Prime Minister of Canada
“Don’t they know who I am?” Diefenbaker shouted, his face tinged red with anger. “I’m the new prime minister!”
He was standing in the Saskatoon airport and had just found out his luggage was in the Prince Albert airport. He and Olive caught a TCA flight to Ottawa, and John soon stopped his grumbling. But the minor temper tantrum made the Globe the next day and John learned a quick lesson. Every move was being watched.
On the evening of Monday, June 17, 1957, John, wearing a double-breasted suit and a black homburg, stepped out of a taxi in front of Rideau Hall. He strode inside and was formally asked by the Governor General to form a new government.
The next morning a telegram from his brother Elmer was waiting at Diefenbaker’s House of Commons office: Congratulations on the occasion of a dream at the tender age of six at last coming true. The story of John’s young ambition was part of the Diefenbaker family’s folklore (though John believed he was eight or nine when he declared his ambition to become prime minister).
Three days later John was back in Rideau Hall with thirteen jubilant Tories at his side for the official swearing in as the new Government of Canada. “I, John George Diefenbaker, do solemnly swear that I will serve Her Majesty truly and faithfully in the Place of Her Council in this, Her Majesty’s Dominion of Canada.” He bent down and kissed the ceremonial Bible and finished by whispering, “So help me God.”
Diefenbaker picked his cabinet, assigning sixteen ministers to be the new face of the government. He gave the men who had opposed him in the leadership election two of the most important posts: Davie Fulton became Minister of Justice and Donald Fleming Finance Minister. He also included a woman in cabinet: Ellen Fairclough became Secretary of State.
The new cabinet immediately approved the construction of a highway in northwest British Columbia, the first step in the Conservatives’ promised development of the North. Next the government signed an extension to a previous agreement with the U.S. that gave the United States air force the permission to carry air to air atomic weapons in the skies over Canada if any hostile aircraft showed up.
Then John was on a plane to London for the Commonwealth Conference, a meeting of prime ministers from around the British Commonwealth. The boy from Prince Albert was going to mix with leaders from around the world.
It was a heady time for John. Twice he met with one of his idols: Winston Churchill. Churchill, who was now eighty-two and liked to smoke cigars and consume champagne and brandy, invited Diefenbaker to have a snifter of Napolean brandy.
“Will you have shome?” Churchill asked in his heavy accent.
“I’m a teetotaler,” Diefenbaker replied.
Churchill tapped on his hearing aid.
“I’m a teetotaler,” Diefenbaker repeated.
Churchill’s eyes widened as if John had just admitted a dreadful sin. “Are you a prohibitionist?”
“No, I have never been a prohibitionist.”
Churchill paused, thought for a second, then answered, “Ah, I see, you only hurt yourself.”
Later, Churchill gave Diefenbaker the biggest compliment of his life. He said Diefenbaker’s election was “the most important event since the end of the war.”
Next Diefenbaker was off to visit Queen Elizabeth and tour Windsor Castle. Then he attended the Commonwealth meetings for eight days of discussion about Commonwealth trading practices and international issues. Diefenbaker chipped in with an announcement that he intended to call a Commonwealth trade conference in Ottawa. He was on top of the world.
When he returned to Canada he and Olive moved into 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s home, which has a beautiful view of the Ottawa River.
“It’s a fairy place,” he told his mother in a letter.
Things got even busier. On October 14, 1957, the whole country watched on CBC television as young Queen Elizabeth II opened the House of Commons. Diefenbaker sat to her right, looking smart in his suit, his tie tightly knotted. It was like a fancy ball. Uniformed men stood and listened, senators in judicial robes sat in their seats, and women wore evening dresses. Elmer Diefenbaker, watching from the Governor General’s box, was overwhelmed. “The Queen was beautiful, radiant, and indeed she had a regal appearance,” he wrote in his journal, “It was a great sight to see her and Prince Philip seated in the Senate Chamber.”
Then John was off to Washington with the Queen, where he met President Dwight Eisenhower. “Ike,” as he was known, was a five star World War II general and supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force during D-Day, the most powerful force ever assembled under one man. Just five years older than Diefenbaker, Ike came from a western farm background. The two hit it off at once and talked equally enthusiastically about fishing and politics. “Subservience is not an essential in the cooperation of Canada and the United States,” Diefenbaker later wrote, “I might add that President Eisenhower and I were from our first meeting on an ‘Ike and John’ basis and that we were as close as the nearest telephone.”
Diefenbaker’s hobnobbing and travelling was far from over. Next he was in Paris to meet with the NATO heads of government. Then back to Saskatoon to celebrate Christmas Day in a private railway car at the CNR station. His mother was chauffeured over from the University Hospital in an ambulance to join John, Olive, and Elmer for a catered meal.
It was a special moment for John and a sign that destiny was on his side. After all, nearly fifty years before, he had sold a paper to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier on this exact spot.
Soon John was back at 24 Sussex Drive. This is how he would start his day: “On a normal morning, as Prime Minister, I would get up at half past five or a quarter to six. On first rising, I would have half a grapefruit or an orange and coffee. Then I would dictate memoranda, letters, etc…, for an hour or so before I set off on my morning walk. I did not have security guards to follow me wherever I went; I’ve never had them. I would try for a mile and half each day, at about 140 to 160 paces a minute. When I returned home, my wife would join me at breakfast. I arrived at the office, ready for the day ahead, by eight o’ clock.”
And he kept himself busy during the working day. The Diefenbaker government (the ruling party no longer referred to itself as a Conservative government but preferred to use their popular leader’s name) got out its pen and began signing bills: old age pensions increased. Cash advances were given to farmers who were storing their grain. Home building loans flew out the door. Income taxes for 4.5 million Canadians were reduced. They entered into negotiations with the government of Saskatchewan to begin building the South Saskatchewan Dam – it was a dam sight sooner under John! And the Conservatives showed they had a few socialist leanings: the Diefenbaker government introduced a federal/provincial hospital program, partly inspired by Tommy Douglas, the CCFer who was turning Saskatchewan’s prospects around. This was a first small step towards medicare.
The Conservatives had said they would work hard and they were doing it. John fulfilled one of his campaign promises to the First Nations people by appointing Canada’s first native Senator, James Gladstone of the Blood reserve in Alberta.
But Diefenbaker’s appointment with destiny wasn’t quite complete: he was the prime minister of a minority government. In the Gallup polls the popularity of the PC party was rising. None of the opposing parties dared shake the boat with a vote of nonconfidence.
Then the face of the Liberal Opposition changed. Louis St. Laurent, tired of politics, stepped down. His replacement was Lester B. Pearson, a diplomat who had just won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Peace for his part in dreaming up the United Nations Emergency Force, a contingent of peacekeeping troops. Pearson was two years younger than Diefenbaker and had been nicknamed Mike during World War I, because his flying instructor thought Lester didn’t sound tough enough. Though a cautious and thoughtful man, Mike was given some bad advice by St Laurent and CD. Howe: they told him to take on Diefenbaker.
Pearson came into the House of Commons on his first day with both guns blazing. He lambasted the government for trade deficits, for an economic downswing in the country. He said that Canadians were worried about their futures. Then he told the Conservatives to implement Liberal policies, and finally he invited them all to resign.
That would mean the Liberals would be back in control without an election. It was an arrogant speech. Even Pearson’s own party members sat in silence and dread. Mike returned to his seat, checking to be sure his bow tie was still straight.
“This is it,” Diefenbaker whispered.
He stood, bringing himself to his full height, clutching loose foolscap in one hand and jabbing his finger with the other, his wattles shaking with anger. He went on a two-hour tirade, unleashing his full fury on Pearson. With each word the new party leader slouched further into his desk, his face pale.
Then Diefenbaker brought out his ace – a report prepared by the Liberals before the election that said a recession was imminent. The Liberals had kept this hidden from the Canadian people. They had known a slowdown was coming and were now trying to blame the Conservatives.
“You concealed the facts,” Diefenbaker accused, “that is what you did. What plans did you make? Where was that shelf of works that was going to be made available whenever conditions should deteriorate?”
When he was finished, a dejected Pearson, his shoulders slumped, slipped out of the House. Diefenbaker’s followers had a reason to cheer.
Not everyone cheered, though. Colin Cameron, an elderly CCF member from Nanaimo, said about Diefenbaker’s display: “I wonder if he should have rushed with such relish into the abattoir. When I saw him bring whole batteries of guided missiles of vitriol and invective in order to shoot one forlorn sitting-duck; a sitting-duck, indeed, already crippled with a self-inflicted wound – I wondered if the Prime Minister believes in the humane slaughter of animals.”
The “Chief” brushed off the criticisms. Now he had a reason to call a new election. On February 1, 1958, with the approval of the Governor General, Diefenbaker rose and announced that Parliament was dissolved.
He wouldn’t be the Liberals’ whipping boy any longer.