Lester Bowles Pearson would have been 116 years old today (April 23). Were he alive yesterday, he would have observed the 50th anniversary of his coming to power.
He was turning 66 when he and the Liberal Party took office on April 22, 1963. In a time the lifespan of an average Canadian man was just 67, Pearson was old, like so many of his foreign contemporaries: Harold Macmillan, Nikita Khrushchev, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer.
By the time he became Canada’s 14th prime minister, Pearson had been in politics almost 15 years. He had been a dazzling foreign minister, the avatar of liberal internationalism, and he would have been a success in life had he chosen to leave politics early.
When the Liberals were defeated by John Diefenbaker’s Conservatives in 1957, he said he had no desire to succeed the retiring Louis St. Laurent. He was persuaded to run because no other anglophone seemed up to the job. In a thin field, he won easily.
When the party was trounced in 1958, it would have been tempting for him to walk away. The Liberals were reduced to 49 of the 265 seats in the House of Commons. Diefenbaker had won 208, the greatest parliamentary victory in history.
Pearson’s wife, Marion, disliked politics and wanted him to quit, though she knew he wouldn’t. As they watched the returns on election night on March 30 in the Château Laurier, she exclaimed: “Mike, you’ve lost everything. You’ve even won your seat!”
As a Nobel Laureate and international statesman, Pearson had opportunities. One was a six-figure offer to head the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, which was real money for someone who had little.
Yet, in 1958, in the face of a towering majority that everyone assumed would keep the Conservatives in office for a decade, Pearson refused to walk away. He said his sense of duty compelled him to stay in the fight. He said that even though he had to face the fiercely partisan Diefenbaker, every day, in a low, guttural cat fight in the well of the House of Commons.
And so he rebuilt the Liberal Party. In a life studded with success, which included brokering a peace at Suez in 1956 and helping create NATO in 1949, this was his least-recognized achievement. Pearson found shrewd minds like Tom Kent and Keith Davey, recruited star candidates like John Turner and Pierre Trudeau, and solicited bold ideas. In the election of 1962, the Liberals reduced the Conservatives to a minority.
The Liberals were helped, of course, by an inept government. Diefenbaker was opéra bouffe itself — quivering jowls, windy declarations, preening pomposity. Most of all, he was a poor manager.
Bow-tied, lisping and cherubic, Pearson never really liked politics, where the goal is to win. He was used to diplomacy, where the goal is to compromise, which was more his nature. In time, though, he learned the political arts.
He wasn’t afraid to take chances in opposition. When he thought Canada’s commitment to NATO was at risk, he reversed his party’s resistance to placing U.S. nuclear weapons in Canada. Trudeau called him “the defrocked priest of peace,” and it cost Pearson support on the left.
Understanding the need to accommodate an awakening, surging Quebec, Pearson embraced official bilingualism.
But he was never a natural campaigner; in fact, in the four elections Pearson contested as leader — 1958, 1962, 1963, 1965 — he was more popular at the beginning of the campaign than the end. Campaigning made him feel phoney. He hated that.
Politics was a trade he had to learn when he ran the first time in 1948. The Liberals opened Algoma East for him when they sent the incumbent MP, Tom Farquhar, to the Senate. During the byelection, Farquhar advised Pearson to wave as they rode about the sprawling riding in northern Ontario. Once, after hours in the car, Farquhar told his eager protégé: “You can stop waving now, Mike. We’re out of the riding.”
On April 8, 1963, Pearson and the Liberals won a minority government. He would govern for next five feverish years, leading the most productive government in Canadian history.
Among its achievements were the Canada Pension Plan, universal health care, official bilingualism, the guaranteed income supplement, the flag, open immigration, student loans, the Order of Canada and the Auto Pact.
There was scandal, resignation, and messiness, yes, which clouded a long season of progressive legislation. Presiding over it all was Lester Bowles Pearson, who always believed in an independent, compassionate, self-confident Canada.
As a soldier, professor, diplomat and politician, he taught us much: that modesty, practicality, honesty, humour and ambiguity are virtues that can take you far in life. That you could go into the world and be bigger than you are. That you can, with imagination and courage, create a kinder, fairer society.
And the greatest lesson of all? He taught us how to be Canadian.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Andrew Cohen
He was turning 66 when he and the Liberal Party took office on April 22, 1963. In a time the lifespan of an average Canadian man was just 67, Pearson was old, like so many of his foreign contemporaries: Harold Macmillan, Nikita Khrushchev, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer.
By the time he became Canada’s 14th prime minister, Pearson had been in politics almost 15 years. He had been a dazzling foreign minister, the avatar of liberal internationalism, and he would have been a success in life had he chosen to leave politics early.
When the Liberals were defeated by John Diefenbaker’s Conservatives in 1957, he said he had no desire to succeed the retiring Louis St. Laurent. He was persuaded to run because no other anglophone seemed up to the job. In a thin field, he won easily.
When the party was trounced in 1958, it would have been tempting for him to walk away. The Liberals were reduced to 49 of the 265 seats in the House of Commons. Diefenbaker had won 208, the greatest parliamentary victory in history.
Pearson’s wife, Marion, disliked politics and wanted him to quit, though she knew he wouldn’t. As they watched the returns on election night on March 30 in the Château Laurier, she exclaimed: “Mike, you’ve lost everything. You’ve even won your seat!”
As a Nobel Laureate and international statesman, Pearson had opportunities. One was a six-figure offer to head the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, which was real money for someone who had little.
Yet, in 1958, in the face of a towering majority that everyone assumed would keep the Conservatives in office for a decade, Pearson refused to walk away. He said his sense of duty compelled him to stay in the fight. He said that even though he had to face the fiercely partisan Diefenbaker, every day, in a low, guttural cat fight in the well of the House of Commons.
And so he rebuilt the Liberal Party. In a life studded with success, which included brokering a peace at Suez in 1956 and helping create NATO in 1949, this was his least-recognized achievement. Pearson found shrewd minds like Tom Kent and Keith Davey, recruited star candidates like John Turner and Pierre Trudeau, and solicited bold ideas. In the election of 1962, the Liberals reduced the Conservatives to a minority.
The Liberals were helped, of course, by an inept government. Diefenbaker was opéra bouffe itself — quivering jowls, windy declarations, preening pomposity. Most of all, he was a poor manager.
Bow-tied, lisping and cherubic, Pearson never really liked politics, where the goal is to win. He was used to diplomacy, where the goal is to compromise, which was more his nature. In time, though, he learned the political arts.
He wasn’t afraid to take chances in opposition. When he thought Canada’s commitment to NATO was at risk, he reversed his party’s resistance to placing U.S. nuclear weapons in Canada. Trudeau called him “the defrocked priest of peace,” and it cost Pearson support on the left.
Understanding the need to accommodate an awakening, surging Quebec, Pearson embraced official bilingualism.
But he was never a natural campaigner; in fact, in the four elections Pearson contested as leader — 1958, 1962, 1963, 1965 — he was more popular at the beginning of the campaign than the end. Campaigning made him feel phoney. He hated that.
Politics was a trade he had to learn when he ran the first time in 1948. The Liberals opened Algoma East for him when they sent the incumbent MP, Tom Farquhar, to the Senate. During the byelection, Farquhar advised Pearson to wave as they rode about the sprawling riding in northern Ontario. Once, after hours in the car, Farquhar told his eager protégé: “You can stop waving now, Mike. We’re out of the riding.”
On April 8, 1963, Pearson and the Liberals won a minority government. He would govern for next five feverish years, leading the most productive government in Canadian history.
Among its achievements were the Canada Pension Plan, universal health care, official bilingualism, the guaranteed income supplement, the flag, open immigration, student loans, the Order of Canada and the Auto Pact.
There was scandal, resignation, and messiness, yes, which clouded a long season of progressive legislation. Presiding over it all was Lester Bowles Pearson, who always believed in an independent, compassionate, self-confident Canada.
As a soldier, professor, diplomat and politician, he taught us much: that modesty, practicality, honesty, humour and ambiguity are virtues that can take you far in life. That you could go into the world and be bigger than you are. That you can, with imagination and courage, create a kinder, fairer society.
And the greatest lesson of all? He taught us how to be Canadian.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Andrew Cohen
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