by Denis Smith
50 CC, 73-57, October 3, 1957. The communiqué, as finally agreed, did not mention the target.
51 Montreal Gazette, November 22, 1957
52 U.S. News and World Report, April 18, 1959; Ottawa Journal, April 21, 1958
53 Fleming, Near 1, 386-91; OC 2, 73-74; CC, 72-57, 73-57, October 3, 1957. As late as May 18, 1958, Diefenbaker was still rehearsing his arguments in a memorandum noting George Drew’s comments on the subject:
George Drew phoned me and said there cannot be any free trade because it could not be achieved until the pound would be fully convertible.
There can only be free trade when the United Kingdom could buy from us. Free trade means freedom to sell as well as to buy.
Whatever the arguments used in favour of the proposition, we are not in a position to consider it until Great Britain removes its quotas and assures convertibility.
The offer that was made should not have been revealed as negotiations are difficult unless they can be secret.
JGD, memorandum, “British Free Trade Offer, So-Called,” JGDP, VI/478/722.1
54 CC, 38-57, June 27, 1957
55 Fleming, in his diligence, counted the cabinet meetings and told us in his memoirs that “I never went to one of them unprepared.” Fleming, Near 1, 345
56 CC, 45-57, July 11, 1957
57 CC, 73-57, October 3, 1957
58 R.B. Bryce, “Memorandum to the Prime Minister: Canadian Security Policy,” and attachments, July 10, 1957, JGDP, XII/1/A/18
59 “Cabinet Directive; Security Screening of Government Employees, Circular No. 29,” December 21, 1955, 2, ibid.
60 Ibid., 4
61 Ibid., 17
62 Bryce, “Memorandum to the Prime Minister: Canadian Security Policy.” The Security Panel, Bryce explained, was set up in 1946 to advise the cabinet and coordinate procedures. The spur was the revelation of spying contained in information brought to the government by the defecting Soviet cypher clerk, Igor Gouzenko. The panel was entirely made up of civil servants, under Bryce’s chairmanship, and consisting as well of the undersecretary of state for external affairs, the deputy ministers of defence, defence production, citizenship and immigration, and the RCMP commissioner. In practice, much of the panel’s work after 1953 was carried out by a subpanel, also made up entirely of permanent officials.
63 For later references to the Security Policy, see below, 347-49, on the RCMP’s “homosexual project”; and 520-22, 536-41 on Diefenbaker’s charges against L.B. Pearson in 1964-66.
64 DRCB, “Cabinet Positions to Be Filled,” “Parliamentary Assistant Positions to Be Filled,” August 1, 1957; “Cabinet Ministers Positions to Be Filled,” nd, and accompanying JGD handwritten notes, JGDP, XII/2/A/20; Fleming, Near 1, 370; Globe and Mail, August 8 and August 20, 1957
65 For example, on August 12, 1957, Diefenbaker received a statement signed by twenty-four Canadians and Americans “presently spending vacations on Grand Manan, New Brunswick,” expressing their “fervent hope” that he could retain the services of Pearson “in the interests of world peace and international goodwill.” A secretary replied laconically on the prime minister’s behalf that “Mr. Diefenbaker will bear in mind your suggestion in his discussions with his colleagues.” JGDP, VI/119/312.2
66 D. Leo Dolan to JGD, November 3, 1957, JGDP, VI/315/352/E/98
67 Diefenbaker told his mother: “I think I really hit the jack-pot in getting President Sidney Smith of Toronto to take over the Ministry of Secretary of State for External Affairs. I did not find the job too hard; it was most enjoyable but there was no way I could attend the United Nations and still remain the Prime Minister so I had to find someone to take over from me.” Diefenbaker appointed a back-bencher to the Senate in order to precipitate a by-election in the Ontario riding of Hastings-Frontenac, which was won by Smith in November 1957. OC 2, 45-46; JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, September 11, 1957, JGDP, V/1, 608
68 Ottawa Journal, September 13, 1957; Lloyd, Canada in World Affairs, 16-18; OC 2, 45-46; Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World, 37
69 Montreal Star, September 13, 1957; Globe and Mail, September 13, 1957; New York Times, September 13, 1957; Lloyd, Canada in World Affairs, 17-18
70 Address by the Prime Minister of Canada … at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 7, 1957, “Great Issues in the Anglo-Canadian-American Community,” JGDP, XXI/18/619
71 Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World, 7
72 Thompson and Randall, Canada and the United States, 196-98; Jockel, No Boundaries, 91-117
73 “Aide Memoire: Integration of Operational Control of Canadian and Continental United States Air Defence Forces in Peacetime,” June 12, 1957, JGDP, XII/117/F/335
74 Ibid.
75 CC, 32-57, June 13, 1957
76 Minutes, House of Commons Special Committee on Defence, 1963, 510
77 Minister of National Defence, “Memorandum to Cabinet: Integration of Operational Control of Canadian and Continental United States Air Defence Forces in Peacetime,” July 22, 1957; “Aide Memoire: Integration of Operational Control of Canadian and Continental U.S. Air Defence Forces in Peacetime,” July 23, 1957, JGDP, XII/117/F/335
78 CC, 52-57, July 31, 1957
79 CC, 52-57, July 31, 1957; “Joint Statement by the Secretary of Defence of the United States and the Minister of National Defence of Canada,” August 1, 1957, JGDP, XII/20/A/556; Montreal Gazette, August 2, 1957
80 CC, 34-57, June 21, 1957; 35-57, June 22, 1957
81 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, nd, 1957; JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, July 3, 1957, JGDP, V/3, 1646-50
82 Nicholson, Vision, 60-62. When the children had gone to bed, he told the Nicholson parents a joke he claimed to have told Kwame Nkrumah, the president of Ghana, about a tribal chief complaining to his slaves that the missionary they were boiling would not be edible: “You shouldn’t have put him in the cauldron; he’s not a boiler, he’s a Friar.” Diefenbaker did not report Nkrumah’s reaction.
83 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, July 23, 1957, JGDP, V/1, 595
84 Newman, Renegade, 102
85 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, August 6 and August 20, 1957; JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, July 7 and December 6, 1957; Dr D.M. Baltzan to JGD, November 4, 1957, JGDP, V/1, 597-600, 602; V/3, 1650-51, 1706-07; XII/36/C
86 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, August 23, 1957, JGDP, V/1, 603
87 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, September 19, 1957, ibid., 618-19
88 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, September 29, 1957, ibid., 621
89 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, September 28, 1957, ibid., 620
90 Elmer Diefenbaker to Mary F. Diefenbaker, October 14, 1957, JGDP, V/31, 20485-500
91 CC, 70-57, September 26, 1957
92 Elmer Diefenbaker to Mary F. Diefenbaker, October 16, 1957, JGDP, V/31, 20493-500
93 House of Commons, Debates, October 14, 1957, 5-6; Nicholson, Vision, 73-75; Newman, Renegade, 103-05
94 The next day the prime minister announced the appointment of a royal commission on energy, to be chaired by the Toronto businessman Henry Borden. The Gordon Commission on Canada’s economic prospects had recommended creation of a national energy board to supervise the transmission and export of Canadian oil and gas, and the Conservative Party had favoured such a body since 1955. But cabinet agreed that the speech from the throne should contain no reference to such a body “since there was, at present, no vestige of a plan to bring in legislation establishing this authority. The proposal had not received sufficient study.” Instead, cabinet agreed on a diversion. Questions were expected in the House concerning improprieties in financing the Northern Ontario Pipeline (an Ontario crown corporation), and at least one purpose behind the royal commission was to avoid such embarrassment to the Frost government. Cabinet noted that “the establishment of such a Royal Commission would have the effect, among others, of foreclosing all discussion in the House of Commons on the trans-Canada pipeline and of removing the possibility of a vote on this particular issue … No mention should be made of
the proposed Royal Commission in the Speech from the Throne, as otherwise its subject matter could be brought up in the House.” The terms of reference were quickly drafted and approved by order-in-council on October 15, “since the matter might be raised the following day by Mr. Coldwell in the House.” Whether this favour to Frost was the result of overt negotiation is uncertain. CC, 76-57, 77-57, 79-57, October 10, 11, 15, 1957; McDougall, Fuels and the National Policy, 80-83
Cabinet avoided another potential difficulty in this session by deciding against the routine appointment of a House standing committee on privileges and elections, since “the setting up of this committee might cause embarrassment to some members of the government whose election expenses had been higher than the average.” CC, 74-57, October 4, 1957
95 CC, 80-57, October 19, 1957
96 Virtually the entire legislative program was adopted in the following three months.
97 Debates, October 15, 1957, 44
98 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, October 22, 1957, JGDP, V/1, 626-27
99 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, November 23, 1957, ibid., 632
100 Ibid.
101 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, December 14, 1957, ibid., 637-40
102 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, December 29, 1957, ibid., 641; Newman, Renegade, 105
103 The issue arose at the second meeting of cabinet on June 22, 1957, in discussion of the parliamentary schedule. The cabinet minutes reported: “There were those who felt that it was important to hold an early session in September with a view to implementing some of the more important pledges the Conservative Party had made during its electoral campaign, and then seek dissolution in order to have general elections in the Fall of this year. However, because the visit of the Queen to Ottawa would be robbed of the greater part of its significance if she did not open the first session of the new Parliament, and because it would be virtually impossible to hold a short session between September 28 and October 11, the consensus … was that there was no alternative but to agree that the first session should be convened to meet on October 14th … This, of course, ruled out the possibility of holding general elections prior to the Spring of 1958.” CC, 35-57, June 22, 1957
104 Eugene Forsey, “Letter to the editors,” Ottawa Journal, August 9, 1957; Forsey to JGD, October 30, 1957, JGDP, VI/93/304, 80197-98. The Journal omitted the paragraph quoted here.
105 Forsey to JGD, October 30, 1957, JGDP, VI/93/304, 80197-98
106 JGD to Eugene Forsey, November 8, 1957, ibid., 80200
107 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, January 15, 1957, JGDP, V/2, 645
108 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, January 31, 1958, JGDP, V/2, 652
109 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, January 1958 (nd), ibid., 647-49
110 JGD to Mary F. Diefenbaker, January 31, 1958, ibid., 652
111 English, Worldly, 199-201; Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole, 483-85; Nicholson, Vision, 77-81; OC 2, 80-83
112 Debates, January 20, 1958, 3514-20
113 Nicholson, Vision, 79; OC 2, 81-82; Fleming, Near 1, 445-47
114 Fleming, Near 1, 447
115 Debates, January 20, 1958, 3521-23
116 M.W. Sharp, “Canadian Economic Outlook for 1957,” JGDP, IV/2/*201, 793-838; also in VII/282/E/73, 177734; Nicholson, Vision, 64-72; Sharp, Which Reminds Me, 72-74. The first copy in the Diefenbaker Papers is heavily marked in Diefenbaker’s hand and appears to be the one used by the prime minister in the House; it has no cover page. The second, containing underlinings of key sections (many of them the same passages), appears to be the copy given by Nicholson to Diefenbaker. It includes a cover page with the designation “secret” on it. When the opposition challenged Diefenbaker in the House for making improper use of a confidential document, he responded that his copy lacked a cover page indicating its secrecy. This seems to have been a white lie. The copy tabled by the prime minister in the House after referring to the document also had no cover page.
117 Nicholson approached Tom Bell, MP, the parliamentary secretary to Gordon Churchill, and asked whether the department had on file an annual forecast of employment or economic prospects for 1957 that he might see. At a regular meeting with Mitchell Sharp in September 1957 (also attended by Bell), Churchill asked Sharp whether there was such a document. Sharp said there was and called his office to deliver copies, which he gave to Churchill and Bell. When Churchill suggested that he might make public the contents, Sharp protested that the report was labelled “secret” and contained confidential advice to the previous government. If such documents were to be made public, he pointed out, civil servants would tailor their content to suit the views of the ministry rather than offering their frank advice. Sharp asked whether the government intended to publish any advisory documents prepared for them since taking office, and when pressed for an example, “I referred to the report prepared for the government on the implications of the 15 per cent shift in imports from the United States to the United Kingdom advocated by Prime Minister Diefenbaker, a report that was highly critical of Diefenbaker’s idea.” The discussion ended and Sharp comments: “I thought I had convinced him that the outlook report should not be published, and perhaps I did convince him.” Bell apparently delivered a copy of the report to Nicholson thereafter. Nicholson, Vision, 66; Sharp, Which Reminds Me, 72-74
118 Sharp, “Canadian Economic Outlook for 1957,” 1-12
119 Nicholson, Vision, 69-70
120 Ibid., 70-71
121 Debates, January 20, 1958, 3524-30. Although Diefenbaker’s target in the House was the Liberal opposition, this was also an implicit denunciation of the senior civil servants who had prepared and recommended the report to their ministers. They were now advisers to his own government: Mitchell Sharp in Trade and Commerce, Kenneth Taylor in Finance, Robert Bryce in the Privy Council Office. Within a week Taylor had prepared a memorandum pointing out that the economic forecasts in the Sharp document were accurately reflected in Walter Harris’s budget speech of March 14, 1957, and that Harris’s budget appeared to officials as a reasonable response to the then-current situation. He added that he thought it unlikely that Harris had ever seen a copy of the report. “The number of such reports being prepared and circulated is large and their volume is a bit frightening,” he told Donald Fleming. “For your information I attach four such reports that have reached my desk in the past three weeks.”
Robert Bryce gave Diefenbaker a copy of this memorandum on January 28, 1958, adding his own judgment that Harris’s budget forecasts were even more cautious than those in the Sharp report. Bryce quietly warned the prime minister that his arguments might be shown up: “It is possible that the Liberals may yet work over this material themselves and use it in rebuttal either in the House or outside.” RBB, “Memorandum for the Prime Minister Re: Trade and Commerce Outlook paper and its relation to the budget,” January 28th 1958, enclosing K.W. Taylor to Mr Fleming, Memorandum, January 27, 1958, JGDP, XII/34/B/125; OC 2
122 Fleming, Near 1, 447
123 Quoted in Stursberg, Leadership Gained, 88
124 Debates, January 21, 1958, 3572
125 Fleming, Near 1, 447-48
126 Globe and Mail, February 1, 1958
127 Debates, February 1, 1958, 4199-202; OC 2, 82-84. Diefenbaker sought the advice of ministers and Conservative MPs in early January on the most desirable election date. More than a dozen responses are noted in his papers, including replies from J.M. Macdonnell, George Pearkes, Sidney Smith, and Davie Fulton: several favoured an immediate dissolution, and only one MP proposed an election date as late as September. Their calculations were entirely political; none suggested any constitutional limits hindering the prime minister from seeking a dissolution of parliament at any time. A number of the letters appear in JGDP, VI/93/304-1958; Sidney Smith to JGD, January 27, 1958, ibid., XII/123/F/436
Chapter 9 Visions, Dreams, and Fallen Arrows
1 Stursberg, Leadership Gained, 94
2 OC 2, 84
3 Winnipeg Free Press and Globe and Mail, Febr
uary 13, 1958. The Winnipeg meeting was described in many accounts, including Stursberg, Leadership Gained, 93-94, 97-98; Nicholson, Vision, 82-83; OC 2, 84-85
4 Quoted in Stursberg, Leadership Gained, 98
5 Goodman, Life, 90
6 Quoted in Stursberg, Leadership Gained, 94
7 Quoted ibid., 95
8 Newman, Renegade, 99-119, esp. 113
9 Gordon Churchill to JGD, nd, JGDP, VI/94/304-1958.2
10 English, Worldly, 201-02
11 Globe and Mail, March 28, 1958
12 Stursberg, Leadership Gained, 94
13 Diefenbaker’s words are quoted in Newman, Renegade, 114-15.
14 The slogan was first used by a Conservative candidate in Vancouver, John Taylor, in his successful 1957 campaign. Allister Grosart noted its effect and appropriated it for Diefenbaker’s national campaign in 1958, when its impact was much greater. Interview with Gowan T. Guest, August 6, 1994; Fleming, Near 1, 454
15 JGD to Duff Roblin, February 23, 1958, JGDP, VI/94/304-1958.1. Three Rivers was the home riding of Premier Duplessis, and of Diefenbaker’s minister Léon Balcer.
16 Marion Wagner to Derek Bedson, March 6, 1958, JGDP, VI/94/304-1958.2, 81635-36
17 Globe and Mail, April 1, 1958. The Diefenbakers’ Prince Albert house was occupied by tenants. On Olive Diefenbaker’s back, see telegram, Jim Nelson to Art Burns, March 24, 1958, JGDP, VI/94/304-1958.2, 81365.