Ambitions in Play
After the November showdown, John Diefenbaker remained the tenacious leader of a party adrift. He did not announce his retirement from public life. He watched for opportunities, tantalizing anxious friend and nervous foe alike about whether he might even be a candidate himself at the coming leadership convention. The Chief’s most recent statement of personal ambition, after all, had been that he’d “rise and fight again.”
Dalton Camp had not come this far to see Canada’s Centennial Year end with John Diefenbaker still at the helm, nor had the Progressive Conservative Party. But with so many ambitions in play, anything was possible. Behind the scenes in Tory backrooms, and increasingly in public, the dance of rival ambitions became the movements of a political party in turmoil.
Davie Fulton, the former justice minister, had been well into the leadership race even before there was one, burning through money and attracting such organizers as Hal Jackman, Lowell Murray, Joe Clark, Alan Eagleson, and Brian Mulroney. Fulton was intelligent, and carried himself with the bearing of a prime minister, but expected others would devote themselves to his career and raise a lot of money to support him personally and politically.
Moreover, as Camp had witnessed firsthand, Fulton was like many urbane sophisticates, a lion adept at demeaning Dief who morphed into a lamb if he stood before him. When Davie’s time had come to stand up to Dief, he’d resigned and scurried behind the Rockies to safety. Lowell Murray counselled Fulton to sidestep the Ottawa fray, which was only going to get messier, lead the defunct British Columbia PCs to power provincially, and then, as victorious hero, return in triumph when Dief was gone to claim his prize as Canada’s prime minister. But Fulton led the B.C. Tories into a provincial election only to emerge with the same number of seats: zero. And he’d already run for the leadership against John Diefenbaker in 1948 and 1956, without success. In a two-way fight against Dief in 1967, if that’s what it came to on the last ballot, Dalton believed he’d lose a third time.
Dalton knew George Hees would enter the fray. His ambition to lead had been apparent for years and he had major backers like Tory powerhouse Eddie Goodman and publisher John Bassett. George had boxed heavyweight, played pro football and won a Grey Cup, taken a sniper’s bullet leading his men into a Second World War battle, and as Dief’s trade and commerce minister, tackled his tasks with enthusiasm and performed end-runs around stubbornly entrenched Grit-sympathetic civil servants. But his shrewdness and efficiency were overshadowed by the reputation that dogged him as a man who must have sustained a permanent head injury on the playing field, spread by those who envied his millions, handsome good looks, and gregarious nature.
Moreover, as Camp had witnessed directly, Hees had criticized Dief, then led a failed Cabinet revolt, then resigned, then reconciled with Dief, then run away from Toronto where he lived to the safe Northumberland seat in eastern Ontario’s Tory belt where he owned a weekend farm to get elected there as MP in 1965. Nothing in that showed leadership qualities of courageous resolve. By February 16, 1967, a month after Fulton declared, Hees opened his campaign for leader.
To Camp, neither seemed strong enough, nor sufficiently in tune with the new phase of national life Canadians had entered, to be an effective leader and eventual prime minister, or, in the shorter run, even capable of besting Diefenbaker at the Toronto convention, should the wily Chief run.
Dalton’s concern about that became palpable a week later. Michael Starr, one of Diefenbaker’s most loyal former ministers, announced his own candidacy on February 27. Mike had been Dief’s go-between lining up Arthur Maloney to run against Camp for the party presidency. Now his candidacy for the leadership, like a perplexing wild card, convinced half the observers in the party, press, and public that that Dief would not be a candidate. Starr was so loyal to The Chief he’d be the last man in Canada to run against him. But the other half was just as firmly persuaded Diefenbaker would be a candidate. Mike, who obviously could not win, was just a stalking horse, a man whose presence on the field would reveal the state of play, keep others out, and hold a place for Dief to later occupy himself.
For the next ten weeks, no other candidates entered the race, giving Dalton nightmares about the outcome of a leadership convention he and so many others had sacrificed so much to bring about. The only three contenders were “old guard” Diefenbaker ministers, not candidates with fresh faces or new ideas to rejuvenate the Progressive Conservative Party. Dalton foresaw that if only they ran, Dief himself could be a successful candidate, beat them, retain the leader’s ring, and pass in the hardest possible way the “leadership review” Camp had insisted on. What vindication for a man so often written off before!
The party’s president was not alone in such fears. Many Tories reverted to form and, looking at provincial premiers to be their national saviour, saw as potential candidates Roblin in Manitoba, Robarts in Ontario, and even, as a distant third, Stanfield in Nova Scotia. Dalton decided, with stronger motives than mere due diligence, to reappraise their prospects and determine their willingness to run.
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As the leadership race took uneasy shape, Dalton’s dawning realization was that if he was ever going to become leader himself, perhaps the time for his big move was at hand. Certainly he could not remain passive. He’d seek a worthy candidate who could defeat John Diefenbaker, starting with the provincial premiers, if only to rule them out and be better certain of his own chances. Or, in the process, if he should be able to persuade one of the premiers to run, that would get him out of his current conundrum and still leave open his own turn another day. At forty-seven, he might yet have time.
The problem was that Dalton had become politically toxic.
He’d served the best interests of his country and Tories by introducing leadership accountability to a political party whose vitality was essential for Canada to function as a parliamentary democracy. Camp’s “solution,” the concept of leadership review by party delegates following an election the party had lost, was unprecedented in Canada. He’d invented the missing piece.
Yet Dalton was suffering from the impulse of many people to over-simplify a complex, multi-layered problem by personifying it. A wide swath of individuals and groups within the Tory Party had wanted John Diefenbaker replaced. Many ministers around Diefenbaker’s Cabinet table had repeatedly plotted his removal. Men who ran party operations in the backrooms were also part of this extensive and intricate process. By 1967, however, the entire challenge to Dief’s leadership had become synonymous with one man, summed up in hostile utterance of the single word: “Camp!”
His own strategy for implementing leadership review contributed directly to this tainting. As Atkins told Jackman the summer before, “It will be clear by November that a vote for Camp is a vote against Diefenbaker.”
Dalton had facilitated the cult of personality around an all-too-willing John Diefenbaker, with his advertising campaign for the 1957 general election, and since then had been trying to cope with the consequences. He’d brilliantly created his own predicament.
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To overcome this dilemma, he hoped to find a suitable candidate to become next leader of the PCs. Recruiting a premier for the job had not proven successful in the past and it was not something Dalton put much faith in now.
He saw the irony in how Tories, though making a virtue of heritage, often ignored their own history. No premier had ever become prime minister. Yet because many were importuning Robarts, Roblin, and Stanfield to take up the national leadership, Dalton would start by reconfirming their intentions. People could change their minds.
Stanfield had already quipped, when asked by reporters, that he’d no more interest in running for leader than taking up ski-jumping at his stage of life, a clear dismissal of national political ambition. Dalton knew his Nova Scotia friend was content where he was. Robarts said “no” when Camp asked him directly about it, and Dalton believed, unlike others, that when Ontario’s premier said no he meant it. The premier did not speak French. He preferred being in charge of Canada’s most populous province to leading the fractious Opposition in Ottawa. “I’d rather govern than be governed,” he’d once said, and that is what John Robarts was happily doing.
Both premiers reinforced their irrevocable stance by calling provincial elections, conveniently renewing their provincial mandate while eliminating pressure on them to enter the federal race. In May Stanfield was handily returned to office with a big majority, forty seats to six for the Liberals, and comfortably over 50 percent in province-wide popular support. During the campaign, he’d again confirmed to opposition parties and reporters, who sought understandable reassurance on the point, that he’d stay put in Nova Scotia. Robarts, using the same expedient, even scheduled Ontario’s provincial campaign to overlap the September leadership convention, with voting in October. He could hardly run for the leadership while actively seeking re-election as premier.
If one wanted a premier as national leader, this left only Roblin.
Dalton listed reasons why Duff might, in fact, be good. A western Canadian, he could hold the Prairie support that had aligned with Diefenbaker since 1958. Along a different salient, Roblin’s record of support for French-speaking Canadians could be parlayed into a new West-Quebec axis of PC voter support. He had energy. He’d followed Dalton’s recommendations in rebuilding the Manitoba PCs, and engaged him behind the scenes in his winning campaigns. He was experienced running a government.
Camp and Roblin enjoyed a productive relationship through campaigning, advertising, and fishing. There were other considerations, however, more personal in nature. Dalton disliked how Duff kept him out of sight and referred to non-Manitobans as “foreigners.” Did Roblin’s reticence to engage openly reveal a lack of courage on his part? Where had Duff been when Dalton needed public support on leadership review? Stanfield and Robarts had more or less aligned themselves, in their particular ways, with Camp.
Dalton was mulling all this over when he took a call from Roblin’s senior adviser. Could he come to Winnipeg and discuss the premier’s interest in the federal leadership?
On the flight west, he’d already decided to urge Roblin to run for the leadership. Talking things over with Norman en route, he decided to sweeten the deal by making the Manitoban an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Although he’d come to Winnipeg at the premier’s invitation, Camp was chagrined to discover they would meet, not in his office at the legislature, but at the suburban home of Wally Fox-Decent, a Roblin insider, where the premier was secreted waiting for Dalton. The rendezvous was unfolding like a clandestine meeting with a foreign agent.
Duff did not even discuss the situation; he just abruptly asked what help he could get for strategy, speeches, and campaign organization. Dalton, at least encouraged that Roblin seemed ready to run, pledged he’d provide everything a major campaign needed, short of being a speechwriter himself. Then, so determined the process of renewal not fail, he even said he’d resign as PC national president and campaign for Roblin.
Yet, instead of welcoming the offer, Dalton’s “sweetener,” Roblin stunned him further. He told Camp that, if he did run, he’d want Dief’s endorsement. He even added that he believed he’d get it.
Numb, Camp stared at him in dismay. Where had Duff been? Dalton slowly extracted a cigarette and took all the time he could in lighting it, then inhaling, then exhaling, to gain composure. He quietly explained that, if this was the case, he could not himself also support Roblin.
When the perplexing session ended, an unhappy Camp returned to the International Inn where Atkins waited for news, ready to take action. It appeared, he told his brother-in-law, that the Manitoban, like the Ontarian and Nova Scotian, would not venture into federal politics.
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Others contenders, meanwhile, had resumed jumping in.
On May 11, Senator Wallace McCutcheon, Diefenbaker’s trade minister and, before that, vice-president of Canada’s most powerful conglomerate, Argus Corporation, declared his candidacy.
On May 26, so did Saskatchewan MP Alvin Hamilton, Diefenbaker’s agricultural minister and a vigilant combatant against the plotters trying to overthrow The Chief. As with Mike Starr, Hamilton’s entry was read by many as a signal The Chief would not be running, while just as many saw this as confirmation he would and that Hamilton, alongside Starr, now made a team of stalking horses for a foxy leader resolved to somehow retain his title.
On June 7, Donald Fleming entered the race with the slogan, “Only Fleming is Ready Now!” although he did not say ready for what? Don had lost his bid for the leadership to Diefenbaker in 1956, and before that lost in 1948 when Tory delegates chose George Drew instead of him. Courteous, exceedingly hard working, an evangelical Christian, he’d been a solid performer in Diefenbaker’s government as minister of finance. But when Cabinet split and the government fell over the nuclear weapons crisis, Flemming just stepped away, washing his hands.
With a half-dozen aspirants in the race, all of them “old guard” Diefenbaker ministers, Dalton wanted more than ever “a good cross section of candidates with some alternatives other than those persons still in Parliament.”
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Roblin had told Dalton he’d wrestle with his decision and give an answer by the end of June.
Time was getting short. Duff dithered. It began looking like Dalton would have to run for the leadership himself because no other options remained. Starting to warm to the idea, he sent word to the Spades to not commit to anyone in the leadership race, that he was expecting to support Roblin although, as Geoffrey Stevens notes, the Spades themselves “had in mind a candidate they liked far better: Dalton Camp.”
Camp telephoned Flora MacDonald and requested she not take on the running of any party functions for the Toronto convention, but instead keep clear for leadership campaign action.
During June, Camp and Atkins convened the key organizers in Toronto to review their organizational status. They were in great shape, lacking only a desig-nated candidate to make leader of the party. The enterprise could be deployed for any one of several candidates. All contingencies had been thought through and covered off for whichever one of the various candidates they’d support.
A final appeal to Stanfield seemed in order, just to reconfirm he’d not decided to take up ski jumping. When Dalton reached Nova Scotia to test the prospect, Stanfield reliably balked at becoming a candidate. He’d only move if finance minister Ike Smith replaced him, since nobody else was up to the task, but Ike was leaving public life for health reasons.
The meeting at Stanfield’s home dragged on, going in circles, Stanfield’s stubborn resistance only broken when Smith relented and, despite believing it a mistake, agreed to be interim premier and free Stanfield for a run for at the national leadership.
Back in his Lord Nelson hotel room, Camp phoned key Spades and Flora to say Stanfield was their candidate. He wanted Flora to come to Halifax and work with him for Stanfield’s announcement. He felt an exhilarating rush. He had still not heard from Roblin, who’d only been in touch once, indirectly, just to let Dalton know he needed more time than the end of June to decide, but now promised to let him know by mid-July. Camp was glad Stanfield had committed. It was doubtful Roblin would ever know his own mind.
Next morning, still in his room, Dalton was awakened by a phone call from Stanfield. He had changed his mind.
There were new excuses, nothing to do with Ike Smith being unavailable, but the need to fire an alcoholic Cabinet minister, an urgent budget crisis, the need to prune his rose gardens, whatever he could think up. Stanfield suffered even more misgivings than Roblin, without even trying to calibrate, as the Manitoban was doing, the tradeoffs involved in getting controversial Camp’s support.
Dalton’s spirits sank. He lay quietly on the bed after recradling the phone. Some time passed. Gradually, he felt a new surge of energy come over him. He picked up the phone and called Norman.
Atkins in turn reached Flora, explaining Stanfield had backed out and she should forget about going to Halifax and come instead to Robertson’s Point. “This,” Norman pronounced excitedly, “has cleared the way for Dalton.”
Dalton sped his car towards Robertson’s Point. It was time to accept his own date with destiny.
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With the missing candidate now supplied, Atkins at last had a top-to-bottom organization chart showing boxes with names, committee structures, and lines of reporting.
What his plan for Dalton’s campaign also represented was how, since his return to Canada in 1959, Norman had amassed a depth of campaign experience working closely with his brother-in-law federally and in many provinces, seeing the big picture yet never failing to attend to telling details and keep in touch with the exceptional campaign troopers he encountered.
For this run to replace Diefenbaker, Camp and Atkins had in place a substantial national organization, superior to those of the declared candidates. Although he’d announce his resignation as president when declaring his candidacy, Dalton still effectively controlled or influenced much of the party apparatus, from the national executive on through the party’s far-flung players whom he knew well. From Fredericton in 1964, to Ottawa in 1966, and now to Toronto in 1967, the blue machine’s organization kept getting deeper, stronger, and more innovative.
“Norman was outstanding at putting that sort of thing together,” observed fellow organizer Ross DeGeer, “developing personal relationships with people across the country, which was probably his strongest suit.” With the Spades, Dalton also had a disciplined, covert cadre ready to spearhead his leadership drive.
As a leadership candidate he “was progressive, a reformer, a modern man for the new age ushered in by Centennial Year and Expo ’67,” said Stevens. “He connected with young people. He had ideas, and he was certainly bright enough for the job.” He’d also figured out that most PC Party members at this stage embraced the progressive side of the dichotomized party, wanting fresh approaches in international relations and economic development.
At Robertson’s Point over the late July weekend, joining Dalton and Linda, Norman and Anna Ruth, were Flora MacDonald and an impressive roster of other key PC politicians and party members. Dalton grinned as he looked around at the deeply loyal group, lighting a fresh cigarette while Norman pulled out more of his documents. He’d already drawn up “a battle plan.”
As they talked over strategy and the rollout of the campaign, Dalton was clear that, with so many candidates in the race, nobody would have victory sewn up before the convention. The outcome would depend on ground performance in Toronto. For that, Norman unveiled his extensive organization chart with committees for reception of delegates, demonstrations, advertising, media relations, communication with other leadership campaigns, delegate management and tracking, convention floor operations, scrutineers to watch over voting, each reporting directly to him. All positions were filled by the very best operators he and Dalton had recruited during their years running campaigns. Norman explained how their candidate’s every move in Toronto for convention week demanded meticulous care and timing. For two exhilarating days, the Robertson’s Point planners worked through grand strategy and critical details, considering all possibilities. They felt the surge of what would be a dramatic campaign building to a crescendo at the convention.
Given everything that had happened over the past years, and all that was now at stake, Camp was ready. Linda was fully supportive. As the group wound up its session Sunday night, Flora drove into the neighbouring town of Jemseg to telephone Finlay MacDonald and make arrangements for Dalton’s declaration of candidacy from his television studio in Halifax.
“My God,” said MacDonald, relieved to finally have contact with the Camp group. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you people all weekend, to let you know that Stanfield has changed his mind.”
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Bob Stanfield did not have ambition to be prime minister; he only felt duty.
While tending his roses, he’d reflected on what would happen if neither he nor Roblin ran. When he’d learned from Dalton that his fellow premier had extended his self-imposed deadline for making up his mind, Stanfield decided he’d speak directly with Duff about the leadership when the two met in early July. All premiers were to be entertained by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip aboard the royal yacht Britannia at Kingston on Lake Ontario, following the July 1 Centennial ceremonies in Ottawa. Stanfield knew he’d have opportunity to speak directly with Roblin, so each would know the other’s true intentions.
The rendezvous never occurred, however. Bob stayed in Nova Scotia for the funeral of his brother Frank, who’d died on the July 1 weekend. Forced to miss the ceremonies in Ontario, Stanfield also lost his chance to discover Roblin’s plans face to face. Had they met, the laconic Nova Scotian would have found the peppery Manitoban intending to enter the race, merely heeding advice from Ontario’s Les Frost to enter late “for maximum impact.” He never bothered to pick up the telephone and call Roblin. So much Canadian history turned on a brief conversation that never took place.
Stanfield did not want to run. Only for the sake of his province had Stanfield entered politics against all odds. Only for the sake of his country would he now do the same and stand for leader of the PCs. He harboured deep concern for the party if George Hees should win, a probable outcome in the absence of either Roblin or himself being available to the voting delegates. He felt nothing personal against Hees, just believed George not to be the calibre required for leader and prime minister. Stanfield also knew Camp well enough to understand that his own sense of duty and indeed his personal ambitions could lead him to be a candidate, and was convinced a contest in which Dalton was a candidate would split the party irreparably, and risk significant physical danger to Camp himself.
If Roblin was selfishly pondering his run in terms of Camp’s involvement, wanting Dalton’s considerable help yet wary lest association with the man should trash his own acceptability to Diefenbaker loyalists, Stanfield had considered Camp’s new pariah-like quality from a selfless perspective.
He’d run as a duty. He’d save the party from imploding, and spare Dalton from further abrasive assault by members of their party. Stanfield saw plenty of choices, all of them bad. But after his own on, off, then on-again vacillation, he’d now quickly make public his resolve to forsake the mandate just given him by Nova Scotians, renege on his commitment to provincial voters, and venture into the federal political arena.
Why not become prime minister? Nobody had ever thought he’d even be premier.
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The news devastated Dalton.
Excited and starting to plan the campaign, Dalton had begun to prepare his organization for take-off, only to be suddenly grounded. Linda, steadfast and proud of Dalton and his works, beside herself with anger over how her husband was being treated, disappeared into the woods for a very long time. Over the next two days, Dalton slipped into depression. He found that he could scarcely utter a word. Stanfield’s reversal, he thought as he mulled over it, had thrown a huge obstacle into his plans to become leader. It would also, he realized, leave Duff Roblin on the sidelines, too.
When Stanfield sent word he expected Camp to hightail it to Halifax and draft his declaration of candidacy, it reminded his reliable speechwriter how the same man had commanded his performance at the start of the 1956 provincial election and been annoyed when Dalton failed to immediately materialize.
Camp remained quiet at Robertson’s Point, wrote out some text that Flora phoned in, and stayed glum.
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After the July 20 weekend, Norman and Flora went to Halifax to review the plan with Stanfield and his provincial organizers, only to be shocked discovering how they, still flush from their May 30 election win, intended to mount the entire national campaign themselves.
Already the problems of working with a premier were showing up: minor leaguers who thought that play in the majors would be the same. Flora succeeded in persuading Dalton to join them. In Halifax, managing to mask his sullenness, he tried to convince the Maritimers of their advantage partnering with the full-scale toughened team he and Norman already had in place in Toronto and across Canada waiting for action.
The advantage for the Stanfield campaign, Dalton emphasized, was that Toronto, where the PC convention was to be held, was also base of the Camp-Atkins organ-ization. But the fusion of both organizations, it became clear through testy talks, would only be acceptable if there were co-chairs for all committees. Fortunately for Stanfield, the two halves wanting to support him had a history of collaboration. Whenever an election took place in Nova Scotia, Camp, Atkins, and crew arrived and fitted in like close cousins. When Dalton needed support in Ottawa at the 1966 annual meeting, the Nova Scotians showed up in strength and delivered.
Stanfield’s compromise plan was that Camp would be in charge of overall strategy and messaging, but had to stay far out of site. The campaign structure had three parts: regional representatives organizing in all parts of Canada, a pre-convention tour group handling Stanfield’s itinerary throughout the country, and the convention committee itself. Stanfield’s right-hand organizer in Nova Scotia, Maurice Flemming, was campaign chairman responsible for the first, Finlay MacDonald headed the national tour, while Norman Atkins would run the third component as convention chairman.
With so many candidates, none had victory assured. The win would be fashioned on the ground in Toronto. Camp would work with Stanfield on his convention speeches while Norman took complete charge of the final week at Maple Leaf Gardens.
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The reports Finlay, accompanying Stanfield on his tour, began telephoning to Norman did nothing to lift morale. Stanfield underwhelmed any audiences he did manage to draw. He himself made deprecating remarks about his candidacy. Those covering the various campaigns placed Stanfield fourth, after Davie Fulton, George Hees, and Duff Roblin.
That Manitoba’s premier had finally entered the race further stunned Dalton. He first got word on July 26 that Roblin, without support from the Camp-Atkins organization, lacking his coveted endorsement from John Diefenbaker, and now with another premier already in the race, was still going to declare his own candidacy for the leadership anyway. It finally happened on August 3.
In the frenzied days that followed, Roblin’s “abiding impression” of the leadership race was “the way in which my campaign committee organized itself out of thin air.”
Camp coped with his depression as the summer progressed, his spirits lifting by re-engaging with a major campaign. He was in constant telephone contact from Robertson’s Point with Norman and others, although he shared his wife still-smouldering anger at being treated like a political yoyo by both Roblin and Stanfield.
From his detached position, Dalton was intimately engaged by events that seemed a climax of his years of work with and for the Progressive Conservatives. At the convention in Toronto, he believed, Stanfield’s long-shot entry had the possibility of being won on the ground. Yet the danger of Diefenbaker rupturing the party, destroying everything, continued to give him nightmares.
No matter how bad it got, Dalton knew he had to see it through to the end.