HOUSE OF COMMONS, OTTAWA, ONTARIO
JANUARY 19, 1914
The new feature that we have on the Treasury Benches, at long last, is a Solicitor General. It took a long time to fill that vacancy. The mantle remained suspended for something like two years, but at last it has fallen on the shoulders of my Honourable Friend (Mr. Meighen).180 My compliments to the Solicitor General. I speak my mind frankly when I state that I believe he is well qualified for the position – well qualified from the legal point of view and still better qualified from the political point of view.
He has been in the House of Commons for some years. It has been my pleasure to observe him almost from the day he came here; and almost from his first appearance we have had evidences not a few that he is endowed with a very subtle mind, that he is a past master dialectician. But if I must speak my mind fully and give my Honourable Friend…all the credit to which he is entitled, I must say that while he is also a clever rhetorician, he is still cleverer a sophist. There are few men inside this House or outside it who can clothe fallacies and paradoxes with more fitting garments than can the Honourable Gentleman. When it comes to the task of making the worse appear the better reason, few men can do more than my Honourable Friend the new Solicitor General….But the mystery to me is here: The qualifications of my Honourable Friend…were obvious; not only we but the public, everybody, knew them. Why, then, has it taken so long for my Right Honourable Friend the Prime Minister to discover them? I cannot imagine that my Right Honourable Friend with his acute mind did not see that which was obvious to everybody.
The mystery is why he should have allowed twelve months, twenty-four months, to elapse, without filling the portfolio which he has at last filled. Of course, the reason may have been that, while he was as well aware as others of the qualification of [Meighen], yet that Honourable Gentleman was not the only pebble on the beach. Looking before me now, I can see one, two, three, four, five, six –
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Laurier: Yes, six I can see, the friends of each of whom believed that he was entitled to occupy the position, and each one of whom believed that he was more entitled to it than his neighbour. How is it that they are left and [Meighen] chosen? That is where the subtle mind of my Honourable Friend…served him. That subtle mind taught him that something more than legal ability must play a part in the choice to be made. He was not satisfied to show only his ability as a member of this House; he showed his teeth also. And when the Prime Minister saw those sharp teeth bared and ready to sink into his quivering flesh, all hesitation was gone.
You will remember that towards the end of last session, the Bank Bill came back from the Senate, with some amendments. The Minister of Finance, who was in charge of the Bill, accepted the amendments, and explained them to the House. He said that they were trivial, nominal, and of no consequence; that although they were, perhaps, of some improvement by the measure, they affected in no way the principle of it. Thereupon there was a storm of indignation, or rather of pretended indignation, on the other side of the House. Some Honourable Gentlemen rose to protest, and the most valiant of these was [Meighen].
He attacked the amendments most violently; he said that they changed the whole tenor of the Bill; he shot at the Senate, which he could not reach, and over the head of the Government, whom he wished not to hurt. It was more than an attack; it was a warning.
The Right Honourable Gentleman remembered a page in the parliamentary history of England, upon which it is recorded that when Sir Robert Walpole was Prime Minister a young cavalry officer was elected to Parliament, and the moment he had spoken the Prime Minister said to his friend, “that warhorse must be muzzled.” It is evident that when my Honourable Friend the Prime Minister heard [Meighen] he said to himself that the Honourable Gentleman would have to be muzzled. Unfortunately, as my Honourable Friend has chosen the great William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, as his model, and as the Minister of Finance has gone so far as to approve the action of the Senate, my Honourable Friend the new Solicitor General will have to use his best ability to approve also, whatever may be his own feelings.
Some years ago, my close friend and colleague John Lynch-Staunton, then leader of the Opposition in the Senate and who has now, sadly, passed away, achieved something of great substance and importance. While it did not generate many headlines or clips on the television news, it is something for which Canadians – particularly those who work diligently to promote the study and understanding of our history – will be thanking him for decades to come.
I speak of course of Lynch-Staunton’s work piloting the Sir John A. Macdonald Day and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day Act through Parliament. This Act, approved in 2002, made the birthdays of our two greatest prime ministers (January 11 for Macdonald and November 20 for Laurier) special days of recognition on our calendar.
Some might ask why I, a lifelong and very proud Conservative, would encourage Canadians to honour Laurier, who, after all, was Canada’s greatest Liberal prime minister. In this, I take my lead from my grandfather Arthur Meighen, an opponent of Laurier’s who sat across from him in Parliament for many years.
At the time of Sir Wilfrid’s death in 1919, my grandfather, a member of Sir Robert Borden’s cabinet, took my aunt Lillian, then only nine years old, with him to the funeral visitation where he paid his respects to Lady Laurier and viewed Sir Wilfrid’s body.
“You’re too young to understand,” he said to her, “but I want you to be able to say that you saw one of the finest men I have ever known.”
Decades later, Arthur Meighen, in one of his final public addresses, delivered in Toronto in December 1957, also made sure he recognized his worthy foe from years before:
“There was never a man, not in my lifetime, from whom one could learn so much of the art of leadership as from Sir Wilfrid Laurier,” he said. “One of the lamentations that I still indulge in is that I did not learn more from him.”
What we can see, however, from Laurier’s “welcome” to my grandfather in the Commons when Arthur Meighen became Solicitor General, is something sadly often missing from today’s politics. I speak, of course, about mutual respect between political opponents. One can be tough in debate – as Laurier was on my grandfather on January 9, 1914 – when facing an opponent, but that does not mean that person is a personal enemy.
Outside of the cut and thrust of often fierce debates and disagreements in the House of Commons, Laurier and Arthur Meighen enjoyed cordial and respectful relations. Both Laurier and my grandfather cared deeply about Canada and only differed in their approaches to improving the country’s present and future.
Today, as we mark the 175th anniversary of Laurier’s birth, I believe as strongly as my grandfather did that great figures from our history like Sir Wilfrid and Sir John A. should be celebrated and honoured, regardless of party.
Like John A., Laurier had that special touch and talent that makes nation-building possible. He was a visionary leader who built upon the foundations laid by Macdonald and who brought Canada into the twentieth century with success and a healthy confidence. In a country so divided in the early days – divided by race, religion, and geography – the guiding principle and mission of his life was the unity of our nation.
Some have said he was the perfect prime minister – too French sometimes for the English, and too English sometimes for the French. He challenged both main language groups in Canada, while simultaneously opening the door to the settlement of western Canada by immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Shortly before his death, Laurier addressed a group of youths in Ontario. His words are as inspiring today and we would do well to recall his advice well into the future:
“I shall remind you that already many problems rise before you: Problems of race division, problems of creed differences, problems of economic conflict, problems of national duty and national aspiration,” Laurier said. “Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate. Let your aim and purpose, in good report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so to serve as to do your part to raise even higher the standard of life and living.”
As a nation, we don’t do enough to honour, celebrate, and cherish our history. Great speeches like those of Laurier should be studied more often in our schools and on Parliament Hill.
Our national story needs to be retold, again and again, to each succeeding generation. With polls demonstrating that many Canadians have difficultly even recalling the name of our first prime minister, we must do better than we have.
Neither Laurier nor Macdonald (nor Arthur Meighen) were perfect men or leaders. But in the study of their lives and legacies we are reminded of the skill, vision, and courage it took to build what we have today: a nation that is the envy of the world.
Michael A. Meighen served in the Senate of Canada from 1990 to 2012 and is now chancellor of McGill University.