The award-winning, bestselling author, and Globe and Mail writer-at-large John Ibbitson discusses his new book The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson, and The Making of Modern Canada (Signal, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson, and The Making of Modern Canada by John Ibbitson (Signal, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Duel

Introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

John Ibbitson joins me again. He’s just published one of the more fascinating books of the season, The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson, and The Making of Modern Canada. It looks at not only the political careers of John George Diefenbaker and Lester Bowles Pearson, Canada’s 13^th and 14^th prime ministers respectively, but how they came to public life. They’d come from similar backgrounds, born in late nineteenth century, in what was called the Dominion of Canada. Diefenbaker has a fierce loyalty to England and Empire, while Pearson evolves and realises later in his career, that to be taken seriously as a country, Canada needed to develop a stronger sense of self. We see how they come to politics, and the issues that divided them, but also the fundamental views they shared. What Mr. Ibbitson has done in the book is give the reader a sense of the men and their times, but also how they react to the changing Canada, one adapts as the country changes (that’s Mr. Pearson), while one doesn’t (that’s Mr. Diefenbaker). What John also does is reframe how both men are seen. Diefenbaker is seen in history as somebody who squandered the largest majority, or who screwed it up badly, while Pearson was seen as able to get a lot done despite a minority. I’ll also get John to give us a sense of the personal feelings each man had for the other, and I’ll ask John about the Canada of today versus that of just over fifty years ago when these two men were engaged in a fight for how each saw the future. John Ibbitson is writer-at-large at the Globe and Mail, a position he’s been in since 2015. Before that he served as Washington bureau chief, Ottawa bureau chief, and chief political writer. He’s co-authored Empty Planet, and The Big Shift, with Darrell Bricker. And the bestselling and award-winning biography of Canada’s 22^nd prime minister Stephen Harper, aptly titled Stephen Harper. This new book is published by Signal, which is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart. John joined me from Ottawa last Thursday. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, John Ibbitson; Mr. Ibbitson, good morning.

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