Service Act, which he himself believed was badly needed.29 St-Laurent’s most im portant administrative legacy took the form of the Financial Administration Act adopted in 1951, which he owed mostly to the work of Clifford Clark and Robert B. “Bob” Bryce. A year before St-Laurent came into office, Bryce had been named secretary to the Treasury Board, re­ placing W.C. Ronson, a vestige of the Bennett era who was known for his tight control of expenditures and his general resistance to change. Bryce was one of the great mandarins of the era. After having studied economics with John Maynard Keynes at Cambridge and with Joseph Schumpeter at Harvard, he had joined the Department of Finance in 1938 to work as Clifford Clarks righthand man.30 Bryce came to his new job with a modernizing vision: beyond the control of spending transactions, the Treasury Board should strive to improve manage­ ment across the bureaucracy and consider its role in expenditure management in a more strategic manner. In this endeavour, Bryce had the full support of Clark, who himself had believed for over a decade that the financial manage­ ment system needed a serious overhaul in order to keep pace with the radical expansion of public expenditures and the needs of a modern administration.31 With St-Laurent’s backing, this vision permeated the Financial Administration Act (FAA), which was drafted under Clarks direct supervision and soon replaced the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, 1931.32 As one of its key measures, the act gave a statutory foundation to the Treasury Board and granted it final authority for the approval of expenditures. While still a committee of cabinet, the board would no longer see its decisions reviewed and confirmed by the full cabinet. This change enhanced the authority of the board and reduced the workload of the full cabinet, which would now confine its role to approving administrative policies as opposed to specific transactions. Later in 1951, St-Laurents cabinet also adopted an order-in-council that gave the board the final authority to approve contracts.33

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

269

In addition to these measures, the FAA also strengthened the Office of the Comptroller and clarified and extended the role of the Audit Office, including by bringing Crown corporations under its purview. In addition to empowering the Treasury Board, these changes strengthened the capacity of its secretariat, which progressively acquired more resources and expertise. These changes were important first steps in modernizing the cabinet, building the centres capacity to drive a public-service-wide management agenda and, more generally, fur­ thering “the process of centralizing the executive control of finance.”34 While St-Laurent took significant steps in modernizing expenditure man­ agement, the same cannot be said of staffing and personnel administration. Despite being clearly aware of the need for fundamental reform, he largely neglected the issue. He let personnel problems fester until 1954, when he decided that Arnold Heeney, a public servant of exceptional stature who was then serv­ ing as ambassador to the United States, should return soon to head the Civil Service Commission and lead a comprehensive review of the Civil Service Act.35 However, a series of pressing international issues meant that it would take a few years before Heeney could leave Washington, and he took the helm of the CSC only in 1957. In the meantime, St-Laurent asked Bryce, whom he had appointed Clerk of the Privy Council in 1953, to strike a small committee that would propose some legislative changes to address the most pressing problems, including the veterans’ preference and whether the Treasury Board should control the classification of positions. Bryce found it difficult to get consensus on desirable changes to the Civil Service Act, finding opposition on a softening of the preference for veterans and on other issues. Understanding that the government would likely face a fight in the House of Commons if the CSC or staff associations opposed sig­ nificant amendments, Bryce, together with Heeney who was still being con­ sulted from Washington, began to worry that the prime minister might lose his appetite for legislative reform. Later in 1954, St-Laurent essentially confirmed his reluctance to spend pol­ itical capital on changes to public service legislation, telling Bryce that he would not propose amendments to the act in the next parliamentary session.36 This decision effectively ended any hope of a significant system-wide reform in personnel administration until Heeney s return to Ottawa. St-Laurent eventually appointed Heeney to the CSC in 1957, asking him to advise the government on how to fix the Civil Service Act, rethink the role of the commission itself in the machinery of government, and address mounting pressures for collective bar­ gaining from staff associations.37 While Heeney set out to fulfil this ambitious

270

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

mandate, his work would not be completed until 1959, long after St-Laurent vacated the Prime Minister’s Office. St-Laurent’s record in reforming the management of the public service is thus decidedly mixed. Despite being acutely aware of the problems of the per­ sonnel system, St-Laurent did not ask for significant reforms until 1954 and, even then, was not willing to spend the necessary political capital to propose legislative changes. His main strategy appears to have been to hope that Heeney would eventually agree to devote himself to solving these problems. However, his support for Bryce and Clark on financial management resulted in the adop­ tion of the Financial Administration Act, one of the most influential pieces of civil service legislation in the history of the Canadian public service. Moreover, by empowering the Treasury Board and strengthening its secre­ tariat, St-Laurent took one of the first steps towards building a more institu­ tionalized cabinet. This historic shift in Canadian cabinet government is typically more closely associated with the era of Pearson and Trudeau, but St-Laurent should get more credit for his role in this development. To the extent that he was a reformer, St-Laurent relied heavily on the great public servants of this era to guide him in modernizing the public service. However, given the fast-paced expansion of the state spearheaded by his government, it remains surprising that, in a decade, St-Laurent did not do more to modernize the bureaucracy.

St-Laurent and Public Entrepreneurship St-Laurent’s personal role in shaping the expansion of the Canadian state through changes to its organization and the realization of landm ark projects is also worth considering. St-Laurent’s remarkable intellect and towering stat­ ure during his time in Ottawa is indisputable. Gordon Robertson described St-Laurent in his memoirs as a gifted man with a “penetrating intelligence and sure judgment” and remembered that, as prime minister, he would “cut through to the essentials of any problem and [that he] gave his decision at once.”38 In this regard, as Stephen Azzi argues (Chapter 3, this volume), the image of “prime minister as mere chairman of the board” surely downplays St-Laurent’s actual role in shaping debates within his cabinet and making authoritative decisions on key policy files. However, his influence as the head of the government does not necessarily translate into public entrepreneurship, even if he did manage his ministers’ entrepreneurial drive, an essential role.39 Despite his government’s activism, the extent to which St-Laurent himself was a creative force and a vector of change

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

271

for the Canadian state remains debatable. In this section, we briefly consider the role that St-Laurent played in the achievement of some his governments landmark projects, including the creation of new agencies, in order to assess whether he was the force behind his government’s exceptional entrepreneur­ ial drive. In Westminster systems, the machinery of government is considered to be a prerogative of the prime minister. By restructuring departments, rearranging ministerial portfolios, or creating special purpose agencies, the prime minister can have a lasting, even if indirect, impact on how public-sector organizations see their mandates, pursue their objectives, and account for their performance. Over a decade at the head of the government, St-Laurent made good use of this prerogative. Some of his significant organizational choices took the form of new or re­ structured departments. In particular, his government created the Department of Citizenship and Im m igration in 1950. While the bulk of its spending ac­ tually went to programs dedicated to Indigenous communities for much of St-Laurent’s time in office, the new department was still an organizational re­ sponse to the historic surge in immigration that the country was experiencing at the time.40 It elevated the importance of this policy issue within the federal bureaucracy. In the context of the Korean War, the government created the Department of Defence Production in 1951. Enacted through the Defence Pro­ duction Act, the new department was part of a set of measures adopted to mobilize industrial resources for the new war effort, while building a stronger, even if specialized, domestic military industry.41Finally, the Department of North­ ern Affairs and National Resources was created out of the former Department of Resources and Development in 1953, the new name reflecting an expanded mandate and the desire to develop the economic potential of the North.42 However, St-Laurents most notable organizational legacy is the creation of a num ber of arm’s-length specialized agencies to pursue im portant policy ob­ jectives, many of them still in operation, in one form or another, half a century later. These include the Northwest Territories Power Commission (1948), Atomic Energy Canada (1952), the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority (1954), and the Canada Council for the Arts (1957).43 These agencies have not only been im­ portant instruments of economic development, but they have also contributed to forging and protecting Canada’s national identity. St-Laurent and his govern­ ment must be credited for these accomplishments. Still, the extent to which these organizational choices should be considered innovative is debatable. By the time St-Laurent became prime minister, Crown corporations were already well established as an effective mechanism to pursue

272

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

specific policy objectives. In the years preceding his tenure, the federal govern­ ment created twenty-eight such special entities, many of them with purposes directly related to the war effort. This astonishing num ber illustrates the popu­ larity of this form of organization at the time.44 Hence, in choosing Crown agencies as an instrument of federal policy, St-Laurent was perpetuating an established trend in administrative design at the federal level rather than break­ ing new ground or making an imaginative use of organization in the pursuit of public objectives. Moreover, St-Laurent does not appear to have been the main entrepreneurial or driving force behind several of these ventures, even if, as prime minister, he obviously had to support them and intervene at key moments to make them possible. The creation of the Canada Council for the Arts, a major national institu­ tion that still plays a vital role in the protection and promotion of Canadian culture, is a good example. Interestingly, St-Laurent did not initially support federal funding for the arts.45While the Royal Commission on National Develop­ ment in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (the Massey Commission) recommended the creation of a council for the encouragement of the arts in 1951, the prime minister initially set the idea aside, worried that the funding of high culture would not be well received by the electorate. He was also conscious of prov­ incial opposition, especially from Quebec, where the Duplessis government saw it as an infringement on provincial responsibilities. St-Laurent only came around and decided to create the council in 1957, the last year of his government. The decision was made as a result of the doggedness of ministers such as Claxton, Pickersgill, and Pearson, who lobbied St-Laurent for arts funding for years, as well as Massey, who pressed his case quietly as governor general. It was also made possible by an unexpected $100 million received by the government in succession duties on the estates of two business­ men.46 This money allowed St-Laurent to fund the council by channelling this “private money” into a one-time endowment without having to commit the government to annual budgetary appropriations for the arts. Even then, half the funds had to be dedicated to supporting scholarships for universities, a cause closer to St-Laurents heart. Still, to his credit, St-Laurent insisted that the Canada Council for the Arts be an arm’s-length body to ensure that the government would not be suspected of trying to control the development of Canadian cul­ ture.47It remains that, far from being the driving force of the project, St-Laurent was slowly brought to it by others. St-Laurents role in the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway must also be qualified. While the agreement that was signed with the United States in 1954, and which ultimately secured the construction of the seaway after decades

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

273

of frustration, was a major achievement, it also resulted from St-Laurent’s pragmatic decision to rein in some of the more nationalist members of his cabinet who, in tune with public opinion, were pushing an all-Canadian sea­ way as a major project of nation building. While St-Laurent himself also pre­ ferred an all-Canadian project, he feared that shunning American participation would be detrimental to the bilateral relationship. To avoid straining the rela­ tionship with Washington, he agreed instead to relatively poor financial terms and equal control of the seaway with the United States, receiving considerable criticism as a result.48 O f course, the St-Laurent government did not conceive the St. Lawrence Seaway project. It was first considered by both countries at the end of the nine­ teenth century and, in one version or another, the seaway had already been the subject of decades of difficult engineering and diplomatic work by the time St-Laurent became prime minister.49 Previous proposals, including an agree­ ment between Mackenzie King and Roosevelt signed in 1941, had been blocked by Congress due to an array of security, political, and economic concerns, in­ cluding opposition from competing rail and m aritim e shipping interests. St-Laurent’s essential contribution was to break this decades-long logjam by telling the Americans that, in light of their inaction, Canada would build the seaway by itself, entirely on Canadian territory.50Unwilling to see such a critical infrastructure on their border outside of their control, American legislators finally revised their position. The problem for St-Laurent was that, when the government began talking up the possibility of an all-Canadian seaway, largely to put pressure on the US, it met a very favourable response from Canadians who now saw the nation­ building potential of the proj ect. In the end, despite strong support by his cabinet and the public for a purely Canadian project, support partly of his making, he imposed a deal with the United States. These events depict St-Laurent as a fine international negotiator, a responsible statesman, and a pragmatic problemsolver. In this regard, his decisive role in getting the St. Lawrence Seaway built is unquestionable. These events show him to be a powerful prime minister, certainly more than a chairman of the board, but they also show him to be a pragmatic statesman more than a visionary.51 Finally, St-Laurents approach to the TransCanada Pipeline, another great infrastructure project, shows him to have been largely deferential to his cab­ inet for the projects leadership and, ultimately, a rather poor political tactician. There is no debate that the pipeline was a major infrastructure of national significance. One of the longest pipelines in the world at the time, built across an unforgiving landscape, it was rightly regarded as a rare feat of engineering.

274

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

In the context of the attempt to construct a more integrated national economy, it is understandable that C.D. Howe saw it as “comparable to the greatest of all our nation-making enterprises, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.”52 The project encountered many difficulties and St-Laurent can certainly be com­ mended for his resolve in supporting its completion. However, St-Laurent was not the creative or driving force behind the pipe­ line as C.D. Howe played the dominant role throughout much of the projects history. As Kilbourn put it, “In the end, it was he [Howe] who decided who should do it and how it should be done, and he who used the weight of his own influence and drive and the power of the government of Canada to see that it was done well.”53The financial requirements of the project were enormous, but Howe managed to build a coalition of investors, including American capital, for the project and, through a mix of direct expenditures, government loans, and legislative measures, the project was pushed through and its construction completed in only a few years. The politics of the project were much less successful. The participation of American investors left the government vulnerable to accusations that it was placing an important national infrastructure in foreign hands. It did not take long for the CCF to call for the government to assume full public ownership of the pipeline and for the Progressive Conservatives to accuse it of selling out to the Americans. However, as Pearson pointed out in his memoirs, even in the face of the public backlash and potentially disastrous electoral consequences, Howe resisted public ownership.54 St-Laurent did not intervene to impose the pipelines nationalization or to find an alternative solution. The fact that he was exhausted during those last few years of his govern­ ment might have affected his performance on this crucial file, but St-Laurent seemed immune to the turmoil created by the project and largely deferred to Howes judgment.55 Despite the exceptional intensity of opposition, the prime ministers approach was simply to use his majority to ram the pipeline bill through Parliament in fifteen days. Facing obstruction in the House of Com­ mons, the government resorted to closure several times, shutting down debate and forcing a vote at every stage of the legislative process, thereby creating a parliamentary crisis of rare proportion and ultimately contributing to the Liberals’ defeat at the polls in 1957. While Howe and St-Laurent got the job done, the pipeline hardly went down as the feat of nation building that it could have been. The picture that emerges from this review of St-Laurent’s role in the ac­ complishment of three landmark national projects is one of pragmatic authority and, to some degree, problem-solving, but it is not one of vision, ambition, and

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

275

public entrepreneurship. Respected by his ministers, St-Laurent seems to have supported their creativity and national ambition more than provided the impetus for much of his governments reformist agenda. Described by some contem­ poraries as more of a manager than a politician, he efficiently administered the cabinet process and allowed the entrepreneurs in his government to flourish, even if his conservative pragmatism forced them to temper their enthusiasm on occasion.56 This style of leadership need not be seen in a negative light. In fact, sup­ portive management is necessary for public entrepreneurship to flourish.57 Furthermore, St-Laurenfs cabinet was brimming with strong ministers with entrepreneurial talent, from C.D. Howe to Paul M artin Sr., and his govern­ m ent hardly needed to be pushed. In this perspective, his more reactive, prag­ matic, and problem-solving approach might well have been what was called for by the circumstances. His training as a corporate lawyer and his reserved temperament might also have encouraged this low-key transactional style of leadership. In the last few years of his government, fatigue probably also con­ tributed to a more delegated style of management, such as his decision to let Howe lead the governments work on the TransCanada Pipelines file.58 In any case, on several of his government’s more notable projects, it would seem that St-Laurent was less an entrepreneurial force than a supporter and manager of entrepreneurs. During his time as prime minister, Louis St-Laurent oversaw a remarkable expansion of the Canadian government. Fuelled by a booming economy, public spending grew rapidly, the size of the federal public service exploded, and new programs and agencies were created to tackle new missions. However, as it as­ sumed a larger role in the country’s economy and took on new social missions, the public service was slow to modernize itself. Faced with very significant administrative challenges, St-Laurent provided little leadership on public service reform. His most noteworthy and enduring legacy came as a result of his sup­ port of Robert Bryce’s and Clifford Clark’s efforts to modernize expenditure and administrative controls. By bolstering the authority of the Treasury Board, St-Laurent not only streamlined cabinet decision making but also took an im portant step in a process of administrative centralization that shaped the public service during the following years. However, given the magnitude of the problems, it remains surprising that not more was done over his time in office to modernize the Canadian government. More substantial efforts at reform began soon after he left office, including the appointment of the landmark Royal Commission on Government Organization (the Glassco Commission) in 1960 and the adoption of a new civil service act in 1961.

276

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

His record as a public entrepreneur also suggests a low-key, cautious, and delegated style of leadership. Working towards the end of the era of the “de­ partmentalized cabinet” - a time when ministers operated with less central control than what is now common - he oversaw several strong entrepreneurial ministers, sometimes taming their enthusiasm and needing to be convinced but nevertheless leading a government that delivered an impressive set of ambi­ tious national projects and left the country several remarkable achievements, not least the Canada Council for the Arts and the St. Lawrence Seaway. While his style of leadership might have been derided by some observers for his having been a mere “chairman of the board,” there is something to be said for a prag­ matic and steady hand at the helm of an active government in a period of fast expansion.59Hence, while Louis St-Laurent might not himself have been a driv­ ing, creative force in implementing the periods historic expansion of the Can­ adian government, he still inspired and led a strong team of ministers and senior public servants that collectively left its mark on the Canadian public sector.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Juan David Roldan for his imaginative and efficient work as a research assistant on this project. Notes 1 Michael Bliss, Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Chrétien (Toronto: Harper Perennial Canada, 2004), 180. 2 On the centralization of financial management in the modern era and the responses that followed, see Donald Savoie, The Politics o f Public Spending in Canada (Toronto: Univer­ sity of Toronto Press, 1990); and David A. Good, The Politics o f Public Money (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007). 3 Shirley Tillotson, Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise o f Canadian Democracy (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), 212. 4 W. Irwin Gillespie, Tax, Borrow and Spend: Financing Federal Spending in Canada, 1867-1990 (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1991), 159. 5 Ibid., 160. 6 Ibid., 164. 7 Ibid., 145. 8 Ibid., 288-89. 9 On the adoption of the National Health Grants Program and federal assistance for hospitals, see Gregory Marchildon, Chapter 13, this volume. On other programs, see Dennis Guest, Histoire de la sécurité sociale au Canada (Montréal: Les éditions du Boréal, 1993): 203-4. 10 Canada, Budget Speech Delivered by the Honourable Douglas Abbott in the House o f Com­ mons (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1952), 133; Canada, Budget Speech Delivered by the Honourable Donald Fleming in the House of Commons (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1958), 144.

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

277

11 Mathieu Turgeon and François VaiUancourt, “The Provision of Highways in Canada and the Federal Government,” Publius: The Journal o f Federalism 32 (Winter 2002): 164. 12 This number only covers the Canadian costs. The total cost of the navigation infrastructure (i.e., including the United States but excluding the costs of the hydro power projects) was over $1 billion. See Daniel Macfarlane, Negotiating a River: Canada, the US, and the Creation o f the St. Lawrence Seaway (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014), 112. 13 Ibid., xv. 14 Canada, Budget Speech Delivered by the Honourable Walter Harris in the House o f Commons (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1957), 16-17. 15 Canada, Discours du Budget prononcé par l’Honorable D.C. Abbott (Ottawa: Imprimeur de la Reine, 1953), 87; Canada, Budget Speech Delivered by the Honourable Donald M. Fleming in the House o f Commons (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1958), 144. 16 Luc Juillet and Matthew S. Mingus, “Reconsidering the History of Administrative Reforms in Canada,” in Handbook o f Administrative Reform: An International Perspective, ed. Jerri Killian and Niklas Eklund (New York: CRC Press, 2008), 215-30. 17 Donald Savoie, Governingfrom the Centre: The Concentration o f Power in Canadian Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 196-98. 18 Norman Ward, The Public Purse: A Study in Canadian Democracy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 210. 19 J.E. Hodgetts, William McCloskey, Reginald Whitaker, and V. Seymour Wilson, The Biog­ raphy o f an Institution: The Civil Service Commission o f Canada, 1908-1967 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972), 505. 20 Ibid., 54. 21 Ibid., 505. 22 Ibid., 472. 23 Ibid., 500. 24 Nicole Morgan, Implosion: An Analysis o f the Growth o f the Federal Public Service in Can­ ada, 1945-1985 (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1986), 21. 25 Ibid., 18-20. 26 Royal Commission on Administrative Classifications in the Public Service, Report (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1946), 5-6. 27 Luc Juillet and Ken Rasmussen, Defending a Contested Ideal: Merit and the Public Service Commission, 1908-2008 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2008), 40-43. 28 Clark, already influential under Mackenzie King, was even more trusted by St-Laurent. See Robert A. Wardhaugh, Behind the Scenes: The Life and Work of William Clifford Clark (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 346. Bryce also benefited from St-Laurent’s trust and became his main advisor when he appointed him Clerk of the Privy Council in 1953. 29 Hodgetts, Biography of an Institution, 233. 30 J.L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957 (Toronto: Uni­ versity of Toronto Press, 1998), 256-62. 31 Wardhaugh, Behind the Scenes, 366. 32 Ibid. 33 Royal Commission on Government Organization, Report, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962), 43 34 Ward, Public Purse, 212; Christopher Dunn, “The Central Executive in Canadian Govern­ ment: Searching for the Holy Grail,” in The Handbook o f Canadian Public Administration, 2nd ed., ed. Christopher Dunn (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2010), 92.

278

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

35 36 37 3g 39

40

41 42

43

44

45

46

47 48 49 50 51 ^2

Hodgetts, Biography o f an Institution, 233. Ibid., 236. Ibid., 242-43. Gordon Robertson, Memoirs o f a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000). Luc Bernier and Tai'eb Hafsi, “The Changing Nature of Public Entrepreneurship,” Public Administration Review 67 (2007): 488-503; Michael H. Morris and Ford F. Jones, “Entre­ preneurship in Established Organizations: The Case of the Public Sector,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 24 (1999): 71-91. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration’s budget went from $ 17.7 million in 1950, its first year of operation, to $48 million in 1957. The department was divided into two branches: Immigration and Aboriginal Affairs. Until 1956, the immigration programs represented only roughly a quarter of departmental spending. Spending on immigration more than doubled in 1957 as the government spent an additional $10 million to help bring Hungarian refugees from Austria to Canada. See Canada, Budget Speech Delivered by the Honourable Walter Harris in the House of Commons (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1957), 93. Dan Middlemiss, “Canada and Defence Industrial Preparedness: Return to Basics?,” Inter­ national Journal 42 (Autumn 1987): 713-14. The former Department of Resources and Development had itself been created by St-Laurent in 1950, accompanied by a department of mines and technical surveys. According to Osbaldeston, these earlier changes had essentially been made for political expediency: the addition of a seat at the cabinet table. See Gordon Osbaldeston, Organizing to Govern, vol. 1 (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson), 97. The Northwest Territories Power Commission has since been bought by the government of the Northwest Territories and renamed the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. It is still responsible for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in the territory. The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority was replaced by a non-profit entity, the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, in 1998, but the government of Canada continues to own the infrastructure of the seaway and regulates its use. Luc Bernier, Patrice Dutil, and Taïeb Hafsi, “Policy Adrift: Canadian Crown Corporations in the 21st Century,” Annals o f Public and Cooperative Economics 89 (Summer 2018): 459-74. Monica Gattinger, 7he Roots of Culture, the Power o f the Arts: The First Sixty Years o f the Canada Council for the Arts (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2017), 19. See also Bliss, Right Honourable Men, 180. The two businessmen were Sir James Hamet Dunn and Izaak Walton Killam. Killam, an industrialist from Nova Scotia, died in 1956 and was thought to be the richest Canadian of his time. A very successful businessman from New Brunswick, known in part for his time as the chairman and president of Algoma Steel, Dunn died in 1955. The combined duties on their estates amounted to $100 million, which today would be roughly equivalent to $1 billion. Ibid., 30. Ibid., 31-33. Macfarlane, Negotiating a River, 208-15. Ibid., 22. Ibid., 60-61. Ibid. William Kilbourn, Pipeline: TransCanada and the Great Debate (Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1970), xi.

St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State

279

53 Ibid., x. 54 Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs o f the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, vol. 3, 1957-1968 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 3. See also Mitchell Sharp, Which Reminds M e A Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 61-65. 55 Réal Bélanger and Ramsay Cook, eds., Les premiers ministres du Canada: De Macdonald à Trudeau (Québec, QC: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2007), 388-89. See also Bliss, Right Honourable Men, 182. 56 Such cautious behaviour was also exhibited in his attitude towards the development of social security, where he tempered Paul Martin Sr.’s activism and favoured a more conserva­ tive conception of needs-based assistance for “deserving” segments of the population. In his history of social security in Canada, Guest entitled the chapter dedicated to the 1950s “Our Conservative Years,” emphasizing St-Laurent’s cautious approach to social policy. See Dennis Guest, Histoire de la sécurité sociale au Canada (Montréal: Les éditions du Boréal, 1993), 199-201. 57 Luc Bernier, “Public Enterprise as a Policy Instrument: The Importance of Public Entre­ preneurship,” Journal o f Economie Policy Reform 17 (Fall 2014): 1-14. 58 Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, vol. 2 ,19481957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). 59 Bliss, Right Honourable Men, 180.

280

Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

_

The Cautious Liberal St-Laurent and National Hospitalization GREGORY P. MARCHILDON

In popular use, the word “cautious” carries both positive and negative connota­ tions. The positive definition is thinking and acting in a m anner that is careful and well considered. The second, more negative meaning, describes an individual who is uncertain in thinking and therefore slow in action. In his time as prime minister, Louis St-Laurent exhibited the first meaning of caution when it came to foreign policy and fiscal federalism, but he was both uncertain and slow to act when it came to social policy in general and universal hospital insurance in particular. From the beginning of his political career, St-Laurent was Mackenzie King’s chosen man. And the Mackenzie King that St-Laurent knew in the 1940s had become hostile to the very idea of the postwar welfare state as it was emerging in other countries, especially the United Kingdom. Indeed, according to histor­ ian Alvin Finkel, King orchestrated the failure of his own government’s wartime “Green Book” proposals, including a proposal for comprehensive health insur­ ance, that would have significantly expanded the welfare state.1 St-Laurent shared King’s concerns about the welfare state for ideological, fiscal, and constitutional reasons. He was worried about the impact of social welfare measures on the work ethic of individuals and he was very concerned about the cost of such interventions, particularly with regard to universal social policies, on the sustainability of government budgets. Finally, he was generally opposed to the idea that the federal government held any responsibility for social policy. According to his understanding of the division of federal and provincial powers as set out in the British North America Act, social policy was

a domain that was within the exclusive (e.g., education), or nearly exclusive (e.g., health care), jurisdiction of the provinces. Although not highly ideological, St-Laurents values and political philosophy were small-“c” conservative on matters of social policy well before he entered political life as a cabinet minister and member of Parliament. Appointed as legal counsel to the Rowell-Sirois Commission in the late 1930s, St-Laurent was struck by the extent to which the Great Depression was bankrupting the Prairie provinces and forcing so many residents of the region into bankruptcy and gov­ ernment relief (see Wardhaugh and Ferguson, Chapter 6, this volume). Despite this, he viewed the Saskatchewan government’s submission to the Rowell-Sirois Commission that Ottawa establish a universal old age pension plan and federal transfer payments to support provincial spending on social programs as “a revolutionary proposal” that was “directly opposed to his concept of Confed­ eration, with each government autonomous in its own field of jurisdiction and paying its own way.”2 Moreover, St-Laurent was far less interested in social policy than in foreign policy and constitutional affairs.3As a consequence, his tendency was to respond to social policy ideas generated by others rather than to have them incubated within his government or by the Liberal Party of Canada - a reactive rather than a proactive approach to government in this particular domain. This was a judg­ ment shared, at least in part, by Gordon Robertson, the federal mandarin who served five postwar prim e ministers, including St-Laurent. Robertson said that St-Laurent could be proactive but only on files, such as the Constitution, in which he had an abiding interest. This is a revealing judgment from a civil service m andarin who nonetheless concluded that St-Laurent was one of Canadas greatest prime ministers based on his other qualities, including the thoroughness and care he brought to cabinet decision-making processes.4 As prime minister from 1948 to 1957, and as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the mark he would leave was that of a highly competent manager, a transactional rather than a transformational leader, particularly in terms of domestic social policy.5 It would take a new leader, new voices within the party, and the Kingston conference of 1960 to reposition the Liberal Party in terms of social policy. This repositioning was the prerequisite to making the Pearson administration the ambitious architect of the contemporary Canadian welfare state.6 This is not to suggest that little or nothing in the domain of social policy was accomplished in the St-Laurent era. There were incremental advances. The first version of the Old Age Security Act, 1951, was established. Allowances for the blind ( 1951 ) and disabled (1954) were implemented. The Unemployment

282

Gregory P. Marchildon

Assistance Act, 1956, was passed. The modern program of equalization - which allowed lower-income provinces to afford a broader range and greater depth of social programs - was introduced at the very end of St-Laurent’s tenure. However, most of these policies and programs were fairly cautious affairs and some would be extensively revamped in the 1960s.7 Dennis Guest, Canadas foremost chronicler of the development of the Canadian welfare state, bor­ rowed Pearson advisor Tom Kent’s description of the 1950s as “O ur Conserva­ tive Decade” for the title of his chapter on this era in his widely read book on the evolution of the Canadian welfare state.8As Jack Pickersgill, St-Laurents most trusted advisor and subsequent cabinet colleague, put it: “St-Laurents main concern was not with unemployment assistance or hospital insurance but with tax sharing and equalization.”9 There were, however, two larger changes that would constitute a “Big Bang” change as defined by public policy scholars. In terms of ultimate impact and longevity, St-Laurents equalization program no doubt has a greater claim to fame than do his income support and pension measures.10The program was very much a response to the Quebec governments efforts to fiscally separate itself from the rest of the country through an independent tax system by creat­ ing a pan-Canadian program that would reduce if not end “the isolation of Quebec.”11 In other words, St-Laurents interest in equalization had more to do with the federal government coming up with a new federal-provincial tax plan - to preserve national unity in response to Quebec’s initiatives - than with any explicit effort to support the building of the welfare state at the provincial level. And, according to Pickersgill, St-Laurent viewed his new tax plan, ac­ companied by formal equalization, as “his crowning achievement in federalprovincial relations.”12 Beyond equalization, St-Laurent’s other major social policy change was the passage of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act, 1957, just before his government was defeated at the polls.13 This law provided the basic framework within which universal hospital coverage would be implemented, a milestone in the evolution of the Canadian welfare state.14The implementa­ tion of universal hospital coverage was the first of two phases in establishing Medicare, the second of which was the implementation of universal medical care coverage in the late 1960s and early 1970s.15The design of universal hospital coverage, in particular its encouragement of a single-tier and single-payer ad­ ministrative system to be adopted by provincial governments, as well as insist­ ence on health insurance for all residents on “uniform terms and conditions,” loaded the dice in favour of a strong form of universality when universal medical care coverage was introduced in the late 1960s.16 Publicly financed hospital

The Cautious Liberal

283

coverage, guided by a set of national standards that protected a single-tier form of universality, was a Big Bang policy change17 of the type that conflicted with the general impression of St-Laurent as a transactional rather than a transforma­ tional leader.18 Upon closer historical examination, however, it can be argued that St-Laurent did not initiate national hospitalization so much as respond to unavoidable pres­ sures from provincial governments. In addition, he created an onerous process needed to trigger the start date that would have resulted in a lengthy delay, and perhaps even the abandonment of the policy, had not his Progressive Conserv­ ative successor, John G. Diefenbaker, eliminated this condition. This is therefore the story of St-Laurent as the reluctant (and only partial) instigator of the first stage of Medicare in Canada. As a consequence of St-Laurent’s opposition to health and welfare measures on both ideological and constitutional grounds, he had a difficult relationship with his activist m inister of health and welfare, Paul M artin Sr.19 Martin clashed with St-Laurent on his welfare initiatives even before he be­ came prime minister. When Martin proposed to raise monthly pensions from $25 to $30 a m onth in January 1948, St-Laurent objected, insisting that the in­ crease be shared equally with the provinces for both fiscal and constitutional reasons.20 Martin had ambitions to succeed King as prime m inister but knew that St-Laurent was Kang’s preferred choice and came to the painful decision not to run against St-Laurent in the Liberal nom ination later that year. How­ ever, in the words of mandarin R.B. Bryce, “Martin felt he could make more yards with King than he could with St-Laurent.”21 M artin m anaged to con­ vince King of the need to finally implement a program of federal health grants to the provinces to help prepare the ground for an eventual program of public health insurance that had been part of the government’s Green Book propos­ als of 1945.22 Although St-Laurent kept Martin in his position as m inister of health and welfare when he became prime minister, their relationship remained strained. During the preparations for the First Ministers’ Conference set for early Decem­ ber 1950, Martin tried to convince St-Laurent to put forward a cost-shared health insurance program to the provinces along the lines of what had appeared in the Green Book. Despite the fact that this was a far less ambitious plan in terms of the scope and cost of coverage compared to 1945, St-Laurent rejected the idea completely. Moreover, when some of the provincial governments tried to get health insurance and the old Green Book proposals onto the agenda, St-Laurent dismissed this too in his opening remarks at the conference.23

284

Gregory P. Marchildon

Martin described the years following the 1950 First Ministers’ Conference as “dark ones for hospital insurance” given the lack of support from St-Laurent and the majority of cabinet.24 By this time, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) had rejected universal coverage - what it pejoratively called “socialized medicine” - proposing instead a selective government subsidy of private health insurance for poor individuals.25 St-Laurent himself very much favoured this approach over a universal program and, in a statement to Parliament on 20 June 1951, told everyone that he agreed with the CMA even though his minister of health and welfare had been promoting universal coverage.26 In the 1953 election campaign, St-Laurent hedged the historic Liberal prom­ ise to introduce public health insurance only when (and if) at least six provinces were ready to join the federal cost-sharing program. Understandably, Martin “did not like this backsliding” by St-Laurent, in part because it posed yet another road block to achieving health insurance.27 Martin would have to wait until 1955 and another First Ministers’ Conference to get universal health insurance back on the agenda. He thought he had succeeded in this but, without w arn­ ing, St-Laurent tried his best to avoid any discussion of health insurance at this conference. This was similar to the position he had taken in the 1950 First M in­ isters’ Conference.28

The Reluctant Negotiator, 1955 On 26-27 April 1955, Prime Minister St-Laurent met with the premiers of all ten provinces at the Railway Committee Room of the House of Commons in Ottawa in order to set the agenda for a major federal-provincial conference to be held in October.29 The First Ministers’ Meeting had been triggered by the Quebec government’s decision to levy a provincial income tax. Premier Maurice Duplessis had pulled the trigger on the wartime tax rental agreement and St-Laurent wanted to discuss the preparations for a fiscal arrangements conference. He intended to offer all other provincial governments the oppor­ tunity to replace federal tax rental agreement revenues with the tax room that would allow them to impose their own provincial income taxes. St-Laurent may have wanted his fellow first ministers to focus like a laser beam on fiscal matters, but this was not to be. There had been no first ministers’ conferences since 1950, except on the most specialized of topics, and at least some premiers were intent on ensuring that the agenda be expanded to include what they called health and welfare services. Due to the Constitution, respon­ sibilities for health and welfare fell mainly on the shoulders of the provincial

The Cautious Liberal

285

governments, and, as these responsibilities grew, the cost of delivering such programs outran their fiscal capacities and the taxes that they had been “rent­ ing” to the federal government since the Second World War. The two issues fiscal federalism and social policy - were intimately linked in the minds of all the premiers.

Four provinces in particular had taken on burdensome responsibilities in terms of publicly funded health coverage to facilitate their residents’ access to hospital care. In 1947, the social democratic government of Saskatchewan had implemented universal hospital coverage for its entire population. In 1948, the government of British Columbia had introduced a similar universal hospital insurance program. Alberta followed in 1950 with a more targeted program that subsidized the purchase of private insurance coverage for hospital care.30 The public finances of Saskatchewan and Alberta had been ravaged as a result of the agricultural collapse of the Great Depression. Despite the best efforts of the Saskatchewan government to diversify its volatile agricultural economy and the nascent oil boom in Alberta, both provinces were still having to use a size­ able portion of their postwar revenues to pay off the interest on the public debt that had accumulated during the 1930s. The government of Newfoundland, the newest and poorest province in the federation, owned and managed a system of cottage hospitals to serve its many outpost communities.31 These provinces had established their expensive health programs largely on their own though they did receive limited federal support through a health grants program that was available to all provincial governments. Established in 1948, the health grants program had been M artins effort to try to keep the idea of universal health coverage alive after the failure of the proposal for a federal-provincial health program in the Dominion-Provincial Reconstruction Conference of 1945-46.32 The idea behind the health grants program was to provide provincial governments with matching money for projects and programs that would lay the groundwork for the eventual implementation of universal health coverage. The provinces that had invested the most in hospital programs, often with the help of federal health grants, were Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and Newfoundland, and all four provinces were keen to get federal cost-sharing for their expensive and extensive hospital programs. St-Laurent understood all this on 26 April 1955, and while he might dismiss these provinces as repre­ senting the demands of a minority of the country’s population, he could not dismiss similar demands from the premiers of the central Canadian provinces

286

Gregory P. Marchildon

who represented a majority of the population. Duplessis, of course, was hostile to the very idea of expanding the welfare state and felt that matters of health care were private matters best dealt with by church and society, and it was within the exclusive purview of provincial governments to make their own decisions as to any expansion of state involvement in the field. However, to St-Laurents consternation, the government of Ontario, through Premier Leslie Frost, the first of the premiers to speak after the opening of the conference, demanded that the question of a publicly financed health insurance plan be put on the agenda for the October First Ministers’ Conference.13In preparation for the conference, Frost urged a study be completed on the cost and design of a coverage plan involving “both federal and provincial participation” and the means required for governments to finance the plan.34In more poetic terms, he described pub­ licly supported health insurance as “one of the great objectives in the field of human betterment,” saying that it was incumbent on the prime minister and the premiers to use the study to “produce a sound, workable plan” that could be implemented in the near future.35 Frost had been quietly preparing his government for this initiative for months. His bureaucrats were aided by a report prepared on behalf of the Ontario government by Malcolm G. Taylor, a consulting expert on health administra­ tion.36 As an attendee part of the Ontario delegation,37 Taylor recounted these events personally in his classic book Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy. Frosts insistence that St-Laurent put national health insurance on the federal-provincial agenda, while creating “some alarm on the part of the prime minister,” was “music to the ears of the premiers of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland.”38When it was his turn to speak in the after­ noon, Tommy Douglas of Saskatchewan reminded everyone of the Liberal gov­ ernment’s plan for health insurance a decade earlier, of Ottawa’s offer “to meet up to 60 percent of the cost of approved provincial health plans,” and that the “time for a further major advance” beyond national health grants was “long overdue.”39 Douglas had, for years, been putting pressure on both the King and St-Laurent governments to proceed with some version of the 1945 plan,40 and he was delighted to see the government of Ontario throw its considerable weight behind the idea. This was particularly welcome given St-Laurent’s avoidance of any mention of national health insurance when opening the conference in the morning.41 Taylor also notes in his account how Paul M artin Sr. viewed these prov­ incial interventions with “quiet satisfaction” underneath an outwardly “calm countenance.”42 With few allies on the issue within the St-Laurent cabinet, Martin would have been unable - without this powerful provincial alliance - to

The Cautious Liberal

287

move hospitalization to the top of the federal cabinet agenda much less the federal-provincial agenda. Standing firmly against the idea of adding national health insurance to the fiscal federalism agenda, Duplessis responded with humorous sarcasm that Frosts speech was hardly motivated by the coming Ontario election - drawing some laughter from the federal and provincial delegations.43 Cynical political ploy or not, the fact was that the coalition of Ontario along with the western Canadian provinces and Newfoundland was difficult to ignore. In addition, St-Laurent faced a mini-crisis within his own government. Furious with the prime m inister when he discovered St-Laurent continuing to down­ play hospital insurance, M artin threatened to resign unless health insurance was put on the formal agenda for the October conference. He made his threat to the prime minister in the presence of other cabinet ministers who (according to Martin) supported the minister of health and welfares position.44 As a result of external pressures from key provincial governments as well as this internal pressure, St-Laurent was forced to allow health insurance on the agenda and get a federal proposal ready for the October meeting. In the ensuing conference in October 1955, it was clear that hospitalization was not only on the menu but was also the most discussed item in a packed agenda. Reflecting his cautiousness in both social policy and constitutional mat­ ters, St-Laurent opened the discussion on health insurance by insisting that the matter fell “squarely within provincial jurisdiction.” Moreover, in his words, Ottawa had no desire “to see this position altered; nor would it wish to be a party to a plan for health insurance which would require a constitutional change or federal interference in matters which are essentially of provincial concern.”45 St-Laurent said that he was willing to consider a “jointly-financed, but provincial operated and administered health insurance program” but that this would have to be done in increments. As a start, he suggested the provision of universal diagnostic (laboratory and radiological) services. If that was successful, then the federal and provincial governments could consider hospital insurance.46For his part, Frosts ardour for universal hospital coverage had cooled somewhat after the April meeting. As a result of the “administrative problems” he now saw with implementing comprehensive hospital insurance, he suggested five discrete stages: (1) diagnostic care, (2) home care, (3) extraordinary costs for prolonged illness, (4) maternal hospital care, and, finally, (5) comprehensive hospital coverage, an approach that supported St-Laurents main argument regarding the need for a very gradual approach.47 Still, Frost clung to the main point that, unless the federal government joined with the provinces, the end

288

Gregory P. Marchildon

result would be a patchwork of different designs throughout the country that would be close to impossible to untangle in the future.48 All premiers agreed on the necessity of phasing in health insurance but some - especially premiers of the three far western provinces and Newfound­ land - felt that such suggestions were far too incremental and that the first stage itself should be universal hospital coverage. Douglas was the most vocal on this point, arguing that “hospital insurance is a logical and proper first step in the development of a comprehensive [health insurance] plan.” He argued that Saskatchewan had already demonstrated that such a plan was fiscally and ad­ ministratively feasible and that providing “adequate hospital care for all in need, and ... banish[ing] the spectre of crippling hospital bills itself [was] a sound, social advance.”49 While the issue of staging might divide some premiers, the question of when the program would start was far more divisive. In his opening speech, St-Laurent also made it clear that he could not justify the national government spending money on any health insurance program unless “there were a substantial m a­ jority of provincial governments, representing a substantial majority of the Canadian people” prepared to implement the program.50 Almost as soon as they took their turn at the microphone, the premiers of British Columbia and Saskatchewan protested the double majority rule laid down by St-Laurent. BC premier W.A.C. Bennett stated that any province will­ ing to participate should be able to start as soon as possible and “not be retarded by the refusal of others to participate.”51Douglas told St-Laurent that the federal government should be prepared to provide cost-sharing to the level of health coverage desired by any province at any time in order to get as much universal health coverage to the Canadian population as possible, and he reminded the prime minister that Saskatchewan and British Columbia had been ready for federal participation in a comprehensive hospital plan for many years.52 At the conclusion of the October Conference, St-Laurent announced the establishment of a special committee on health insurance made up of two m in­ isters and two deputy ministers representing each jurisdiction. From this point on, there were two tracks for the ensuing discussions and negotiations: (1) a federal-provincial process through the specially appointed committee and (2) bilateral discussions between Ottawa and each government involving both first ministers (including St-Laurent) and health ministers. These negotiations would occupy governments right up to (and beyond) the proclamation of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostics Services Act on 1 May 1957 and the federal election of 10 June 1957.

The Cautious Liberal

289

Electoral Calculation and Seeding the Hope of Hospitalization, 1956-57 Throughout the negotiations, St-Laurent was unyielding in terms of his double majority condition. The rule allowed him to assert that the federal government was ready to implement universal hospital coverage as long as a majority of provinces and a majority of Canadians desired the program. In other words, he could create the hope of hospitalization knowing full well that the double­ majority rule would likely prevent implementation (and therefore any federal expenditure) for years to come. Ontario may have indicated its support in principle but it was offside with the other supportive provinces in terms of the design of the program, and, at the time, it seemed like it would take years to obtain a compromise acceptable to Ontario.53 Given St-Laurent’s objective to avoid national hospital insurance for as long as possible even while using the issue to his advantage in the forthcoming election campaign, this was a clever political move. Moreover, during the actual negotiations, the federal govern­ ment doubled down on the original condition by suggesting that it would not be enough for a majority of the more populous provinces to agree to the prin­ ciple of national hospital insurance and any federal conditions: they would also have to be in a position to actually implement the program. While this additional condition infuriated Tommy Douglas, he could do little but try to assess what the prime minister had really done. As Douglas ex­ plained to one constituent, “the Government of Canada has inserted a proviso in their proposal which seems to have escaped public notice. The proviso is that the contribution to hospital care and diagnostic services will only be made available when six provinces, representing a majority of the people of Canada, have assented to the plan and have it in operation [underlined in original].”54 St-Laurent also insisted on other conditions that became major challenges to the provinces agreeing to a national deal. Perhaps the most important was the exclusion of mental hospitals and tuberculosis sanitaria from the federalprovincial program. This created a firestorm of opposition in the provinces given that these costs - as opposed to other hospital costs - tended to be entirely covered by provincial governments. The next area of contention was the refusal of the federal government to include the cost of administering universal hospital coverage programs as a shareable cost under the program.55A further challenge was St-Laurenfs decision to offer 50:50 cost sharing rather than the original federal offer in the Dominion-Provincial Reconstruction Conference of 60 percent cost sharing.56

290

Gregory P. Marchildon

Finally, there was the question of “Indian” Hospitals that were financed and operated by the federal government. For reasons that require further ex­ ploration, the federal government insisted that the provinces include hospital care for all “registered Indians” and therefore that the definition of “provincial resident” include all Indigenous residents.57 It may be that this was a part of a longer-term plan of the federal government to transfer the capital and operat­ ing costs of these hospitals, and the responsibility for the patients, to the prov­ incial governments.58 O r it could have been a policy aimed at ending the segregation of care and to integrate “registered Indians” into the mainstream of provincial societies. Despite provincial opposition, this condition too was upheld, with the result that provincial Medicare schemes are required to include such residents and that federal health services for registered Indians and Inuit since the 1950s have focused on non-Medicare services.59

Epilogue: Defeat and the Implementation of Hospitalization by Diefenbaker, 1957-58 It is almost impossible to know the impact of St-Laurenfs position on national hospital coverage on the electorate in the 1957 election. According to most commentators, the most salient issue was the TransCanada Pipeline controversy. This combined with the fact that St-Laurent was leading a government perceived to be arrogant after being in power for over two decades were far more likely reasons for its defeat. The new Progressive Conservative government, led by Prairie populist John G. Diefenbaker, had positioned itself as the visionary and activist alternative. In terms of his attitude towards the welfare state, Diefenbaker had moved his party to the centre and to some extent left of the Liberals under St-Laurent. In a speech in Parliament as early as 1944, Diefenbaker had upset some members of his own party in his ringing endorsement of a modern welfare state, arguing that the “state must guarantee and underwrite equal access to security, to educa­ tion, to nutrition and to health for all” and that this was a “recognition of all men of their responsibilities for the welfare of all other men.”60 As soon as the new session began, Diefenbaker moved on numerous fronts, but one of the most notable was his decision to amend the section in the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act that prevented federal shared-cost con­ tributions until a majority of provinces with a majority of the population had signed on. He announced his intention to get rid of the double majority require­ ment to all the premiers at the beginning of the First Ministers’ Conference on

The Cautious Liberal

291

25 November 1957.61 This change would allow provinces with a smaller popula­ tion, such as Saskatchewan, to get shared cost dollars for a program it had already been running for a decade and thereby give it the fiscal room to expand its coverage to medical care. Premier Tommy Douglas was convinced “that if Mr. Diefenbaker hadn’t taken that clause out, it [wasn’t] likely that we would have had hospital insurance for many years, if ever.”62 As Douglas recollected years later, Diefenbaker s approach to federalism “was not only much more flexible, but it was much more in touch with the political situation” and with the “mood” of the general public at the time. Douglas was even more pointed in his judg­ ment that Diefenbaker, unlike St-Laurent, was very aware of the danger of a country that continued to be little more than a collection of “little independent states,” what Douglas called “a Balkans of North America,” and thus saw universal hospital insurance as a national unifier.63 We will never know whether universal hospital coverage would have been implemented in Canada without Diefenbaker removing St-Laurent’s double majority requirement. At a m inim um , it would have taken longer to imple­ ment. Had St-Laurent won the election and remained prime minister, he no doubt would have been pleased at the idea of further delay given his reticence concerning universal coverage in particular and what this meant in terms of the substantive expansion of the Canadian welfare state. When it came to one of the landmark social policies of his epoch, he was indeed a cautious - and reluctant - prime minister.

Notes 1 Alvin Finkel, “Paradise Postponed: A Re-examination of the Green Book Proposals of 1945? Journal o f the Canadian Historical Association 4, 1 (1993): 120-42. 2 Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 96-97. 3 Robert Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen,” Dictionary o f Canadian Biography, vol. 20 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/st_laurent_louis_stephen_20E.html. 4 Gordon Robertson, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 77. 5 Stephen Azzi and Norman Hillmer, “Evaluating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Canada: The Results of an Expert Survey,” Canadian Political Science Review 7,1 (2013): 17. 6 In an extensive 2011 survey of Canadian historians, political scientists, and other experts ranking Canadian prime ministers, a majority of respondents listed social policy as Pearsons greatest success. See Azzi and Hillmer, “Evaluating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Can­ ada,” 17-18. On Pearsons achievements in social policy, see P.E. Bryden, Planners and Politicians: Liberal Politics and Social Policy, 1957-1968 (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1997); and Tom Kent, A Public Purpose: An Experience o f Liberal

292

Gregory P. Marchildon

7

8 9

10

11

12 13

14

15

16

17

Opposition and Canadian Government (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988). Kenneth Bryden, Old Age Pensions and Policy-Making in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1974), 7-8. The Old Age Security Act, 1951, and the Old Age Assistance Act, 1951, constituted the second wave of federal pension policy. The first was the Old Age Pensions Act, 1927, an initiative opposed by Quebec premier LouisAlexandre Taschereau, who called upon St-Laurent and two other lawyers to provide the Quebec government with arguments to challenge the law as beyond the constitutional jurisdiction of the federal government. See Bryden, Old Age Pensions and Policy-Making in Canada, 88 . Dennis Guest, The Emergence of Social Security in Canada, 3rd ed. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), chap. 9, quoting from Tom Kent, Social Policyfor Canada (Ottawa: Policy Press, 1962). Jack W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 308. Daniel Béland, André Lecours, Gregory P. Marchildon, Haizhen Mou, and M. Rose Olfert, Fiscal Federalism and Equalization Policy in Canada: Political and Economic Dimensions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 17-26. See also Mary Janigan (Chapter 11, this volume). P.E. Bryden, “The Obligations of Federalism: Ontario and the Origins of Equalization,” in Framing Canadian Federalism: Historical Essays in Honour o f John T. Say well, ed. Dimitry Anastakis and P.E. Bryden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 81. See also Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 309, on this same point. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 307. The bill was passed in the House of Commons on 10 April 1957 and became law on 1 May 1957. The federal election was held 10 June 1957. See Paul Martin, A Very Public Life, vol. 2, So Many Worlds (Toronto: Deneau, 1985), 246-47. Gregory P. Marchildon, “The Single-Tier Universality of Canadian Medicare,” in Universality and Social Policy in Canada, ed. Daniel Béland, Gregory P. Marchildon, and Michael J. Prince (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019), 49-62, and Gregory P. Marchildon, “Agenda Setting in a Parliamentary Federation: Universal Medicare in Canada,” in Studying Public Policy: An International Approach, ed. Michael Hill (Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2014), 80-82. On the case of national hospitalization, see Malcolm G. Taylor, Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy: The Seven Decisions That Created the Canadian Health Insurance System and Their Outcomes (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1978); and Marchildon, “Agenda Setting in a Parliamentary Federation,” 78-82. On the design features, see Gregory P. Marchildon, “The Three Dimensions of Universal Medicare in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration 57, 3 (2014): 362-82. On the path dependency of the design, see Gregory P. Marchildon, “Douglas versus Manning: The Ideological Battle over Medicare in Postwar Canada,” Journal o f Canadian Studies 50, 1 (2016): 129-49. I argue that national hospitalization meets the twofold standard of Big Bang policy reform as both large-scale and high-velocity. See Gregory P. Marchildon, “Can History Improve Big Bang Health Reform? Commentary” Health Economics, Policy and Law 13,3-4 (2018): 251-62. Carolyn Tuohy, whose criteria I adopted, argued that the Pearson government’s actions on universal medical care coverage in 1965-66 constituted Big Bang policy reform but not the earlier actions by St-Laurent and Diefenbaker on universal hospital coverage.

The Cautious Liberal

293

18

19

20

21 22

23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35

See Carolyn H. Tuohy, Remaking Policy: Scale, Pace, and Political Strategy in Health Care Reform (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), 29-30. Based on their extensive survey of experts, Azzi and Hillmer concluded that St-Laurent was “not seen as having fundamentally transformed the country” and was therefore “rel­ egated to the middle of the rankings” of prime ministers despite his perceived managerial abilities. See Azzi and Hillmer, “Evaluating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Canada,” 18. St-Laurent comes out as “near great” in an earlier survey conducted by Granatstein and Hillmer. See J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer, Prime Ministers: Ranking Canadas Leaders (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1999). Paul Martin Sr. was the minister of health and welfare under Prime Minister Mackenzie King from 12 December 1946 until King’s retirement on 15 November 1948. Retained by St-Laurent in this portfolio, Martin would continue being minister of health and welfare until the St-Laurent government fell in 1957. Greg Donaghy, Grit: The Life and Politics of Paul Martin Sr. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015), 86-87. According to Donaghy, St-Laurent s counter-proposal was studied but then rejected when it was realized that his “formula would yield much smaller savings than anticipated and did not merit the political costs that were involved in shifting the burden to the prov­ inces” (87). R.B. Bryce quoted in Donaghy, Grit, 90. Taylor, Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy, 163. However, Taylor does mention (albeit without a clear source) that St-Laurent provided strong support for Martins national health grants program in cabinet (163), although this may well have been linked to Martins ostensible support for St-Laurent in the coming nomination campaign. Martin, Very Public Life, 2:219-20. Ibid., 2:221. C. David Naylor, Private Practice, Public Payment: Canadian Medicine and the Politics of Health Insurance, 1911-1966 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1986), 143-60. Martin, Very Public Life, 2:222. Ibid., 2:225. Ibid., 2:231. Government of Canada, Federal-Provincial Conference 1955: Preliminary Meeting Ottawa, April 26th, 1955 (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1955), 5. Taylor, Health Insurance, 169-70. See also Gregory P. Marchildon, “Canadian Medicare: Why History Matters,” in Making Medicare: New Perspectives on the History o f Medicare in Canada, ed. Gregory P. Marchildon (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 6 - 8 ; Marchildon, “Douglas versus M anning”; and Gregory P. Marchildon and Nicole C. O’Byrne, “From Bennettcare to Medicare: The Morphing of Medical Care Insurance in British Columbia,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 26,2 (2009): 455-60. Gordon S. Lawson and Andrew F. Noseworthy, “Newfoundland’s Cottage Hospital Sys­ tems: 1920-1970,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 26, 2 (2009): 395-427. Heather MacDougall, “Into Thin Air: Making National Health Policy, 1939-45,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 26,2 (2009): 283-313. Taylor, Health Insurance, 162-64. Taylor, Health Insurance, 106. Government of Canada, Federal-Provincial Conference 1955: Preliminary Meeting April 26th, 1955,18. Frost quoted in ibid., 19.

294

Gregory P. Marchildon

36 “Report on Health Insurance by Malcolm G. Taylor, Ph.D.: Concise Summary, Office of

37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63

the Provincial Economist,” 22 December 1954, Premier Lesüe M. Frost correspondence, B292341, Archives of Ontario, RG 3-23. Government of Canada, Federal-Provincial Conference 1955: Preliminary Meeting, 64. Taylor, Health Insurance, 106. Government of Canada, Federal-Provincial Conference 1955: Preliminary Meeting, 49. T.C. Douglas to Ken Carlson, 17 December 1953, Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan (hereafter PAS), T.C. Douglas Fonds, R33.1, file 562. Government of Canada, Federal-Provincial Conference 1955: Preliminary Meeting, 49. Taylor, Health Insurance, 106. Government of Canada, Federal-Provincial Conference 1955: Preliminary Meeting, 23. Martin, Very Public Life, 2:232. Government of Canada, Proceedings o f the Federal-Provincial Conference, 1955: Ottawa, October 3rd, 1955 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1955). Government of Canada, Proceedings o f the Federal-Provincial Conference, 1955,10. Ibid., 27. Taylor, Health Insurance, 131. Government of Canada, Proceedings o f the Federal-Provincial Conference, 1955, 87. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 73. Ibid., 87-88. Taylor, Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy, 105-56. Douglas to Betty Beeching, 21 February 1956, PAS, T.C. Douglas Fonds, R33.1, file 562, 14-16. The debates on these points continued in the weeks following the election on 10 June 1957. “Conclusions of the Meeting of Provincial Ministers and Deputy Ministers of Health,” Toronto, 9-10 September 1957, Archives of Manitoba, GR 1363, box Q024196, file 30. Taylor, Health Insurance, 226-28. T.J. Bentley, Saskatchewan Minister of Public Health, to Paul Martin Sr., 26 March 1956, PAS, T.C. Douglas Fonds, R33.1, file 562,14-16. Maureen Lux, Separate Beds: A History o f Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016). The three groups not included as provincial residents were members of the Royal Can­ adian Mounted Police, active members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and inmates serving sentences of two years or more in federally run penitentiaries. See Gregory P. Marchildon and Bill Tholl, “Addressing Ten Unhelpful Myths about the Canada Health Act and Why It Matters,” Health Law in Canada 37,2-3 (2017): 32-44. Diefenbaker quoted in Denis Smith, Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend o f John G. Diefenbaker (Toronto: MacFarlane, Walter and Ross, 1995), 150. Dominion-Provincial Conference 1957: Ottawa, November 25th and 26th, 1957 (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1957), 10. Douglas quoted in J.L. Granatstein, Canada, 1957-1967: The Years o f Uncertainty and In­ novation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986), 32. Jean Larmour oral history of the CCF government, T.C. Douglas interview, 24 June 1982, transcript no. 1, PAS, R 8387-92. Indeed, Douglas was frustrated with St-Laurent on numer­ ous fronts, and his correspondence with St-Laurent was stiff and formal compared to his correspondence with Diefenbaker and, to some extent, Mackenzie King.

The Cautious Liberal

295

Part 3

Substance

chapter St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact Belonging and Ambivalence XAVIER GÉLINAS

Louis St-Laurent was born and educated in French Canada, and spent most of his working life in Quebec City. He was a “bilingual French Canadian” in public opinion, in posterity, and, indeed, in his own eyes. And yet, as a Quebec francophone politician, a question must be asked: To what degree did he ac­ tually promote the rights and views of the province of Quebec and of franco­ phone Canadians? This chapter attempts to answer this question by exploring how St-Laurent dealt with a series of issues he faced while in power. The first case study is the massive file that fell into St-Laurent’s lap the m o­ ment he entered cabinet as minister of justice in late December 1941: con­ scription. The issue, of course, had stirred the enduring hostility of French Canadians and been met with repeated, solemn reassurances by the Liberal Party - as recently as the 1939 Quebec provincial election - that conscription would never be imposed for overseas service.1 The unequivocal attitude of Quebecers towards conscription was confirmed in the April 1942 plebiscite: 72 percent were against it. The proportion of French speakers from coast to coast who voted No was around 90 percent. In St-Laurent’s own riding of QuebecEast, “the governments plea was rejected by seven to one.”2 Yet there was strong pressure from many English Canadians to bypass the Liberal promise. Did St-Laurent act as a worthy successor of Ernest Lapointe, urging Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to honour his pledge? In short: he did not. Although St-Laurent - like King - did not personally favour conscription, he chose to follow his prime minister s cautiously evolving attitude, like a dutiful

soldier with absolute trust in his commanding officer. St-Laurent can be seen as serving King more as a spokesman to his fellow Quebecers than as a strong voice for Quebec in cabinet or the Prime Ministers Office. Throughout these emotionally charged years, he banked on his prestige and impeccable reputation for integrity to support his leader’s position. Three months after he was elected to the House of Commons, St-Laurent was the last remaining French-speaking minister in cabinet. He did not resign his portfolio, as had fellow MPs PierreJoseph-Arthur Cardin in 1942 or Charles G. “Chubby” Power in 1944, or even threaten to do so. Nor did he leave altogether for the Bloc populaire, as had Maxime Raymond and Édouard Lacroix. Instead, in his famous speech on 6 December 1944, St-Laurent urged his compatriots to submit to the will of the majority: Believing as I do that the vast majority in this house, after giving its best con­ sideration to the facts which have been brought to light in this long and earn­ est debate, is sincerely convinced that the passing of this order in council P.C. 8891 was necessary to the proper conduct of the affairs of the Canadian body politic as a whole, and believing as I do that whenever the majority, after full consultation and mature deliberation, reaches a conclusion of that kind, it is proper the m inority should accept it and loyally assist in carrying it out, I appeal to all the members of this house, whatever may have been their indi­ vidual views - whether to do m ore or to do less than the order in council provides - to unite and to assert to the men overseas that this nation, from one ocean to the other, stands pledged to a victory that will be decisive and that will endure .3

A few years later, Chubby Power was understandably sour in reflecting on the position St-Laurent had taken: He was a senior m inister of the Crown, and became Prime Minister in 1948 during these years when I sat as a private member. There he was, a French Canadian at the head of the country, having supported the Liberal Party and the government on the conscription issue, apparently against the wishes of the large majority of the people of Quebec; and there I was, out of the govern­ ment, an English Canadian who had opposed the government, apparently on behalf of that same majority .4

The fiscal question proved to be another political football. This one was fought over by St-Laurent and Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis.5The struggle lasted

300

Xavier Gélinas

from the 1945 Dominion-Provincial (as it was known at the time) Conference of Reconstruction until November 1954, when St-Laurent agreed to allow Quebec to levy its own tax on personal income, which could be fully deducted from the federal one. While most provinces had come to accept Ottawa’s postwar tax-rental pro­ posals in exchange for subsidies, Quebec had consistently refused them. Quebec cited the Constitution and the need for each province - particularly the only one with a French majority - to control its own taxation and thus its priorities. St-Laurent stood firm on this position for nine years, siding with his Keynesian, Ottawa-centric mandarins. He refused to accept anything that might hint at duality or asymmetry. In a defiant speech at Quebec City’s Reform Club in 1954, he insisted that “the province of Quebec can be a province like any other.”6 As Conrad Black boldly but accurately concluded: “In this area, as in much of Quebec nationalistic questions, St-Laurent, unlike Lapointe and Wilfrid Laurier, had a cloth ear.”7 The issue of funding to universities proved another snag in Ottawa-Quebec City relations. In its 1951 report, the Massey Commission on the Arts, Letters and Sciences had urged the federal government to subsidize universities in the name of “superior national interest”: a creative, albeit acrobatic extension of the residual clause (“Peace, order and good government”) in the British North America Act. The appeal of a financial windfall saw all provinces accepting the funding, except Quebec. Led by Duplessis’ Union Nationale since 1944, Quebec refused to bend, citing its interpretation of the Constitution and reasoning, in addition, that it was inappropriate for an English-speaking, Protestant adm in­ istration in Ottawa to speak for the hearts and minds of a majority of Frenchspeaking Catholic students. The stalemate persisted throughout the St-Laurent years and beyond as Duplessis would not budge, nor would his federal counter­ part. Quebec universities were forbidden to accept federal subsidies, lest they be deprived of all provincial funding. Even the vehemently anti-Duplessis Pierre Elliott Trudeau, never suspected of being a closet separatist, endorsed Quebec’s view loudly and clearly.8 The matter was solved only in 1959, after brief negotiations between Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Premier Paul Sauvé, Duplessis’ successor.9 Some of St-Laurent’s challenges did not involve Quebec-federal relations but were still of importance to the French-speaking population. One of these was the possibility of Canadas opening up diplomatic ties with the Vatican.10 Nothing materialized under St-Laurent, despite the fact that the United King­ dom had recognized the Holy See since 1914. The prime minister, in keeping with King’s position, was reluctant to fan the flames of intra-Canadian religious

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

301

intolerance. In typical St-Laurent prose, he explained to James Cardinal McGuigan of Toronto: “all these matters which can be occasions for the clashing of sentimental differences of viewpoint are still apt to be very explosive.”11 The prime minister was concerned that, given he was a professed Roman Catholic, his government’s recognition of the Holy See could be construed as preferential treatment for his co-religionaries. St-Laurent had, in fact, witnessed Canadas Protestant churches stir up considerable public protest when rumours about opening up diplomatic relations circulated in the early 1950s. Quebec’s Legis­ lative Assembly adopted a unanimous motion in 1949 in support of official relations between Canada and the Holy See; many French-Canadian MPs, Liberals included, voiced their support; pan-Canadian Catholic groups such as the Knights of Columbus applauded the idea; and even the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail spoke favourably of the normalcy of such a diplomatic relationship. But all to no avail: Canada continued to espouse the practice of the United States, which was content to send diplomatic envoys rather than establishing formal relations. The file would be settled only in 1969, after Pierre Trudeau became prim e minister. St-Laurent adopted the same course of action, or inaction, in the quest for a distinctive Canadian flag, a long-standing demand of French Canadians. His predecessor, Mackenzie King, had almost settled on a design in 1946 but, facing a lack of national consensus, had dropped the matter, and St-Laurent would not touch it. As he explained to a French-speaking crowd in 1953:“ [it is] better to institute those things which will be received wholeheartedly by the whole nation rather than cause dissensions by forcing things which a portion of the population does not want to accept.”12 And yet St-Laurent did make other advances in loosening Canadas symbolic ties with the United Kingdom. These included abandoning the title “Dominion” and, in 1952, appointing the first Canadian-born governor general (the reputedly francophobie Diefenbaker would name the first francophone to this position - Georges Vanier - in 1959). But if St-Laurent was reluctant to take on contentious, visible national issues, did he at least further the cause of French Canadians de facto by stacking the higher echelons of the civil service and the cabinet with francophones? The answer is an unequivocal No. His former secretary and biographer Dale Thomson recalls St-Laurent in­ sisting that any appointments must be strictly merit-based: “his advisers soon learned that to suggest a name on any other grounds would provoke an outburst against the cry-babies’ who were not willing to prove their ability to compete with their fellow citizens.”13St-Laurent thus ignored the existing systemic imbal­ ance in Ottawa power circles and the plain statistics. He made no effort to name

302

Xavier Gélinas

a French-speaking minister to a first-tier position in his cabinet, despite the high proportion of Quebecers in his caucus.14And he had no Quebec lieutenant, no one with even a fraction of the authority that George-Étienne Cartier (under Sir John A. Macdonald) or Ernest Lapointe (under King) had conveyed, or that the Three Wise Men would wield under Lester B. Pearson, or Jean Marchand and then Marc Lalonde under Pierre Trudeau, or Marcel Masse and then Lucien Bouchard under Brian Mulroney. High-level portfolios, from justice to defence to commerce, and from external affairs to finance, stayed securely in “Anglo” hands. To be sure, the post office - that haven of patronage - remained a fiefdom of French Canadians, represented by a string of ministers: Ernest Bertrand, Édouard Rinffet, Alcide Côté, and Roch Pinard, none of whom left a trace in historical annals or would be known by name were it not for the Canadian Parliament’s “Parlinfo” website. Was the situation any rosier among civil service mandarins? Not in the least. The movers and shakers in the public service were uniformly anglophone. Between their old boys’ network, shared centralist views, and conceptions of “efficiency,” they cared little about Quebec’s distinctiveness. Jack Granatstein explains why in The Ottawa Men: And the mandarins, English Canadians to a man, somehow forgot about Quebec. It was not that they were assimilationists or anti-French; they weren’t. It was simply that it was neater on the charts and plans if Quebec received the same treatment as the rest of the country. This curious blindness to the fundamental reality of Canadian life was to cost the country dearly .15

His conclusion is terse: “For one of the charter groups in a nation to be com­ pletely unrepresented at the top level of the bureaucracy was a true reflection of the concentration of power in Canada: only English Canadians had it.”16 It started at the very top: Norman Robertson, clerk of the Privy Council between 1949 and 1951, after and before terms as Canada’s high commissioner to London, didn’t know French and even disparaged those who did as possessing exotic, needless knowledge.17 As a consequence, the language of work in the civil service throughout the St-Laurent years was unilaterally English. Granat­ stein, again, remarks that “a researcher has to hunt extensively in the files of the key departments (or any of the others) to find a paper, memo, or report in French. If a French-speaking officer tried to speak French at work, or to func­ tion in his native tongue, he would quite literally have been considered u n ­ stable.”18 In his latter-day reminiscences, former minister of finance Douglas Abbott recalls: “Quebec was grossly underrepresented in the Civil Service, in

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

303

the senior ranks of the Civil Service, in my days, and it was in spite of efforts to increase it.” He then goes on to provide the superficial reasons for the problem of career lag by revealing the then-dom inant prejudices: But again, the educational system was not adequate to provide some of the people, the wives were reluctant to come to Ottawa, I think some still are, it’s too far away from home and if they haven’t the facility in the other official language ... it isn’t an agreeable life for them. But that’s been changed and I’m happy to say that it is one accomplishment that’s been achieved under both Mike Pearson’s regime and under Pierre Trudeau’s . 19

If francophones were outside the radar in the superior strata of the civil service, it was only marginally better in the middle and lower ranks. Whereas King’s former minister of justice Ernest Lapointe had been tenacious, both up front and behind the scenes, in bolstering the presence of his compatriots and the use of French, his efforts were left orphaned after his death when St-Laurent took on the Quebec lieutenancy. Lapointes successor brought no improvement in numbers, in promotion opportunities, or in the capacity for francophones to work at least in part in their own language. This has been substantiated in detail by the “Bi and Bi” Commission report.20 Since Confederation, the proportion of French speakers employed by the civil service had seen a steady decrease - one that exceeded the proportional demographic decline of the French-speaking element in the country overall. From about 36 percent in 1867, the rate had fallen to 22 percent in 1918 and to a low of 13 percent of all government workers in 1946. (As a reminder, in the 1951 census, about 29 percent of Canadians listed French as their mother tongue.) English being the language of the workplace was a critical deterrent, as was the fact that a fairer hiring of francophones was never a noteworthy concern. The Civil Service Commission, created in 1908, had gradually perfected a merit system that looked good on paper (with its insistence on competence and the eradication of patronage) but was conveniently bypassed whenever a worthy cause - such as the massive hiring of veterans after the Second World War - was deemed necessary to alter it, and it was structurally conceived to attract English-educated candidates. Entry-level and promotional examina­ tions could be taken in either language, but the French versions were poor and literal translations of concepts and requirements devised by unilingual anglo­ phones.21 Plainly put, proficiency in French was not considered a “merit.” In the words of the Dunton-Laurendeau Report, “it scarcely occurred to the senior

304

Xavier Gélinas

officials of the day that providing unilingual service to a country with two major language groups was grossly inefficient, not to mention inequitable.”22 A wholesale shakeup would eventually occur with the Civil Service Act, 1961; the tabling in 1962-63 of the report of the Glassco Commission set up by the Diefenbaker government; the introduction of the bilingualism bonus in 1967; and, especially, the revised Public Service Employment Act, 1967. Given St-Laurents inaction, it was these developments that served as the impetus needed to “remedy the deficiencies or heal the wounds left by a century of neglect of the bicultural features of Canada.”23 There was no spectacular breakthrough in diplomacy, although the situa­ tion was less dire in this department. External affairs had constituted a less harmful environment for francophones since the days of O.D. Skelton. For example, Jules Léger had been made the first French-speaking under-secretary of state in 1954, forty-five years after the department was instituted.24But Légers and a few other cases were ad hoc oddities that did not affect the general out­ look. While the relative proportion of French speakers in the department was not markedly low, the working lingua franca remained resolutely English. As late as November 1967, a report concluded that “fewer than 4 per cent of all incoming and 2 per cent of outgoing telegrams were in French.”25 It is revealing that in Lester Pearsons voluminous memoirs of his years as secretary for ex­ ternal affairs, not a line is devoted to the bilingual nature, or lack thereof, of his department.26An apparently trivial anecdote recounted in the departments official history may summarize the situation: Otherwise, the department was not as well equipped as it might have been to deal with the requirements of a bilingual country. Because Pauline Sabourin was one of the few bilingual secretaries, she did much of the French-language work for the under-secretary and his senior colleagues after she was assigned to their staff in 1951. One of her problems was that the department lacked typewriters with bilingual keyboards, so the accents were added by hand in the divisions. She obtained a properly equipped machine for the under­ secretary’s office, where much French correspondence was retyped before it was sent out.27

There was, then, no “pre-French Power” under St-Laurent. What about the increased presence of the French language in terms of rights, prerogatives, actual measures? Were any concrete steps taken, like the introduction of bilingual postage stamps (1927) or bilingual coins and banknotes (1937), seen under

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

305

King, or the creation of the Translation Bureau under R.B. Bennett in 1934?28 Under St-Laurent, there is not much to report. In fairness, however, we should note the establishment, in the dying months of his administration, of the Canada Council for the Arts. St-Laurent was lukewarm to the idea of, in his words, “subsidizing ballet dancing.”29Nevertheless, the council did see the light of day, and it continues to support both French- and English-Canadian cultural ex­ pression today. Closer to home, St-Laurent did not introduce simultaneous translation in the House of Commons and the Senate. That, too, would have to wait for Diefenbaker - although individual Liberal Quebec MPs had been advocating for it since 1952. It is estimated that, in the 1950s, only 15 of the 265 MPs were truly bilingual, thus forcing French-speaking ones to use English if they wanted to be understood by English-speaking members. As a result, French was used for less than 5 percent of all proceedings.30 Bilingual cheques are another concrete yet symbolic issue that St-Laurent failed to address. For a long time, the federal government provided bilingual cheques in Quebec only. Since 1945 - and with renewed vigour after the intro­ duction of the universal old age pension in 1951 - French-language advocacy groups pressed the issue. They urged the government, notably through Minister of Finance Douglas Abbott, a thoroughly bilingual Anglo-Quebecer himself, to implement a single series of bilingual cheques from coast to coast. But Abbott wouldn’t comply through fear of a political backlash, and there is no evidence that St-Laurent lifted a finger in support.31 The matter was finally resolved in 1962 - again under Diefenbaker. How about the country’s armed forces? For historical reasons, the military had always operated in English - a fact that was either condoned as natural or deplored. Yet surely one means of encouraging more francophones to enlist would have been to make the armed forces a friendlier environment where they could pursue a career without sacrificing their native tongue? Here again, St-Laurent did not use his authority to even suggest that perhaps, over time, improvements might be needed.32 The matter was left to the sole initiative of his minister of national defence Brooke Claxton, an Anglo-Quebecer with only passing knowledge of French who, despite his ingrained prejudices concerning the Québécois,33 was devoted to national conciliation. Supported by “Bud” Drury, his deputy minister, Claxton sought to alter the institutional culture - attempting, in particular, to increase the proportion of francophone officers and troops. From a myriad of dismal statistics, we must note that, in 1951, only 2.2 percent of Royal Canadian Navy officers were francophones; in

306

Xavier Gélinas

the air force, the proportion was marginally better at 4.7 percent; the infantry was less lopsided, with a rate of 15.2 percent; and in all three services, naturally, officers and their subordinates functioned almost exclusively in English.34 The top brass firmly resisted enforcing bilingualism, alleging that it would be detri­ mental to efficiency and that it would actually imperil the troops’ safety and lives in combat situations. Under St-Laurent, no significant progress was made, with one notable exception: the creation of the Collège militaire de Saint-Jean in 1952. Claxtons successor after 1954, Ralph Campney, took no further initiative. The linguistic fortress came under some attack during the Diefenbaker era, and the drawbridge would be lowered with the appointment of General JeanVictor Allard as chief of the defence staff in 1966: he became the first French Canadian to hold the position.

What can be concluded from these case studies? Clearly, that when it came to defending either Quebec’s provincial rights or the interests of French-speaking Canadians, St-Laurent consistently failed or abstained altogether, aside, that is, from repeating the mollifying bonne entente speech throughout his career: “a moving little speech about brotherhood and goodwill among all Canadians,” as Pearson recalled favourably.35 But why was this? St-Laurent’s own explanation is absent since, unlike his successors Diefen­ baker and Pearson, he did not write his memoirs, nor did he fill reams of paper in a diary as King had done. Perhaps it is revealing that in a long testimonial television interview granted in English to Jeanne Sauvé (then a CBC journal­ ist) in 1961, St-Laurent went over a spectrum of the files he handled in politics without ever addressing either the Quebec-Canada tug-of-war or the franco­ phone question.36 The primary reason is likely related to the prevailing mindset in English Canada. “The Other Quiet Revolution,” to use the title of José Igartua’s study, was under way, but only just, and it would take root only in the late 1960s. Igartua refers to Canada’s gradually emerging as a truly independent country, acknowledging its British heritage, but being separate from the motherland in political, judicial, constitutional, and symbolic terms and, as a country, seeing the English-French partnership as a cornerstone of national identity rather than viewing the French language as a relic from olden times, with its rights strictly bound and frozen by sections 93 and 133 of the British North America Act. But in the 1950s, “Old Canada” was still alive and well and thriving - and not just in Loyal Orange Order lodges or in Progressive Conservative Party ranks.

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

307

Closer to St-Laurent, the Ottawa milieu of the late 1940s and 1950s was not a haven of brotherly love between communities. Those were the years of the staunchly francophobie Charlotte W hitton, who served as mayor of O t­ tawa from 1951 to 1956 and from 1960 to 1964.37 If St-Laurent had taken the pulse of his m andarins and ministers, he would not have detected much con­ sensus towards expanding the rights or status of the French language and francophones. To be sure, some of the ministers were pro-French, for lack of a better term, but they were outgunned by the old guard. For this is a question of generation as much as of mentality. For every Brooke Claxton - one example among a few others such as Paul Martin or, later on, Jack Pickersgill - there were many more C.D. Howes, Jimmy Gardiners, and Stuart Garsons. Gardiner, the perennial minister of agriculture (1935-57) and former pre­ mier of Saskatchewan, is a good case in point. He cannot be considered an anti-French bigot: his previous provincial career speaks for itself and, once in federal politics, he often spoke in favour of Quebecers and, notably, he opposed conscription. And yet, Gardiner - much like a fellow Saskatchewan MP from across the aisle, Diefenbaker - saw the French-language community as simply one of many other cultural clusters in Canada. He did not subscribe to the bicultural paradigm theorized by Henri Bourassa around 1900 and later es­ poused by Pearsonian Liberals. There may also have been a regional aspect. As an agriculturalist from the west, Gardiner could not really connect with the new trend towards francophilia, which he saw as an urban, educated, central Can­ adian phenomenon. Mostly, however, Gardiner was voicing a widely held point of view, as his biographers David Smith and Norman Ward remind us. For him, the ways to cement an ethnically diverse country was to m aintain respect for British par­ liamentary democracy and other institutions; cherish individual liberty; and use a common language, with constitutional guarantees for the French-language minority, but no more.38 W hether through cowardice, pragmatism, or an infinite gift for patience, St-Laurent did not attempt to confront or overturn such rock-solid stances. Since early adulthood, St-Laurent had also stuck to Wilfrid Laurier-style, small“1” liberalism. He genuinely believed that French-Canadian nationalism was inherently navel-gazing and mistrustful, that it verged on xenophobia and re­ ligious intolerance. For instance, St-Laurent couldn’t stand Canon Lionel Groulx, a nationalist priest and historian who, in the words of Dale Thomson, “was not only guilty of political chauvinism, but was not practising the Christian precepts of brotherly love and charity.”39 St-Laurent believed that every effort should be

made to broaden his French-Canadian compatriots’ horizons and entice them to join confidently with English Canadians into building a more open-minded country. Coupled with that belief, it cannot be forgotten that St-Laurent operated not in the abstract ether of doctrine but, rather, in the tangible world of politics. And who was his counterpart in Quebec? None other than Maurice Duplessis, a die-hard opponent of Liberals at both levels of government.40 In St-Laurent’s opinion, Duplessis not only embodied all the evil he assigned to traditional nationalism but was also a highly partisan enemy. St-Laurents often cavalier disregard for provincial rights was inevitably coloured and perhaps enhanced by his animosity towards “Le Chef” Furthermore, the Quebec legislature offered none of the sort of trans-partisan support for autonomy that would emerge in the 1960s and endure until the early twenty-first century, regardless of a polit­ icians Liberal, Parti québécois, or Union Nationale affiliation. At that time, provincial Liberals mostly sided with St-Laurent in deriding Duplessis’ pleas for provincial autonomy; their conversion came about later, under Jean Lesage and with the birth of neo-nationalism.

St-Laurent, trop âgé pour conduire! Louis St-Laurent pictured as too old to drive and give direction to cabinet, ca. 1957. A rtist unkn o w n ; C a n a d ia n M useum o f History, 2012-H0008_ 1 _001

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

309

The personality clash between these counterparts cannot be overlooked. There could not have been two more dissimilar figures than St-Laurent and Duplessis. On the one hand, St-Laurent exemplified to an almost cartoonish degree the starched-collar, well-mannered corporate lawyer and family man. On the other hand, Duplessis - also a Quebec-born lawyer, and St-Laurent’s quasi-contemporary in age - was long the embodiment of a feisty demagogue and hard-drinking bachelor. Such extremes certainly didn’t help when it came to levelling the playing field. These explanations: St-Laurent’s reluctance to rock the boat of English-Canadian public opinion, his deeply held centralist ideology, and his anti-Duplessisism all have, it is hoped, some validity. But the strongest reason for his inertia in “French” or “Quebec” matters may have to do with St-Laurent’s innate personality, shaped from the cradle in Compton, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.41 Certainly, Dale Thomson put great store in this “childhood conditioning.”42 For the young and then the mature Louis Stephen St-Laurent, biculturalism was something spontaneous, agree­ able, respectful, and pragmatic. In other words, it came naturally - not through slogans; not through statutes, quotas, or m omentous declarations; and not through posturing or crusades. So why was it that his personal happy reality was not spread, via happy contagion, throughout Canada, under an aegis of goodwill? For St-Laurent, it seems, bilingualism was a reality that would come about in due course; its roots would be deeper if they grew slowly and will­ ingly. Just as a rainbow follows rain, bilingualism and mutually constructive relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada would come in good time. The pace of hum an nature could not be rushed. Notes 1 For an overview, see J.L. Granatstein and J.M. Hitsman, Broken Promises: A History o f Con­ scription in Canada, rev. ed. (Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2015), 282. For St-Laurents position, see Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 106-39. 2 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 121. 3 Dominion of Canada, Official Report o f Debates - House o f Commons, Fifth Session, Nine­ teenth Parliament, 8 George VI, 1944 (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, 1945), 6860, http://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oodebates_HOC1905_06/ 1426?r=0&s=3, image 1426. 4 Chubby Power, A Party Politician: The Memoirs o f Chubby Power, ed. Norman Ward (Toronto: Macmillan, 1966), 400. 5 See Shirley Tillotson, Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise o f Canadian Democracy (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2017), 265-70. For a pro-St-Laurent viewpoint, see

310

Xavier Gélinas

6 7

8

9

10 11 12

13 14

15 16 17 18 19

20

21

22 23

Jack Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 253-59. Quoted by Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 256. Conrad Black, Rise to Greatness: The History o f Canada from the Vikings to the Present (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2014), 740. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “Federal Grants to Universities,” in Federalism and the French Canadians (Toronto: Macmillan, 1968), 79-102. The article was originally published in French in Cité libre, February 1957. See Ed Whitcomb, Rivals for Power: Ottawa and the Provinces - The Contentious History of the Canadian Federation (Toronto: Lorimer, 2017), 382: “The ease with which they [Diefenbaker and Sauvé] reached a solution demonstrated the real problem - when Ottawa sought to exercise power and control, Quebec resisted; when Ottawa did not, cooperation was welcome.” See also Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 307,488-90; Xavier Gélinas, La droite intellectuelle québécoise et la Révolution tranquille (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2007), 306-7. See F.J. McEvoy, “Religion and Politics in Foreign Policy: Canadian Government Relations with the Vatican,” CCFLA Historical Studies 51 (1984): 121-44. Ibid., 134. From an election rally in Thetford Mines, Quebec, quoted by Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 353-54. See also Paul Martin, A Very Public Life, vol. 1, Far from Home (Ottawa: Deneau, 1983), 442-44. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 128-29. He did, however, keep Lionel Chevrier, a Franco-Ontarian, in the transport portfolio, where King had appointed him in 1945. Chevrier had less leeway than his position would normally carry due to the overbearing presence of the “minister of everything,” C.D. Howe. He also kept Paul Martin, from Windsor, who was proud of his Franco-Ontarian lineage but who operated essentially in English. J.L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982), 274. Granatstein, Ottawa Men, 4-5. See Christina McCall-Newman, Grits: An Intimate Portrait o f the Liberal Party (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), 98. Ibid., 5-6. Douglas Abbott, Honourable Douglas Abbott: His Memoirs; in an Interview with Peter Stursberg in Mr. Abbott’s Apartment in Ottawa, October 24, 1978 (Ottawa: Library of Par­ liament), 180. See Report o f the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, book 3, The Work World, vol. 3-A (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1969), chap. 6, “The Federal Public Service: The History of Language-Use Policy and Francophone Participation,” 97-112, http:// publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/bcp-pco/Zl-1963-l-5-3A-l-eng.pdf. J.E. Hodgetts, WiUiam McCloskey, Reginald Whitaker, and V. Seymour WUson, The Biog­ raphy of an Institution: The Civil Service Commission o f Canada, 1908-1967 (Montreal and Kingston: McGiU-Queens University Press, 1972), 473-82. Report o f the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 102. See J.E. Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service: A Physiology o f Government, 1867-1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 34-39 (quotation at 39).

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

311

24 See John Hilliker and Donald Barry, Canadas Department o f External Affairs, vol. 2, Coming of Age, 1946-1968 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press and Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1995), 89-91. 25 Ibid., 350. As Marcel Cadieux, a future under-secretary, confided to a friend: “Si tu veux affirmer un principe, tu peux toujours écrire en français. Si tu veux des lecteurs, il faut écrire en anglais.” See Hilliker and Barry, Canada’s Department o f External Affairs, 2:187. 26 See Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs o f the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, vol. 2, 1948-1957, ed. John A. Munro and Alex I. Inglis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 344. 27 Hilliker and Barry, Canadas Department o f External Affairs, 2:99. 28 See Jean Delisle and Alain Otis, Les douaniers des langues: Grandeur et misère de la traduc­ tion à Ottawa, 1867-1967 (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2016), 504. 29 Quoted by Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 166. 30 See Jean Delisle, “Fifty Years of Simultaneous Interpretation,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 32,2 (2009): 26-31, http://www.revparl.ca/ english/issue.asp?param=1938cart=1333; and Bruce Hicks, “Bilingualism and the Canadian House of Commons 40 Years after B and B,” Parliamentary Perspectives 8 (June 2007), Ottawa, Canadian Study of Parliament Group 21, http://cspg-gcep.ca/pdf/Parhamentary_Perspectives_8_2007-e.pdf. 31 See Marcel Martel, Le deuil d’un pays imaginé: Rêves, luttes et déroute du Canada français - Les rapports entre le Québec et la francophonie canadienne, 1867-1975 (Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1997), 79-81. 32 See Jean Pariseau and Serge Bernier, French Canadians and Bilingualism in the Canadian Armed Forces, vol. 1 ,1763-1969: The Fear o f a Parallel Army (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1986), chap. 6, “Post-War Policy: The Chiefs of Staff Resist; Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean Is Founded,” 143-74, for a comparison between the St-Laurent and Diefenbaker years, with a partial thawing occurring under the latter, http://publications. gc.ca/collections/collection_2009/forces/D63-2-2E.pdf; and David Jay Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life o f Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 182-83, 228-29. 33 According to his biographer, Claxton “believed that francophone Quebec’s low standard of living had allowed demagogic leaders such as l’abbé Lionel Groulx to convince large numbers of Quebecers that they were being robbed by the English and that their only chance of survival was to split from C anada... Claxton was convinced that factors such as poverty, hatred of ‘les Anglais,’ and demagoguery had made French Quebecers into con­ firmed isolationists and that ‘the limits of their national interest was the provincial frontier.’” See Bercuson, True Patriot, 101. The minister conveniently overlooked the treatment af­ forded to French-language education outside Quebec, or, for that matter, and more broadly, the political, economic, and military minoritization of French Canadians after 1763. 34 Pariseau and Bernier, French Canadians and Bilingualism in the Canadian Armed Forces, 1:158, 159. 35 See Pearson, Mike, 2:8. 36 “Louis St-Laurent Speaks to Jeanne Sauvé,” Inquiry, CBC Television, 17 October 1961, http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1775395866. Thanks to Dr. Christopher McCreery for the reference. 37 See T. Rooke and R.L. Schnell, No Bleeding Heart: Charlotte Whitton, A Feminist on the Right (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1987), 243; and François Charbonneau, “‘Ce n’est pas à

312

Xavier Gélinas

38

39

40

41 42

strictement parler un ‘idéal’ que nous soumettons”: La commission Laurendeau-Dunton et la Ville d’Ottawa,” Mens: Revue d'histoire intellectuelle et culturelle 14, 2 (2014): 53-88. Norman Ward and David Smith, Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 293,320, 335-38. C.D. Howe, another minister of the old guard, “partially shared Jimmy Gardiner’s perception that the Liberals had lost a lot of ground in 1957 because English-speaking voters believed that French-Canadian influence was too great in Ottawa.” See Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 336. Dale C. Thomson, “The Political Ideas of Louis St. Laurent,” in Les idées politiques des pre­ miers ministres du Canada/The Political Ideas of the Prime Ministers o f Canada, ed. Marcel Hamelin (Ottawa: Les Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1969), 142-43. See also Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 92-94. On the St-Laurent-Duplessis feud, see Thomson, “Political Ideas of Louis St. -Laurent,” 145-47, and, for a less sympathetic angle, Conrad Black, Duplessis (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), passim. On St-Laurent’s edge-to-edge bilingual childhood and adolescence, see Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 19-50. Thomson, “Political Ideas of Louis St. Laurent,” 139.

St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact

313

chapter The Politics of St-Laurent on the Crown, Rituals, and Symbols CHRISTOPHER McCREERY

As m inister of justice, secretary of state for external affairs, and later as prime minister, Louis St-Laurent changed how Canadians related to their country by reforming key institutions. In terms of the head of states representative, he brought extensive changes to the Office of the Governor General and orches­ trated the nom ination of the first Canadian-born governor general since the French regime. St-Laurent was personally involved in shaping the Canadian participation in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and led the other domin­ ions in the adoption of realm-specific titles for the divisible office of the head of state. The creation of the title “Queen of Canada,” the discontinuation of the national moniker as a “dominion,” his determined refusal to allow the conferral of British honours upon Canadian civilians, his consideration of the establish­ ment of a Canadian honours system, along with other developments, increased the Canadian character of the constitutional monarchy in its function, symbols, and presence. In these matters St-Laurent was, in the words of the eminent Canadian scholar on the Crown David E. Smith, “more determined to promote Canadas ‘national status.’”1But I would go further: he was transformative, and the changes he brought about proved to be a cultural turning point in how Canadians, particularly the English and the French, would see themselves. St-Laurent brought a change in Canadas historic, constitutional, and sym­ bolic connection with Britain, the Commonwealth, and the foundational pos­ ition of the Crown. He was determined to separate the institution and symbols of the Crown from its broader British connection. Part of his strategy was to highlight the newly formed Commonwealth, with Canada as part of a larger

family of nations with “a vastly increased significance.”2 St-Laurent was also cautious in articulating the Crown as an institution that was shared with other countries in the Commonwealth, including the newly independent members from African and Asia. But he insisted that the Crown in Canada be possessed of a Canadian persona that was not dependent upon the British connection. St-Laurent s lively interest and sensitive approach cost him little political capital, despite the best efforts of his political adversaries. In hindsight, it did much to condition public opinion and establish a pattern for future symbolic changes in Canada. His incremental m ethod of Canadianizing the symbols of the n a­ tion in the postwar period was a prologue to the more overt changes that fol­ lowed, such as the adoption of a flag to replace the Canadian Red Ensign or the designation of “O Canada” as the national anthem. These various changes have been described by some scholars as “de-dominionization.”3 Canada, in this regard, was like other Commonwealth countries. At varying speeds, the old dominions were attempting to “give constitutional and symbolic expression to their independence from Great Britain.”4 When compared with Australia and New Zealand, Canada and South Africa were the leaders in the field. (The Irish Free State, for a variety of historical reasons, was more dramatic and abandoned the Crown and the British connection.5) In many parts of the Commonwealth, governments strove to nationalize the symbols and traditions associated with the monarchy with local customs and symbiology.6 This process was initiated at a much earlier stage in Canada than in the other dominions. Australia and New Zealand came to this process at a much later stage - not until Britain began making overtures to join the European Economic Community.7 With this it became clear that “the Commonwealth was no longer a viable economic unit.”8 In the Canadian context the journey was circumlocutious, rather than a straight “de-dominionization,” and is more accurately reflected by the term “realmization” - whereby Canada moved from being a British Dominion to becoming an independent realm itself with a sovereign shared with a number of Commonwealth countries, where the Crown came to be represented by local symbols, customs, traditions, and officeholders. As David E. Smith noted, these changes were not linear;9 rather, they were incremental and ultimately helped to transform the country from a dominion into a realm, whereby the Crown became Canadianized, while simultaneously remaining deeply woven into the structure of government and the social and cultural fabric of the country. St-Laurent had a high opinion of the Crown, the parliamentary institutions that Canada had borrowed from Britain, and the various symbols and trad­ itions that had come to be rooted in Canadian public and political life. He was

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

315

a “devoted adm irer of the Royal Family” and, in the summer of 1953, would tell his cabinet that “the monarchy is more solidly established [in Canada] than ever.”10In the words of his biographer, St-Laurent was “neither blindly attached to the monarchy, nor biased against it, rather he had a keen appreciation for its unifying force and potential for exercising an uplifting influence on the popula­ tion.”11W hen it came to matters such as royal tours, the accession of the sover­ eign, and changes to the Royal Style and Title, he was intimately involved in the arrangements, discussions, and final decisions: St-Laurent chaired the Can­ adian Coronation Committee and was the principal Canadian representative on the British Coronation Executive Committee.12 These were issues in which St-Laurent had a personal interest, regardless of the detailed minutia.13 It was a reflection of his approach to governing the country and managing the Liberal Party. As Robert Bothwell put it, “he was able to master his cabinet in part be­ cause he was the master of the issues before it, an authority derived from intel­ ligence and application.”14 St-Laurent was also careful to separate the British connection from the in­ stitution of the Crown and person of the sovereign.15 The national moniker “do­ minion” would be abandoned, while a more easily reproduced version of the Royal Arms of Canada was adopted and portraits of the young Queen began to appear in federal public buildings. This was in stark contrast to the approach taken by the leaders of the Progressive Conservative Party, George Drew and John Diefenbaker. With great vigour, each would wrap himself in a figurative Union Jack and accuse the St-Laurent Liberals of weakening Canadas con­ nection to Britain.16Diefenbaker viewed Canadianization as an “assault on our institutional heritage,”17seeing it as nothing more than a “sad reflection of per­ sonal insecurity” on the part of Liberal ministers.18 Rather than Canadianize the Crown, Diefenbaker sought to “reaffirm its [the Crowns] relevance to con­ temporary Canada.”19

The Crown In 1947, St-Laurent had a direct role in amending the Letters Patent Constituting the Office o f the Governor General,20which reinforced the separate nature of the Crown in right of Canada from that of the United Kingdom while granting the governor general the ability to exercise most of the sovereigns prerogatives.21 In essence, the Letters Patent constituted the Office of the Governor General22 and also regulated the delegation of the royal prerogative.23 They were the cul­ mination of a long process whereby successive governors general were given increasing ability to act in the place of the sovereign. Nevertheless, there remained

316

Christopher McCreery

certain aspects of the delegated powers, defined as “existing practice,” that as­ sum ed (at least initially) the governor general would not exercise them without consulting the sovereign.24 These were im portant revisions, but St-Laurent assured his cabinet col­ leagues: “It is not felt that the revised documents are revolutionary or startling in nature. They will however, serve to bring the law abreast of the present con­ stitutional position and practice.”25The development of the revised Letters Patent, and the evolution of the practice surrounding the royal prerogative, was one marked by delegation, not wholesale transfer of authority. They are best viewed as an enabling document that allows for the delegation of the sovereign’s au­ thority and as a non-legislative mechanism to serve in place of a Regency Act.26 They were never intended to serve as a mechanism to transform the governor general into the sovereign. This change was “very significant because it provided for the first time that the Governor General could exercise virtually all of the monarch’s powers with respect to Canada.”27 It was in February 1950 that St-Laurent first broached the topic of a Canadian becoming governor general after Lord Alexander’s time in office concluded.28 Australia had been the first of the Commonwealth countries to install a locally born governor general in 1930 when Sir Isaac Isaacs was appointed.29St-Laurent firmly believed that “the attachment of Canadians to the Crown is as great as it is among any other of His Majesty’s subjects and I cannot feel that the appoint­ ment by the King of one of His Canadian subjects to represent him in Canada would do anything to weaken our attachment to the Crown.”30 It was originally thought that Alexander would return to the United Kingdom in early 1951, but his tenure was extended. Massey was sworn-in on 28 February 1952, shortly after the death of George VI. Initially the appointment was poorly received and, according to MacGregor Dawson, “grave doubts were expressed in many quar­ ters, for although Mr. Massey had a distinguished record ... he was also un­ mistakably identified with the political party whose leader selected him.”31 Additionally, there was regret that ending the tradition of appointing someone from the United Kingdom would diminish the British connection.32St-Laurent’s decision was quickly vindicated. By the end of Massey’s first year in office, 79 percent of Canadians surveyed approved of the new governor general.33 In other Crown-related areas, St-Laurent remained consistent with the previous pattern, at least in the area of vice-regal appointments.34 The death of George VI and the accession of Princess Elizabeth to the throne brought about a number of additional steps towards Canadianizing the Crown in its legal form. At the time of the King’s demise, the Royal Style and Title, the formal designa­ tion of the head of state, was uniform across the Commonwealth: George the

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

317

Sixth by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dom in­ ions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith. The Royal Style and Title had been amended in 1948 upon the independence of India to remove reference to the Kings being “Emperor of India.” While Canadas head of state had in fact been King-in-right of Canada since the adoption of the Statute of Westminster, 1931, the title “King of Canada” was never officially adopted, although it was occasionally referenced, notably during the emergency debate called in Sep­ tember 1939 when Canada declared war on Germany.35Mackenzie King noted: “I thought it would stimulate the pride of the country in its nationhood ... particularly after H.M’s visit to Canada, there should be additional pride in having the proclamation issued in the name of our King.”36 (It was also for this reason that Mackenzie King went to such great lengths to have the proclamation of war signed by the King and not by Lord Tweedsmuir, the governor general.) St-Laurent had been a leading participant in the 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, which issued the London Declaration.37 The an­ nouncement acknowledged India’s desire to become a republic yet remain a full member of the Commonwealth. Out of the deliberations came the new title “Head of the Commonwealth.” Members agreed to accept “The King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth ... united as free and equal members of the Commonwealth of Nations, freely co-operating in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress.”38 The 1949 and 1951 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conferences included discussions about the Royal Style and Title and, in particular, how to address the departure of Ireland from the Commonwealth and how best to include the King’s new designation as “Head of the Commonwealth.” None of these matters would be resolved until after George Vi’s demise. During the December 1952 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, it was agreed that the Royal Style and Titles no longer needed to be uniform for those countries that recognized the Queen as their head of state. This came at St-Laurent’s initiative and insist­ ence,39 although the representative from South Africa, Theophilus Ebenhaezer Dônges, an ardent republican,40 who had little interest in the Commonwealth, was also pushing for country-specific titles. St-Laurent proposed a Royal Styles and Titles Act to Parliament, which designated the Queen’s Canadian title as Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories, QUEEN, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Other Common­ wealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand adopted a similar format, while South Africa and Ceylon omitted references to “by the Grace of God”

318

Christopher McCreery

and “the United Kingdom.” During second reading St-Laurent noted: “it seems to me that that is in accord with the historical development of our constitu­ tional relations. Her Majesty is now Queen of Canada.”41 St-Laurent went on to draw not only Canadas historic connection to the United Kingdom but also the newly formed Commonwealth, on which he placed great importance as an “affirmation of the equality of human beings on a universal scale of which we could be proud, just as we are all proud of being Canadian citizens.”42 While extolling the virtues of the Commonwealth, St-Laurent did not shy away from the legal reality that the Queen of Canada was Canadas head of state because she was the Queen of the United Kingdom. St-Laurent worked towards Canadianizing the Crown but acknowledged the continuing connection to Britain through the shared institution of the monarchy. Her Majesty is now the Queen of Canada but she is the Queen of Canada because she is the Queen of the United Kingdom and because the people of Canada are happy to recognize as their sovereign the person who is the sover­ eign of the United Kingdom. It is not a separate office. It is the recognition of the traditional development of our institutions; that our parliament is headed by the sovereign; who is recognized as the sovereign of the United Kingdom who is our sovereign and who is loyally and, I may say, affectionately recog­ nized as the sovereign of our country.43

There was an element of absurdity in St-Laurent stressing the divisibility of the Crown and separateness of the Queen of Canada, while simultaneously extolling the inexorable link to the Queen of the United Kingdom. St-Laurent realized that there “was a political need to insist on the distinction between the two crowns that are worn by the same person. The sameness of the person called to wear both distinct crowns is what ensures the living continuity of the Can­ adian Crown.”44J.W. Pickersgill would write that even Diefenbaker was extremely supportive of the new designation, noting that it was the “best evidence that St-Laurent had succeeded in his effort to make the new Royal Style and Titles, with its recognition of Canada’s national status and equality with Britain acceptable.”45

Rituals Ceremonial and public display of the flummery of the state (be it a coronation, swearing-in, legislative opening, inauguration, state funeral, or investiture) are a ubiquitous element of officialdom in every country. Rituals and symbols “can

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

319

help to enforce respect for authority and for existing institutions.”46Historically, when it comes to projecting the power and presence of the state, the coronation of a new monarch is surely the most significant.47 Official visits by the head of state can convey a similar sense of authority, connection, and sense of belonging/ attachment/fealty. All of these ceremonies are invented and augmented over time to suit the image and needs of the government of the day, be it federal or provincial. Canadians were officially involved in all of the coronation services that took place in the twentieth century, with an ever-increasing presence and role as the relationship with Britain changed. The historian Arthur Lower notably described the process as the transformation from colony to nation.48 Kenneth Munro linked it to the monarchy, arguing that the “coronations of the twentieth century symbolized this transformation of the Crown from a colonial im port to one that was uniquely Canadian.”49 While the Canadian military and RCMP had been involved in the coronations from Edward VII to George VI,50by the time of Elizabeth Us coronation their role was elevated to being second only to that of the British Armed Forces. The Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police all sent large contingents to represent the senior-most member of the Commonwealth. The attendance of Canadian officials such as the prime minister, the high com­ missioner to the United Kingdom, the secretary of state, speakers of the Senate and House of Commons, and eventually also lieutenant-governors started to expand beginning with the 1902 coronation. The coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 m arked the first tim e that the Canadian prim e m inister and his Commonwealth counterparts, along with other dignitaries from outside the United Kingdom, were integrated into the procession to act as participants and not simply guests. As chair of the Canadian Coronation Committee,51 and as a member of the British-based Coronation Executive Committee, St-Laurent was deeply involved in the major aspects of not only Canadian participation but also the overall service that would transpire in Westminster Abbey. His abiding faith “in the strength of our parliamentary tradition and our parliamentary institutions” extended to the Crown as an institution and ceremonial fixture.52He would also be involved in planning the massive celebrations that were to be held on Parliament Hill under the auspices of the governor general. St-Laurent was also politically astute in his insistence that the leader of the opposition, George Drew, be appointed to the Coronation Executive Committee.53 St-Laurent judged that the development of the Commonwealth as a free association of independent countries had to be reflected in the ceremony. He

320

Christopher McCreery

also proposed a revision of the coronation oath to echo “a new constitutional reality.”54The coronation oath, which had previously only made mention of the “British Dominions Beyond the Seas” was rewritten to reflect the multiple realms over which the monarch reigned: Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and N orthern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon, of Your possessions and other territories to any of them belonging or pertaining according to their respective laws and customs.55

The inclusion of Canada along with the other realms in the oath was an important acknowledgment that the monarch was not just Queen of the United Kingdom but sovereign of multiple independent realms where the Crown manifested itself in varying legal, symbolic, and social significance. A further reflection of this was the fact that St-Laurent, along with the prime ministers of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and Ceylon, participated in the official procession. The inclusion, along with the Royal Union Flag, of the banners or flags of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon marked another im portant addition to the service and the ceremonial associated with it. It was a significant departure from previous practice to have the realms and their leaders represented in such a prominent manner. While the lavish coronation service took place in London, the governor general presided over a massive celebration on Parliament Hill that saw ele­ ments of the service broadcast over loud speakers, a military parade, the singing of “God Save the Queen” and “O Canada,” along with a forty-two-gun salute and capped off with a state ball at Rideau Hall later that evening. Canadians outside the capital, and people throughout North America, were drawn to the CBC s unprecedented broadcast of the coronation service on television on the same day the service had taken place in London - thanks to an agreement be­ tween the BBC and the CBC, and the resources of the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force. The ritual and newly invented tradition of Canadian and Commonwealth involvement in the coronation service was brought to millions of viewers across the country, only hours after the service concluded, in a way unimaginable not even a decade before. State ceremonial was most abundantly demonstrated during the three major royal tours and the six more modest visits undertaken by members of the royal family, which were planned while St-Laurent was prime minister.56

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

321

The 1951 royal tour, the first to take place following Princess Elizabeths marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh, lasted nearly five weeks and saw the young couple travel to every province along with a short visit to President Truman in Washington, DC.57 A special cabinet committee, chaired by Lester B. Pearson, the secretary of state for external affairs, was formed to plan the extensive visit and to be mindful of Princess Elizabeths command that “arrangements for the trip be as simple as possible.”58The committee took the directions to heart, and while there was a visit to Parliament and a num ber of state balls, the 1951 royal tour had few formal occasions. The focus was to be on introducing their royal highnesses to Canada and Canadians, and the entire tour was captured by the National Film Board in its documentary Royal Journey, which, to much acclaim, was released in theatres across Canada in full colour early in December 1951.59 The 1957 royal tour, which saw for the first time Canada’s head of state open­ ing Parliament, was almost entirely arranged under the direction of St-Laurent. Nevertheless, it was the newly elected Prime Minister John Diefenbaker who got to dawn tailcoat and striped trousers to revel in the occasion as the Queens first minister.60 The 1957 tour was meant to be a short post-coronation visit to allow the Queen to exercise her role as Queen of Canada, in Canada, and was to be followed by a much more extensive cross-country tour, similar to those of 1951 and 1939, in 1959. The groundwork for this, the last great royal tour across Canada,61was set out by St-Laurent in part as “Her Majesty had shown consider­ able interest in the possibility of opening the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959.”62 In addition to the 1951,1957, and 1959 royal tours of Elizabeth II, St-Laurent also encouraged the planning of six other short royal visits carried out by other members ofthe royal family between 1954 and 1958.63These more modest events set the pattern for m odern royal tours that continued to be the template used right up to the 2017 sesquicentennial royal tour of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

Symbols In relation to the furniture of the state, the ubiquitous symbols that are employed by national and subnational jurisdictions, St-Laurents approach was quietly robust. An overarching aspect of St-Laurent s approach to augmenting symbols was his belief that it was “better to institute those things which will be received wholeheartedly by the whole nation, rather than cause dissention by forcing things which a portion of the population does not want to accept.”64This outlook was in part a result of a negative experience early in his first mandate as prime minister when great controversy arose over replacing the word “Dominion”

322

Christopher McCreery

with “Canada” in legislation and government documents. St-Laurent was suc­ cessful in other im portant areas related to the symbols of the Canadian state. This included changes to the Canadian passport, simplification of the Royal Arms of Canada, the establishment of Victoria Day as the sovereigns official Canadian birthday, and also his approach to proposals from the Massey Com­ mission calling for the adoption of a national honours system separate from the British honours system. While St-Laurent was ultimately successful in his desire to see the national moniker “Dominion” removed from common usage, it is worthwhile examining this surprisingly difficult change in the context of the other symbols that were logical targets for Canadianization. Following the end of the Second World War, Parliament would consider a number of private member’s bills to convert “Dominion Day” to “Canada Day”65 The discontinuation of the term “Dominion” would result in hundreds of pages of debates in Hansard during the 1950s.66 St-Laurent’s government gradually began removing the word from legislation and publications or replacing it with “Canada.” St-Laurent was sincere in expressing his desire for this change, an­ nouncing to the House of Commons: “It is the policy of this Government when statutes come up for review or consolidation to replace the word ‘Dominion’ with the word ‘Canada.’”67It was St-Laurent’s first highly public venture into the field of Canadianizing symbols, and his remarkable candour at the earliest stages of the project would imbue him with greater caution when it came to future changes. St-Laurent’s main devotee of this change was J.W. Pickersgill, who shared “St-Laurent’s feeling that the title dom inion had a colonial or quasi­ colonial connotation which did not reflect the equal status of Canada as a member nation of the Commonwealth.”68 Along with the debate over the slow disappearance of “Dominion” were questions in Parliament about the removal of the word “Royal” from the vans used by the Post Office Department.69 The red vans had at various times been stenciled with “Royal Mail” and the royal arms of Canada. Some public intellectuals, notably Eugene Forsey, were vehe­ mently opposed to the methodical excision of the word “Dominion,” noting that it “is our word, perhaps the only distinctive word we have contributed to political terminology.”70 Forsey, along with George Grant, engaged in a decades-long letter writing campaign lamenting the gradual loss of the national moniker, especially in rela­ tion to the renaming of 1 July as Canada Day. Grant in particular decried the declining nature of the “British tradition in Canada and the importance of Do­ minion.”71Indeed, of all Forsey’s campaigns over symbols, his crusade to preserve “the official title, Dominion of Canada” was his most enduring.72 Editorials in English-Canadian newspapers were not overwhelmingly supportive of the

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

323

removal of the term either.73 While public announcements about the myriad deletions of the word “Dominion” ceased early in 1952,74 Pickersgill continued to discretely ensure the word was removed from government publications and legislation.75 Despite this temporary delay, St-Laurent continued to “preach inside and outside Parliament his doctrine of a distinctive Canadianism,”76one that did not rely entirely on the British connection, albeit one that was tied to an increasingly Canadianized Crown. This issue in particular was rehashed by the Progressive Conservative opposition as proof that the “Liberal party was working to undermine the monarchy.”77 In the pantheon of national symbols, few are as important as flags. By 1924 the government of Canada had approved the use of the Canadian Red Ensign on government buildings abroad,78and, by 1945, its use was approved on federal buildings within Canada (although it was usually flown in conjunction with the Royal Union Flag) “until Parliament should adopt a national flag.”79That subtle declaration was as close as St-Laurent would come in articulating his desire to see a new national flag. The public opinion polls, especially in English Canada, were not in favour of the initiative. The issue unquestionably struck at the British aspect of the Canadian identity, with a 1952 survey revealing 46 percent of respondents wanted a new flag. By 1953, this had dropped to 39 percent.80 Changes were also made to Victoria Day, which was first officially observed in 1899, although its commemoration could be traced back in the United Canadas to 1851. Victoria Day, which was known as “Empire Day” in other parts of the Commonwealth and some parts of English Canada, was “designated for the celebration of the Queens birthday.”81 The new name was first invoked in 1952, more formally discussed in 1955, and finally made official in 1956.82 This laid to rest any question of the persistence of “Empire Day,” tied the new sovereign to the much-venerated proverbial Mother of Confederation, and saw Canada establish an official birthday for its sovereign that was separate from that used in the United Kingdom. St-Laurent m ade changes to another im portant national symbol: the passport. With the coming into force of the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1947, and the establishment of national citizenship beyond British subjecthood, St-Laurent used his position as secretary of state for external affairs to end the pre-Confederation practice of having all passports issued under the name and signature of the governor general on behalf of “His/Her Britannic Majesty.” This phraseology was replaced by a simple reference to the King and Canada, with the Royal Arms of Canada at the top of the page.83 References to the governor general, who was hitherto a British peer, were removed and replaced with a

324

Christopher McCreery

specific reference to the secretary of state for external affairs along with his sig­ nature at the bottom of the page in place of the governor general s personal coat of arms and signature. Furthermore, the new passport noted that the bearer is a “Canadian Citizen” and that “A Canadian Citizen is a British Subject.” The simplification and modernization of the Royal Arms of Canada, which had been adopted in 1921, was one of the last symbolic changes brought about by St-Laurent s government. There were two reasons for the change. The first was that “the Queen had expressed the wish that, in future designs, the crown should be the St. Edward s Crown with which she had been Crowned”;84however the changes were taken further. There was an effort to simplify the principal symbol of the states authority - which appeared on buildings, coinage, bank­ notes, passports, government letterhead, commissions, post boxes. All this to make the symbol easier to reproduce so that it could be used “for a wide variety of purposes.”85 The other lasting amendment was to change the maple leaves at the base of the arms from vert to gules. The red maple leaf, which would eventually find its way to the national flag of Canada in 1965, was brought into official usage.

Honours Since the time of Laurier, following the 1901 royal tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (the future King George V and Queen Mary), Canadian prime ministers had struggled with the issue of honours and the bestowal of British honours upon Canadian residents.86 By the end of the First World War the Canadian polity had become increasingly critical of the honours system, which had come to be identified with eastern domination, party cor­ ruption, and out of date habits of deference.87The matter would ultimately come to a head as the Armistice was declared. Sir Robert Borden took effective control over all honours conferred upon Canadians,88while the Nickle Resolution that was approved by Parliament saw a virtual end of all civilian honours. Aside from a brief period during R.B. Bennetts premiership, and the last three years of the Second World War when William Lyon Mackenzie King allowed for the conferral of non-titular honours upon Canadian civilians as a mechanism to recognize wartime service, the proverbial font of honours had run dry.89 Mackenzie King in particular had a phobia of anything related to the conferral of honours; “when I saw honours and awards still on the agenda, I said, quite frankly it annoyed me every time.”90 Nevertheless, on paper the government of Canada still retained the ability to recommend citizens for British

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

325

honours, without reference to the British government, as the ability to make recommendations had been fully patriated.91 There had been a few innovations that charted the course towards a wholly Canadian honours system, eventually independent of its British counterpart. The gradual move towards a Canadian honours system began with the estab­ lishment of the RCMP Long Service Medal in 1934 by George V, which marked the creation of the first honour by the Crown in right of Canada in the postStatute of Westminster period. Mackenzie King had reluctantly agreed to the creation of the Canada Medal in 1943, which was to be awarded to everyone from able seamen to field marshals, but this medal was never conferred. St-Laurent’s approach to the thorny question of honours for Canadians - be it British honours or some form of Canadian recognition - revealed his cau­ tious approach to augmenting the symbolic landscape too swiftly or too dra­ matically. It also provided a window into his sensitive understanding of issues that, although seemingly minute in scope, could become a political liability or source of great controversy. By 1949, at the insistence of the Department of National Defence and its minister, Brooke Claxton, who was keenly aware of the importance of symbols,92 a new Canadianized and simplified long service decoration was adopted for members of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force - the Canadian Forces’ Decoration.93 This replaced a total of ten other decorations and medals that were awarded throughout the Commonwealth. Given the egalitarian and equal nature of the honour, in that it was awarded for a set period of service in the military regard­ less of rank, branch of service, or whether one was a member of the permanent armed forces or the militia/reserves, it was a first for honours of this type in the Commonwealth. Similarly, when it came time to create a medal for those serv­ ing in the Korean War, the Queens Korea War Medal was established by Canada after cabinet declined the British offer to use a common medal along with Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.94 These were all ad hoc innovations to the existing British honours system that Canada was using. The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences received a host of submissions from various individuals and national organizations calling for Canada to either resume using the British honours system to recognize outstanding citizens or to create its own system of Canadian orders, decorations, and medals. The Royal Society of Canada, along with a num ber of veterans organizations, noted that “this country should have its own O rders... and that through them the Dominion might confer fitting distinctions and appropriate honours upon those whom it delighted to honour.”95

326

Christopher McCreery

Such proposals delighted the commissions chair, Vincent Massey, who had been proposing the establishment of a Canadian honour since the 1930s.96 This was a subject to which Massey had given a great deal of thought, having consulted widely with everyone from George VI and former governors general down to various members of the British Empire Service Legion.97 Massey re­ turned to the proposal first made by Viscount Monck in 1866 for the establish­ ment of the Order of St. Lawrence.98 The commission dismissed the possibility of reintroducing titular honours such as knighthoods in Canada, while it rec­ ommended a five-level Order of St. Lawrence, with an associated medal. The proposal for the Order of St. Lawrence appeared to be similar to the Order of the British Empire and Frances Légion d ’honneur in structure but not in other aspects. It was the third section of the confidential report that would prove the most revolutionary in the world of honours. The m ethod for making ap­ pointments to the order was to be different from the old system, in which each government department submitted a list of names and the prime minister had the authority to include or exclude whomever he wanted before sending the list to the King. The commission proposed that a non-political committee be estab­ lished to make recommendations of who should be nominated to receive an honour.99 Although this non-political composition was quite a departure from other systems, such as those utilized in Britain, France, and the countries of Western Europe, it was the final part of the selection process that signalled a break with the old practice of using honours as patronage tools. It guaranteed “that the government of the day consider no appointments to the Order, save those which have received the approval of the Honours Committee.” In other words, the prime minister and cabinet were to be summarily deprived of their ability to have colleagues and supporters honoured. It is from this proposal that the origins of the non-partisan selection m ethod now employed for the Order of Canada would originate. The Honours Committee, like the Massey Commission itself, was to be a creature of official Ottawa. The committee was to be composed of what Paul Litt has defined as “the quasi-official academic elite.”100 This group was well connected with the federal government. If the order was to promote a national idea of Canada, it would have to be broad enough to “honour the humble for their contributions.”101 It would also have to be able to select those contributions that were truly national in scope. Massey wrote St-Laurent on 16 July 1951, outlining the necessity for the government to consider the founding of a Canadian order. In closing, he stated: “Now I am very pleased to be able to present to you our views on this special

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

327

subject which are subscribed to by all the Commissioners.”102 So interested in the project was Massey that he personally presented a draft of the proposal to the prime minister on 9 August. St-Laurent assured Massey: “I shall take the earliest opportunity of bringing to the attending of my colleagues the report.”103 What St-Laurent did not know was that Massey had already secured the support of the King, having sent a copy of the revised proposal to His Majesty several months earlier!104 The final copy of the Report of the Royal Commission was tabled in the House of Commons on 1 June 1951. St-Laurent had requested that the com­ mission submit its report on honours separately. This move was made in con­ tempt of Parliament, although it would not be until fairly recently that this fact was unearthed. This was an elaborate attempt to keep the proposal out of the press. In making the honours report separate, St-Laurent and Massey had willingly falsified the official record. Mention of honours was expunged from “the Prime M inisters letter as it was reprinted in the reports opening pages.”105 Honours, like the adoption of a distinctive national flag, were too full of risk and potential division to invest much political capital in when the tangible benefits remained so ethereal. The proposal was transferred from Massey directly to the prime minister, who examined it and passed it on to the leaders of the other parties, in what can only be taken as evidence of his ecumenical approach to a sensitive symbolic issue. St-Laurent emphasized the need to keep the issue as uncontroversial as possible, merely stating: “the government has reached no conclusion whatever on the matter but it will have to be dealt with in some fashion sooner or later.”106 Cabinet was informed of the proposal through a memorandum circulated on 29 August 1951.107Aside from the potential controversy involved in reintrodu­ cing honours to Canada there was the more practical consideration of the name of the new order, which was very similar to the prime minister s surname. One can only imagine the potential for mischief among the press and opposition parties with the spectre of Prime Minister St-Laurent handing out the Order of St. Lawrence. The prime minister lost interest in the subject, having been en­ couraged to do so by J.W. Pickersgill, who had no interest in honours.108 The document was not included in the final report of the Royal Commission. It was marked secret and buried in the back of the prime m inisters files.109 Although the changes that St-Laurent made to aspects of the Crown, sym­ bols, rituals, and honours can certainly be taken as “not revolutionary in na­ ture,” to borrow from his 1946 comments, the innovations and augmentations were, nevertheless, significant and lasting. St-Laurent ensured a prominent role for Canada in the coronation, and his other changes collectively did much to

328

Christopher McCreery

increase the Canadian character of the Crown, while remaining cautious about a direct assault upon Canadas British connection. Through emphasizing the multi-national nature of the newly formed Commonwealth, St-Laurent was also able to ensure Canada’s continued prominence in that international or­ ganization while decreasing reliance on the link to Britain alone. It was there­ fore possible to loosen ties with Britain while strengthening them with the Commonwealth as a broader organization. Diefenbaker would continue with a number of symbolic developments, notably the extensive use of the revised Royal Arms of Canada, which was approved in 1957, and the adoption of the Queens personal Canadian flag in 1962, which replaced the Royal Standard and would be emulated by other realms.110 It would also be Diefenbaker who laid the foundation for the Centennial Commission and the Queens 1967 Centennial Tour, although he did not get to participate in it as prime minister. Like his predecessor, Diefenbaker refused to touch the issue of honours or entertain any discussion of abandoning the Canadian Red Ensign.111 It would be Pearson who would push forward to adopt a new national flag and advance the creation of a national honours system, beginning with the establishment of the Order of Canada in 1967. We should not forget that it would not be until 1977 that Canadian citizens ceased to be British subjects, and not until 1980 that “O Canada” would be declared the national anthem. The process of transforming the Crown, rituals, and symbols from those of a British dominion into an independent Commonwealth realm was more complex, extended, and multifaceted than simply adopting the Statute of Westminster and replacing Union Jacks with maple leaves. St-Laurent played a significant role in revising the symbols and rituals that we continue to associate with the Canadian Crown and the federal state. The result of these efforts remains part of the legal constitutional framework within which Canada continues to operate and, so far from being simply a historical remnant, is subtly woven into the socio-cultural fabric and life of m odern Canada.

Notes 1 David E. Smith, The Invisible Crown; The First Principles of Canadian Government (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 46. 2 “St-Laurent Research Material” quoting Liberal Newsletter No. 5, March 1951, McGill University Archives (hereafter MUA), Dale Thomson Fonds, MG 2040, C. 13, F283. 3 Robert Holland, Susan Williams, and Terry Barringer, eds., The Iconography o f Independence: Freedom at Midnight (Oxford: Routledge, 2010), 4. 4/Philip Murphy, Monarchy and the End o f Empire: The House of Windsor, theBritish Gov­ ernment and the Postwar Commonwealth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 7.

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

329

5 Brendan Sexton, Ireland and the Crown, 1922-1936: The Governor Generalship o f the Irish Free State (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1989). 6 Peter Boyce, The Queens Other Realms: The Crown and Its Legacy in Australia, Canada and New Zealand (Sydney: Federation Press, 2008), 29. See also James Curran and Stuart Ward, The Unknown Nation: Australia after Empire (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2010), 8. 7 Curran and Ward, Unknown Nation, 35. 8 Philip Buchner, ed., Canada and the End o f Empire (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 7. 9 (jDavid E. Smith, The Constitution in a Hall o f Mirrors: Canada at 150 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 34. 10 John English, The Worldly Years: The Life o f Lester B. Pearson, vol. 2 ,1949-1972 (Toronto: Knopf, 1992), 77. 11 Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 334. 12 Manual o f Official Procedure o f the Government o f Canada, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Privy Council Office, 1967), 572. 13 See extended discussion by St-Laurent in Cabinet Conclusions, 2 May 1952, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2650. 14 Robert Bothwell, “Louis Stephen St-Laurent,” Dictionary o f Canadian Biography, http:// www.biographi.ca/en/bio/st_laurent_louis_stephen_20E.html. 15 Buchner, Canada and the End, 68. 16 It was only in relation to the adoption of the Royal Style and Title Act, 1953, that Diefen­ baker lauded St-Laurent and the government on its treatment of the monarchy. “It was a most moving address to which we have just listened” noted Diefenbaker in response to St-Laurent’s explanation of the act. George Drew, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, was equally complimentary. See House of Commons, Debates, 3 February 1953 (J.G. Diefenbaker). 17 John G. Diefenbaker, One Canada: Memoirs o f the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker - The Years o f Achievement, 1957-62 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), 61. 18 Ibid. 19 Buchner, Canada and the End, 86. See also Cara Spittal, “The Diefenbaker Moment” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2011). 20 Letters Patent Constituting the Office o f the Governor General 1947 (Ottawa: Kings Printer, 1947). 21 The Letters Patent, 1947 withhold the power to amend the Letters Patent, and the appoint­ ment or dismissal of a governor general. Similarly, the Letters Patent do not allow the sovereign to delegate to the governor general any of the prerogative powers which the sovereign holds with respect to the provinces. 22 Peter Hogg, Constitutional Law o f Canada (Toronto: Carswell, 1985), 3. 23 There remain a few elements of the sovereigns prerogative that have never been exercised /b y the governor general. For a full discussion of the Letters Patent, 1947, see Christopher ' McCreery, “Myth and Misunderstanding: The Origins and Meaning of the Letters Patent Constituting the Office of the Governor General,” in The Evolving Canadian Crown, ed. Jennifer Smith and Michael Jackson (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), 31-54. 24 The elements of the royal prerogative that constituted part of the “existing practice” and required submission to the sovereign for approval were: (1) signatures of full powers for the signing of treaties in the heads of state form, and signature of ratification of such treat­ ies; (2) approval of the appointment of Canadian ambassadors and ministers to foreign

f

330

Christopher McCreery

countries, and signature of their letters of credence; (3) approval of the proposed appoint­ ment of foreign ambassadors and ministers to Canada (i.e., granting the agrément)-, (4) au­ thorizing declarations of war; (5) appointment of the governor general of Canada; (6) granting of honours, including the creation of; (7) amendments to the Letters Patent constituting the Office of the Governor General; (8) alterations in the elements of the royal prerogative that were to be referred to the sovereign, commonly referred to as “existing practice”; (9) alterna­ tions in the Royal Style and Title; (10) changes to the Canadian table of titles; (11) changes in the Canadian table of precedence; (12) granting of royal patronage; (13) appointment of colonels-in-chief of Canadian regiments; (14) designs for Canadian coinage bearing the sovereigns effigy; (15) appointment of the Canadian secretary to the Queen; (16) permission for the inclusions of the Crown in Canadian grants of arms and badges. Some of the royal prerogatives constituting the “existing practice” pre-dated 1947 but were only defined as the issues arose or required attention. This was the case for items ( 1) to (14) but not for (15) and ( 16). For instance, when the Letters Patent were brought into force in October 1947, there was no such person or office as the Canadian secretary to the Queen. Elements of the royal prerogative contained in the list have come to be exercised by the l/govemor general on a regular basis without direct consultation with the sovereign. However, this has only been achieved after often lengthy discussions between an array of senior of­ ficials, culminating with the Queen and her Canadian prime minister. 25 St-Laurent to Cabinet, 11 March 1946, LAC, St-Laurent Papers, MG 26 K. 26 Andrew Heard, Canadian Constitutional Conventions: The Marriage o f Law and Politics (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2014), 36. 27 Ibid. 28 Vincent Massey, What's Past Is Prologue, The Memoirs o f the Right Honourable Vincent Massey (Toronto: Macmillan, 1963), 456. 29 This was accomplished with an element of public scepticism. See Australian Dictionary of Biography, entry for Sir Isaac Isaacs, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/isaacs-sir-isaac -alfred-6805. 30 “Extract from a letter written by the Prime Minister regarding the appointment of a Can­ adian Governor General,” 1951, MUA, Dale Thomson Fonds, MG 2040, C. 10, F22. 31 R. MacGregor Dawson, revised by Norman Ward, The Government o f Canada, 4th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 178. 32 Massey, What’s Past, 465. 33 Mildred A. Schwartz, Public Opinion and Canadian Identity (Berkley: University of Cali­ fornia Press, 1967), 112. 34 Of the twelve lieutenant-governors appointed under St-Laurent, only two had no direct affiliation with the Liberal Party. Such appointments remained patronage plums and sine­ cures for MPs, MLAs, and other senior party faithful. Four were appointed directly out of political life: Louis Orville Breithaupt was appointed lieutenant-governor of Ontario while serving as a member of Parliament; William Patterson, the premier of Saskatchewan from 1935 to 1944, was appointed lieutenant-governor of that province in 1951 after declining to run in the 1948 provincial election; John S. McDiarmid was appointed lieutenantgovernor of Manitoba in 1952 while serving as a member of the Legislative Assembly; Gaspard Fauteaux was appointed lieutenant-governor of Quebec while a serving member of Parliament. 35 House of Commons, Debates, 9 September 1939 (Maxime Raymond). 36 When Canada declared war in 1939, it was George VI as sovereign of Canada who signed the proclamation declaring that a state of war existed. Vincent Massey, then the Canadian

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

331

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59

high commissioner, had to rush out to Windsor Castle to have the King sign the document on 9 September at 1:08 GMT, 8:08 a.m. Ottawa time. Mackenzie King was adamant that the declaration be signed by the King and not the governor general to thereby demonstrate the independent action being taken by His Majesty’s Canadian Government as separate from the Government of the United Kingdom. See Mackenzie King Diary, 9 September 1939, LAC, MG 26 J5. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 319. London Declaration, 26 April 1949. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 164-65. See also Anne Twomey, The Chameleon Crown: The Queen and Her Australian Governors (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2006), 105. E.J. Verwey, ed., Dictionary o f South African Biography, vol. 4 (Pretoria: HSRC Publishers, 1995), 115. House of Commons, Debates, 3 February 1953 (Louis St-Laurent). Ibid. House of Commons, Debates, 3 February 1953 (Louis St-Laurent). Serge Joyal, “The Oath of Allegiance: A New Perspective,” in The Canadian Kingdom, ed. D. Michael Jackson (Toronto: Dundurn, 2018), 139. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 164. Herbert J. Spiro, Government by Constitution (New York: Random House, 1959), 377. Edward Shils and Michael Young, “The Meaning of the Coronation,” Sociological Review 1,2(1953): 63-81. A.R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation: A History o f Canada (Toronto: Longmans, Green and Company, 1946). Kenneth Munro, “Canada as Reflected in Her Participation in the Coronation of Her Monarchy in the Twentieth Century,” Journal o f Historical Sociology 14,1 (2001): 42. Ibid., 39. Cabinet Conclusions, 12 January 1953, LAC RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2652. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 527. Cabinet Conclusions, 8 May 1952, LAC RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2650. Munro, “Canada as Reflected,” 30. Cabinet Conclusions, 14 January 1953, LAC RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2652. State ceremonial is routinely displayed on occasions such as the Speech from the Throne, the installation of a governor general, and state funerals. The trip was initially delayed due to George VTs illness. St-Laurent was particularly con­ cerned about the King’s health and the complications that would arise if the King were to die while Princess Elizabeth was in Canada. See Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 145. Cabinet Conclusions, 3 July 1951, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2648. Leader of the CCF, M.J. Coldwell, was particularly taken with the production: “Everywhere it has been shown as to colour, technique and conceptions, as one of the outstanding films of modern times. The national film board is to be congratulated on the magnificence of the production.” See House of Commons, Debates, 30 April 1952 (M.J. Coldwell). The 1939 tour by George VI and Queen Elizabeth featured a much higher degree of rigid protocol and formality, as was the norm in prewar Canada. See Tom MacDonnell, Daylight upon Magic (Toronto: Macmillan, 1989), 48. Sir Joseph Pope’s memoirs contain some additional detail on the earlier royal tours of 1901 and 1919, which included a significant amount of formality and rigid adherence to precedence. See Maurice Pope, ed., Public Servant: The Memoirs of Sir Joseph Pope (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 135.

332

Christopher McCreery

Diefenbaker, One Canada, 60. Buchner, Canada and the End, 66-94. Cabinet Conclusions, 2 March 1957, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 1892. The busiest year by far was 1954, which saw official visits by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duchess of Kent, and Princess Alexandra of Kent. The Princess Royal visited in 1955, and in 1958 the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Margaret visited Canada. 64 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 354-55. 65 Christian Champion, The Strange Death of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Na­ tionalism, 1964-1968 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2010), 3-15. 66 Ibid., 280. 67 House of Commons, Debates, 8 November 1951 (Louis St-Laurent). 68 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 159. 69 Ibid., 162. 70 Eugene Forsey, “And When They Were Only Half-Way Up, They Were Neither Up Nor Down’ the Assault on ‘Dominion,’” LAC, Eugene Forsey Papers, MG 30 A25, vol. 54, file 30. 71 George Grant to Eugene Forsey, 29 February 1952, LAC, George Grant Papers, MG 30, A26, vol. 3. 72 J.E. Hodgetts, The Sound of One Voice: Eugene Forsey and His Letters to the Press (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 216. 73 Ottawa Citizen, 6 March 1952. As a result of a 1946 bill to change the name of “Dominion Day” to “Canada Day” editorials against the change were run in the Calgary Herald, Toronto Globe and Mail, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Kingston Whig Standard, London Free Press, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, and St. John Globe. 74 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 161. 75 The government occasionally baited the opposition, notably the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, George Drew, with things like the Department o f External Affairs Journal 6 , 8 (1952), which carried the article “Observances of Canada Day [not Dominion Day] Abroad.” 76 Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, 321. 77 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 165. 78 Conrad Swan, Canadian Symbols o f Sovereignty (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 78. 79 Ibid. 80 The surveys referenced were published on 5 March 1952 and 30 June 1953, respectively. See Mildred A. Schwartz, Public Opinion and Canadian Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 107. 81 Cabinet Conclusions, 3 January 1957, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 1892. 82 Cabinet Conclusions, 30 November 1955, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 2659. 83 The opening page of the new passport carried the following text: “CANADA, The Secre­ tary of State for External Affairs of Canada requests in the name of His Majesty the King...” 84 Cabinet Conclusions, 9 May 1957, LAC, RG 2, series A-5-a, vol. 1892. 85 Ibid. 86 Christopher McCreery, The Order of Canada; Genesis of an Honours System (Toronto: Uni­ versity of Toronto Press, 2018), chap. 1.

50 51 52 53

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

333

87 Ibid., 25.

88 Order-in-Council 1918-668. 89 Aside from the brief revival of the practice of the Canadian government recommending civilian residents of Canada for British honours between 1932 and 1935 and 1943 and 1946. The sporadic conferral of British bravery decorations, on the advice of the government of Canada, continued until 1968. 90 Mackenzie King Diary, 30 September 1943, LAC, MG 26 J5. King had been offered a knighthood in 1934 and refused. And he would vacillate over accepting the Order of Merit from George VI in 1947 - accepting only after receiving consent from the cabinet. See Mackenzie King to St-Laurent, 19 November 1947, LAC, MG 26 Jl. See also, McCreery, Order of Canada, chap. 4. 91 Canada continued to work within a very narrow aspect of the British honours system for military and police long service and bravery medals. The last time the government of Canada recommended that the Queen in right of Canada confer a British honour was in 1968. 92 Claxton was also responsible for replacing the Royal Union Flag on all government build­ ings under his authority with the Canadian Red Ensign. See David Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life o f Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 150. 93 Christopher McCreery The Canadian Forces’Decoration (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 2010), 20. 94 Department of National Defence, Directorate of History and Heritage, 75/506, memoran­ dum to cabinet, Order of Canada and Canada Medal, September 1952. 95 Resolution of the Royal Society of Canada, 1951, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter UTA), Massey Papers. 96 Mackenzie King to Vincent Massey, 9 June 1946, LAC, Mackenzie King Papers, MG 26 Jl, 369, 423. 97 Sir Alec Hardinge to Sir Robert Knox, 25 April 1940, Royal Archives, PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ HON 0596/001. 98 Viscount Monck to Lord Carnarvon, 7 September 1866, LAC, Monck Papers, MG 27 Bl. 99 Confidential Report on Honours and Awards, 1951, LAC, Lochnan Papers, R 5769. 100 Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of To­ ronto Press, 1992), 35. 101 Ibid., 193. 102 Massey to St-Laurent, 16 July 1951, UTA, Massey Papers. 103 St-Laurent to Massey 9 August 1951, UTA, Massey Papers. 104 Sir Alan Lascelles to Vincent Massey, 20 April 1951, UTA, Massey Papers. Massey posted a copy of the proposal in early April 1951, but it was not until 16 July that he presented St-Laurent with the same proposal. 105 Litt, Muses, 194. The commission seemed more concerned with how the prime minister and press would react than with being accused of creating an elitist institution. 106 St-Laurent to George Drew, 6 September 1951, LAC, St-Laurent Papers, MG 26 K. 107 Memorandum to Cabinet 216-51,29 August 1951, LAC, Lochnan Papers, R 5769, vol. 12. 108 Pickersgill opposed honours and had little use for them. During debate in the House of Commons on 6 November 1963, when asked about the Canada Medal, he commented, “as this question [about awarding the Canada Medal], has been outstanding for 20 years it does not seem to me to be urgent.” See House of Commons, Debates, 22 July 1963 (J.W. Pickersgill). In 1967, when the cabinet discussed creating the Order of Canada, Pickersgill opposed the whole project: “The subject of honours is hydra-headed. It should be kept

334

Christopher McCreery

[09

110 / 111

submerged from 1952 and all of 1953, and hopefully in that way it will be gotten rid of” See J.W. Pickersgill to Brooke Claxton, 30 September 1952, LAC, Lochnan Papers, R 5769, vol. 12. Massey to St-Laurent, 1951, LAC, Lochnan Papers, R 5769, vol. 12, excerpts from confi­ dential report on honours and awards by Rt. Hon. Vincent Massey and members of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, 1951, three recommendations. Sean Palmer, “The Path to Nationalization: How the Realms Have Made the Monarchy Their Own,” in The Canadian Kingdom, ed. D. Michael Jackson (Toronto: Dundurn, 2018), 207. McCreery, Order o f Canada, 127-28.

The Crown, Rituals, and Symbols

335

_________________ chapter St-Laurent, Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty in the Shadow of the Cold War PHILIP GIRARD

Louis St-Laurent was a lawyer’s lawyer. Gold medallist in his law class at Laval, he was offered but declined the university’s first Rhodes Scholarship. He went on to build up the most successful law firm in Quebec City, where his careful preparation, calmly assured style, and fluent bilingualism attracted a large clien­ tele. It was more common than now to combine the practice of a corporate solicitor with courtroom appearances in high-profile constitutional cases, and St-Laurent excelled at both. By the 1920s, he was appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In 1929 he was bâtonnier of Quebec, and from 1930 to 1932 served as president of the Can­ adian Bar Association. The King government entrusted to him the defence of the Bennett government’s New Deal legislation before the Privy Council in 1937, after which he acted as co-counsel before the Rowell-Sirois Commission with James McGregor Stewart of Halifax (see Wardhaugh and Ferguson, Chapter 6, this volume). By the time Mackenzie King asked St-Laurent to become minister of justice in 1941, he was one of the best-known lawyers in Canada. Given these credentials, it is reasonable to ask what impact St-Laurent and his government had on Canada’s justice system. This chapter focuses on three justice-related files: the St-Laurent government’s approach to the Supreme Court of Canada, especially its reform in 1949; judicial appointments in general; and the administration of the death penalty via the cabinet’s exercise of the preroga­ tive of mercy. This assessment often compares the record of St-Laurent’s govern­ m ent with those of its predecessor and successor in order to better locate its efforts on the spectrum of continuity versus change.

St-Laurent, the young jurist, 1921. Parks C a n a d a c o lle c tio n /M a u lt a n d Fox, Lo ndon, co u rte sy o f Ms. Je a n Thérèse Riley

St-Laurent succeeded King’s long-time Quebec lieutenant Ernest Lapointe in the justice portfolio, and he held it for five years (from 1941 to 1946). As prime minister, he would rely heavily on his own minister of justice, Stuart Garson, who held the post throughout the entirety of St-Laurent’s prime m in­ istership. Indeed, Garson would have the second-longest unbroken tenure of any minister of justice in Canada, after Charles Doherty, who served for ten years (from 1911 to 1921) under Borden and Meighen. Lapointe served for more years, twelve and a half, under King, but his tenure was divided into three separate periods between 1924 and 1941. Garson is something of a cypher in Canadian history in spite of his long and successful political career in Manitoba and federal politics. Born in Ontario

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

337

in 1898, he moved with his parents as a child to Manitoba. He qualified as a lawyer there and practised law in the small town of Ashern, also home to J.W. Pickersgill, until his election to the Manitoba legislature as a Progressive in 1927. Garson was one of the architects of the Liberal-Progressive coalition that would govern Manitoba for many years; he joined the cabinet as provincial treasurer in 1936, then served as premier from 1943 until St-Laurent asked him to join the federal cabinet late in 1948. St-Laurent had first run across Garson during the Rowell-Sirois Commission hearings and shared Mackenzie Kings high opinion of him. According to Pickersgill, King “regarded Garson as the ablest and best informed provincial participant in the postwar federal-provincial conferences and the subsequent negotiation of the tax rental agreements,” and repeatedly sought to have him join the federal cabinet.1 Garson was not keen on serving under King but felt differently about St-Laurent. He won a seat in a by-election in the riding of Marquette, Manitoba, a month after being sworn into the cabinet, just as St-Laurent himself had won a seat after joining King’s cabinet. Context does matter. The Cold War cast a long shadow over St-Laurent’s tenure as prim e minister. He was minister of justice during the proceedings of the notorious Royal Commission on Espionage, and prime minister when the communists took power in China, during the Korean War, and throughout the years of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s ascendancy in the United States. The global security environment was tense, while at home St-Laurent had to take account of the intensely anti-communist government of Maurice Duplessis. Emerging issues of civil liberties and hum an rights divided the legal profession. Many lawyers spoke out strongly against the abuses of the Royal Commission on Espionage, established in the wake of the revelations of Soviet spying made by embassy clerk Igor Gouzenko. In doing so, they helped to give birth to the postwar civil liberties movement; by contrast, both the American Bar Association and the Canadian Bar Association spoke out against the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. St-Laurent too opposed it, fear­ ing that it would provide communists with access to civil service positions and freedom of speech. Canadas decision to join the Soviet bloc in abstaining on the vote in the Third Committee of the General Assembly, before voting in favour on the final vote, was a shock to our allies.2 Sexual minorities and left-wingers were targets during these years, as any form of non-conformism was seen as potentially disloyal. American pressure was partly responsible for the adoption of a ban on “homosexuals” in the Immigration Act, 1952, the first time the word was ever used in a Canadian statute.3A focus on rooting out those with “character weaknesses” from the civil

338

Philip Girard

service also developed during these years, though the campaign appears to have been more intense during the Diefenbaker and Pearson years than earlier, and the infamous “fruit machine” experiment dates from the early 1960s.4With regard to secret mass surveillance of telephone conversations in order to detect disloyalty, however, the St-Laurent government was precocious, as revealed in Dennis Molinaro’s recent work.5 While these matters are not the focus of this chapter, they provide some indispensable background.

Renewal at the Supreme Court: Minimalist Modernity St-Laurent presided over the biggest change in Canadian judicature since the founding of the Supreme C ourt of Canada: the abolition of appeals to the Judi­ cial Committee of the Privy Council and the enlargement of the Supreme Court from seven to nine members. The heavy lifting on this file had been done under King, who had referred the question of the constitutionality of such a move to the Supreme C ourt in 1939. Its confirmation of the constitutional validity of the proposed reform was upheld by the Judicial Committee itself in 1946, the appeal having been delayed by the war. But then King hesitated to proceed and referred the matter to the Liberal Party convention of 1948, the same convention that named St-Laurent as Kings successor. W hen it adopted a resolution in favour of termination the way was clear for St-Laurent to act, which his govern­ ment did soon after the Liberal win in June 1949.6 Given that the Supreme Court Act would have to be amended, the govern­ ment initiated a consultative process in order to elicit the views of legal profes­ sionals on other possible changes to the structure and jurisdiction of the Court. Stuart Garson asked Wilbur Jackett, the assistant deputy minister of justice, to assemble figures comparing the caseload of the Supreme Court of Canada with that of various courts of last resort, including the House of Lords and the High Court of Australia. The caseload of the seven judges in Ottawa turned out not to be crushing by any means, the Court having heard 56 appeals in 1946,61 in 1947, and 72 in 1948. The High Court of Australia, also with seven judges, heard more than twice that num ber over the same period. And if one did think the Supreme Courts caseload was too high, there were other ways of dealing with it than increasing the num ber of judges. Chief Justice Farris of British Col­ umbia suggested raising the threshold for appeals as of right from $2,000 to $20,000.7 This move would have reduced the num ber of appeals heard during those years by between a quarter and a third, and given the Court much more control over its docket, but it was not pursued. Like most governments over the next quarter-century, St-Laurent’s did not relish the prospect of being seen to

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

339

cut down access to the Supreme Court, even if that meant it was obliged to hear cases that were of no lasting significance to anyone beyond the involved parties.8 The case for enlargement of the Supreme Court thus rested more on sym­ bolism than on any pressing claim based on the size of its caseload. The increase in size was a fairly late development, the draft bill presented to cabinet in December 1948 not providing for it.9A whole variety of other blue sky propos­ als for altering the Court were rejected, and, in the end, the Supreme Court Act, 1949, accomplished the bare m inim um expected: it cut off appeals to the Judi­ cial Committee and enlarged the Court by two but did not otherwise alter it in point of structure or jurisdiction. One of the new positions was officially reserved for a Quebec jurist while the other was unofficially earmarked for Ontario in order to maintain parity between the two provinces. The identity of those named to the new positions was a closely guarded secret; at least, no discussion of potential candidates seems to have appeared in the media before their appointments were announced on 22 December 1949. Gérald Fauteux was a judge of the Quebec Superior Court and dean of the McGill Faculty of Law at the time, while John Cartwright was a highly respected senior litigator from Toronto, but the appointments of both were headlined in the media with respect to their roles in the Gouzenko affair. A profile of Cartwright run by the Globe and Mail the day after the announcement, com­ plete with large photo, ran with the headline “New Career for Spy Prosecutor,” while another article began with the observation that “two men prominent in Canadas postwar spy probe” had been appointed to the Supreme Court. The only fact mentioned about the two men by the New York Times in an article noting the abolition of Privy Council appeals was that “both had been promin­ ent in the 1946 inquiry into Russian espionage.”10 Fauteux had been co-counsel to the Royal Commission on Espionage, run by Justices Kellock and Taschereau of the Supreme Court of Canada, while Cart­ wright had been named to prosecute those charged with espionage-related offences following the commissions inquiry. Cartwright had a certain reputa­ tion as a civil libertarian, but he must have had to put those instincts aside in his prosecutorial role, given the various abuses that occurred during the com­ mission’s proceedings. None of the commissions actions was illegal, but the way in which it permitted suspects to be coerced into giving confessions that would then be used against them in criminal proceedings was decried by many observers, including Liberal senator A rthur Roebuck. Indeed, Fauteux’s co-counsel E.K. Williams had advised Mackenzie King to proceed by way of royal commission precisely because of the difficulty of securing convictions

340

Philip Girard

based on the evidence that would be available through an ordinary criminal proceeding. '1 If C artw rights role as a cold warrior was somewhat out of character, Fauteuxs was not. His role at the commission, along with that of Williams, was highly controversial among a segment of the legal profession. W hen a m o­ tion to censure the government’s m anner of dealing with the suspected spies was debated at the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) annual meeting in 1946, it would in effect have censured Fauteux himself as counsel to the commission had it passed, but only a watered down version was adopted.12Fauteuxs perceived loyalty and anti-communist credentials also played a role in his being named dean of law at McGill at a time when the highly conservative board of governors was desperately trying to avoid appointing either of the obvious candidates, Frank Scott and John Humphrey. Both men were perceived as too left wing, an opinion in which Fauteux concurred.13 Adding an operatic twist to this scen­ ario, one of the most adamant opponents of Frank Scott was his brother William, a leading member of the Anglo Montreal bar, whom St-Laurent would name as associate chief justice of the Superior Court of Montreal in 1951. Scott had also strongly opposed the motion to condemn the government at the 1946 CBA meeting, in effect supporting Fauteuxs work with the Commission on Espio­ nage and St-Laurent’s role in helping to set it up. The new appointments to the Supreme Court brought much praise for St-Laurent. Cartwright and Fauteux were both highly respected and experi­ enced professionals, albeit without much direct judicial experience (Fauteux had only two years’ experience on the Quebec Superior Court). Their Cold War credentials reassured an anxious public at a time of renewed international ten­ sions, while for lawyers, they provided a certain ballast for the Supreme Court as it embarked on its new role as the court of last resort in Canada. St-Laurent made two other appointments to the Supreme Court during his tenure, naming Douglas Abbott in 1954 and Henry Nolan in 1956. Three of these four men were appointed straight from the bar with no judicial experi­ ence, in a pattern similar to the practice of Mackenzie King: of King’s ten prior appointments to the Supreme Court only four had had judicial experience. Diefenbaker’s four appointments would be half and half, while from Pearson onwards appointments direct from the bar to the Supreme C ourt would be­ come highly exceptional. O f the next ten appointments after Diefenbaker, under Pearson, Trudeau, and Clark, only two of the judges came from outside the judiciary, Louis-Philippe de Grandpré and Yves Pratte, and neither of them lasted very long on the Court. St-Laurent’s Supreme Court appointments convey the traditional idea that such a position was the fitting capstone to a sterling

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

341

professional career rather than being driven by any particular vision of what the Supreme Court itself should become now that it had achieved its long-sought supremacy. Such an attitude was manifest in St-Laurent’s most controversial appoint­ ment, that of Douglas Abbott directly from the cabinet to take the Quebec seat vacated by the retirement of Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret in 1954. Such an event had not occurred since Laurier’s day, when the latter named Charles Fitzpatrick as chief justice of Canada directly from his cabinet in 1906, followed by Louis-Philippe Brodeur in 1911. Abbott remained on the Court for nearly twenty years but managed to keep a very low profile during that entire time. Peter McCormick reports that, during his first nine years on the court, Abbott “signed on with the majority more often than any other judge except Fauteux, and he wrote less often than any other judge.”14W hen Abbott was interviewed in retirement by Snell and Vaughan for their book on the Supreme Court, he indicated that his translation to the Supreme C ourt was St-Laurent’s idea, but this seems unlikely.15According to J.W. Pickersgill, who was close to the events at the time, the motivation came from Abbott himself: he could have succeeded St-Laurent as prime minister but did not desire to do so, and he saw the Supreme Court appointment as a way of retiring from political life.16 Pickersgill recorded that St-Laurent “was attracted by the idea of [breaking with the tradition] which, up to that time, had denied to any lawyer from Quebec whose mother tongue was not French the chance to serve on the highest court.”17 That is not quite right, as Charles Fitzpatrick was an example of a Quebec anglo­ phone on the Court, albeit a Catholic one, but this precedent had never been followed. St-Laurent’s former law partner Antonin Galipeault, whom he had named chief justice of Quebec, prodded his friend about the appointment in a letter written a year after Abbott’s elevation: “en passant,” he queried, “à la Cour Suprême, n’avez-vous pas fait une concession en appellant notre ami Abbott? Ontario consentirait-elle à la nomination d’un juge canadien-français?”18 Abbotts appointm ent was paired with that of Patrick Kerwin as chief jus­ tice in succession to Rinfret. In one sense it was a business-as-usual appoint­ ment - Kerwin was the most senior judge, and by coincidence it could be said that the government was beginning a policy of rotating the chief justiceship between English and French candidates. The one fly in the ointment was Kerwin’s Catholicism. Having one Catholic succeed another in the chief justiceship was still somewhat controversial, even if they were from different linguistic com­ munities.19This is where the appointment of the Protestant Abbott did its work: from the ethno-religious point of view, Abbott’s and Kerwin’s appointments cancelled out each other’s potential negative impact.

342

Philip Girard

St-Laurent’s final appointment to the Supreme Court, Henry Nolan, had considerable potential. The first Rhodes Scholar ever named to the Court, he was a highly respected lawyer in Calgary. Nolan had been deputy judge ad­ vocate general during the Second World War and prosecuted war crimes before the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo. Unfortunately, he died suddenly after a year in office, just after St-Laurent’s government was defeated in 1957. In making the Supreme Court the court of last resort, St-Laurent was imple­ menting a policy already agreed upon under King. In other respects he was content to follow the status quo, and his appointees did not come close to chal­ lenging Ivan Rand’s role as the intellectual leader of the Court in the 1950s.20 Perhaps St-Laurent’s greatest contribution to the Supreme C ourt lay in his ef­ forts to increase the members’ salaries. By the late 1930s St-Laurent’s own income from law practice was about $50,000 per year, while the salaries of Supreme Court judges remained as they had been set in 1920, at $12,000 for the puisnes and $15,000 for the chief justice. As minister of justice, St-Laurent gave them their first raise in a quarter century in 1946, to $ 16,000 and $20,000, respectively, followed by another boost in 1949, to $20,000 and $25,000, respectively. If not exactly an enticement for senior lawyers in private practice, the augmented salaries at least enhanced the government’s bargaining position somewhat when trying to recruit the best candidates for the Court.21

Renewing the Postwar Judiciary: Glimpses of Modernity With regard to other judicial appointments St-Laurent was clearly most inter­ ested in those from Quebec, where he knew so many of the dramatis personae, and left the rest largely in the hands of Stuart Garson. In general, St-Laurent’s government continued the pattern set by Mackenzie King. Liberal senator J.C. Davis described accurately the combination of factors that went into judge­ making when writing about the replacement for a recently deceased Manitoba judge in 1949. “This vacancy is in the traditional English Speaking Catholic position in the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench. J.I. Morkin, K.C. is the only logical aspirant for this position on the grounds of professional standing, reli­ gion, language and service to the Liberal Party.”22 Applicants who wrote to St-Laurent, either on their own behalf or on behalf of others, generally touched on all these factors though not all correspondents mentioned service to the Liberal Party. Two themes run through St-Laurent’s approach to the judiciary. The first is his interest in supporting the judiciary through better salaries, pensions and travel expenses, and prompt appointments. His attentiveness to Supreme Court

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

343

of Canada salaries was matched by increases to those of federally appointed judges and to improvements in the pensions payable to their spouses. The latter could help to make up to some extent for the salary cut that many lawyers would take on judicial appointment. St-Laurent hated to leave judicial positions vacant and often had the successor to a particular position lined up so that he could be appointed on the very day that the incum bent retired. As the economy boomed and rates of litigation recovered from their wartime slump, St-Laurent was also receptive to pleas for adding extra judges to existing courts, many of which had been the same size for decades. St-Laurent’s government also gave back to the Northwest Territories its own superior court, which had been dismantled in 1905 with the creation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.23 Since that time the judges of the Yukon Territorial C ourt had served ex officio as judges of the Northwest Territories. In 1955, the Northwest Territories was given its own Territorial Court with one judge appointed to age seventy-five (assuming good behaviour). Jack Sissons, who had represented Peace River in the House of Commons for one term and was then appointed to the Alberta District Court, was named as its first judge. He became very knowledgeable about the legal traditions of the Inuit and the First Nations of the North, and he presided with what we would now call an attitude of reconciliation.24 While this change was an important milestone for the North, on the whole these matters of judicial adm inistra­ tion were not glamorous items on the legislative agenda. They nonetheless required sustained attention, and in virtually every year of St-Laurent’s tenure one or more amendments to the Judges Act or the Supreme Court Act or both were passed. One matter of judicial administration not addressed by St-Laurent was the thorny issue of imposing a retirement age on superior court judges. In 1927, King’s government secured passage of a law that forced judges of the Supreme and Exchequer Courts to retire at seventy-five, but judges of the provincial superior courts did not face compulsory retirement until Diefenbaker managed to secure a constitutional amendment to that effect in I960.25Complaints from chief justices and others about octogenarian judges who were no longer pro­ ductive are sprinkled through St-Laurent’s correspondence.26 In St-Laurent’s defence, he probably believed that Maurice Duplessis would oppose any such amendment, for which unanimous provincial consent was thought to be re­ quired (or at least politically advisable). The timing of Diefenbaker s move, so soon after Duplessis’ death, suggests that he was indeed the obstacle.27 The other theme evident in St-Laurent’s judicial appointments is not only a sensitivity to existing ethno-religious conventions but also a desire to get

344

Philip Girard

beyond them, and an opening of the door to judicial appointment for those whose professional background involved something other than the traditional private practice of law. To start with the area where there was the least appar­ ent change - gender - women were not really on the radar for judicial appoint­ ment during St-Laurents tenure, even though he had done his bit in the long battle for the admission of women to the bar in Quebec. W hen bâtonnier of Quebec he had cast the tie-breaking vote in support of a motion in council in 1929 that the barreau should not oppose elforts by the provincial government to legislate the admission of women to the bar.28The judicial gender barrier had been breached under Mackenzie King when Helen Kinnear was named a county court judge in Brantford in 1943, making her the first female county court judge in the British Empire. Appointment to a provincial supreme court was a peak that would not be reached for nearly two decades thereafter, and this in spite of the fact that Margaret Hyndman of Ontario had been named the second female King’s Counsel in the empire in 1938.29 St-Laurent did pay attention to women in other ways, however. First of all, he made a radio broadcast in 1949 in which he urged women to become more involved in the political life of the nation. Several womens organizations in Alberta took him at his word and wrote to suggest the names of particular can­ didates for judicial appointment in that province.30 And he also agreed to the naming of Helen Kinnear to two commissions of inquiry in 1954, one on the insanity defence and one on criminal sexual psychopaths. This was an im port­ ant early step in normalizing the work of women judges, indicating that they were not just figureheads and giving them some public profile. Moving on to ethno-religious factors, Protestant and Catholic groups and subgroups clung tenaciously to conventions that they believed entitled a given community to certain positions. A delicate balance had to be struck, however, between respecting the claims of what we may call the charter groups and recognizing the arrival of new communities in Canadian society. Appointing a Jewish judge, for example, would be difficult in a context within which all seats were considered to be allocated to either Protestants or Catholics. Quebec provided a way around this impasse because it had no county court and hence had a much larger complement of superior court judges than other provinces; new positions needed to be created fairly regularly, and these provided some flexibility. Thus the first Jewish superior court judge in Canada was Harry Batshaw, named to the Superior Court of Montreal in February 1950. While there is not a single letter in St-Laurents files on Quebec judicial appointments adverting to Batshaw, there are letters, mainly from labour or­ ganizations, advocating for another Jewish lawyer, Bernard Rose; his religion,

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

345

however, was never mentioned in these letters.31 How Batshaw emerged as the chosen candidate and why the government decided to make the appointment at this particular time must therefore remain in the realm of speculation. The only clue that emerges from the archives is a letter to Batshaw a year before his appointment from a member of the provisional government of Israel, complain­ ing bitterly about the government of Canadas abstention on the vote to admit Israel to the UN. Even Canadas recent decision to recognize the state of Israel, in this correspondent’s view, did not make up for the “sin” of abstaining on the UN admission vote.32 Batshaw had been a key figure in Montreal in raising money and support for the campaign for a Jewish homeland. Was his appoint­ ment to the bench in part an attempt to appease a Jewish community angered by the governments position on admitting Israel to the UN? As this appointment occurred in St-Laurent’s backyard, as it were, he must certainly have approved of it, and perhaps even inspired it. Reaction in the more conservative Catholic newspapers in Quebec was not welcoming. The Social Credit organ Vers Demain doubted whether a Jewish judge could uphold the laws of a Christian country. For its part, VAction Catholique, on the one hand, called Batshaw’s appointment an “excellent one,” but, on the other, attributed it to the outsized “influence of the small Jewish minority ... which depends largely on financial power and the systematised organization of this group.”33 Antonin Galipeault, writing to St-Laurent in 1955, expressed fears that what he indelicately called “le problème juif” at Montreal would surface in his own court, the Court of Appeal. It is to St-Laurent’s credit that he rose above such attitudes, and in this he had the full support of Stuart Garson.34 Garson had stated to friends in 1949 that “he would like to be the first m inister of justice to make a Jewish appointment.”35 Achieving this goal first with Batshaw, he followed it up with the appointment of Samuel Freedman to the Manitoba Court of Queens Bench in April 1952. Freedman would end his career as chief justice of the province (1971-83), the first Jew to hold such a position in Canada. Garson persevered in the face of strong opposition by the non-Jewish bar in Manitoba in the postwar years. While such feelings had died down somewhat by 1952, one commentator notes that “few events in the his­ tory of the Manitoba judiciary have involved greater political intrigue and controversy than the appointment of the provinces first Jewish judge.”36 O ther ethnic groups on the multicultural Prairies were also clamouring for recognition via judicial appointment at this time. King’s government had appointed the first Ukrainian to the bench in Canada in 1948 - Jaroslaw Arsenych, who was made a judge of the county court in Dauphin, Manitoba.37 St-Laurent’s government appointed the next one, Peter Greschuk, to the district

346

Philip Girard

court in northern Alberta in 1953 and then prom oted him to the Trial Div­ ision of the Supreme Court in 1957. The Polish community also lobbied for one of their num ber to be appointed in Manitoba, pointing out that there were now three Polish Queens Counsels in Winnipeg. Garson was receptive in principle but no such appointment was made during his tenure.38 St-Laurent continued to balance French and English, Catholic and Protest­ ant in Quebec without too much difficulty, his sole break with tradition being the appointment of the Protestant Abbott to a Quebec seat on the Supreme Court, as noted earlier. Perhaps surprisingly he was not as vigorous in recogniz­ ing the French fact outside Quebec as he was in promoting anglophones within Quebec. He did not appoint a highly qualified Acadian, Vincent Pottier, to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia in spite of a very forceful recommendation from a retiring judge, W.F. Carroll. St-Laurent directed the letter to Garson, who had the Catholic Lauchlin Currie named to the post. Pottier would have to wait until nearly the end of his career, in 1965, before he was translated to the provinces Supreme Court.39 In western Canada, St-Laurent s government had appointed Louis Sher­ man Turcotte, a Quebecer who had migrated to Alberta as a young man, to the District Court of southern Alberta in 1955, but this seemed only to whet the appetite of the francophone community.40 Somewhat improbably, the demand of Franco-Albertans for a position on the provincial Supreme Court became a national campaign in 1956-57 as various groups in Quebec and elsewhere flooded the Prime Minister s Office with form letters in support of such an ap­ pointment. Awkwardly, the most obvious francophone candidate for a pos­ ition on the bench was the son of the long-serving Liberal MP for Athabaska, Joseph Dechêne. Perhaps the somewhat nepotistic optics of such an appoint­ ment stayed the governments hand. André Dechêne would become the first francophone appointed to the Supreme Court of Alberta, but only a decade later, under Pearson.41 In Ontario, St-Laurent did not ruffle any feathers by appointing more francophones to the High Court, but he did promote Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier from the High Court to the Court of Appeal in 1953, the first ap­ pointment of a francophone to that court, and named Arthur LeBel, another francophone, to take up his spot on the High Court. Chevrier assumed that he owed his promotion to St-Laurent s direct intervention: “je me permets de présumer que cette nomination est due, en définitive, à votre fait, et pour ce que je représente.”42W hen Chevrier died in 1956, LeBel was duly promoted to what was now the French “slot” on the Court of Appeal, and his place on the High Court was taken by none other than Leo Landreville. He would become the only

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

347

superior court judge in Canadian history to face a possible removal from office pursuant to the parliamentary address process set out in section 99 of the British North America Act, though this would occur a decade after his appointment.43 The Nova Scotia and Ontario appointments reveal new elements of diversity within the judiciary aside from the ethno-religious. The postwar appointments to the Supreme C ourt of Nova Scotia, guided by J.L. Ilsley as well as Garson, were strongly pro-labour, and even included one judge, Lauchlin Currie, who had been a bricklayer and coal m iner in Cape Breton before studying law. He had also been solicitor to the radical District 26 of the United Mine Workers of America, and provincial minister of mines and labour from 1940 to 1947. The appointment of Vincent Macdonald in 1950 was a first in two ways. Dean of Dalhousie Law School at the time of his elevation, he was the first full-time aca­ demic to be named to the bench (the second would be Bora Laskin); he also had an impressive background in governmental administration, first as federal assistant deputy m inister of labour and then chair of the Nova Scotia Wartime Labour Relations board and its successor. Ilsley, named chief justice of Nova Scotia in 1949, had of course virtually run the country during the war.44 The shift from the appointment of corporate lawyers and those steeped in private law to candidates more in tune with the emerging welfare state and the new domains of administrative and labour law was perhaps more noticeable in Nova Scotia than anywhere else because of the small size of the bench, but it had echoes in Ontario as well. The change was disapproved by the older gen­ eration, for whom lawyers involved in administrative tribunals were not real lawyers and did not share in the glorious traditions of the independence of the bar. A representative of this older generation, the octogenarian D. Lally McCarthy wrote a long letter to St-Laurent in 1952 complaining that recent appointments to the High Court of Ontario had been “very disappointing, [and that] justices King and Spence were practically unknown to the profession.” McCarthy’s informants resented the fact that Spence “owed his appointment entirely to his activities in the Rental Control Board” and held a salaried position there.45 The older generation wanted to see itself reproduced on the courts and had no patience with newer forms of professional endeavour. Spence, whom Pearson promoted to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1963, became part of the famed “LSD” trio of Laskin, Spence, and Dickson, who dissented in many cases with civil liberties implications in the 1970s. Both in his dissents and his major­ ity decisions, Spence made significant contributions to the law that are still cited. In conclusion, St-Laurent displayed more interest than previous governments in the details of judicial administration, and he realized judicial remuneration needed to become more competitive in order to recruit the best candidates. He

348

Philip Girard

followed up incrementally on the very modest moves in the direction of a diverse judiciary made by Mackenzie King. The two Jewish appointments were the most significant part of his legacy in this respect, and although certainly less contro­ versial than before the war, they required some political courage to accomplish. Like Laurier, St-Laurent was cautious about promoting the French fact too zeal­ ously outside Quebec. He more or less maintained the ethno-religious status quo within Quebec, aside from the appointment of Batshaw, and solidified the position of Franco-Ontarians on the bench in that province. It is perhaps StLaurent’s receptivity to appointments of lawyers from non-traditional social backgrounds and some connected to the administrative state that reveals his modernity most clearly, while the appointment of the first academic lawyer to a superior court in the person of Vincent Macdonald created an important precedent for the future.

The Capital Punishment Debate Renewed: Modernity Deferred? If St-Laurent’s approach to the judiciary was largely managerial as opposed to visionary, the same could also be said of his approach to the death penalty. The exercise of the royal prerogative of clemency is not a topic that has attracted the attention of prime ministerial biographers. The record of St-Laurent’s gov­ ernment in this regard was unexceptional, although it occurred at a time of some unease with the practice of capital punishment. In response, a joint Senate and House committee to study capital punishment, along with corporal punish­ ment and lotteries, was struck. Its 1956 report recommended retention of capital punishment, no change to the law of murder (i.e., it rejected the adoption of “degrees of murder”), substitution of the electric chair for hanging, and a pro­ hibition on the execution of those under eighteen at the time of commission of the offence. While it did not recommend raising that age to twenty-one, it did suggest a continuation of the practice of commuting all sentences of death on those under that age “except in extraordinary cases.”46 None of the changes recommended by the committee was adopted by St-Laurent s government in its last year in power, although it did adhere to the practice of commuting sen­ tences of those aged twenty-one and under, with one exception: that of a twentyyear-old “American negro boxer” who beat and badly mutilated one woman and brutally murdered another with a hammer. The young man believed that both women had played a role in encouraging his girlfriend to break up with him and exacted vengeance on them accordingly.47 The approach of St-Laurent s cabinet was very much business-as-usual, with ten or eleven people allowed to hang every year until 1955. This figure was in

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

349

line with the last full years of Mackenzie King s tenure, when thirteen and ten persons were executed in 1946 and 1947, respectively, and indeed was higher than the last four years before the war when, on average, eight persons per year were hanged. Commutation rates under St-Laurent were somewhat below 50 percent, lower than historic rates and thus more punitive. During his first few months in office, in fact, the cabinet commuted only one of the eight capital convictions it reviewed, a commutation rate of 12.5 percent. This low a rate had not been seen since the days of R.B. Bennett, when he commuted only 10.5 percent of twenty-eight capital convictions reviewed in 1931, allowing twentyfive men to go to the gallows in that year, a striking outlier in the history of capital punishm ent in Canada.48 The pattern changed considerably during St-Laurent s last two full years in office: only six men were hanged in 1955 and five in the following year, but it is hard to know if this was fortuitous or due to a change in policy. The election of Diefenbaker, a criminal defence lawyer who had seen the business of capital punishm ent up close and was opposed to it, marked a dramatic break with St-Laurenfs approach. Under St-Laurent, eighty people were hanged over 8.5 years, nine per year on average, and his overall commutation rate was 36 per­ cent. Under Diefenbaker, fourteen people were hanged over 5.5 years, three per year on average, and his commutation rate was 79 percent. Put another way, if the Diefenbaker government had continued to hang people at St-Laurents rate, fifty people would have been hanged instead of fourteen during his time in office. Diefenbaker s government would also reform the law of murder in 1961 to adopt the degrees of m urder approach that prevails today, the one re­ jected by the Joint Committee in 1956.49In his memoirs Diefenbaker gives only brief mention of this reform and implies, misleadingly, that his cabinet was as tough-minded on hanging as any other: “Never once did I ... allow the fact that capital punishm ent was personally repugnant to me deter me from making certain that the law was carried out.”50 St-Laurent faced two particularly difficult capital cases during his tenure, but they cut in different directions with regard to the abolition versus retention debate. His first year in office witnessed the worst mass m urder in Canadian history before the Air India bombing. W hen Joseph-Albert Guay decided to do away with his wife Rita in order to pursue an affair with a nineteen-yearold waitress, he did it in the most spectacular way possible. He arranged for a time-bomb to be secreted on the small passenger plane in which Rita was to fly from Quebec City to Baie-Comeau on 9 September 1949. When it went off, she and all twenty-two other passengers and crew were killed. He was tried for murder, as were his two accomplices, Généreux Ruest, who had manufactured

350

Philip Girard

the bomb at Guay’s request, and Ruest’s married sister Marguérite Pitre, who had delivered the deadly package to the plane. All three were executed, and Mme Pitre had the distinction of being the last woman hanged in Canada, in January 1953.51 It is hard to believe that this crime did not give a boost to the retentionist cause, at least in the short term. However, another case soon arose with quite different implications for the continuation of capital punishment: the notorious Coffin affair. Six months after the hanging of Mme Pitre, the bodies of three American hunters were found in the woods of the Gaspé. One of the last people to see them alive, Wilbert Coffin, was found to have some items of theirs in his possession. He was found guilty of the murder of one of the hunters, had his conviction upheld unanimously by the Quebec C ourt of Appeal, and the Supreme Court denied special leave to appeal. Amid public suspicions that Coffin had been railroaded due to American pressure to find a culprit, the cabinet reluctantly agreed to refer the matter to the Supreme Court, asking the judges what conclusion they would have come to had they agreed to hear the case. St-Laurent was particularly concerned about upsetting Maurice Duplessis, as the reference seemed to imply a lack of confidence in the adm in­ istration of justice in Quebec. Five judges said they would have confirmed the conviction, while Justices Locke and Cartwright would have ordered a new trial.52The cabinet chose not to commute the death sentence, but doubts about Coffins conviction have lingered to this day.53 The surface continuity to practices relating to capital punishm ent contrasts rather strangely with the flurry of inquiries and policy initiatives in the criminal law during the St-Laurent years. Probably these were put in motion by Garson rather than St-Laurent personally, but the prime minister must have at least acquiesced in them. In the late 1940s the first comprehensive revision of the Criminal Code was undertaken since 1892, and the new code was promulgated in 1954. The Joint Committee on Capital and Corporal Punishment and Lotteries has already been mentioned. No fewer than three inquiries into criminal matters were initiated, those relating to the insanity defence and to criminal sexual psychopaths already mentioned, and the committee appointed to inquire into the practices of the remission service of Canada. The last, chaired by Justice G érald F auteux, h ad th e m o st lo n g -te rm sig n ifican c e as it led to the creation of the National Parole Board, though under Diefenbaker rather than St-Laurent. These inquiries and the appointment of the joint committee reflected a certain unease with the maintenance of capital punishment, even as the Cold War atmosphere of the day led the government to create a new capital offence, that of espionage during wartime.54

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

351

In retrospect, Garson and St-Laurent were perhaps too much alike: excel­ lent lawyers, they had the flaws of their virtues. Cautious, somewhat academic in approach and respectful of precedent, they preferred incrementalism to bold action or visionary schemes. Although more attentive than Mackenzie King to the details of judicial administration, the needs of an independent judiciary, and emergent calls for more diversity on the bench, they generally followed in his footsteps. They were very different lawyers from John Diefenbaker. As a criminal defence lawyer Diefenbaker was more oriented to addressing juries than judges; he mastered the popular and emotional side of law, which proved to be good practice for motivating voters. In the shift from St-Laurent to Diefenbaker, there are many reminders that governmental changes can indeed be very significant.

Notes 1 J.W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 69. 2 William A. Schabas, “Canada and the Adoption of the Universal Declaration o f Human Rights,” McGill Law Journal 43 (1998): 403. See also Jennifer Tunnicliffe, Resisting Rights: Canada and the International Bill o f Rights, 1947-1976 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019). 3 Philip Girard, “From Subversion to Liberation: Homosexuals and the Immigration Act, 1952-1977,” Canadian Journal o f Law and Society 2 (1987): 1. 4 Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile, The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010). The “fruit machine” was a device that was supposed to be able to identify gay men by measuring the dilation of their pupils, perspiration, and pulse in response to depictions of gay male erotica. 5 “‘In the Field of Espionage, There’s No Such Thing as Peacetime’: The Official Secrets Act and the PICNIC Wiretapping Program,” Canadian Historical Review 98 (2017): 457. 6 James G. Snell and Frederick Vaughan, The Supreme Court o f Canada: History o f the Institution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 1985), 186-95. A bill was introduced in January 1949 but died on the order paper and was reintroduced in September 1949. 7 Garson to St-Laurent (hereafter LSL), 30 August 1949 (reporting Farris’s views, with Jackett’s charts enclosed), LAC, Louis St-Laurent Papers (hereafter LSLP), MG 26 L, vol. 118, J-20. 8 The Court would not be granted control over its own docket until 1975. 9 Cabinet document 840,27 December 1948, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), RG 2, vol. 66, file C-20-5. 10 Globe and Mail, 23 December 1949, 5 and 1; New York Times, 23 December 1949,13. 11 Dominique Clément, “The Royal Commission on Espionage and the Spy Trials of 1946-49: A Case Study in Parliamentary Supremacy,” Journal o f the Canadian Historical Association 11 (2000): 151. Williams was named by King to the chief justiceship of the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench in December 1946.

352

Philip Girard

)2 The minutes of the Winnipeg meeting are reported in “The Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting,”

Canadian Bar Review 24 (1946): 697. Adding to the awkward nature of the debate, E.K. Williams was president of the CBA at the time. 13 A.J. Hobbins, “Designating the Dean of Law: Legal Education at McGill University and the Montreal Corporate and Professional Elite, 1946-1950,” Dalhousie Law Journal 27 (2004): 194. Fauteux was the third of five deans to serve in the years from 1946 to 1950. 14 Peter McCormick, Supreme at Last: The Evolution of the Supreme Court o f Canada (Toronto: fames Lorimer, 2000), 43. 15 Snell and Vaughan, Supreme Court of Canada, 199. 16 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 216. 17 Ibid. 18 Galipeault to LSL, 25 July 1955, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 187, J-25(l)(a). Indeed, there would not be a Franco-Ontarian on the Supreme Court until the appointment of Louise Charron in 2004, by which time the conventions around Supreme Court appointments had altered radically. 19 Stephen G. McKenna, Grace and Wisdom: Patrick G. Kerwin 1889-1963 (Ottawa: Petra Books, 2017), 105. The only time this had ever happened was in 1906, when the Irish Catholic Charles Fitzpatrick succeeded Chief Justice Henri-Elzéar Taschereau. Chief Justice F.A. Anglin was also Irish Catholic but was preceded and succeeded by Protestant chief justices. 20 William Kaplan, Canadian Maverick: The Life and Times o f Ivan C. Rand (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 2009). 21 Statutes of Canada (hereafter SC) 1920, c. 56; SC 1946, c. 56; SC 1949, c. 27. On St-Laurent’s salary in 1939, see Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1970), 76. 22 Davis to Ralph Maybank, 31 May 1949, cited in Dale Brawn, Paths to the Bench: The Judicial Appointment Process in Manitoba, 1870-1950 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014), 175. Maybank, a Winnipeg MP, was consulted on most Manitoba judicial appointments until he himself went to the bench in 1951. 23 SC 1955, c. 48. 24 Jack Sissons, Judge of the Far North: The Memoirs of Jack Sissons (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968). 25 SC 1927, c. 38, British North America Act, 1960, 9 Eliz. II, c. 2 (U.K.). 26 See, for example, W.B. Scott to Garson, 9 July 1955, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 187, J-25b. Chief Justice Sir Joseph Chisholm of Nova Scotia died in office at the age of eighty-seven in 1950, Chief Justice Horace Harvey of Alberta at eighty-six in 1949. 27 Guy Favreau, Amendment of the Constitution of Canada (Ottawa: Department of Justice, 1965) reports at 14 that unanimous consent for the amendment was secured and that the Quebec government sought the approval of the Assemblée Nationale before agreeing. 28 Christopher Moore, McCarthy Tétrault: Building Canadas Premier Law Firm, 1855-2005 (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2005), 214. 29 In Ontario, where the most potential appointees resided, the failure of women candi­ dates to secure election as benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada impeded their progress to the bench. I thank Professor Mary Jane Mossman for sharing research on this point. 30 I have not found the exact date of this broadcast but several letters in September and October 1949 refer to it as a recent event. See letters from Alberta Womens Association, 14 September

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

353

31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40

41 42 43

44

45

46

47

1949, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 118, J-28C; Edmonton Womens Liberal Club, 20 September 1949; Tillie Phelan on behalf of Liberal women, 13 October 1949. See letters in LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 58, J-24. Moishe Shertok to Batshaw, 11 January 1949, LAC, Harry Batshaw Fonds, MG 31 E33, vol. 1, file: “Correspondence, personal papers and clippings.” These newspaper accounts are provided in letters from David Rome to David Croll, 17 and 21 March 1950, LAC, Batshaw Fonds, MG 31 E33, vol. 1, file: “correspondence 1950-1970.” Galipeault to LSL, 25 July 1955, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 187, J-25(l)(a). Ralph Maybank to Irving Keith, 20 January 1949, cited in Brawn, Paths to the Bench, 178. Brawn, Paths to the Bench, 176-77. Winnipeg Tribune, 3 January 1948, 13. Brawn, Paths to the Bench, points out at 176 that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic archbishop opposed Arsenychs appointment because the latter, although Ukrainian, was Greek Orthodox, a minority faith among Ukrainians. On Greschuk, see G. Downey to Garson, 20 October 1953, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 189, J-29-1; on a Polish appointment, see correspondence in vol. 187, J-27. Carroll to LSL, 9 June 1949, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 58, J-22. On Greschuk and Turcotte, see the entries in Louis Knafla and Richard Klumpenhouwer, eds., Lords o f the Western Bench: A Biographical History o f the Supreme and District Courts o f Alberta, 1876-1990 (Calgary: Legal Archives Society of Alberta, 1997). Turcotte had sought a judicial appointment as early as 1949. See Turcotte to LSL, 14 September 1949, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol 118, J-28c. See correspondence in LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 189, J-29. Chevrier to LSL, 2 January 1954, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 187, J-26a. William Kaplan, Bad Judgment: The Case o f M r Justice Leo A. Landreville (Toronto: Univer­ sity of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 1996). Landreville’s troubles arose from having accepted some low-cost shares from a utility company while he was mayor of Sudbury, leaving an appearance of conflict of interest when he sold the shares at a substantial profit after his appointment to the bench. These appointments are reviewed in Philip Girard, “The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia: Confederation to the 21st Century,” in The Supreme Court o f Nova Scotia, 1754-2004: From Imperial Bastion to Provincial Oracle, ed. Philip Girard, Jim Phillips, and Barry Cahill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 2004), 176-77; see also R. Blake Brown and Susan S. Jones, “A Collective Biography of the Supreme Court Judiciary of Nova Scotia, 1900-2000,” in the same volume. McCarthy to LSL, 20 June and 3 July 1952, LAC, LSLP, MG 26 L, vol. 118, file J-25C. LSL replied to the first letter, defending the appointments, via letter dated 26 June. There were strong critiques of Ontario judicial appointments as excessively patronage-driven around this time. See J.A. Clark, “Appointments to the Bench,” Canadian Bar Review 30 (1952): 28. Clark was president of the CBA and also addressed the theme in his presidential address, at 651. Reports o f the Joint Committee of the Senate and House o f Commons on Capital Punishment, Corporal Punishment, and Lotteries (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1956), 18. The best analysis of the reform debate during these years is by Carolyn Strange, “The Undercurrents of Penal Culture: Punishment of the Body in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada,” Law and History Review 19 (2001): 343. Christopher Dummitt, The Manly Modern: Masculinity in Postwar Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007) discusses the case at 118-19, noting the racist discourse of the trial judge, J.V. Clyne, who observed that Matthews was “not very far removed from the jungle ... a

354

Philip Girard

48

49 50 51 52 53

54

primitive who became so furious at being deprived of what he wanted that he committed a very brutal murder.” Perpetrators of other equally heinous murders were never described in such terms. These rates can be calculated from Lorraine Gadoury and Antonio Lechasseur, “Persons Sentenced to Death in Canada, 1867-1976: An Inventory of Case Files in the Fonds of the Department of Justice” (National Archives of Canada, 1994), http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/ pdfOO1/pOOOOOl 052.pdf, along with the tables in the Report of the Joint Committee. For an overview, see Carolyn Strange, “The Lottery of Death: Capital Punishment, 18671976,” Manitoba Law Journal 23 (1996): 594. SC 1960-61, c. 44. John Diefenbaker, One Canada: Memoirs o f the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker, 3 vols. (Toronto: Macmillan Canada, 1975-77), 2:315. The events were dramatized in Denys Arcand’s film Le crime d ’Ovide Plouffe (1984). Reference re Regina v. Coffin, [1956] S.C.R. 191. See http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/wilbert-coffin-execution-cda-1.3441076,30 March 2018, a CBC story on the sixtieth anniversary of Coffins execution. The 1980 Quebec film VAffaire Coffin was a dramatization of the events. Criminal Code, SC 1953-54, c. 51, s. 46.

Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty

355

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition PATRICE DUTIL

Late in the evening of 16 March 1949, Mackenzie King sat down to write his daily diary entry. It was a Friday night and the week had left him in a sour mood. Out of leadership for only a few months (after an almost thirty-year run), with spring still out of promise, he felt cranky and tired and started wishing for a “break by the sea and into the sunshine.” The creation of NATO had just been announced, something he had come to favour, but he was having second thoughts. King, likely in his pajamas but never out of his politician’s clothes, worried about the politics of his party, even though he now sat as a back­ bencher, far removed from the stresses and satisfactions of the front row of government. “It may prove the undoing of the government,” he thought. He still believed Louis St-Laurent had to call an election in 1949 and not wait another year.1It was not the act, in and of itself, that preoccupied King, but more the confu­ sion about government priorities. “I can see an election similar to 1911 if St-Laurent goes to the country on it, as he hints at doing, e.g. he speaks of the King always able to declare war at a m om ents notice.” He continued a few mo­ ments later: “The French will believe he is for war - an imperialist he will be regarded in Quebec, a Frenchman & a Catholic in Ont., no matter what he does, & in the hands of Quebec.” King concluded his thoughts on a grim note: “outlook is not good.’” King would rest easy: encouraging Louis St-Laurent to get involved in pol­ itics and promoting him was probably his greatest legacy to Canada, and his

dauphin would extend the Liberal dynasty even after Kings own thirteen-year run from 1935 to 1948. The 1949 election, which was called only a few days after King articulated his diary worries, was a trium ph for St-Laurent. His party took 49.1 percent of the vote, an increase of over nine percentage points over the 1945 result, and increased its num ber of seats by 74, going from 117 to 191. The Liberals also took 73.7 percent of the seats. It was the second big­ gest Liberal victory ever recorded, outdone only by the 73.9 percent of seats scored by King in 1940.3Nine years later, the party was defeated. While it won the plurality of the vote, edging the Progressive Conservatives (PCs) by two percentage points, it lost sixty-four seats. Liberal support had eroded inexor­ ably during the St-Laurent years as third and fourth parties won more support in particular areas. The argument in this chapter is that St-Laurent was singularly responsible for the electoral victories of 1949 and 1953 because he put together a remarkably efficient coalition of voters composed of Catholics, francophones, and English Canadians from across Canada. These voters were very unhappy with the leader­ ship of George Drew as well as the vision of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), and, in 1953, they were also unimpressed by the Social Credit Party. St-Laurent s performance in 1957 brought the Liberal result to its his­ torical average but made it vulnerable to the refreshing message of John Diefenbaker (see Dutil and Ryan, Chapter 18, this volume, on the evolution of party platforms). The story of the 1950s reveals two broad trends. First, the electorate generally moved to the right. This is shown by the growing popular­ ity of Progressive Conservatives and Social Crediters, but a case could be made that a good chunk of the voting populace drifted rightwards through the 1950s: many CCFers voted Liberal (perhaps prodded by George Drews repeated ac­ cusations that the St-Laurent Liberals professed “socialism in a silk hat”), many Liberals voted PC, and many traditional Tory voters chose Social Credit. This is also demonstrated by electoral results at the provincial level. In Louis St-Laurent s first year as prime minister of Canada, Liberals were in power in British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and in the new province of Newfoundland/Labrador. The only “left” government was the CCF in Saskatchewan, in power since 1944. By 1957, the “right” had gained British Columbia (under W.A.C. Bennetts Social Credit Party). New Brunswick’s PCs, led by Hugh John Flemming, had taken power, and Nova Scotia had also gone Tory under Robert Stanfield. These gains of the conservative forces were added to the existing governments in Alberta (governed by Ernest M annings Social Credit since 1943), Ontario (under Leslie Frost and

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

357

the Progressive Conservative Party since 1949), and Quebec (led by Maurice Duplessis and the Union Nationale since 1944). In 1957, only Manitoba, PEI, and Newfoundland/Labrador were Liberal. The second factor was regional alienation. The CCF, steadily led by Major Coldwell during the St-Laurent years, hovered between 10 and 13 percent of the general vote, but much of this support was in Saskatchewan. The Social Credit Party, itself led steadily by Solon Low, grew from 2 percent of the gen­ eral vote in 1953 to 6.6 percent in 1957, mostly in Alberta. The Progressive Conservative Party, led by George A. Drew in 1949 and 1953, took 30 percent of the vote in both elections. In 1957, John Diefenbaker attracted over 38 percent of the vote. It was a combination of conservative politics in particular regions that ultimately destroyed the Liberal dynasty that had essentially governed Canada since 1920.4 This chapter aims to explain where St-Laurent made the most impact in that period, based on electoral results. The emphasis is on actual voting behaviour as the parliamentary outcome of votes seems to depend on the inexplicable design of riding boundaries. While attention can be focused on the rural/urban divide, this discussion focuses on the more traditional categories of voters - that is, activists, partisans, and switchers. “Activists” can be described as people who vote for a particular party regardless of its program, leadership, or organizational state. Events scarcely perturb this group. “Partisans” tend to be more susceptible to change and may occasionally switch their vote because they strongly disagree with the party platform or the leadership. More typically, they simply refuse to vote at all rather than support an adversary. “Switchers” are promiscuous in their choices and are willing to vote for the leader or the program that most attracts them in any particular election campaign.

Baseline: The 1945 Election King had some reasons to be concerned. The most recent electoral contest, held in June 1945, had been a surprising success for the Liberals, but King knew that the unique winning circumstances of that campaign had long since evap­ orated. In 1945, military success was on the Liberal side with the victory over the Nazis finally declared in mid-May. (This factor was not much help to W inston Churchill in the United Kingdom, who was defeated on 5 July.) Elec­ tion Day in Canada, 11 June, did not disappoint, however. The Liberals lost 59 seats but still retained 118 (a minority, as 123 seats were needed) on the strength of 40 percent of the popular vote. The new House of Commons featured no fewer than eleven formations, including eight small parties and lonely independ­

358

Patrice Dutil

ents. To survive in the House of Commons, the Liberals would have to rely on the many “Independent Liberals” elected in Quebec. This was not a difficult challenge. The Progressive Conservatives, led by Manitoban John Bracken, had taken 27 new seats, even though they had lost three percentage points of the popular vote (it now stood at 27.6 percent). Ontario was the PC stronghold, with the PCs taking 48 of 82 seats (Ontario gave no seats to parties other than the Lib­ erals or Conservatives). The CCF, led by Coldwell, took 20 seats, mostly in Sas­ katchewan (where it won 18 of 21), British Columbia (4), Manitoba (5), and Nova Scotia (1). The Liberals were least popular in the west. A quarter of BC voters favoured the Liberals, and only one in five Albertans was supportive - 13 of the 17 seats in Alberta went to Social Credit, led by the local son, Solon Low. The CCF took 28 seats, 20 more than in 1940, including 18 of the 21 seats in Saskatchewan. Manitoba and British Columbia were less extreme, sprinkling support across the Liberal Party, the Progressive Conservatives, and the CCF in roughly equal parts. In Quebec, the Liberals took 47 of 65 seats, but 7 “Independent Liberals” were also elected - men who carried the party label but who did not want to be seen as slavishly following Mackenzie King. Quebec was by far the most divided jurisdiction, sending to Ottawa 6 “Independents,” 2 Bloc populaire representatives, 1 Labour-Progressive (Communist) and 1 “Independent Pro­ gressive Conservative” - the same number the Progressive Conservative Party received in that province. In contrast, the Liberals did generally well in the east. New Brunswick gave the Mackenzie King formation 50 percent of the vote and 7 of 10 seats. PEI gave the Liberals over 48 percent of the vote and 3 of 4 seats. Nova Scotia was not far behind, with 45.7 percent of the vote and 9 of 12 seats. If the Liberal Party won in 1945, it was because it was strong in Quebec and in the Maritimes, and could defend itself in Ontario. Elsewhere, it was in hostile territory. W hen its mandate officially ended in 1950, the government would be fifteen years old.

The 1949 Election The last election King would witness was telling of St-Laurent’s personal attractiveness as a politician. Led by a new m an for the first time since 1919, the Liberals also hoped for a new beginning. In sharp contrast to the stubborn bachelor, Louis St-Laurent was a family man: a father to five children and

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

359

grandfather to eight boys and girls. He was old for a new prime minister, but his government could point to innovative, new accomplishments in which he had played an im portant part, such as the entry of Newfoundland into Con­ federation, the creation of NATO, reductions in income tax for the poorest, and increases in family allowances and pensions. There was a sense that prosperity was attainable and that the new prime minister could deliver it. St-Laurent’s campaign started at home in Compton, Quebec, motored through Sherbrooke then on through the Maritimes, visiting Acadian villages and Nova Scotian towns until the southern tip of the province, Yarmouth, was reached. The leaders tour then headed north to Halifax and returned home via a tour of Prince Edward Island. St-Laurents second leg started in northwestern Quebec and then worked its way through northeastern Ontario, areas that had never been visited by a prime minister.5He broadened his appeal by holding impromptu question-andanswer sessions and taking off his jacket on the hot afternoons of June. Indeed, much of the campaign was devoted to Ontario. The prime minister talked so much that he lost his voice for an entire week that month. The high note was a monster rally at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on 21 June, but the Liberal campaign did not end until after a quick trip to Newfoundland. The campaign completely avoided western Canada, focusing much of its energies on the rural and semi-rural areas of central and eastern Canada. It was a highly leader-focused campaign. Canadians had not experienced a Liberal leader with children since Edward Blake in the 1880s, and the break with tradition seemed to be refreshing. St-Laurent often travelled with his eldest daughter Marthe; his grand-daughter Louise was also a companion for the large events, highlighting his cross-generational appeal. It was in this election that he was branded “Uncle Louis” in reference to his obvious facility with children. Despite the burden of a fourteen-year incumbency, C.D. Howe, the “minister of everything,” was optimistic. The party was raising upwards of $6 million for its campaign, at both the national and the constituency level. Howe was especially looking for strong gains in Ontario and Saskatchewan while holding steady in the rest of Canada.6 St-Laurent had executed his role to perfection, something Canadians recognized in their responses to a Gallup Poll conducted a few weeks after the election, which asked people which leader “had done the best job for his party” during the campaign.7 In fact, St-Laurent simply held the support with which he started the cam­ paign. He recorded the same results in Gallup Polls conducted in separate May and June 1949 polling. George Drew marginally improved his popularity during the campaign, while Coldwell lost a good deal of support.8

360

Patrice Dutil

Election Day was on 27 June and the Liberals scored an impressive victory under their new leader, taking 74 seats more than in 1945 and just over 49 per­ cent of the vote. At 73.8 percent, the participation rate of eligible voters was slightly lower than it had been in 1945. The Progressive Conservatives, also led by a new leader, former Ontario premier George Drew, increased their percent­ age of the vote by over two percentage points, winning almost 30 percent of the vote, but they lost a third of their seats, going from 65 in 1945 to 41 in 1949. The St-Laurent steamroller also flattened the smaller parties. It was worse for the CCF, which lost more than half of its seats, going from 28 in 1945 to 13, and Social Credit lost 3 of its 13 seats. Thirteen other parties recorded votes. This election campaign notably featured Tim Buck, leader of the Labour-Progressive Party; Réal Caouette, leader of the “Union of the Electors”; and Adrien Arcand, leader of the quasi-fascist National Unity Party. There were thirty by-elections held between 1949 and 1953 and twenty-one of them saw the incumbent party re-elected. The Liberals won fourteen of them and could also count on the two “Independent Liberals” who were elected. The Liberals managed to take one seat from the PCs (Gloucester, NB, in 1952) and an Independent Liberal took Rimouski from the PCs. Canada was officially in a recession between April and December 1951, and the government lost support in that year in the Manitoba ridings of Brandon and Winnipeg South Central (both went to the PCs). There is no evidence that Canadas participation in the Korean conflict (1950-53) had a significant impact. The PCs won fourteen contests; half of them were also re-elections, but they also took seven seats from the Liberals, including Roberval (Quebec). In terms of by-elections, then, it was clear that the Liberals were still popular, but there was no doubt that the PCs took more seats than vice versa (although this hardly healed the sting of the 1949 contest).

The 1953 Election The 1949 contest between St-Laurent and George Drew would be replayed four years later (Donald Creighton called it a “pale photocopy” of the previous contest, marked by a “listless, holiday air”),9 but the rematch did not bring new results. The Liberals had been warned that seats would be lost in the election planned for 1953. The prime minister received a memorandum on the “Political Situ­ ation,” including polling results, that pointed to a certain malaise. A breakdown of possible causes for loss in Liberal support, such as “the feeling that [the party was] above and remote from the people,” stemmed from “a few unfortunate remarks” and the “lack of a positive statement of Liberal Policy today” as well

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

361

as from “divisions within the party at the constituency level resulting in luke­ warm support if not competing candidates, whereas the [Progressive] Conserv­ atives have been united behind first class candidates.”10 Nevertheless, the conviction remained that Prime Minister St-Laurent was still “the greatest asset the party ha[d]” and that the confirmation for his leader­ ship in the next election should be announced as soon as possible. This would also “ascertain which members of Parliament [would] run again.” The docu­ m ent called for followers of the Liberal Party to “do their utmost to point out the inconsistencies in the Tory position and the lack of responsibility they have shown.” As the 1953 election drew closer, some Liberals worried that, though they had “served the public well,” they had “fallen into the serious position of being unspectacular.”11 The good news was that the Progressive Conservative Party had faded into being “ignored rather than feared,” especially in the west. There were thus strong indications that the Liberals could do well. The election was theirs to lose: “If things go wrong, we alone will bear the brunt of the public eye.” Les Mutch, writing from the west, cautioned against arrogance: “The Party is too confident.” He said that the party had not defended itself sufficiently against a string of accusations, that its members had been “lulled ... into the feeling that every one else thinks we are as good as we know we are. The truth is, probably, at the moment, the public isn’t thinking about us at all.”12 Mutch’s concerns proved themselves somewhat. The Progressive Conserv­ atives campaigned on a program of reduced taxation and spending, making hay of the suspicion that the Liberals had even put the Department of National Defence’s horses on the payroll. In reality, there were no exciting questions to be debated, and the government liked it that way. Inflation was not a problem, purchasing power was being protected, and the recession of 1951 was now in the distant past. In fact, the government promised to reduce income taxes and to continue the good works it had performed since 1949. There was no appetite in the Liberal camp to try something new in terms of program, but electoral tactics did change from the 1949 campaign. St-Laurent was now seventy-one years old and travel would be more demanding than it had been before. As he had in 1949, St-Laurent favoured old-fashioned train whistle stops. It started with a week in Ontario, departing from Windsor instead of from St-Laurent’s hometown of Compton. The second week was devoted to the Atlantic provinces, and, by the end of the third week, the prime minister had visited Winnipeg, attended a Davis Cup tennis match in Vancouver, handed out awards at the Calgary Stampede, and opened the Edmonton Exhibition before arriving in Regina. These were his first-ever campaign events in the west.

362

Patrice Dutil

After a few stops in western Ontario, St-Laurent took his travelling show home to Quebec. There was also a shift in rhetoric. Instead of focusing ex­ clusively on the governments record, the Liberals attacked George Drew’s promises. St-Laurent, according to a key organizer Brooke Claxton, had again been “the star attraction of the whole campaign,” but the reality was that no minister was defeated. The Liberals had kept their standing in the polls since 1949, with a consistent 50 percent of responders telling the Gallup public polling firm that their “vote intention” was for the Liberal Party. The polls did slip once, in February 1952, to 48 percent, but by November 1953 the party was gathering far more strength, with 53 percent support.13This was all the more remarkable in that the Canadian economy had been in a significant recession starting in July 1953. James Gardiner forwarded a letter he received concerning the behaviour of certain politicians in making Canada “near an American satellite as they dare”14 and pointing out that allowing so many American bases in Canada “doesn’t sit in people’s stomachs well.”15 In another letter addressing the supposed arms race and Canadian “absorption” into the American military in Korea, Gardiner wrote: “I am afraid that this country is building up for another experience similar to that which we had in 1911 and with much greater reason for it at present than there was then.”16 S.J. Davies (?), a party supporter from Calgary, wrote that the western provinces are “neither pro-American nor anti-American, but we will not be tied to American policies or American leadership.”17 The same letter warned against the “evangelical fervor” of the Social Credit Party,18which was making its way into the Maritimes. The election took place in August, the only time a federal election was held that month and the turnout suffered: 67.3 percent (that record would not be broken until 2 June 1997).19 W hen the votes were confirmed, the Liberals lost less than one percentage point in terms of their share of the vote, but that was enough to cost twenty-two seats. The Progressive Conservative Party took half of those (ten) while the CCF took the other ten, raising their count to twentythree seats. The Social Credit, still led by Low, now grew to fifteen seats, with five new gains. Again, twelve parties in addition to the core four had won votes. There were sixteen by-elections held between 1953 and 1957. Ten of them saw the Liberal party re-elected; three seats returned to the PCs and one seat re-elected a Social Credit candidate. The Liberals lost one seat to the CCF (Sel­ kirk, MB) and two seats to the PCs: Spadina (ON) and Restigouche-Madawaska (NB). The Liberals did not win a seat they did not have before, but they did not suffer significant losses. They could head into 1957 confident that, led by the charm of Louis St-Laurent, they would win again.

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

363

The 1957 Election The Liberals went into the election of June 1957 knowing that the public opinion polls showed that re-election was entirely likely. It was thought that the good management displayed by the government and the sound finances of the state were deserving of a renewed mandate. The March budget presented a small reduction in taxes and raised pensions by $6 to $46 a month and family allow­ ances by a dollar per month. Equalization was now a reality, and voters in the poorer regions could look forward to better government services. The govern­ ment of Canada also predicted a $152 million surplus. Canadas extraordinary role in helping resolve the Suez Crisis had the potential to add more lustre to the record. There was a howl over the tactics to cut off the pipeline debate, but, with some justification, the Liberals thought themselves invincible and had trouble thinking that the new PC leader, John Diefenbaker, with his antics, outrageous statements, and weak record, was a serious threat.20Moreover, the public opinion polls were favourable. Forty-seven percent of eligible voters said they would support the Liberals. The PCs were also consistently receiving 32 percent, while the CCF and Social Credit both hovered around the 10 percent mark. Louis St-Laurent received the best results: 74 percent of respondents said that he was doing a good job as prime minister.21 The Liberals were buoyed by their high profile in the polls. Parliament was dissolved on 12 April and the election was set for 10 June, a Monday. The Liberals were not as well organized as in 1949 and 1953, and they assumed that St-Laurent, now seventy-five, would whip up his magic as he had in the previous contests. It seemed that few Liberals in Ottawa had noticed that wheat prices had collapsed, and reports abounded that farmers were earning half of what they had earned in 1953. The Liberals stuck to the program that had brought them success and campaigned on a familiar theme: strong leadership and a “constructive program.” As the campaign evolved, more and more people noticed that the leadership was now being provided by a seventy-five-year-old - only John A. Macdonald had (or has) served at a more advanced age. The Liberals touted him as “Mr. Canada,” but the leaders voice had grown frail. Liberal strategy changed. St-Laurent’s campaign was launched in Mani­ toba, a province where the party thought its support the weakest, on a predictable platform of “peace, prosperity and social security,” but it left the crowd cold. Dale Thomson, the secretary to the prime minister, wrote that the speech “read like an auditors report, replete with numerous statistics, and was delivered in a similar manner.”22St-Laurent boarded a train and headed west, to Edmonton,

364

Patrice Dutil

Calgary, Vancouver, and then Victoria before turning to Saskatchewan. The ex­ perience was painful, with hecklers and demonstrations at every turn, his speeches appearing to be dryer and duller with every utterance. In early May, the polls still indicated that 50 percent of eligible voters planned on voting Liberal. The next three weeks would see the Liberals loose a full ten percent­ age points.23 The second leg of the tour started in mid-May in Ottawa and then headed for Quebec. Something was changing, and St-Laurent abandoned his wellformatted speeches in favour of presentations heavy with anecdotes, comments on events of the day, and responses to the opposition parties.24 The campaign pressed on to the Atlantic provinces and ended in Ontario, culminating with another giant meeting at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, only this one went terribly wrong. A young protester managed to clamber onto the speakers plat­ form to rip up a Liberal poster in front of a staggered prime minister. The teenager was briskly pushed off the rostrum, landing head-first on the concrete floor, which rendered him unconscious. It was a disastrous evening. The Lib­ erals, already vulnerable to accusations of dictatorship and arrogance, were now bullies. The wheels were falling off the Liberal electoral wagon. Suddenly, there did not seem to be as much money as in the past. If St-Laurent’s personal appearances had lost some of their former supple­ ness, his television performance before an ever-growing audience pointed to another harsh reality. The prime minister appeared three times before the cameras, leaving the inescapable impression that he was old and tired. More people voted in this election than ever before: a growth of 6 percent since the election of 1953 - 500,000 more voters - mostly in British Columbia (10 percent), Alberta (7.7 percent), Ontario (7 percent), and Quebec (6 percent).25 In Saskatchewan, the turnout rate rose by ten percentage points. The turnout of 74.1 percent of eligible voters was consistent with historical averages, but what it really showed was that Canadians wanted a change. The twenty-twoyear Liberal reign ended on 10 June when nine cabinet ministers were defeated, including C.D. Howe. It was a condemnation of St-Laurent’s team. No other conclusion was plausible. The CCF ran 162 candidates and most did very poorly (69 percent of them, in fact, lost their deposits - the candidate fees that are only refunded if the candidate receives 3 percent of the vote or more) (see Table 17.1). The Social Credit Party support was similarly very concentrated. In 77 of the 114 ridings in which it ran its candidate lost his deposit (21 percent of PC candidates and 13 percent of Liberal candidates also lost their $200 deposits).26 The Liberals still won more votes - 130,000 more than the PCs. John Meisel attributes the

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

365

TA BLE 17.1 N a tio n a l e le c to ra l re su lts

1945

Party

Seats

Liberal

% Vote

Seats

1957

1953

1949

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

118

39.8

191

49.1

169

48.4

105

40.5

PC

67

27.6

41

29.7

51

31.0

112

38.5

Social Credit

13

4.0

10

2.3

15

5.4

19

6.6

CCF

28

15.6

13

13.4

23

11.3

25

10.6

Others

20"

0.8

7b

5.5

7C

3.9

4d

2.8

a Independent Liberal (8); Independents (6); Bloc populaire canadien (2); Labour-Progressive (1); Independent PC (1); Independent CCF (1); Liberal-Progressive (1) b Independent (4); Independent Liberal (1); Liberal-Labour (1); Liberal-Progressive (1) c Independent (3); Independent Liberal (2); Liberal-Labour (1); Liberal-Progressive (1) d Independent (2); Independent Liberal (1); Independent PC (1)

massive turnout to a renewed interest in the PC vote and, by showing that increased turnouts seemed to match the margin of victory in ridings won by Diefenbaker s organization, dismisses the notion that the sum m er of 1953 might have been a factor.27 Meisel calculated that 75 of the 105 seats won by the Liberals in 1957 came from ridings across Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba), which were majority French-speaking or where the French language was im portant.28 Meisel also attributed the Liberal loss in 1957 to the organizational deficiency created by the departure of Brooke Claxton, who was the head of the national Liberal Party Federation. According to Meisel, Claxton’s successor, Senator Wishart Robertson, was not able to dis­ play the necessary organizational abilities.

The Regional Vote British Columbia If the Liberals were pitted against the rightist Social Credit in Alberta for most of the St-Laurent years, they battled altogether different foes in British Columbia. In the 1949 general election (see Table 17.2), the Social Credit Party earned barely 0.5 percent of the vote in the Pacific province while the Liberal Party garnered 36.4 percent and took 11 of the 18 seats. The Progressive Con­ servatives earned 27.7 percent of the vote and took three seats. The CCF kept two seats and picked up Yale on the strength of a 31.5 percent vote. One independent was elected.

366

Patrice Dutil

TABLE 17.2 Electo ral re su lts in B ritish C o lu m b ia

1945

1949

1953

1957

Party

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

5

27.5

11

36.7

8

37.3

2

20.4

PC

5

30.0

3

27.9

3

14.1

7

32.5

Social Credit

0

2.3

0

0.5

4

26.1

6

23.6

CCF

4

29.4

3

31.5

7

26.6

7

22.6

Others

2

9.0

1

2.6

0

0

0

0.4

St-Laurents m om entum allowed Liberals to pick up four seats in the Lower Mainland (Vancouver-Burrard, Vancouver South, Skeena, and Kootenay East), although two of these, Kootenay East and Vancouver-Burrard, were de­ cided by margins of less than five percentage points. The Coast News of Victoria, BC, produced a giant headline announcing St-Laurents victory and placed just below it: “Jimmie [Gardiner] Thanks People for Support at the Polls.”29 The 1953 election challenged the Liberals as BC fractured with many tight races. The Liberals actually increased their take of votes, but they lost three seats as the Social Credit surge capitalized on discontent with the very Ontar­ ian George Drew. The race in BC was particular: the percentage of CCF, PC, and small Independent party votes collapsed as a substantial portion of voters switched to the Social Credit Party. The CCF lost over four percentage points of its share of the vote but took four additional seats. On the strength of 37.3 percent of the vote, the Liberals held eight seats. The PCs were reduced to three seats, taking only 14.1 percent of the vote. The Social Credit Party surged and took 26.1 percent of the vote as well as four seats. It beat the Liberals by small margins of less than 5 percent in Cariboo, Fraser Valley, and New Westminster. Meanwhile, the CCF added three seats to its BC representation in the House of Commons, winning the ridings of Comox-Alberni, Nanaimo, and Okanagan Boundary, with the last seat being the only one that was decided by less than 5 percent of the vote. The Liberals held onto Burnaby-Richmond by less than 5 percent of the vote. Six seats were decided by 5 percent or fewer of the votes, and five seats switched party affiliation. The 1957 election again saw major upsets. The Social Credit Party won 23.8 percent of the vote; the PCs won 32.7 percent of the vote, while the Liberals took only 21 percent, and the CCF held steady at 23.6 percent. This time, the

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

367

Liberal coalition of voters lost almost half its take of 1953 as Diefenbaker doubled the PC vote. Five seats changed hands in the 1957 election, with the PCs winning Victoria, Vancouver-Burrard, and Vancouver Centre. Social Credit won two more seats, including Burnaby-Richmond, and the CCF took the riding of Skeena. A total of five ridings were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote, with those being Burnaby-Richmond (won by Social Credit), Comox-Alberni (won by CCF), Kootenay East (won by Liberals), Okanagan Boundary (won by Social Credit), and Skeena (won by CCF). O f these five ridings that switched party affiliation, Vancouver Centre, Vancouver-Burrard, and Victoria were de­ cided by over 5 percent of the vote while the remaining two were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote. The ridings most likely to switch hands were in the urban areas and along the Alberta border (such as Nanaimo and Kootenay East). The Coast News surprisingly only addressed the election in a small section on the second page. The editorial declared: “The result of the federal election is so indecisive from a working majority point of view that it would not be surprising if another election was called in September,”30 noting a week later how weak Social Credit had appeared. It called the election “a one-man affair supported very lightly by a second individual,”31and it wondered whether the Social Credit loss was due to the party’s over-selling itself in campaigns or whether it simply reflected the fact that the party did not appeal to federal voters. Alberta Social Credit dominated Alberta through much of this period, and St-Laurent made little personal impact. The Irma Times reported: “Locally the election was rather quiet, citizens going to the polls and registering their choices. Sunny skies prevailed all day.”32 In 1949, only four seats (out of seventeen) were won with pluralities of less than 5 percent of the vote: two of them were won by the Social Credit Party, one by the Liberal Party, and the other by the Progressive Conservative Party. O f the 338,131 votes cast in the province in the 1949 fed­ eral election, the Social Credit Party earned 37.4 percent, while the Liberal Party garnered 33.8 percent and the Progressive Conservative Party received 16.8 percent of the vote. The left, the CCF, and the Liberal-Progressive Party took 11.9 percent of the vote. The Liberals did manage to gain three new seats: Edmonton-East, Vegreville, and Jasper-Edson, which was won by fewer than five hundred votes. The Edmonton Chronicle was lukewarm to the win, noting that the Liberals would “be able to carry out their policies with only token opposition.”33 Four years later, the St-Laurent appeal ran into trouble in Alberta. While the Liberals also raised their popularity by taking 36 percent, they only took four

368

Patrice Dutil

TABLE 17.3 Electo ral re su lts in A lb e rta

1945

Party Liberal PC Social Credit

Seats 2

1949

% Vote 21.8

1953

1957

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

%Vote

5

33.8

4

35.1

1

27.6

Seats

2

18.7

5

33.8

2

14.0

3

27.4

13

36.6

10

37.4

11

40.7

6

37.8

0

6.9

0

6.3

0

0.1

0

0.3

CCF

0

18.4

0

10.0

Others

0

4.5

0

0

seats. Social Credit increased its share in Parliament, taking two seats from the Liberals (Edmonton East - always fickle - and Jasper-Edson) and won 41.9 percent of the vote. Most of those likely came from the Progressive Conserva­ tive Party, which saw its share decline to 11 percent (though it kept its two seats in Calgary). The Liberals won only Athabasca (by less than 5 percent of the vote). The left was steady, taking 11 percent of the vote. Edmonton newspapers described the Liberals as having “stormed the country for another victory.”34 The Liberals lost a good deal of support in Alberta in the 1957 election. They took 27.6 percent of the popular vote, a substantial drop from the result of 1953, winning only Athabasca and by just four hundred votes. Otherwise, Social Credit dom inated the Alberta delegation as before, taking thirteen of the seventeen seats on the strength of 37.8 percent of the vote. The Progressive Conservatives won 27.4 percent - matching the Liberals, who won 27.6 percent of the vote - while other parties won 6.67 percent. Social Credit gained the seats of Edmonton-Strathcona (in a tightly contested race that was subject to a recount) and Vegreville. These were the only three seats to change. In total only four seats were decided by 5 percent or less, with the Liberals winning Athabasca by less than 5 percent, Social Credit winning Bow River and Edmonton East by less than 5 percent, and the Progressive Conservatives winning Edmonton West by less than 5 percent. Saskatchewan Saskatchewan, where the CCF was dominant, was Liberal heartbreak country, with the press favouring words like “smashing” and “breathtaking.” In 1945, despite earning a third of the vote, the Liberals had only taken two ridings. Things reversed in 1949, with the Liberals taking 42.2 percent of the vote and taking fourteen seats. The PCs won only the riding of Lake Centre. The CCF

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

369

TABLE 17.4 E le cto ra l re su lts in S a s k a tc h e w a n

1945

1949

1953

1957

Party

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

2

33.0

14

43.4

5

37.3

4

30.2

PC

1

18.8

1

14.4

1

11.7

3

23.2

Social Credit

0

3.0

0

0.9

0

5.3

0

10.4

18

44.4

5

40.9

11

44.2

10

35.8

0

0.8

0

0

0

0

0

0.1

CCF Others

took a slightly lower proportion of votes (42 percent) but lost thirteen ridings. The Liberals gained ten seats, of which four were won by 5 percent of the vote or less. The CCF won the riding of Melfort by approximately half a percentage point. In total, the Liberals emerged in the 1949 election as the dominant party in Saskatchewan, though some insisted that “the Regina vote remain [ed] un­ certain,”35 and the CCF requested a recount. The Liberal voting coalition did not hold, however, in 1953, as both the Liberals and the PCs lost votes to the CCF and Social Credit. In 1953, the CCF reasserted itself, taking a larger share of the vote than ever (45.3 percent) and winning eleven seats. The Social Credit Party doubled its take, winning 5.3 percent of the vote, the Progressive Conservatives won fewer votes (11.7 percent), and the Liberals won 37.7 percent. In total eight ridings changed party affilia­ tion, with the CCF picking up seats in Yorkton, the Battlefords, Regina City, Moose Mountain, Mackenzie, Kindersley, and Humboldt-Melfort. All were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote except for Humboldt-Melfort and Yorkton. Five ridings in the province were decided by 5 percent of the vote or less, and eight ridings changed hands. The 1957 election saw both the Liberals and the CCF lose votes to the PCs and Social Credit. Social Credit doubled its strength, receiving 10.4 percent, but still won no seat. The PCs took 23.2 percent of the vote and won three seats. The Liberals received 30.3 percent and lost one seat. The CCF lost almost one-quarter of its support but only one seat. The two ridings that switched par­ ties in the election, Qu’A ppelle and Saskatoon, were won by the PCs by less than 5 percent of the vote. A total of seven ridings were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote, with the PCs winning two of them, the Liberals winning three, and the CCF winning two.

370

Patrice Dutil

TABLE 17.5 Electo ral re su lts in M an ito b a

1945

1949

1953

1957

Party

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

9

32.7

11

45.1

7

37.0

1

25.8 35.5

PC

2

24.9

1

22.0

3

27.0

8

Social Credit

0

3.2

0

0

0

6.3

0

13.0

CCF

5

31.6

3

25.9

1

11.1

5

23.4

Others

0

8.7

1

5.0

1

1.2

0

0.7

Manitoba Manitoba was a Liberal stronghold. O f the 305,826 votes cast in the 1949 elec­ tion, the Liberals won 42.4 percent, almost double the PCs at 23.1 percent. The main rival was the CCF, which won 34.5 percent of the vote. The Liberals picked up the ridings of Churchill and Dauphin. In Churchill, the Liberals defeated the CCF by 15 percent of the vote, while in Dauphin, the closest race that year, the Liberals defeated the CCF by slightly less than 5 percent of the vote. The 1953 race changed the political landscape as voters moved to the right in Manitoba. The Liberals lost a substantial share of the vote as well as five seats. The CCF losses were even deeper in terms of the vote, and it was reduced to one seat. Social C redit won 6.9 percent of the vote and the Progressive Conservatives won 26.8 percent. Four ridings changed hands, with the PCs picking up seats in Winnipeg South Centre and Winnipeg South, the Liberals taking hold of the riding of Selkirk, and the CCF winning the riding of Dauphin (from the Liberals). Selkirk and Winnipeg South were the only two seats in the entire province that were decided by 5 percent of the vote or less. In 1957, the Liberal coalition in Manitoba was reduced to one-quarter of the general vote as electors turned to the Tories, the CCF, and Social Credit. The Progressive Conservatives picked up five seats in Manitoba, with only one (Provencher) being decided by less than 5 percent of the vote. Ontario Ontario has traditionally voted Tory and was always a challenge for the Liberals, and even more so for the third parties who could never get a toe-hold. Arguably, the Tories had an even stronger asset: a man who quit the premiership of O n­ tario in order to lead at the national level. Yet, against George Drew, St-Laurent

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

371

TABLE 17.6 E le cto ra l re su lts In O n ta rio

1945

1949

1953

Party

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

34

40.8

55

45.1

PC

48

41.4

25

Social Credit

0

0.2

CCF

0

Others

0

Seats

% Vote

Seats

1957

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

50

46.0

21

36.6

37.4

33

40.3

31

48.1

0

0.2

0

0.3

0

1.6

14.3

1

15.2

1

11.1

3

11.9

2.7

2‘

1.0

1b

1.2

0

0.5

a Independent Liberal (1); Independent Labour (1) b Liberal-Labour

had a profound effect as the Liberals won 45.2 percent of the vote in 1949 and finally won more seats than the Tories. Third parties such as the CCF and the Union of Electors won 16.8 percent. The Liberal Party picked up seats across the province, with sizeable margins in Bruce, Grey North, Hastings South, Kent, Kingston City, Lambton-Kent, Lincoln, Norfolk, Parkdale, and Trinity; how­ ever, Wellington North, St. Paul’s, Rosedale, Oxford, Northumberland, London, Leeds, High Park, Durham, and Davenport were all decided by 5 percent of the vote or less. The Progressive Conservatives picked up no seats in Ontario and won ten of their ridings by 5 percent or less. Meanwhile, the CCF gained the riding of York South by less than 5 percent of the vote, while an Independent Liberal won the seat of Prescott handily.36The Toronto Daily Star celebrated the fact that “Over Million Voters throughout Ontario Gave Rebuke to Tories.”37 St-Laurent kept Ontario in 1953, increasing his take of the general vote to 40.7 percent, almost 5 percentage points more than George Drews Tories. It seems the Liberals attracted a good num ber of CCF voters that summer. The PCs did better than they had in 1949, increasing their share of the vote and picking up the ridings of Bruce, Halton, Leeds, London, Ontario, Oxford, and St. Paul’s, although five of the twelve seats they won were decided by 5 percent or less: Bruce, Leeds, Ontario, Oxford, and St. Paul’s. The Liberals only gained the seat of Waterloo South by a substantial plurality, while seven of the seats they won were decided by five percent of the vote or less. The only CCF victory, York South, was also won by a slim margin. Ontario could turn a cold shoulder to a former premier but could not resist Diefenbaker’s spell. The Liberals collapsed in Ontario in 1957 as they lost a major part of their voting coalition to the PCs. In total, thirty-one seats changed hands in Ontario in the 1957 election.

372

Patrice Dutil

The Tories under Diefenbaker won almost half the vote, while the Liberals received 36.8 percent. The PCs lost two seats and won twenty-eight, of which only four were decided by five percent of votes or less. The Liberals lost twentynine seats. The CCF gained C.D. Howe’s seat in Port Arthur, which was won by less than 5 percent of the vote, as were two other northern Ontario ridings, Timiskaming and Timmins, as labour politics started to assert itself. Ih e popu­ lation in Algoma East grew dramatically between 1953 and 1957 (50.3 percent), and the worker population voted CCF.38 The Toronto Daily Star described the PC victory over the Liberals as a “staggering surprise.”39 Quebec It was widely expected that St-Laurent, the first French-Canadian premier since Laurier, would win big in Quebec. That prognosis was correct: the Liberals won 60.4 percent of the 1,593,342 votes cast while the PCs - now supported by Bloc populaire and Union Nationale partisans who would do anything to defeat the Liberals - doubled their take and won 24.5 percent of the vote. The other par­ ties, such as Independents and the Union of Electors, collectively harvested 15.1 percent of the vote. O f the eight seats that changed parties in the 1949 election, the PCs gained two (by very small margins), the Liberals gained five (two in tight races), and the Independents gained one. The Liberal voting coali­ tion was heavily composed of voters who had supported the Bloc populaire and Liberal independents in 1945. LAvenir du Nord said that “aucun citoyen de cette province manque de fierté” [no citizen of this province lacks pride] in the victory and that having St-Laurent in charge was “le plus beau cadeau que le Québec puisse faire aux autres provinces” [the greatest gift that Quebec could give to the other provinces].40 The paper even went so far as to state that StLaurent’s victory constituted “la défaite des enemis de l’unité nationale et de la race canadienne-française.”41 That pattern held for the next eight years. In 1953, with the Union Nationale supporting George Drew, the PCs won 29.4 percent of the vote, and the Liberals also marginally increased their share of the vote to 61.1 percent. Those gains were made at the expense of the small parties who collectively gathered 9.6 per­ cent. The election saw the PCs pick up only the riding of Dorchester, and that by less than 5 percent of the vote. Independent Liberals gained Kamouraska and Papineau, both by less than 5 percent of the vote, while the Liberals picked up the riding of Labelle by less than 5 percent of the vote, and an Independent candidate took LaPointe by a decisive margin. The ridings of Papineau, LaPointe, Labelle, Kamouraska, and Dorchester switched party affiliations, and all except for LaPointe were won with margins smaller than 5 percent.

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

373

TABLE 17.7 E le cto ra l re su lts in Q u e b e c

1945

1949

1953

Party

Seats

Liberal

47

46.5

68

60.4

66

61.0

62

56.8

PC

1

9.7

2

24.0

4

29.4

9

30.7

Social Credit

0

4.4

0

0

0

0

0

0.2

CCF

0

2.4

0

1.1

0

1.5

0

1.8

17a

36.7

3b

7.4

5C

6.7

4“

5.5

Others a b c d

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

1957

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Independent Liberals (7); Independents (6); Bloc populaire (2); Labour Progressive (1); Independent PC (1) Independents Independents (3); Independent Liberals (2) Independents (4)

In 1957 the Liberals, settling with their worst score in the St-Laurent era with 57.6 percent of the vote, were losing bits and pieces of their coalition to the right. The PCs received a surprising 30.6 percent of the vote. The small parties received 11.6 percent of the vote, with Social Credit even earning a 0.19 percent. O f the fifteen seats that changed party affiliation, the PCs picked up six seats, of which five were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote. The Liberals picked up five seats, of which four were decided by 5 percent or less, while the Independent Liberals picked up two seats, one of which was decided by over 5 percent of the vote, and an independent gained the seat of Kamouraska by less than 5 percent of the vote. Moreover, a total of eighteen seats were decided by 5 percent or less of the vote in the given riding. The Liberals still took a towering sixty-two seats in Quebec; indeed, almost 60 percent of their seats in the new Parliament came from that province (out of 105, nationally). New Brunswick The pattern set in Quebec was also applied in New Brunswick. The Liberals won 51.1 percent of the vote in 1949, besting by a few points their domination of 1945. The PCs were electorally stronger than in Quebec with 38.3 percent of the vote but never won more than three seats. The CCF and other small parties hardly registered (7.8 percent of the vote) and won no seats. In 1949, the only riding to change hands was won by the Liberals in the riding of St. John-Albert, which they won by less than 5 percent of the vote. In New Brunswick all the ridings were won by either the Liberals or the PCs, with eight ridings won by the Liberal Party and just two seats won by the Progressive Conservative Party.

374

Patrice Dutil

TABLE 17.8 Electo ral re su lts in N ew B ru n sw ic k

1945

1949

Party

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

7

50.0

1953

1957

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

8

53.8

7

52.7

5

47.5

39.4

3

41.9

5

48.1

3

38.3

2

Social Credit

0

7.4

0

0

0

0.4

0

0.1

CCF

0

0

0

4.2

0

3.0

0

0.8

0

4.3

0

1.6

0

1.9

0

1.3

PC

Others

The Liberal coalition started to disintegrate in 1953. The Liberals lost a few votes (as did the CCF), their support going to the Tories (who won 41.9 per­ cent) who capitalized on those weaknesses and even took a third seat. The CCF and Independent Liberals won 4.97 percent of the vote. All the seats in the province were won by either the Liberals or the PCs, with the PCs gaining the seat of St. John-Albert by less than 5 percent of the vote. The PCs held the seat of Victoria-Carleton but did so by less than 5 percent of the vote. The PCs made im portant gains in 1957 and won 49.2 percent of the vote, edging the Liberals, who took 47.65 percent while the small parties had to find satisfaction with 2.2 percent support. As always, the Liberals and the PCs won every seat in the province, with the PCs picking up seats in the ridings of York-Sunbury and Restigouche-Madawaska. York-Sunbury was decided by less than 5 percent of the vote while Restigouche-Madawaska was won by over 5 percent of the vote. These were the only two seats to change hands, and YorkSunbury was the only seat to be won by less than 5 percent of the vote. Nova Scotia St-Laurent was very well received in Nova Scotia in 1949, and the Liberal Party won 52.7 percent of the vote, the Progressive Conservative Party collected 37.4 percent of the vote, while other parties, comprised primarily of the CCF, took 9.8 percent of the vote. None of the twelve ridings changed hands, and only Colchester-Hants was won by less than 5 percent of the vote, with the PCs win­ ning that riding. The Liberal Party won ten seats, the CCF won only the seat of Cape Breton South, while the PCs won two seats. The double-member riding of Halifax was won by the Liberals. The Liberals hardened their domination of Nova Scotia politics four years later. While the PCs improved their mark with 40.1 percent of the vote, the

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

375

TABLE 17.9 E le cto ra l re su lts in N o va S c o tia

1949

1945

Party

Seats

% Vote

Seats

Liberal

9

45.7

PC

2

36.8

Social Credit

0

0

CCF

1

16.7

Others

0

0.8

1953

1957

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

10

52.7

10

2

37.5

1

0

0

0

0

0

0.1

1

9.9

1

6.0

0

4.3

0

0

0

0

0

0

Seats

% Vote

53.0

2

45.9

40.1

10

50.1

Liberals also improved their net to 53 percent of the vote, clearly taking votes from the CCF and small independent efforts that collectively harvested 7 percent of the ballots. The Liberals won every seat in the province except for the newly created riding of Digby-Annapolis Kings, which was won by a very small margin by the PCs, and the riding of Cape Breton South, still held with the slimmest plurality by the CCF. The Liberals were only tested in Colchester-Hants and Cumberland, winning them by small margins of less than five percentage points. Nova Scotia followed the national trend in 1957 with the PCs improving their net to 50.3 percent of the vote, the Liberals taking 44.7 percent of the vote, while other parties retained only 5 percent of the vote. The shift in the voting coalition, however, a very dramatic turn, gave the PCs ten seats (every seat in the province except for Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare and Inverness-Richmond). Six of the ten ridings were won by margins of less than 5 percent, and the CCF was wiped off the Nova Scotia map. Half of the seats won by Diefenbakers Tories were taken with margins of less than 5 percent of the vote. Even the Acadian sections of the province abandoned the Liberals, who were only able to barely hold on to Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare, but only by less than 5 per­ cent of the vote, so that a grand total of six ridings in the province were decided by 5 percent of the vote or less. Prince Edward Island PEI politics have always been characterized by very tight elections. In 1949, the Liberal Party won 48.4 percent, the Progressive Conservative Party won 47.7 percent, and other parties, most prominently the CCF, won 2.4 percent of the vote. The Liberals won King’s rather handily, but won Prince by a small plural­ ity; the two seats allocated for the riding of Queens were split between the two

376

Patrice Dutil

TABLE 17.10 Electo ral re s u lts in P rin ce Ed w a rd Islan d

1945

1949

1953

1957

Party

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

3

48.4

3

49.2

3

PC

1

47.4

1

48.4

1

51.1

0

46.4

48.0

4

52.0

Social Credit

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

CCF

0

4.2

0

2.4

0

0.8

0

1.0

Others

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

parties in very tight races. No seats changed hands, but three of the four were won by less than 5 percent of the vote. The scenario repeated itself in 1953 when the Liberals won three out of the four seats, taking two of them by less than 5 percent of the vote. The PCs won one seat, also by less than 5 percent of the vote. O f the 66,262 votes cast in PEI in the federal election, the Liberals improved their record and won 51.1 percent; the PCs won a slightly smaller proportion (48 percent) while the CCF lost twothirds of its support and only recorded 0.83 percent of the vote. About 5 percent of the electorate decided it was time for a change in 1957, but the result was a sea change. The Diefenbaker Tories finally surged over half the votes and won all four seats. The Liberals received 46.6 percent but were wiped off the electoral map, while the CCF improved marginally and received 1.02 percent of the vote. All of the seats except for the riding of King’s were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote. Newfoundland/Labrador Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949 and thus participated in the St-Laurent landslide. It did so with gusto. O f the seven ridings contested, the Liberal Party won five and the Progressive Conservative Party won two. The Liberal Party won 71.9 percent of the total vote in Newfoundland, while the PCs won 27.9 percent, with 0.1 percent going to alternative parties. The ridings where Liberals triumphed were decisive, while one of the PC victories, St. John’s West, was taken by a margin of less than 5 percent. In 1953, the Liberals took every seat, all by decisive margins, but the voting patterns told a slightly dif­ ferent story. The PCs improved slightly, taking 28.1 percent of the vote, but the Liberals dropped to 67.2 percent as other parties won 4.7 percent of the vote.

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

377

TA BLE 17.11 E le cto ra l re su lts in N e w fo u n d la n d / L a b ra d o r 1945

1949

1953

1957

Party

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

-

-

5

71.9

7

67.2

5

61.3

PC

-

-

2

27.9

0

28.1

2

37.4

Social Credit

-

-

0

0

0

0

0

0

CCF

-

-

0

0.2

0

0.6

0

1.0

Others

-

-

0

7.0

0

4.0

0

0

In 1957, the PCs won 37.8 percent of the vote, an im portant improvement, but only collected two seats: St. John’s East and St. John’s West. The Liberals took 61.9 percent of the vote, clearly losing support among dwellers in the provincial capital. The CCF won less than 0.5 percent of the vote. No seats in the province were decided by less than 5 percent of the vote. Yukon/Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories had only one riding, which was Yukon-Mackenzie River, and it was taken by the Liberals from the Tories in 1949 with 49 percent of the vote. The Independent Party won 34 percent of the vote and the CCF won 17 percent of the vote. In total, 6,707 votes were cast in this riding and territory. The Liberals held onto the seat of Mackenzie River in 1953, winning it with 49.4 percent of the vote, with the resurgent PCs winning 38.5 percent and an

TABLE 17.12 Electoral results in Yukon and the Northwest Territories 1945 Party

Seats

1949

% Vote

Seats

1953

% Vote

Seats

1957

% Vote

Seats

% Vote

Liberal

0

0

1

49.0

1

78.7

1

49.5

PC

1

40.0

0

0

0

21.3

0

48.2

Social Credit

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

CCF

0

27.5

0

1.0

0

0

0

0.4

Others

0

32.4a

0

34.0b

0

0

0

0

a Labour-Progressive b Independent

378

Patrice Dutil

Independent winning 12.1 percent of the voters. Remarkably, in 1957 the Liberals withstood the Diefenbaker “Northern Vision” and retained Mackenzie River with 68 percent of the vote compared to the PCs, who totalled 31.9 percent of the votes.

Given the absence of consistent and demographically sensitive polling data, the search for the Liberal coalition of voters over the two successes of 1949 and 1953 and the narrow defeat of 1957 can only be conducted in general terms. However, there are decipherable patterns. There is no doubt that Liberals dom ­ inated this period in terms of the popular vote (see Figure 17.1). In 1949, for instance, the recipe of success for the Liberals was to emphasize a strongly nationalistic platform and to draw support from dissatisfied CCF partisans on the left and Social Credit voters on the right, particularly in rural areas. This was done exceptionally well in Alberta. The same might be said of Quebec, al­ though the register is different. There, it was the Bloc populaire that dissolved, as did Social Credit. The Tories in Quebec, however, were able to capitalize on that phenomenon and increase their take of former activists and partisans of those two defunct formations. In Manitoba, the Liberals capitalized on dissatisfaction with PCs, the CCF, and Social Credit. In British Columbia, this was accomplished by appealing FIGURE 17.1 National electoral results (seats and votes)

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

379

to the partisans and tourists who had parked their vote in 1945 with the CCF, Social Credit, and a variety of independent candidates. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the independents and the Social Credit voters walked to the Liberal side as the Tories kept their support and the CCF actually increased its support. In Yukon, the Liberal gains were made at the expense of the PCs and the CCF. In Ontario, a slight shift to the left was perceptible as it was the Social Credit Party and the PCs who lost supporters to the Liberals. In PEI, the Liberals kept their edge by siphoning off support from the CCF partisans. Alberta bucked the trend entirely, giving massive support to Social Credit but also granting increasing favour to the Liberals and the PCs. The losers in 1949 Alberta were the independents and the CCF: their partisans went to the Liberals and the PCs. The trium phant re-election of 1953 showed similar patterns, though it was clear that the country as a whole was turning to the right. Nationally, the Liberals held their own as the Tories improved their results, taking support from the CCF and the various “independents” that had won favour in 1949. The move to the right could also be seen in the improved performance of the Social Credit Party. In Alberta, Social Credit set its high-water mark, while PC and CCF support collapsed. And while the Liberals held their own, they lost seats. The very same phenomenon was experienced in British Columbia. In Manitoba, the Liberal coalition was composed of disaffected CCF supporters, though the right also capitalized on that trend. St-Laurent’s voting coalition grew larger at the expense of the CCF in New Brunswick, Yukon, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and PEL Liberals held steady in Quebec but lost a few seats to the Tories and third parties as partisans looked elsewhere. Saskatchewan was not im mune to the rise of the Social Credit Party, though the mechanics were unique. The CCF more than doubled their take of seats in that province at the expense of the Liberals and the PCs. The turn in 1957 revealed the vulnerabilities of Liberal voting patterns. The rightward march that started in 1953 accelerated as the PCs led by Diefenbaker drew heavily on partisan voters who had had enough of supporting the Liber­ als. The increased turnout across the country clearly boosted Tory fortunes, giving credence to the notion that PC voters who had decided to stay home in the summer of 1953 were a lot more interested in supporting Diefenbaker four years later. In Alberta, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Yukon, Nova Scotia, Ontario, PEI, and British Columbia, the combined collapse of Social Credit and the Liberals boosted the PCs. In Manitoba, exceptionally, the PC surge was accompanied by an almost parallel Social Credit increase, while it is clear that the Liberal vote went to the CCF. The left-right divide simply shifted party labels.

380

Patrice Dutil

The Liberal coalition shifted three times during the St-Laurent years, yield­ ing victory in the popular vote every time, but the regional distribution of the vote is what ultimately disrupted the Liberals’ ability to convert votes into seats. Clearly, the PC message articulated by Diefenbaker resonated in less populated ridings - the populist message that had carried St-Laurent in 1949 would ul­ timately work for the blue team eight years later. This is examined in the next chapter.

Notes 1 Mackenzie King Diary Online, item 33072,23 March 1949, https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/

2

3

4

5

6

7 8

9

discover/politics-government/prime-ministers/william-lyon-mackenzie-king/Pages/ diaries-william-lyon-mackenzie-king.aspx. Mackenzie King Diary Online, item 33066,16March 1949,https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/ discover/politics-government/prime-ministers/william-lyon-mackenzie-king/Pages/ diaries-william-lyon-mackenzie-king.aspx. In term of seat proportion, the record to this day still belongs to the PC victories of 1958 (78.5 percent) and 1984 (74.8 percent). After the King victory of 1940 and the St-Laurent success of 1949, and thus in fifth place, is John A. Macdonalds return to power in 1878, when the Conservative Party took 70 percent of the seats. The roots of Liberal Party success seem elusive, except for the broad theory that it has singularly been able to capitalize on the support of Catholic voters across the country. Beyond that, authors focus on a bouquet of reasons: attractive leaders, strong and wellorganized lieutenants representing regions, effective patronage, ability to “occupy the centre,” good policy, luck, and weak leadership in its adversaries. See Joseph Wearing, The L-Shaped Party: The Liberal Party o f Canada, 1958-1960 (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1981); Reginald Whitaker, The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party o f Canada, 1930-58; jpLKenneth Carty, Big Tent Politics: The Liberal Party’s Long Mastery o f Canadas Public Life (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015). Among the dissertations: P.H. Heppe, “The Liberal Party of Canada” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1957); Peter Regenstreif, “The Liberal Party of Canada: A Political Analysis” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 1963); J.W. Lederle, “The National Organization of the Liberal and Conservative Parties in Can­ ada” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1942); E.E. Harrill, “The Structure or Organization and Power in Canadian Political Parties: A Study in Party Financing” (PhD diss, University of North Carolina, 1958). J.W. Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole: A Memoir (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1994), 330-31. St-Laurenfs sensitivity to regions is discussed by Michel Beaulieu (Chapter 10, this volume). See Robert Bothwell and William Kilbour, C.D. Howe: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 242. Lawrence LeDuc, Judith I. McKenzie, Jon H. Pammett, and André Turcotte, Dynasties and Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics (Toronto: Dundurn, 2010), 151. Ibid., 153 (chart 3.2). Donald Creighton, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939-1957 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 235.

In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition

381

10 “Memorandum, Political Situation 1952” [7 December 1952?], Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Louis St-Laurent Papers, MG 26 L, vol 126, file 12, viii and 12. 11 Les Mutch to Louis St-Laurent, 13 October 1952, LAC, MG 26 L126. 12 Ibid. 13 LeDuc et al„ Dynasties and Interludes, 153 (chart 3.2). 14 W. Greer to James Gardiner, 25 June 1951, LAC, MG 26 L126. 15 Ibid. 16 James G. Gardiner to Louis St-Laurent, 24 January 1952, LAC, MG 26 L126. 17 S.J. Davies (?) to Louis St-Laurent, 20 December 1952, LAC, MG 26 L126. 18 Ibid. 19 Using the official figures of the government of Canada, http://www.elections.ca/content. aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index 8dang=e. 20 This confidence is manifest in Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 473-74. 21 Summarized in Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1970), 502. 22 Ibid., 505. 23 Leduc et al., Dynasties and Interludes, 186 (figure 4.1), 190-91. 24 Ibid., 511. 25 John Meisel, The Election o f 1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 246. 26 Meisel, Election of 1957, 256. 27 Ibid., 249. 28 Ibid., 252-53. 29 Coast News (Victoria), 4 July 1949. 30 Coast News, 13 June 1957. 31 Ibid., 20 June 1957. 32 Irma Times (Alberta), 1 July 1949. 33 Chronicle (Edmonton), 30 June 1949. 34 St-Albert Gazette, 13 August 1953. 35 Leader Post, 28 June 1949. 36 The Prescott riding was divided about the incumbency of Elie-Oscar Bertrand, who offered to resign after representing the riding for twenty-four years. St-Laurent insisted he stay on, indicating that he had heard no rumours about Bertrands unpopularity. 37 Toronto Daily Star, 28 June 1949. 38 Meisel, Election o f1957,247. 39 Toronto Daily Star, 11 June 1957. 40 Lavenir du Nord, 1 July 1949. 41 Ibid.

382

Patrice Dutil

chapter Winning Words Party Platforms in the 1949,1953, and 1957 Elections PATRICE DUTIL AND PETER M. RYAN

Do party platforms matter? Some will argue that the messenger - the party leader - matters more in determining an elections outcome (Louis St-Laurent once declared himself partial to that view). Others will emphasize the organ­ izational prowess of a party as being more decisive: how well it selects its candidates, how effective its communications, how adept it is at motivating its supporters to actually go to the voting booth.1 Naturally, the argument that “events” matter more than platforms is compelling, that the latter are static while day-to-day pronouncements are captivating and more likely to drive voters towards certain camps. All these points of view are valid. And yet parties create platforms because they signal two key things: (1) what the party considers to be deficient in the states policies and programs, and (2) what its remedies would be. The cues in the party platform signal values, plans, and ideals; they motivate party members and, at some level, generate a level of favour among the electorate, particularly if they consistently communicate party commitments and undermine the mes­ saging of the party’s adversaries. John Diefenbaker devoted five pages to the 1957 Progressive Conservative platform in his memoirs.2 This chapter explores the evolution of political programs in the age of Louis St-Laurent in order to examine what they offered and to identify the criticisms levelled at the government of Canada in the late 1940s and 1950s.3It does this in two ways: first, by offering a traditional “content analysis” of the various programs and, second, by using a particular m ethod of digital humanities re­ search that focuses on how texts relate to each other.4

This dual approach enables a historical analysis of the thematic changes to the platforms and a visualization of the rhetorical strategy used by each party. By using statistics to analyze word use, the dominant repetitive messages of party programs can be brought to light and the historical trends in the use of language can be identified.5 The m ethod essentially captures both the rhythm and the harmony of each platform - the core code of each party’s message. The use of the word “Canada,” for instance, can hardly be considered to be indicative of policy. Yet the evidence is compelling: while some platforms hardly referred to Canada by name, the winning platforms did. Overall, these methods help identify the cues that have been deployed to attract attention and support to the party program. This analysis first examines the Liberal and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation platforms because they were most consistent in their use of dominant key words and themes over time. It then examines the rhetoric of the Social Credit Party and the Progressive Conservative Party to show how much they changed. TABLE 18.1 Political party platforms, 1949-57

Party CCF

Liberal

PC

SC

Page count

Word count

Security for All

15

7,404

Leader

Year

Title

Coldwell

1949

Coldwell

1953

Humanity First

11

5,709

Coldwell

1957

Winnipeg Declaration of Principles of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

13

5,518

St-Laurent

9 May 1949

Speech at the opening of the general election campaign

8

3,598

St-Laurent

1953

Speeches published in The C a n a d ia n L ib e ra l (Summer & Fall, 1953)

2

1,308

St-Laurent

1957

Speech

3

1,696

Drew

1949

Progressive Conservative platform of 1949 (speech published in newspaper)

7

4,061

Drew

1953

Progressive Conservative platform of 1953 (pamphlet)

3

1,091

Diefenbaker

1957

At the Crossroads

11

6,077

Low

1953

What Is Social Credit?

10

3,598

Low

1957

Social Credit 1957 (speech)

2

672

7.72

3,703

AVERAGE

384

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

The Liberal Platforms 1949 The Liberal Party used the first speech delivered by Louis St-Laurent in the election campaign as its platform. It was delivered on 9 May 1949 and was 3,598 words long. He had been prim e m inister for almost six m onths and his ob­ jective was to “obtain a m andate from the people themselves.” The speech emphasized the entry of Newfoundland into Confederation and the drafting and signing of the NATO agreement, but it also ensured that Parliament had time to approve certain agreements and to vote on funds for the upcoming years activities. St-Laurent reported progress on “a comforting change of historical importance in the relations between Commonwealth nations, which allowed India to remain within our free association of nations.” Canada was also a trad­ ing nation, St-Laurent insisted, because it was key to “maintaining prosperity^ highlighting why the issue had “such importance in our program.” “Public affairs are simply the affairs of the people - your affairs,” St-Laurent declared. His speech emphasized that it was “government” that was speaking; the word “Liberal” only appeared seventeen times, while the word “government” was uttered forty times. The program emphasized that income taxes had been reduced since the end of the war, as had the national debt: “the present govern­ ment has administered the public finances, which are your finances, with dis­ cipline and wisdom,” St-Laurent assured his listeners. The speech emphasized progress on a wide range of issues. Pensions and the Family Allowances Act, for instance, had been increased, and the latter benefit was not extended to immigrants who had been in the country for less than a year. A program of grants for health and hospitalization had been created to help the provinces. Canada had signed the International W heat Agreement in Washington, DC - a direct benefit to Canada’s Prairie farmers. The Liberal program was an accountability document more than it was a statement of what it wished to accomplish. St-Laurent emphasized why this was the case: “One of the reasons that it has been possible for us to accomplish so much is that our government is not in the hands of one man but in the hands of a team of exceptionally qualified men.” Nevertheless, the Liberal Party plat­ form was stridently partisan: In the next election, we will have to choose between three political philoso­ phies in most ridings. One of them is socialism. I do not believe that many Canadians want socialism, even those whom I have described as liberals, in a pinch.

Winning Words

385

Another choice might be the old-fashioned conservatism disguised under a new name. I do not believe that many Canadians wish the return to reac­ tionary conservatism, whatever it may be called for the moment. I do believe that the attitude and the principles of the Liberal Party match the wishes of most Canadians - and even of a large number who say they are not Liberals. And here I am specially addressing these one million young Canadian men and women who will be entitled to vote for the first time next June 27. Allow me to rem ind you that to be truly progressive, it is not enough to add the word “progressive” to the name of a political party.

The speech/program emphasized that Liberals believed in “individual initiative and private enterprise” because they were “fundamental to a sound, prosperous and progressive nation.” Liberals, he cautioned, were also “ready to use the powers of the State to help give everyone equal opportunity and to prevent the exploitation of the population by self-centered interests.” The Liberal Party’s program was summarized in its key priority: “Our objective is an increasingly prosperous country,” St-Laurent said, “and I know it is also yours.” The Liberal Party platform of 1949 was very nationalistic if one considers its top ten key words (Table 18.2). The words “Canada,” “Canadians,” and “Canadian” appeared fifty-two times, contributing 1.6 percent of the text. It also associated “government” with “men” (the men who sat in cabinet) and “people.” The message was heavy on content that conveyed belonging. Beyond referring to the country by name, it also hammered “country,” “people,” and “Liberal.” 1953 The Liberal Platform of 1953 was drawn from a St-Laurent speech and reprinted in the summer-fall issue of The Canadian Liberal. It was short, only 1,308 words, but they were spread over eight pages. It did not need that much room: “The Liberal party is making only one promise,” it declared in its opening line. “And that is if you decide that we are the right people to carry on your affairs we will do our utmost to serve you as well as we would our own individual families.” The platform made an effort to personalize government by pointing to key cabinet members. The prime minister s presence was muted in comparison. The speech/platform did lay out a twelve-part program for the next four years that had the virtue of being clear and to the point. Few explanations were given to justify the points made and priorities were kept to a minimum. All the same, the program ranged widely from expenditure policy to support for farm­ ers and fishers.

386

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

The first item was taxation and expenditure, on which the Liberals promised to “pay as we go” and to reduce the national debt. The party also promised to “go slow” on spending and to reduce taxes. The second priority was federal-provincial relations, focused on tax rental agreements. Surprisingly, it included not a word on the governments planned equalization program. The third priority was constitutional - to find an am end­ ing formula in order to safeguard the constitutional authority of provinces and to safeguard “sacred constitutional rights” in education for both English and French minorities. The fourth heading was internal security. The platform was careful to declare that the Liberal Party was “opposed to legislation to control men’s political opinions” but was committing to preserve any legislation designed “to protect our institutions, our defence establishments and essential industries from subversion and sabotage.” The fifth priority was international trade, while the sixth was floor prices for farmers and fishers - “the kind of security given to wage earners by u n ­ employment insurance.” In seventh place came “employment and labour rela­ tions,” housing was in eighth place, and health insurance and pensions in ninth pace. In tenth place was transportation, including the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Canso Causeway, and the Trans-Canada Highway. Conservation and development of natural resources was in eleventh place. Finally, the twelfth promise was to maintain national unity, including assist­ ance to “Canadian culture,” and to maintain national security while being open to “peaceful gestures from behind the Iron curtain.” In terms of word use, a change in pattern is noticeable. The word “Liberal” climbed to the top of the chart, as did concepts of reassurance such as the words “security,” “maintain,” and “insurance.” Strikingly, the word “Canada” fell to only four mentions, while “provinces” climbed to six references. 1957 The Liberal Platform of 1957 was slightly longer than that of 1953 (at 1,696 words) and more informal in tone. It boasted achievements and at the same time acknowledged that many ideals had fallen short, especially in the fight against inflation. Remarkably, the prosperity of Canada was said to have oc­ curred not because of government but “because Providence has smiled on Canada; and because Canadians have worked intelligently and have worked hard.” The Liberals were on par with God and Canadians. The platform saluted im portant accomplishments in the broad category of “national development,” such as the St. Lawrence Seaway and the imminent construction of the worlds longest natural gas pipeline - the TransCanada

Winning Words

387

Pipeline - as well as federal support for affordable housing, the Trans-Canada Highway, and the development of the North. The discussion then shifted to the parliamentary session that had just fin­ ished, offering something of a laundry list of legislation passed. There was a rare note for “immigrants from heroic Hungary, from the United Kingdom, and from other countries overseas to help us build this great land of ours” as well as a call for world peace: “World peace is essential for our national develop­ ment; a major war today would be an unthinkable calamity. It must be avoided at all costs.” Issues of trade, particularly with the Commonwealth, were quickly addressed, but the issue circled back to Canadian-American relations, ending with the rhetorical question: Is there going to be another world war? St-Laurent provided the answer: I personally am most hopeful that there will not be another world war. Ih e Soviet leaders know very well that we of the free world, if attacked, are pre­ pared to hit back hard and instantly and that the retaliation would be at least as devastating to them as the attack would be to us. But to be sure of peace we must keep our defences and retaliatory preparedness. This costs us in Canada more than a third of our federal budget. It is a heavy burden but I am sure you will agree that the confidence we can have that the peace will not be broken is worth the premium we have to pay for that feeling of security.

The short speech/platform ended with the bullish vision of “Canada in 1980” that had been put out by the Gordon Commission, one that painted a very optimistic vision of a bigger, more prosperous country. The Liberal platform hailed its vision of wealth and pledged itself to making it a reality. The words used by the Liberal Party in 1957 show something of a return to the rhetoric of 1949, but with much less emphasis. The word “government” rockets back to the top of the charts but only with twelve mentions. The words “Canada” and “Canadians” also reappear at the top but less than half the time (1 percent of the words). The net effect was a more technocratic speech, with little mention of the national identification that had marked the Liberal plat­ form eight years before.

The Platforms of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) The CCF used a different vocabulary, one that had closer affinities with Social Credit than it did with the Liberals. The language of the three platforms was relatively consistent in its use of words and phrases.

388

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

1949 The CCF s platform of 1949 was entitled Security for All and called for broad changes to nearly every aspect of Canadian life. At 7,404 words, it was among the longest platforms issued in the years of St-Laurent’s prime ministership. The program was divided by client categories: “For All,” “For Producers,” and “For the Democratic World,” ranging across a list of priorities: social security (con­ sidered an “essential part of the democratic way of life”), health, housing, the cost of living, a fight against oleomargarine in order to protect dairy farmers, an expanded immigration program, and rent controls. “Producers” was the word used to capture labourers in all sectors. The plat­ form promised action on a long list of agricultural priorities designed to bring stability. This included price guarantees, market guarantees, improved storage facilities, public and cooperative ownership in farm machinery, fertilizer pro­ duction, and meat-packing to name but the more prominent areas of priority. Fishers, like farmers, were offered an array of protections, including marketing boards, export and import boards, and guaranteed prices. Workers were offered union protection and a national labour code. The CCF platform included a section on “Full Production” that promised government control of most sectors of production or a form of cooperative ownership. “The CCF is often accused of being doctrinaire. In reality, CCF critics are the doctrinaires,” it declared. Nevertheless, the program insisted that “it would leave a large section of business in private hands” but promised to “break m onopoly’s grip” as the country was ruled by a “dictatorship of privilege.” The platform addressed a num ber of economic sectors, including trans­ portation, iron and steel, the agri-food business, banking (calling for public ownership of all banks), and international trade. It promised to rebuild the economy of the Maritimes, which had “been reduced to depressed areas by the exploitation and neglect of capitalism.” In terms of governance, the CCF program was again ambitious, including a bill of rights, an end to appeals to the Privy Council, the adoption of a Canadian flag and national anthem, the abolition of the Senate, and a procedure to amend the BNA Act. The CCF was careful to denounce communism and to distance itself from any collaboration with communist parties. It supported the United Nations, called for “economic planning” to resolve inequities in development, and prom­ ised to “resolutely resist any attempt either by the forces of communism or those of capitalism, to dominate the world.” The top ten words used in the 1949 CCF platform can easily be read as a précis of the document: “CCF,” “govern­ ment,” “social,” “economic,” “program,” “national,” “provinces,” and “ownership.”

Winning Words

389

The words “Canadian” and “Canada” are in the eight and tenth position, respect­ ively, together constituting 0.69 percent of the total. 1953 The CCF platform was trim med by almost a quarter in 1953, coming in at 5,709 words. It recognized the prosperity of the previous four years but warned that “the veneer of prosperity in Canada is thinner than the price-inflated produc­ tion figures would lead us to believe.” Wealth had not been evenly distributed: “Those who have laboured to produce our great national wealth have not re­ ceived their full share of its distribution.” The economy was artificially supported by Canadas response to the Cold War: “In an economy artificially bolstered by war production no ones future is secure. If peace should ‘break out,’ economic collapse could quite easily follow.” The response was a plan to achieve “maximum production” by introducing more planning in the economy, ending unemployment, and developing re­ sources (while ensuring conservation). It also promised the establishment of “social priorities” in order to ensure equitable distribution of income. These objectives would be secured by an economic planning commission and a na­ tional investment board. It called for the nationalization of key industries, as in 1949, and support for the Maritimes. For the west, it promised the building of a dam on the South Saskatchewan River, price protections for farmers, na­ tionalization of farm m achinery production, fertilizer production, and the introduction of a national livestock marketing board. The 1949 promise to protect the dairy industry was repeated, but this time it called for a “public inquiry” into margarine to examine its impact on diets and on “the welfare of the dairy industry.” Transportation was identified as a priority, and the CCF platform promised federal aid to the provinces to build highways of national and international importance. Social programs were again highlighted, including a housing policy to provide low-rent shelter, a full and universal health care package, and “security for all.” The CCF also rem inded its readers that social security was “an es­ sential part of the democratic way of life” and that “society must provide for the aged, the sick, the disabled, and all those who, through no fault of their own, are unable to provide for themselves.” Unemployment insurance would be in­ creased and extended to a broader range of occupations. Pensions would be increased and provided to people at age sixty-five without a means test. The CCF also promised a more vigorous federal presence in education, including support for schools, teacher salaries, and student assistance for post-secondary

390

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

studies. This would be done “without any interference with provincial jurisdic­ tion over education.” The CCF pledged action on recreation, art, and leisure, including the provi­ sion of low-cost hostels and tourist and camping centres. “A plan for the exten­ sion of holiday facilities to the great masses of the Canadian people is long overdue,” it argued. It supported the creation of the Canada Council for the Arts that was proposed by the Massey Commission as well as the expansion of the National A rt Gallery and support to local arts groups. As it had in 1949, the program reiterated its call for a bill of rights, protec­ tion of Canadas bi-cultural nature, a national flag, a national anthem, and a formula to amend the Constitution. It fully supported the United Nations, though argued that the permanent five members of the Security Council should not have the veto, and it highlighted the war against poverty worldwide. The CCF used a vocabulary that was strikingly similar to the 1949 platform, albeit a little more nationalistic. The use of the words “Canada” and “Canadian” grew to 0.77 percent of the total. 1957 The 1957 platform of the CCF was captured in the Winnipeg Declaration of Principles o f the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation of 1956. At 5,518 words, it was shorter still than the one produced four years earlier, and replaced its long paragraphs with bullet points to capture the eye. In its opening paragraph, the program declared its roots in the Regina Manifesto of 1933. It recognized the “great economic expansion” of the previ­ ous decade but cautioned that “large sections of our people do not benefit ad­ equately from the increased wealth produced.” It noted increased inequities: “The gap between those at the bottom and those at the top of the economic scale has been widened.” As in the previous programs, the issue of “security” was emphasized. The statement also offered a sharp diagnosis of Canadas governance: “The growing concentration of corporate wealth has resulted in a virtual economic dictatorship by a privileged few. This threatens our political democracy which will attain its full meaning only when our people have a voice in the management of the economic affairs and effective control over the means by which they live.” Again, the program announced its support for “producers” and “security for labour,” declaring that increased trade with the United King­ dom “and other non-dollar countries” was a priority. The program did not mince words. Capitalism was cited as “immoral,” the solution being “social planning for a just society,” and it declared that “socialism

Winning Words

391

[was] on the march” and that Canada had to share its wealth. The program reminded its readers that the CCF was in favour of public ownership of a number of industries so as to “break” monopolies and thus achieve its social objectives. The call for a bill of rights was renewed, and this time there was also a call for the banishing of nuclear weapons. It called for the support of the United Nations and the “generous support of international agencies” who provided assistance to “under-developed countries on a vast scale.” An important section, entitled “More Abundant Living for All,” called for more generous safety-net programs, comprehensive health insurance, low-cost housing, federal aid for education, and support for recreation and the arts, including the “expansion of the Canadian Broadcasting C orporation as a major m edium in the development of Canad­ ian culture.” The program emphasized the need for economic planning, with a focus on breaking “the stranglehold of private monopoly” in farm equipment and fer­ tilizer and the encouragement of cooperative entreprises. To that end, it called for a publicly owned national investment and development bank to assist in­ dustries and a national investment board. It also called for the extension of low-cost credit for farmers, fishers, and small business owners and coopera­ tives, and fairer tax structures. There were notable innovations. The 1957 program called for a complete revision of the Immigration Act to streamline processes and to eliminate dis­ crimination on the basis of race, colour, or creed, and to provide special atten­ tion to refugees. A special section on “Sharing the Benefits of Automation” spoke of the need to modernize processes in order to allow workers and indus­ tries to adapt to new methods of production. The program called for the creation of a national fuel and energy authority to control exports and imports but insisted that inter-provincial pipelines be government-owned. As in 1953, the vocabulary of the CCF hardly changed, though the word “government” moved from second place to sixteenth place, and the word “people” moved to fourth place. “Canada” and “Canadian” constituted only 0.73 percent of the word usage.

The Social Credit Platforms The first national Social Credit platform was released during the 1953 cam­ paign under the leadership of Solon Earl Low. It was 3,598 words long and featured long lists (often repetitive) of bullet points that attempted to diagnose the Canadian condition and the many remedies it offered. Mostly, it served as a mechanism to introduce the party and its philosophy to Canadians who did

392

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

not live in Alberta. The party was presented as a “reform movement” whose philosophy placed “the sanctity of human personality” at the centre of all its concerns. It contended that: “A Christian democracy so organized that the State and its institutions and functions are designed to serve the requirements of its individual citizens is the only social system that will ensure individual freedom.” The party was also focused on restoring economic health through a “scientific distribution of sufficient consumer purchasing.” The program called for m onet­ ary reform, including the elimination of debt, while at the same time ensuring enough monetary supply “to meet the needs of both the producers and the consumers.” The program included an explanation of hum an history as char­ acterized by a cycle: (a) Periodical lack of purchasing power results in lack of markets for our pro­ duction, causing (b) Unemployment, that brings on (c) Depression, from which (d) International friction arises, leading to (e) War, that inevitably causes (f) Increased borrowing, debt, and inflation, to meet which requires (g) Pyramiding taxation (h) Peace. The theory held that this cycle then repeated itself. The platform promised sup­ plies of cash from the government without the incurring of debt. This would be managed “scientifically” by a Canadian monetary commission that would be accountable to Parliament, not the government. Supplies of cash would be provided to Canadians through a national dividend. Taxes would essentially be abolished in this revolutionary program, and banks would be required to keep a cash reserve that was equivalent to its loans. Agricultural policy would ensure fair prices for farmers, resulting from the introduction of a permanent agricultural prices support act. For the most part, however, the Social Credit Party promised reduced regulation to industry, the establishment of public utilities only where the private sector had “failed to provide,” but at the same time a strong anti-trust legislation. It also pledged a national labor code (using American spelling for “labor”) and to work with the provinces to effectively develop natural resources and ensure prosperity for all citizens of Canada.

Winning Words

393

This included better pensions, extensive “care for immigrants who were unable to provide for themselves until they have become Canadian citizens,” a massive home-building and low-rental housing program, funding for students who wish to pursue postsecondary education, better trade policies designed to achieve world peace based on a “reciprocal and mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services between nations, and not merely the exchange,” and the end of the gold standard. No aspect of Canadian life, save perhaps arts and culture, was left untouched. The Social Credit program even called for electoral reform in the adoption of ranked-ballot voting. The words used by the Social Credit platform were distinct from those of the other parties. “Canada” and “Canadians” were used sixty-one times, or 1.70 percent of total word usage, but the top ten list was dominated by “Social,” “Credit,” “government,” “association,” “production,” “goods,” and “people.” The word “individual” appears in tenth place, the only time it was used in any platform during the decade. 1957 The 1957 platform was only 672 words long and much different from the 1953 platform. It pledged to be committed to “freedom and free enterprise for all” and called “for rejection of the impractical, stifling idea of ‘tight money,’ of excessive taxation, of government meddling and autocratic action.” It promised an immediate increase in pensions to $100 a month and “a financial policy designed to keep purchasing power in balance with Canadas production.” The list of promises was extensive, if succinct: a national health plan, a national housing program, a “vigorous, enlightened” trade policy, development of the “Northland,” low interest loans for small businesses and farmers, financial assistance for highway construction, Senate reform, and “keeping government out of private business.” It introduced the notion of “selective immigration”: a “vigorously executed policy for bringing people to this country and locating them where they are needed.” Almost half the program was dedicated to im­ migration as a tool to help fix many of Canadas economic problems, including inflation. For the rest, the Social Credit program emphasized personal liberty, reduction of wasteful government spending, renewed partnership with the provinces, abandoning “blanket credit restrictions,” and integrating “financial, monetary, and taxation policies to lower the cost of production.” The drafters of the short program were remarkably consistent with those of the 1953 platform, although a few key words, such as “policy,” “new,” “national,” and “designed,” appear in the top ten, indicating a desire to emphasize the novelty of the Social Credit program. The 1957 platform is the only time “immigration” is used among the four parties over the decade.

394

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

The Progressive Conservative (PC) Party Platforms Of the four parties, the PC platforms changed the most from 1949 to 1957, both in tone and in content. The impact of John Diefenbaker’s rise to the leadership was particularly evident in the PC program. 1949 The 1949 PC platform aimed at ending the Liberal Party’s fourteen years in power with the well-worn “time for a change” theme. It was presented as a George Drew speech of 4,061 words, was reprinted in newspapers across the country, and was summarized by Drew himself as “Opportunity, Security, Free­ dom.” Drew insisted that the words did not constitute a “meaningless, time­ worn slogan” but, instead, represented the will of the members of the PC Party. The program first explored the meaning of “freedom,” highlighting economic freedoms and political freedoms. It focused particularly on using the criminal code to deal with the threat of the communist ideology in Canada: “ [a] tyranny to destroy the freedom for which Canadians paid so great a price.” In terms of opportunity, the Drew program focused particularly on develop­ ment, the priorities being the “transportation problem of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Cape Breton and Vancouver Island” as well as the St. Lawrence Seaway. The expansion of international trade was also part of an “Opportunity” plank, with the PC Party pledging itself to improving overseas commerce as well as the “internal” trade with the United States - even if it meant “Reciprocity,” a bogey-word the PCs had used against the Liberals in 1911.6 The program promised a reduction in personal income taxes, extra deductions for farmers, ending the “persecution of our people by tax-collectors,” small-business tax reductions, and the abolition of “nuisance taxes.” Drew promised the creation of a national labour council to investigate and resolve labour disputes as well as to conduct research on ways to improve labour relations. The program made promises to improve labour representation on government boards, commis­ sions, and agencies, and committed the party to pursuing profit-sharing plans for workers, improving the laws providing for compulsory collective bargaining, union certification, and labour standards such as paid holidays. The “Security” section of the platform was substantial (almost 50 percent of the text), ranging from a vague promise to create as many jobs as possible to providing universal pensions at age sixty-five, an extension of unemployment insurance for people injured at work or sick, a national health program that would include preventative health services, an expansion of the family allowance program, a program of loans for those who wished to build their own homes,

Winning Words

395

floor prices for farmers, and an expansion of the programs of the Federal Farm Loan Board. Drew championed a national development program for energy and the development of natural resources, including the establishment of a national development advisory council, a national power authority, and a broad range of public works to facilitate transport and the adoption of tax and fiscal op­ portunities to develop the oil and gas industries. The program returned to “Freedom” in its closing section, emphasizing the promise that a Progressive Conservative Party would “put an end to statism in Canada and terminate bureaucratic action by government order-in-council, ministerial proclamation, and departmental regulation.” This portion of the program also included a full paragraph on protecting the freedom of speech, using the CBC’s dismissal of Joel Aldred, its star journalist, as a case in point regarding political interference - this section was longer than the pledge to support NATO in order to protect Canadian freedoms. Drew summarized his platform by characterizing it as “progressive, practical and constructive.” In terms of word use, the party program in 1949 emphasized “freedom” and “development” as well as “government.” It is notable that “trade” appeared fourteen times; something the Liberals tried to replicate in 1953. The PCs liked to emphasize “people” in 1949 (though not to the level of the Liberals). This word would assume a much higher priority in the next elections. 1953 The 1953 PC platform was very short, just 1,091 words, and was summarized by a series of short paragraphs. Taxes were the main priority, with the promise of a federal-provincial tax conference, the reduction of $500 million in taxes, all while assuring voters that the military and the social security net would not be touched. It also promised a tax exemption for municipalities and school boards. The platform called for a restoration of the “supremacy of Parliament” by ending the practice of issuing orders-in-council, by repealing the Emergency Powers Act, and by reforming the Senate so that it could better perform its duties. On economic matters, the 1953 PC platform promised to expand markets abroad, particularly with the UK and the Commonwealth. Domestically, it aimed at improving the development of natural resources and investing in an infrastructure program. It also pledged to appoint a national agricultural board to establish fair floor prices for farmers. It also promised to review freight rates.

396

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

For ordinary people, the platform promised more responsive labour legis­ lation, a housing program that would work with the provinces and m unicipal­ ities to build affordable residences, and a contributory health insurance program created with the provinces. In terms of international relations, the platform pronounced its support for the Colombo Plan (in which Canada pledged to deliver international support to countries in Asia), and it also pledged itself to work with the United Nations and its agencies. 1957 The 1957 PC manifesto was very different from the 1953 platform. The PCs, now led by John Diefenbaker, offered a reinvigorated program of 6,077 words that encompassed a very wide range of promises. “Can anyone doubt that Can­ ada stands at a crossroads in her history?” it trumpeted. “This is a time for greatness in planning for her future.” Diefenbaker called the 1957 election “a date with destiny.” The platform started with a searing denunciation of the twenty-two-year-old Liberal regime followed by a call to remember John A. Macdonald, Canadas first prime minister, “who led the way to national toler­ ance, dignity and unity when he joined with Cartier in brotherhood and in faith” (Macdonald is hailed six times in the program). The emphasis was on building “One Canada” to preserve the country’s control of its destinies, a theme to which Diefenbaker returned repeatedly in the program as he ham ­ mered the point that the Liberals had been pursuing a policy of “Canada Last.” In terms of Canadas foreign policy, Diefenbaker called for general improve­ ments. While there was no overt criticism of the Liberal government for its policy initiatives over the Suez Crisis, the manifesto hoped “that Canadians will forget that the Prime Minister condemned Britain and France in their darkest hours last autumn and referred to the leaders of those two countries as those ‘Supermen whose days are about over, placing them in the same category with Bulganin and Khrushchev and completely disregarding the contribution that those nations made for freedom in a welter of sacrifice in two world wars and for generations before.” Calling for “close” relations with Britain and the Com ­ monwealth, Diefenbaker called for “good” relations with the United States. One passage linked economic development and the US as the Liberals were accused of brushing “aside the danger to Canadas heritage of sovereignty by the ship­ ment of our exhaustible resources in raw material form to a large degree to the United States.” The program echoed traditional PC themes: government waste of money, lowering taxes by at least $536 million, making Parliament the “custodian of

Winning Words

3 97

freedom” (and, in particular, abolishing closure of debate, offering better trans­ parency, and reforming the Senate),7 ensuring freedoms of all kinds, a bill of rights, opportunity, regional development, a national energy board, and infra­ structure. To this was added a wish to work towards “restoring the two-party system,” apparently in the hope that the third and fourth parties would magically disappear. Promises were also made to appeal to labour matters. A range of new meas­ ures to improve the lot of workers included legislation to provide minimum wages, hours of labour, and vacation pay; ensuring that labour be represented on government boards and commissions “dealing with labours interests”; improving unemployment insurance; and ensuring prompt payment of claims and the elimination of discriminatory regulations affecting married women. Agriculture was called upon “to take its proper place in this nation” and there was to be “equality for farmers in Canadas economy.” The program was more careful to explain its rationale for action and for criticizing the Liberal record as deviating from past principles and practices. The Liberal Party was raked over the coals on practically every issue. Diefen­ baker called it a “High Tax Party” that had been in power too long. Commit­ ments were made to control inflation. The provinces and municipalities were promised a “new deal” that included substantial financial transfers in terms of grants, tax-sharing agreements, developing regions (particularly the “Northern Frontier”), and improving pensions and allowances for veterans. Word usage in the 1957 platform showed significant change from what had been offered by the Drew campaigns. “Government” and “national” worked their way into the top five terms, and “Canada,” “Canadian,” and “Canadians” combined to constitute 1.8 percent of the words used. The underlying message of Diefen­ baker s party was that its priority was a national government for the Canadian people based on “beliefs” and “policy.”

Who Cared about What? The use of words showed the differences between the various party platforms according to the degree to which they are distinct from each other. Tables 18.2 and 18.3 identify the key words of each platform. For the Liberals, it is obvious that the Word “Canada” and its derivatives were intensely used in 1949 but much less so in 1953. The PCs operated in reverse with regard to the country’s name, making much more use of it in 1957 than in 1953 or 1949. Table 18.3 demon­ strates how the CCF liked to refer to itself in its platforms, but it also identifies “government” as a key concept in the first two elections, giving it much less

398

Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

r M T - ( y * r - » t n ^ ^ o o a C 0 C 0 N N N ' O ' û ,;r ,;l ' ' :! ' rrirOlN \Ommro Q . CL -Q

03 . > VO ai

*c-J

cj

5k tj

C "O •a> 4-* o ~ 03 " 5 Sc c Q . CL CL 3

13 0

■£ ^

— (U 0 3 to > C

«->

to

"O

03 03 Q- C

E OJ

O

> 03 03 O 03 t*— T J

a\ ■ O 03 03 CL C

03 E E OJ 03 o

03 > 03

03 > 4—' 03 > >N u

"53 " 5 a . _Q Q.

03 to C o u

Si FE vS c Ê flj la to t - J? ' LJ C Q3CjO:3>2 o . o 9^ o _Q i— 03 - 5 ; ë C £2 g q. 1_) J2 . _ a i a i o . 0 3 c

ra u .2 03 £ o Q.

■*->

£ 03 C

-a > C v-/ t: O

q

ONONOOooooooî^vovovovovovOLOLnm^-' ^-^' ^'^i' ^'^' ^' a. S ' 2 o -Q

< 13 N

c CD

to 03 3 to .E V ® c Q3 '> E o i— Q. 2

JS

a oj

—

m

» —

-Q ~ O CL,

03 < u __3 C 0 O J C t_ 0->3 3VO 4 X 03

0 3 V O V O < N r M < N » —

■*-> 4 c-» c 0 C CD 3 © E OJ £ >N 03 c 2 o 0 3 o E03 _.2 > CL sz 033 o E L3 _0 0 3 c 03 03 to

«—

»—

O O 0 3 C T 3 0 3

Q

OJ C E >N o _o u o 03 E 3 o 0 C Q. 3

party

€

. oj aj vj Û. ■a

03 c

03

health

"O O O 03 03 U

S y 03 a. oj 2 E ^ U c s i s ’l l JS -o t *2O:J |co IV os >. -a -o >2 Æ -c 2 .P O 03 C

trade

E

“O 0 3 C > OJ o LJ Q.

00

00

00

00

•=

03 03

C000CX3C0

VO

Uj

o

si ^

5 S _

oj T3 - S j ë ^ 0 3 C L — 3 < 5 "£™ c o ” 0 c > OJ OJ 03 OJ OJ O 03 U

KJ Q- Q- U

>t

4C-» , 3 O •

OJ VO V /1 3 5k •o33 03 ’fô 3 03 0 CD 03 V -O it 0 03 Ü U OJ — 03 5k c 03 CL to

OJ §

d,

c o

> K

n

2 03

P V. CD

OJ ^

O

03 ^

C

O

N

N v O

' O

' O

i f l i n ' t ' f ’t ' J



4-« c QJ £ c s_ CU > o CD

ro QJ O!

c

r*v CM

ro (N

CJ

c o

E o c o u QJ

3 ■O o

ro CM

fa -O fa c ea CL U

-O U

(N

CM

u o 1/1

c ja T3 ra c fa U

>

9»- ■ra£ Cl c

o o o o

C 0 l 0 \ 0 l 0 i n ^ r O f O ( N ( N ( N | i - i -

ai E O

£

ro rM cm cm