Thursday, 18 December, 2003
A man who did not know hate - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - If he'd won just three more seats in the 1972 election, Robert Stanfield would have been prime minister and the Trudeau era would have lasted but four years.
Robert Stanfield is dead. The former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, who replaced John George Diefenbaker, is often regarded as the greatest prime minister we never had.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau faced many tough critics in his years as prime minister. Stanfield was the first leader of the opposition he had to confront, and though Joe Clark was probably tougher and more tenacious, Stanfield still did his best to hold the Trudeau government's feet to the fire. Where Trudeau was telegenic and full of bravura, Stanfield was dull and awkward. But that didn't take away from his supreme command of politics and the art of being a capable and effective opposition.
That candid 1974 photograph of Stanfield fumbling the ball in an improvised game of touch football with reporters seemed to seal his fate with the Canadian voter, who chose the more physically agile Trudeau, who would be jumping on trampolines or doing one-armed push-ups. If Pierre Trudeau was the first prime minister of the television age, then Robert Stanfield was a throw back to the old politics of his predecessors. While Diefenbaker could be gripping in his oratory, Stanfield found it hard behind his misshapen form, unwieldy glasses and much-maligned eyebrows to get his message across. Trudeau admitted in his memoirs that, though Stanfield was competent enough to become prime minister, his values and the method to which he exuded those, came at a time when Canadians were looking elsewhere.
The fumbling photo aside, the media came to adore the man. Realising he was genuine, dignified and that his politics lacked hate; many in the press corps appreciated his candour and low-key approach. It was an antidote to the austere Trudeau. One press scribbler of the era surmised that he was better closer than from afar, and that led to his ineffectualness with the average Canadian voter. Unlike Trudeau, Stanfield had a sense of humour. And while Trudeau would bomb at the annual press gallery bun toss, Stanfield would bring down the house with his wry, understated sense of humour which few Canadians were able to see.
Thinking about the 1972 election, where the Tories came oh so close, one realises how tenuous Pierre Trudeau's grasp of power was. Consider this. Trudeau was elected with a decisive majority in 1968, even British Columbia had voted Liberal en masse, yet four years later, the Tories were two seats away from taking it all. The Liberals had a minority, but were forced to coalesce with the NDP, and their leader David Lewis had the balance of power and played their trump card, forcing the Liberals to enact legislation such as the establishment of Petro Canada.
Monday morning quarterbacks, as all scribblers are, wonder that were Robert Stanfield less awkward, like Brian Mulroney, or even Joe Clark (who actually became prime minister by the decade's end), the Tories could have won the minority government themselves in 1972, and Canadian political history in the last 50 years could have been re-written. Still, Stanfield's legacy is not something to snuff at. He led his party, taking it rather close to the throes of power.
When Stanfield assumed the leadership in 1967, the Progressive Conservative Party was in a fractious state. John Diefenbaker, as leader and a former prime minister expected that the leadership was his, and only his at his own discretion. Dalton Camp, then president of the party, forced Diefenbaker to stand down, but Dief refused, willing himself to a fight. He came in fifth in that convention in 1967 and the Nova Scotian premier Robert Stanfield won the leadership. Diefenbaker remained in politics until his death in 1979, and as a Tory backbencher, Diefenbaker made life hell for Stanfield on more than one occasion. Diefenbaker, whose ego could never be questioned, believed that he was still leader, and would often go out of his way to usurp his successor, as well as worked to undermine the leadership of Stanfield. (Come to think of it, Diefenbaker had more courteous relations with Pierre Trudeau, than he did with his supposed leader, Bob Stanfield.)
Stanfield's leadership of the Tory party smoothed over those rough patches, which led to his running for the leadership, namely the Diefenbaker fracas that caused the party much grief in the late 1960s. Unlike Diefenbaker, Stanfield brought Dalton Camp into the fray, and the party (not to mention Canadian politics) benefited from the contributions made by Camp. It was in Stanfield's era that at least two significant Tories were welcomed into the tent, namely a young labour lawyer in Quebec named Brian Mulroney and a pugnacious politician-in-the-making, Joe Clark, who was first elected in 1972.
Robert Stanfield knew when to leave, and left gracefully. Unlike Diefenbaker who remained an MP until they had to pry his seat from his cold dead hands, Stanfield resigned the party leadership in 1976, paving the way for that famous convention where Joe Clark came up the middle to win the leadership, when people like Claude Wagner, Flora McDonald or even Brian Mulroney were thought to capture the leadership. Robert Stanfield became a senior statesman, not only of his party, but the country. He was sworn into the Privy Council, and later given the rare designation of "Right Honourable," which was fitting for a man who never became prime minister, but who could have been, not only in the eyes of his party, but his political foes. Not much was heard from Stanfield in his later years. He re-emerged in the short Joe Clark government as an envoy to the Middle East, and in the 1980s he came out in support of the Meech Lake Accord and Free Trade.
In 1956, after years in business, running the family firm, Stanfield's - the underwear maker - Robert Stanfield became premier of Nova Scotia. At the time he was the youngest premier in the country. Tonight in New Brunswick, probably the youngest premier of the current crop, Bernard Lord is seriously considering a bid to lead the new Conservative Party of Canada. Besides Quebec, some of the country's best political players in Ottawa have come from Atlantic Canada. Robert Stanfield goes to the top of that list.
- 30 -
Questions and comments may be sent to: editor@thecommentary.ca
An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .