by Denis Smith
While the congratulations poured in, Diefenbaker drove to Saskatoon to visit his mother at the University Hospital. This was his private dedication. Mary Diefenbaker, his lifelong goad, admonished John once more. “Do not forget the poor and afflicted,” he recalled her saying. “Do the best you can as long as you can.” Diefenbaker’s memory of the occasion was equivocal and perhaps resentful. “And that was the last time,” he wrote, “that she, with her Highland ancestry and their refusal to exult, ever said anything about the fact that I had become Prime Minister of my country.”96
The next day he flew off to Lac La Ronge on a fishing expedition with Fred Hadley, Tommy Martin, Harry Houghton, Duff Roblin, brother Elmer, and three reporters. Dressed casually in plaid shirt and Cowichan sweater, he perhaps caught three pickerel but was photographed with the whole team’s catch of eight. None of Diefenbaker’s fish, reported Peter Dempson, was large.
As he was leaving the boat at the end of the day, one of his friends jokingly said as he was exhibiting his catch:
“Not much of a fish you caught there, eh?”
“No,” replied Diefenbaker, a grin spreading across his face, “I caught the big one yesterday.”97
Diefenbaker was in an expansive mood. “It was the happiest time in his life,” Clark Davey remembered. “He was full of stories and anecdotes and boasted that Donald Fleming and Alvin Hamilton could have any portfolios they wanted.”98 After two days on the northern waters, the prime minister-elect was ready for Ottawa.
CHAPTER 8
Rt Hon. John George Diefenbaker
1957-1958
THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT’S OFFICIAL AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN BOOKED BY two Liberal ministers, Ralph Campney and James Sinclair, for their last privileged flight to Ottawa, so John and Olive Diefenbaker took the regular overnight TCA flight from Saskatoon to Ottawa on June 13-14. The lapse in protocol was unsettling, and when Air Canada lost one of his suitcases at Prince Albert airport, Diefenbaker was furious. Clark Davey was still with him and witnessed the incident. “He had a temper tantrum and jumped up and down like a little kid… ‘Don’t they know who I am?’ he shouted. ‘I’m the new prime minister.’ I was on the phone talking to the rewrite man at the Globe and I repeated what Dief had said. The lead for the story was changed to ‘An angry John Diefenbaker flew out of his home-town tonight.’ When we arrived in Toronto, someone handed Diefenbaker a copy of the morning Globe. And Christ, Dief went berserk at me.”1
In the early morning at Ottawa airport the Diefenbakers were greeted by several hundred cheering supporters, still high on the party’s unexpected success. The victor stopped briefly at the Château Laurier, before meeting Prime Minister St Laurent at 10 am.2
The Liberal cabinet had met the previous day to discuss its fate. While they recognized that the decision rested with the prime minister, several ministers argued that he was responsible to parliament, not the electorate, and thus should not resign “until he had tested in Parliament whether or not it was the people’s wish that the government should remain in office.”3 But a majority considered that hanging on would be “virtual political suicide … This seemed evident when one reflected on the fact that by far the bulk of Liberal membership had been elected in the province of Quebec and in Newfoundland.”4 Louis St Laurent indicated his intention to offer the government’s resignation, but said he would not do so until the military vote had been counted over the weekend. The cabinet also deferred decisions, which had earlier been postponed until after an expected Liberal victory, on the integration of Canadian and American air defences, US Air Force overflights of Canada carrying atomic weapons, and amphibious American military exercises in Labrador.5 These were sensitive matters better tossed to the Conservatives. Next day, in a brief and final session, the St Laurent cabinet made one last decision in search of political credit. Large pay raises were approved for civil servants, the military, and the RCMP - which added $110 million to annual federal spending and erased two-thirds of the surplus projected in the Harris budget.6
St Laurent told Diefenbaker at their meeting that he accepted the election result and would resign unless the military vote significantly altered the balance of seats. That would leave the prime minister-designate with, at most, a week to select his cabinet and begin its work, since he would have to leave for a meeting of Commonwealth prime ministers in London on June 23. The military vote changed only one seat, so on Monday, June 17, 1957, Louis St Laurent offered his resignation to Governor General Vincent Massey. At 8:25 in the evening John Diefenbaker, wearing an impeccable double-breasted grey suit and black homburg, arrived by taxi at Rideau Hall and was formally invited by the governor general to form a new government.7 The cabinet would take office four days later. When Diefenbaker reached his House of Commons office early next morning, a telegram from Elmer awaited him. “Congratulations on the occasion of a dream at the tender age of six at last coming true stop you will serve Canada with distinction I trust for many years stop love to Olive and best wishes to the first lady of the nation who has done so much to make the victory possible.”8
There is no evidence that Diefenbaker gave any thought to the makeup of a Conservative cabinet before election day. Afterwards, he faced what Gordon Churchill called “a hurried-up job.”9 The prime minister-designate was on the telephone consulting close friends about his cabinet after June 11, and on June 18 Bill Brunt took charge of Diefenbaker’s schedule as he began to meet prospective ministers in Ottawa.10 His approach was both orthodox and coy. He planned no major change in the organization of ministries or the balance of representation in cabinet, although he wished to push the boundaries slightly to include a woman and a minister of non-British, non-French origin. As he met members and juggled his lists, Diefenbaker invited his visitors to express their preferences, but did not tell them his own. The exception was Davie Fulton, whom Diefenbaker invited to take the Speakership of the House of Commons. But Fulton refused to do so because that would finish his career in partisan politics.11 He was young and he still had his eye on the leadership. Although there were more than sixty new members in the Progressive Conservative caucus, Diefenbaker limited his choices to previously sitting MPs. That preference reflected his respect for parliamentary experience - and his caution about the unknown. His new members had not yet gathered in caucus, and most were no more than names to the leader.
Drawing on his list of re-elected members, Diefenbaker had slight room for manoeuvre. Only one member, Earl Rowe, had any previous cabinet experience, in the last days of the Bennett government in 1935; but Rowe was no friend, and Diefenbaker was determined to pass him by. J.M. Macdonnell, the long-time Conservative finance critic, expected that ministry, but Diefenbaker suspected him of abiding antipathy and would not trust him. Ellen Fairclough was the obvious token woman; and Michael Starr, the member from Oshawa whose ancestry was Ukrainian, was the leading candidate among the “new Canadians.” The first team was certain to be drawn from the remaining crew of front-bench critics, Fleming, Fulton, Churchill, Green, Hees, Pearkes, Nowlan, Harkness, Hamilton, MacLean, and Balcer. Diefenbaker ignored all special pleadings for places in cabinet - except, in the end, those of Olive and Bill Brunt, who asked him to be kind to J.M. Macdonnell. Diefenbaker reluctantly slipped him in at the last moment as a minister without portfolio. When rumours circulated in Toronto and Montreal that George Hees would get Trade and Commerce, protests from “certain people” resulted in a shift to Transport.12
But that was not yet known. The ministers-designate were summoned to Rideau Hall for the government’s swearing in at 11 am on Friday, June 21, most of them still uncertain what their jobs would be. As they entered they were given a mimeographed list of the ministry, discovered their roles, and were led into the governor general’s library for the administration of oaths. The ceremony was discreetly private - without press, without families - followed by handshaking and mutual well-wishing, and an equally private official photo session on the patio. The new ministers stood stiffly around V
incent Massey for their group picture, mouths tight in nervous half-smiles as they considered their sudden change of fortune.
Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker had appointed sixteen ministers to fill twenty-four cabinet posts. He held three of them himself, as prime minister, president of the Privy Council, and secretary of state for external affairs. Howard Green would be minister of public works, acting minister of health and welfare, and acting minister of defence production. Davie Fulton was minister of justice and acting minister of citizenship and immigration. Douglas Harkness was minister of northern affairs and national resources as well as acting minister of agriculture. And Léon Balcer - the lone French-speaking MP in this first draft - was solicitor general and acting minister of mines and technical surveys. Familiars filled out the picture: Fleming in Finance, Hees in Transport, Pearkes in Defence, Churchill in Trade and Commerce, Nowlan in National Revenue, MacLean in Fisheries, Starr in Labour, Fairclough as secretary of state, William Hamilton as postmaster general, and Macdonnell and Browne as ministers without portfolio. This was an incomplete beginning, sufficient in Diefenbaker’s eyes for the ministry to begin its work before he rushed off to the Commonwealth meetings in London. A second draft would have to be called when he returned in July. In the event, the last appointments to cabinet were completed only five days before parliament met in mid-October.13 The ministry looked respectable, though not spectacular: a workmanlike and modest start.
For the new Conservative prime minister, the letter of congratulation he received that day from his former leader, George Drew, was particularly generous and reassuring:
My dear John, –
This is a great day for you, for our party and for Canada. I know also what this day will mean to Olive who has been such a magnificent teammate throughout the whole campaign and to your dear mother who has had the unique happiness of seeing her son become Prime Minister of Canada. You are indeed fortunate that she has been spared to feel a mother’s pride in this splendid achievement.
You go forward supported by a mounting flood of good-will such as has sustained few Prime Ministers in the past. You have won that good-will not only by the effectiveness of your own efforts during the election but also by the gracious manner in which you accepted victory on June 10th.
May I also congratulate you on the skill with which you have handled the difficult and complex problems with which you were confronted in forming a government. You have laid a firm foundation for the steady growth and expansion of our party.
God bless you in your great undertaking. May the days and years ahead bring health, happiness and success to Olive and yourself.14
The clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, Robert Bryce, guided Diefenbaker adeptly as he prepared for his first cabinet meeting. Bryce, although still in his forties, was one of the bureaucracy’s old hands. He was an economist who had spent sixteen years in the Department of Finance before becoming clerk in 1954. In the days before the swearing in, Bryce had prepared an agenda of mostly routine items and had instructed the prime minister on the essentials of cabinet protocol. Diefenbaker summoned his ministers to their initial meeting at 3:30 that afternoon in the Privy Council chamber of the East Block, but no one at Rideau Hall had thought to tell them where they should go to find their departmental offices.15 By various means they found them and met their senior civil service advisers. And at mid-afternoon they assembled in the old council chamber.
The meeting lasted for an hour. Diefenbaker opened by laying down his rules. There was to be strict secrecy about cabinet discussion, and no comment to reporters as ministers left cabinet meetings. Cabinet would normally meet, as Liberal cabinets had done, every Thursday morning, but there would be additional meetings as necessary. Diefenbaker said that Louis St Laurent had told him - apparently to Diefenbaker’s surprise - that it was the British practice that cabinet minutes from the previous administration were not available to a new one, although the cabinet secretary might use his judgment in briefing ministers about previous decisions “to ensure orderly continuity of government business.” Diefenbaker added that he “had told Mr. St. Laurent he was prepared to follow this principle if it were followed in the United Kingdom. During his forthcoming trip to the United Kingdom he proposed to ascertain for himself just what the British practice was and if, as he assumed, it was in accordance with the account given by Mr. St. Laurent, he thought it should be the agreed practice in Canada.” Members agreed.16
Beyond routine housekeeping measures, this first cabinet made two substantial decisions. It approved the prime minister’s recommendation that George Drew should be named as Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom; and it approved immediate construction of a road from Cassiar to Stewart, in northwest British Columbia, the estimated cost of $12 million to be shared equally with the province. The highway had been mentioned in Merril Menzies’s proposals for northern development, and the decision to support work in the summer of 1957 suggested that the new government was quick off the mark in carrying out its promises. The Conservatives gained credit for the decision, although the Liberal government had agreed to the same terms earlier in the year but had not yet signed a formal agreement.17
The next morning cabinet met again to complete its preliminaries. Various acting ministers were named, and staff appointments for the prime minister, leader of the opposition, and ministers were approved. Diefenbaker outlined a code of conduct for ministers that required them to resign from business directorships and legal partnerships, or from offices in companies doing business with the government. He asked that ministers who received long-service military pensions “should examine their own positions,” and he raised the question whether ministers should hold company stocks or act as executors of estates - but left those issues aside “for the moment.” Ministers accepted the prime minister’s direction to give up all company directorships.18
Cabinet next considered documents from the defence and external affairs departments recommending the extension for one year of the “Canada-United States Agreement on Overflights,” originally approved by the St Laurent government for a five-month period ending July 1, which gave the United States Air Force interim authority to carry MB-1 air-to-air atomic weapons in interceptor aircraft flying over Canada. The agreement provided that aircraft armed with these weapons would enter Canadian airspace only “when it has been definitely established that a probably hostile aircraft has entered the air defence system,” that they would be permitted to operate from Canadian bases, and that US and Canadian forces would be trained and prepared for salvage operations in case of accidents. The Americans assured Canada in general terms that they had “taken the utmost precautions” in designing the weapons to assure “a minimum possibility of public hazard when employment of the MB-1 is necessary.” The recommendations for extending the interim agreement came from both departments before the Conservative ministry took office, and they were accepted on faith by the new government after brief discussion.19 Thus the Diefenbaker cabinet began, in apparent innocence, a long and eventually turbulent flight with its partner in continental air defence against potential attack from the Soviet Union.
Before departing early from the meeting, Diefenbaker spoke briefly about his plans for the conference of Commonwealth prime ministers. He confessed that he had no precise thoughts, but wished to assure the non-white peoples of the Commonwealth “reasonable advancement and equal opportunities.” He hoped to maintain Louis St Laurent’s close understanding with Prime Minister Nehru of India. He intended to support “staunchly” the idea of the Commonwealth and to urge the strengthening of trade and economic ties among its members. He would not, he said, make direct reference to the extent of Canadian trade with the United States, which some of his ministers considered to be too great, but might propose a Commonwealth trade and economic conference aimed partly at altering that balance. Ministers seemed to agree that “serious study … without delay” would be useful, but they reached no consensus on
Canadian trade policy or a trade conference. Policy on this issue - such as it was - would remain in Diefenbaker’s hands.20
Before his departure the prime minister was briefed by Donald Fleming and Gordon Churchill on the advice of senior officials in the Departments of Finance, Trade and Commerce, and External Affairs about trade and economic matters. They had pointed out the difficulties facing any trade initiatives in the Commonwealth; Fleming told cabinet that “all the officials with whom the matter had been discussed … cautioned against expecting too much on the trade side.” But he concluded that their advice was “not entirely negative.” His own judgment was that every means of improving Commonwealth trade should be explored. Ministers recognized that Europe was moving steadily into the Common Market and the European Free Trade Area, and that a proposal for a Commonwealth trade meeting might serve as a counterbalance or a delaying tactic: “If it were agreed to hold discussions in Ottawa in September, the British might not move so fast on the FTA front.”21
On Sunday the prime minister of two days left for London accompanied by his wife, Olive, George Pearkes, Robert Bryce, and Jules Léger, then undersecretary of state for external affairs - and the conference briefing books already prepared for Louis St Laurent.
JOHN DIEFENBAKER ASSUMED OFFICE JUST THREE MONTHS SHORT OF HIS SIXTY-second birthday. He was in sprightly good health and overflowing with the nervous energy stimulated by a winning election campaign. But his hearing was failing, which encouraged his tendency to engage in monologue rather than conversation. At cabinet, he began by sitting at the end of the big oval table, but soon moved to the middle of one side to hear his ministers more easily.22 His distrust of colleagues, which had always been close to the surface in the opposition years, now seemed subdued by his convention and electoral victories and the remarkable rapport he had achieved with voters. While his closest associates in cabinet were men he had trusted, he included others -Douglas Harkness, George Nowlan, Ellen Fairclough, Léon Balcer, J.M. Macdonnell - in a deliberate effort to overcome old suspicions. On their side, memories of the tantrums, the moodiness, the aloofness of the man from Prince Albert were suspended as the party savoured its victory and gave credit to the one who had, above all, achieved it.