Just four years after the excitement of the 1968 campaign and the national phenomenon of Trudeaumania had swept across the country, the very things that Canadians had admired about Pierre Trudeau in the 1968 campaign had become political liabilities. Trudeau’s rhetorical embrace of participatory methods — his conversations with Canadians — that had played out so well in the 1968 election became meaningless musings. His intellectualism that was so appealing in the 1968 election was now perceived as arrogance or aloofness. Behaviour that was unlike that of a typical politician became less refreshing and more offputting. Trudeau’s actions in the October Crisis of 1970 played no small part in this development. In short, the bloom was off the rose.
The day before Trudeau called the 1972 election, Robert Stanfield made the following comment about him:
In 1968, Mr. Trudeau was accepted as the new spirit, above politics in the ordinary sense of the term. Now the people have seen him as prime minister for over four years. Some have seen him as a playboy who takes too many holidays. A great many doubt whether there is any warmth in his concern . . . I think he has difficulty in listening to people, difficulty in spending enough time with his caucus, keeping in touch with them and, through them, with the people of the country. . . . I have the impression Mr. Trudeau is pretty largely making the main decisions himself and relying mainly for advice on people he chooses. I don’t think he suffers fools gladly. I don’t want to sound patronizing to the Canadian people when I say this, but the prime minister has to be prepared to listen and to understand all kinds of people.1
As Opposition leader, Stanfield accomplished some impressive victories within his own party. He had brought peace within the party after the turbulent Diefenbaker years, and had subtly redirected the party’s orientation from its outdated prairie populism to a more modern and more progressive approach to issues. However, although he was liked and respected as a man who was decent and dignified, the public had no clear sense of what he would be like as prime minister. And both Stanfield and his main adviser, Dalton Camp, knew that the widespread disillusionment with Trudeau did not mean that the Canadian people were automatically prepared to vote Tory. For one thing, Stanfield continued to be perceived in much the same way he had been in 1968, as “a nineteenth-century politician who had the ill luck to be born in the twentieth.”2 For another, the Conservatives had yet to come up with an alternate set of policy options which could be used as a platform for the next election.
The opposition was not helped in its pre-election planning by the fact that the economy was still in relatively good condition (see Figure 7.1). However, a number of signs of impending economic difficulties were in the air. Over the course of 1972, inflation began the steep rise that would dominate electoral discussion two years later. It had not yet been perceived as an imminent crisis, but by the fall, inflation numbers were reaching the point where it could be argued that the rate was nearly double that of the preceding year. Unemployment for the year 1972 was relatively steady at 6 percent, but seasonally adjusted figures issued at the end of the campaign put the September monthly rate at over 7 percent.3 Economic growth was healthy, with the 1971 figure reading 6.4 percent rise in growth over the previous year, but by early 1972 figures were pointing to a slowdown (the year ended at 5.8 percent growth).
Library and Archives Canada. Duncan Cameron, photographer.
Robert Stanfield with photographers, Ottawa, 1967.
Main Economic Indicators, 1966–1980
Statistics: Canada
The public was uneasy about the economy, but undecided about the exact nature of the problem. Answers during 1972 to the Gallup poll opinion question “What is the most important issue facing Canada?” fluctuated between inflation and unemployment. In the June–July Gallup survey, 39 percent of those polled said that inflation/cost of living was the most important problem, followed by unemployment (36 percent). In the September survey, unemployment was identified by 58 percent as the most pressing problem with inflation/cost of living at only 9 percent. These fluctuations in public concerns meant that political parties did not have a clear target around which to develop their election platform. And as we will see, this, in turn, led to a perception that the politicians were not paying enough attention to economic policy.
Public opinion polls made it clear that the mood of the country was one that would be looking closely at where the parties stood on economic strategies and who the best leader would be in ensuring economic stability, despite the fact that it was not clear what the main economic problem was. While the economic vulnerabilities in Canada were similar to those faced by most advanced industrialized countries,4 the government’s ability to deal with the economy was weakened by the fact that more than two-thirds of trade was with the United States, and substantial levels of foreign ownership meant less national control of its economy.
A particular blow to the Canadian economy was a series of measures introduced by President Nixon in August 1971, including tax credits to corporations making investments in the United States and tax breaks on American exports. The fact that Canada no longer seemed to be a favoured trading partner of the United States, and the fact that Prime Minister Trudeau and President Nixon did not have close personal relations, did not help the Liberals when they tried to portray themselves as the most competent party to address the country’s economic problems.
Despite the evidence that voters perceived economic problems to be the most important electoral issues facing the country, Trudeau and his advisers at MacLaren Advertising chose to adopt a very general theme, “The Land is Strong,” as the centrepiece of the Liberal campaign. The intention of this slogan was to spread the message that, while there had been some problems over the past four years, Canadians had the will, the energy, and the ability to deal with them.5 “The most important challenge facing Canada,” Trudeau declared as he faced reporters after announcing the dissolution of Parliament, “is the preservation of its integrity.”6 Trudeau had been getting advice for some time that supported his inclination to run a different kind of election campaign, one focused not on confrontation with his opponents, but on “conversations with Canadians.” It would be designed to emphasize the Liberals’ unique ability to achieve national unity by appealing to all regions. Simultaneously, it would identify the weakness of the other parties, particularly the Conservatives in Quebec.
The Liberals anticipated that the opposition parties would make the economy and unemployment the primary issues, but did not believe that these would resonate with Canadian voters. Liberal strategists believed that most Canadians would either be satisfied that the economy was performing well or be tired of hearing the opposition parties talk of little else, or both. They counted on the Conservatives or the NDP having few new things to say on this issue. In retrospect, however, Trudeau himself was highly critical of the 1972 campaign slogan:
Looking back on it, the errors I committed at the time seem startlingly clear to me. The campaign had gone badly from the beginning. The party had chosen an English slogan — “The Land is Strong” — that was both inept and untranslatable. As for me, I got off on the wrong foot by having a confused idea of my own role. I put myself at the head of the campaign, but I treated it not so much as an election battle as a simple appeal to the voters: “Here is the record of our four years in power; tell us what you think.” I wanted to make a clean break between these elections and the emotionalism of Trudeaumania that had characterized the previous campaign.7
Initially, it was thought that the Liberals would unveil a “Liberal Charter” — a progressive series of ideas developed at a three-day policy convention in Ottawa to guide the decade of the seventies. However, by all accounts, it was not possible to forge a consensus in cabinet about what exactly would be contained in the charter. In particular, many cabinet ministers did not support the convention’s resolutions on abortion, the guaranteed annual income, or an independent foreign investment review board.8
At the onset of the campaign, there was little evidence that the Tories were prepared to capitalize on the Liberals’ poor start. Public opinion polls (see Figure 7.2) had shown the Conservatives to be gradually increasing their popularity in the period of time since the 1968 election, due to a combination of public unease with the economic future, mixed feelings about the Trudeau government’s use of the War Measures Act in Quebec, and the increasingly divisive feelings that Trudeau himself had begun to inspire. The opportunity for opposition gains, if not outright victory, was present, but the Conservatives knew that they had to run a superior campaign to have any chance of winning the election. The Tory headquarters was in the Westbury Hotel on Yonge Street in Toronto, where Stanfield’s senior assistant, Bill Grogan, and campaign manager Dalton Camp, set up shop. It was not clear, however, that their advice was being heeded. Surprisingly, rather than going after Trudeau and the Liberals on their economic and administrative record, Stanfield chose to emphasize his view that the overly generous provisions of the new Unemployment Insurance Act which had come into force in June 1971 had weakened the work ethic of Canadian workers. The Conservative slogan, he said, would be “A Job for Canadians,” meaning that Canada needed to be “a society that uses its human resources rather than wasting them.”9 Stanfield also had a major problem with the press, who perceived him as being very vague and frequently off-topic. According to his biographer, he “was accustomed to the gentle gopher balls served up by the docile Nova Scotia media and was . . . baffled by the low curves thrown by the national press.”10
Federal Vote Intention, 1970–1975
The Gallup Report, selected dates
In a situation of lacklustre Liberal and Conservative campaigns, the NDP seized the initiative and the public imagination. David Lewis, the new leader of the New Democrats, did not accept the premise that the election campaign should be an abstract discussion of national priorities and strengths. Lewis decided to directly take on the business community that had been so critical of the welfare state. It was not the poor and unemployed who benefited most from government handouts, Lewis claimed — rather, it was business that reaped the rewards of economic policy. In speech after speech, Lewis criticized the “corporate welfare bums” that had benefited from government policies produced by both opponents, in that they were able to avoid taxes and maximize profits.
Realizing that his theme had struck a responsive chord in the public, Lewis and the NDP rushed into print Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums, a pocketbook that detailed charges against many corporations identified by name as having benefited from tax breaks that they had persuaded both Liberal and Conservative governments to enact. The book proclaimed, “government and big business are holding hands — in your pocket.”11
Despite its successful theme, the NDP campaign was somewhat blunted in its impact by the friction within the party between the NDP establishment and the Waffle. The Waffle was a left-wing group that was promoting a return to its socialist roots — a “waffle to the left” — as they described it. In 1969, they released the Waffle Manifesto, which reflected the group’s concern, among others, that the Canadian economy had been captured by American interests. They were highly critical of the NDP parliamentary caucus as having been co-opted by the centrist parties. The Waffle was expelled from the Ontario provincial NDP in 1972 but not without having hurt the NDP’s electoral fortunes. On the eve of the 1972 election, polls indicated that the NDP had the support of only 15 percent of those surveyed.12
Despite the damage that the Waffle had done to the credibility of the NDP, there is no question that David Lewis ran the most successful campaign. Buoyed by the dramatic election victory of David Barrett and the NDP in the August 1972 British Columbia provincial election, Lewis campaigned where he knew the party had a chance — in the West, in northern Ontario, and in the industrialized areas of southern Ontario. Accepting the fact that they would not form the government, they campaigned on holding the de facto balance of power in Parliament with the clear if not-too-inspiring slogan “Canada Needs More New Democrats in Ottawa.”
As the campaign progressed, leadership emerged as the factor that continued to favour the Liberals. Polls commissioned during the campaign showed that while the Liberals were slipping, Canadians, particularly younger ones, continued to believe that Trudeau was the preferred leader to Stanfield. This is important since the 1972 election was the first election held after the voting age was lowered to18 years of age. Despite the fact that both Trudeau and Stanfield had been opposed to lowering the voting age to 18 in the 1968 leaders’ debate, the government announced its intention of introducing a bill to lower the voting age in the Speech from the Throne that was delivered on October 23, 1969.13 Since many other countries were also lowering the voting age at this time (United Kingdom in 1968, Germany in 1970, the United States in 1971), this move was not particularly radical. Moreover, seven provinces had already lowered the voting age from 21. Between the 1968 and 1972 elections, the lists of electors produced by enumerations of the eligible population grew by over two million.14 Interest in the 1972 election was high, partly for this reason. The turnout increased to 76.7 percent of registered voters, the highest since 1965 and much higher than the subsequent election of 1974.
Given that there was no National Election Study conducted in 1972, it is impossible to determine with precision which party this newly enfranchised 18–21-year-old cohort supported. Gallup poll leader preference data for voters 18–24 years and 25 years and older give some indications. Just under half of the voter cohort of 18–24 year olds surveyed felt that Trudeau would make the best prime minister compared to only 15 percent favouring Stanfield. Approximately 22 percent of older voters thought Stanfield would make the best prime minister compared to 36 percent who believed that Trudeau would make the best PM. Support for Lewis among younger and older voters was virtually the same at approximately 12 percent.15
Prominent cabinet ministers such as John Turner carried the issue of leadership across the country. At one point in the campaign, he was quoted as saying, “The election issue is leadership and that brings us to Mr. Trudeau. We don’t have to compare him to the ideal. We don’t have to compare him to the almighty. We have to compare him to the alternatives.”16 The Liberals entered the campaign certain of victory and confident that Trudeau still had the charisma to appeal to voters just as he had in 1968. However, the Trudeau of 1972 was not the Trudeau of 1968.
In Quebec, the political situation was evolving quickly. Trudeau’s heavy-handed actions during the Cross and Laporte kidnappings in 1970 had two impacts. On the one hand, it galvanized the emerging nationalist factions in the province. Specifically, the Parti Québécois, an avowed separatist party, had been founded in 1968 and was gearing up to contest the provincial election of 1973. On the other hand, it had convinced the Conservatives that there were opportunities for them in Quebec — if they could find a prominent francophone to join Stanfield in the party’s leadership team. Key people in the party doggedly pursued Claude Wagner, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister who had left politics and was now a sitting judge. A survey that had been commissioned for the party suggested that Wagner’s personal popularity within Quebec could result in winning a number of seats in that province. And, indeed, the Tory campaign literature in Quebec made scant mention of the Conservative Party at all. “L’Equipe du Quebec Stanfield–Wagner” toured the province with the message “Wagner, C’Est Vrai,” a slogan with the double meaning of “Wagner Is for Real” and “Wagner, it’s True.”17
In making the move to the Conservatives, Wagner claimed that joining the Tories could be defended given Trudeau’s dismissal of Quebec nationalism. But his stock-in-trade was a “law and order” image, an appeal to those who, he said, were “searching for security, to be protected.”18 Honesty and straightforwardness were attributes associated with Claude Wagner. However, rather than becoming an asset for the Conservatives in Quebec, Wagner soon became a liability, as rumours began to swirl that he had been “bought” and had been guaranteed a huge cash settlement if he failed to win a seat. It turned out that Stanfield himself had authorized the establishment of a $300,000 trust fund in Wagner’s interest to induce him to run.19
Considering the state of the respective campaigns, the election of 1972 not surprisingly ended in a virtual tie between the Liberals and Conservatives, at least in terms of seats in Parliament (see Table 7.1). The fact that the Liberals had two more seats (109 to 107) and four more percentage points in the popular vote, meant that they could carry on in power as a minority government without public disapproval, but the result ushered in a tense time of trial for Trudeau.
The key to the close outcome was the Ontario vote. In 1968 the Liberals had captured 64 of Ontario’s 88 seats, but this dropped to 36 in 1972. The Conservatives captured 40 seats in Ontario, up from the 17 they had won four years earlier. The Conservatives also did well in the Atlantic provinces, the home region of Robert Stanfield, as well as in the West. If they had been able to couple these strong showings with gains in Quebec, where they had hoped to win between 8 and 10 seats, they would have formed a government, albeit a minority one. In fact, they only won two seats in Quebec, and slipped to third place in the popular vote behind the Liberals and Créditistes. The strategy of Claude Wagner as leader of a Quebec delegation of Conservatives had failed.
The near defeat of the Liberals in 1972, the resurgence of the Conservative Party in Ontario, and the surprising success of the NDP reflected an atmosphere of voter volatility not seen since 10 years earlier. The election result also led to much finger pointing and recrimination among the Liberals. While anti-Trudeau feelings were not seen as a significant factor in the near loss, there were many people who were blamed for the election outcome. Privately, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was accused of having been unrealistic and overly intellectual. The high philosophical ideals of the earlier Trudeau era simply did not work the second time around. Others blamed MacLaren Advertising and pollster Oliver Quayle for mismanaging the campaign. According to Liberal insider Jerry Grafstein, “the root of the problem was that MacLaren had become both ‘judge and jury’ of the entire media campaign.”20
Yet others believed that Trudeau had failed to develop the extra-parliamentary wing of the party. One column quoted a Liberal insider as stating: “One of the failures of the Trudeau organization was the failure to bring along young people who came into the party in 1968 and to develop them in the organization.”21
Much of the criticism that was launched at the PMO came from a group of Toronto MPs.22 This group included some former operatives who had been influential during the Pearson era, as well as two defeated MPs, Martin O’Connell and John Roberts, who had joined the PMO as advisers. This group was influential for the better part of a year after the 1972 election. Their key recommendation was that Keith Davey be reinstated as federal campaign chairman.23
Trudeau was initially resistant to the appointment of Davey, as it seemed like a return to the days of cronyism and political professionals that he had always abhorred. However, it was evident by a series of early initiatives after the October 1972 election that efforts needed to be made to improve the party’s electoral appeal, particularly in Ontario. In a cabinet shuffle that took place on November 27, 1972, almost all of the key economic portfolios — Finance, Industry Trade and Commerce, Labour, Energy, Mines and Resources, and National Revenue — were left with or handed over to men from Ontario, and “French power” was noticeably reduced in the cabinet.24
The real winners in the 1972 federal election were the New Democrats. As Desmond Morton has observed, not only did they hold the balance of power, but their 31-member caucus was likely the most able parliamentary representation they had ever had.25 Pierre Trudeau moved to stabilize his precarious governmental position by making important concessions to the NDP in return for their support, though no formal coalition was offered or sought. Among other things, the Liberals raised the universal old-age pension by as much as $100 per month, and the NDP pushed the Liberals into passing Bill C-132, the government’s new foreign investment legislation. There were also a number of other changes made in the pension field, and an income supplementation strategy was introduced. In fact, some claimed that the 29th Parliament marked a return to the government’s preoccupation with social welfare policy, which had been the mantra of the Pearson era.26
Results of the 1972 and 1974 Federal Elections, by Province
Lewis and the NDP knew, however, that co-operating with the Liberals might cost them important political support, particularly in Western Canada. In the fall of 1973, at the NDP national convention, Lewis served notice that any future support of the Liberals would only be forthcoming if the Liberals made further concessions. By 1974, the initial popularity of the provincial NDP government of David Barrett in British Columbia was waning, a development which threatened the continued viability of the 11-member federal NDP contingent from B.C.
After the Liberals made known their intention to introduce their budget in May 1974, the NDP stated that three items must be contained in it in order to ensure their continued support. They demanded that there be a two-price system for Canadian commodities such as oil, gas, and lumber, that corporate taxes be substantially increased, and that the government introduce a subsidized 6-percent mortgage rate.27 Refusing to make these concessions, the government was defeated on its budget and the campaign for the 1974 general election began. It is important to note that there had been 18 confidence votes in the House over the course of the session, and the government had endured numerous predictions of its impending defeat. The Trudeau government was in part able to survive because the Conservatives were ineffective as Her Majesty’s Official Opposition in the post-72 parliamentary session. There is no question that they wanted the government to fall as quickly as possible.
However, it soon became clear that the Liberal minority government would not quickly collapse. Inflammatory attacks on the NDP by some members of the Conservative caucus did not help matters.28 In their zeal to bring down the government, the Conservatives appeared to be more interested in achieving office than in presenting policy proposals to address the economic woes faced by the country. There were also a series of incidents that contributed to a decline in popularity of the Tories.
When the government introduced a motion to reaffirm support for the principles of official bilingualism, Stanfield could not command the unanimous support of his caucus and 16 members opposed the motion. This was seen as yet another indication of an anti-Quebec faction within the PC Party and further evidence that Stanfield did not have full control of his caucus, reinforcing perceptions that he was a weak leader. Rather than presenting itself as an alternative government or a government-in-waiting, the Stanfield Conservatives appeared to be fending off internal discord. The old rift between the pro-Diefenbaker camp and the Stanfield/Dalton Camp forces continued to simmer within the PC caucus.
A Gallup poll taken just before the government’s defeat in May 1974 and published on June 5, showed the Liberals with 40 percent of the vote, and the Conservatives and NDP at 33 and 21 percent, respectively (see Figure 7.2). More importantly, a full one-third of those surveyed were undecided, which indicated that the campaign would be even more important than usual.
The widespread perception that the Liberal campaign in 1972 had been a disaster, together with the nearly equal parliamentary standing of the Liberals and Conservatives, resulted in careful and strategic planning for the upcoming campaign. The campaign period itself was likely to be decisive, and this time there were significant differences. Trudeau had now surrounded himself with astute political advisers and campaign professionals.
After the party had terminated MacLaren Advertising in the wake of the 1972 election debacle, they set up their own “in-house” advertising agency called Red Leaf Communications. This agency was under the command of Jerry Grafstein and was a consortium of highly partisan professionals from a variety of advertising firms across the country.29 The Liberals also retained the services of Martin Goldfarb, who was widely viewed as Canada’s premier pollster. Keith Davey and Jim Coutts managed the campaign on a tight leash, leaving nothing to chance. Their assignment was to identify policy issues and present ideas to the voters. According to Davey, “about thirty-five of us got together and finalized policies toward improved social security programs, easier home-buying, equality for women, and western freight-rate equalization.”30 Communicating these policy ideas to the voter was something that had been absent in the 1972 campaign. Davey and Coutts’ approach to election planning was a far cry from the participatory methods espoused by Trudeau in 1968. Gone were the “Conversations with Canadians,” marking the return to a more traditional elite-driven structure that has characterized the Liberals.
The Liberals were helped in their arguments by their ability to reference the proposed budget on which the government had been defeated. Trudeau kicked off the campaign by maintaining that he did not have to issue a platform (even though he said that a new one was coming imminently)31 because his plans were all in the budget. “It’s there; it’s in the bills, it’s written . . . plans, not dreams. . . . These aren’t campaign promises I’m giving you. They were written right there in the budget — and they voted against them!”32 As the tone of the speech indicates, this was a more passionate, combative Trudeau than the country had seen before. As he had mentioned in an interview with the CBC’s Patrick Watson in December of 1973, “next time around, I may be more impassioned and less rational. Who knows?”33
Convinced that the shift toward their party in the 1972 election was evidence of growing momentum, the Conservatives decided to take the offensive in the 1974 election campaign. By doing so they exposed themselves to attack.34 By 1974, inflation had reached alarming proportions, and was dominating public discussion (see Figure 7.1). It was not difficult in this atmosphere for any of the parties to persuade the public of the importance of the issue and the desirability of taking action. To demonstrate their seriousness in the commitment to fight inflation, the Conservative Party proposed a system of wage and price controls. Although the details were not completely spelled out, the basic idea was to impose regulations on wage settlements and consumer prices. In taking this initiative, the Conservatives were gambling that their decisiveness would overcome a number of criticisms to which the policy was vulnerable. For one thing, inflation carries a variety of regional nuances. High grain prices may mean prosperity to the prairie wheat farmer, but may, at the same time, contribute to skyrocketing costs for Ontario livestock owners.35
The NDP response to this proposal was to argue that the Tory plan would in effect only be controls on wages, because wage settlements would have to be approved and prices would not be controlled at all. The Liberal response was to agree that inflation was a problem, but to maintain that it was a worldwide phenomenon, which would necessarily have to be alleviated on a more general basis. World oil prices, which were fuelling inflation, as well as other prices of imported goods such as food, could not be realistically subjected to domestic price controls. During the 50-day campaign, the PC wage and price control scheme came under attack from critics both outside and within the Conservative Party, and before long exceptions were being made:
As the campaign progressed, the credibility of the simple, tough control policy was undermined by the Conservatives themselves. First, the leader kept adding qualifications to his initially strong policy: union contracts with built-in escalation clauses would still be valid; the price of farm produce would not be frozen; stock prices and interest rates would be exempted, and so on. Candidates’ reservations were voiced with increasing volume as the concern about wage freezes rose.36
There was a lack of direction from the leader and the party’s central campaign offices about the exact details of the policy, which left local candidates adrift when it came to explanations of its meaning on the doorsteps. And before long, Stanfield appeared to be downplaying the impact of the policy, leading to the May 27 headlines in the Globe and Mail “Stanfield Soft-Pedals on Price Freeze” and “Freeze on Prices and Incomes ‘As Short As Possible’ Stanfield Says.” The final blow to the credibility of the Conservative wage and price control policy came when Trudean derisively depicted it as “Zap, you’re frozen!”
To demonstrate their seriousness, the Conservatives decided to accompany their wage and price control policy with an austerity proposal regarding public expenditure. Stanfield maintained that a government run by the Conservatives would bring in a balanced budget (at a time when the Liberals were running a billion-dollar deficit) that would help to put the brakes on inflation.37 While this pledge may have appeared persuasive in one way, it tied Stanfield’s hands when he was asked about new spending or new programs. In contrast, there were promises made most days by Trudeau on such items as mortgage subsidies for low-income earners, a $500 cash grant for first-time homebuyers, a new policy for freight rates, a quarter of a billion dollars for urban mass transit, along with many others. These daily announcements put Stanfield on the defensive, forcing him to react and respond, but continue to avoid any commitments which would increase spending.
The media also took to competing with one another to publish unflattering photos of the awkward Stanfield. There were several embarrassing media shots of the Conservative leader, including one showing him fumbling a football, another wearing his trousers incorrectly inside cowboy boots and yet another showing him wearing a shirt with a Liberal sticker on his back.38 Juxtaposed against these negative images of Stanfield was the debonair and newly energized Trudeau, moving through the campaign in a seemingly effortless manner.
Furthermore, Trudeau had at his side the “secret weapon” of his wife Margaret. Where Trudeau had previously insisted that his family life was separate from his political life, in the 1974 campaign his wife accompanied him to numerous events and delivered several impromptu speeches that praised him as a husband and father. She was successful in softening up his aloof and arrogant exterior by making statements like the following: “I want to speak of him as a person, as a loving human being who has taught me, in the three years we have been married and the few years before that, a lot about loving.”39
As Table 7.2 shows, Canadians continued to be preoccupied with economic issues in 1974. Respondents to the 1974 National Election Study said that inflation was the most important issue (36.4 percent) followed by two other economic issues — the cost of living and unemployment at 7.6 and 7.3 percent respectively. This focus on economic issues was characteristic of the elections held during the Trudeau dynasty. National unity or confederation issues were pushed into the background, even though Trudeau maintained Liberal dominance in this area.
Not only did the Conservatives continue to struggle in Quebec, but this weakness was magnified by Stanfield’s difficulties in French, and by internal disagreements within the party about the importance of bilingualism. One such example is found in Stanfield’s decision to refuse to recognize the candidacy of Leonard Jones in Moncton, New Brunswick, because Jones had been unwilling to endorse the party’s support for official bilingualism. While Stanfield’s decision was consistent with official Conservative policy, the fact that Jones had been nominated in the first place branded Conservatives as at least ambivalent about bilingualism. Jones’s subsequent victory in the election as an independent further undermined the party’s handling of the issue.
Most Important Issues in the 1974 Election
Percent (multiple response)*
Economic Issues Inflation Wage and Price Controls The Economy (General) Taxes / Government spending Unemployment / Jobs |
38 |
National Unity Bilingualism / French language Separatism / National unity Foreign policy / Defence |
3 |
Social Welfare Social programs / Social services Pensions Education / Health Other social welfare |
5 |
Other Issues The election / Majority government The Leader / Leadership Oil / Energy Farm / Agricultural Issues “Time for a change” Other issues |
7 |
No Important Issues |
19 |
Don’t Know |
11 |
* 1974 Canadian National Election Study. N = 2,445.
The NDP were strongly opposed to wage controls as unfair, but not as opposed to price controls, to the extent that they might prove workable. Leader David Lewis had been forced to adopt inflation as a key issue by the strong stance taken by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) at its convention shortly after the fall of the government. And while they blamed inflation on Liberal policies, the NDP spent almost as much time attacking the Conservatives on their wage and price control policy. In this sense, the NDP position added credibility to the Liberal attack. David Lewis and the NDP were also held responsible for the fall of the minority government and were resented by some for forcing yet another expensive — and in the eyes of many — unnecessary election. The conditions were thus set for strategic voting in 1974, primarily by NDP supporters who felt the necessity of choosing between the two major parties.
The Liberal brain trust knew that the Conservatives’ biggest liability was its leader. Polls taken before the campaign had revealed that the public had retained a substantial amount of its confidence in the Liberal leader. To capitalize on this strength, the Liberals’ strategy was to emphasize “leadership” as their core “issue” of the campaign. Although only 4.7 percent of Canadians stated that the leader or leadership was the most important issue in 1974 (see Table 7.2), Liberal strategists believed they could structure their response to inflation and other issues by maintaining that their superior leadership would provide the best response to growing economic problems. According to Clarkson, “the objective was to force the Conservatives to fight on the issue of leadership and back down from their issue of inflation.”40 The prime minister, always suspicious of the media, avoided them as much as he could during the 1974 campaign. In particular, the Liberals refused to participate in a leaders’ debate, even though no debate had been held since 1968. Not only did this refusal to debate mean that Stanfield did not have the opportunity to make up the lost ground in leader comparisons that were occurring on the campaign trail, it also allowed Trudeau to escape being put on the spot about the cost of the Liberal campaign promises.
Party and Leader Thermometer Scale Ratings, 1974
1974 Canadian National Election Study. N=2315
Figure 7.3 highlights the mean party and party leader thermometer scores for the four main parties. For the Liberals, Trudeau and the Liberal Party were virtually synonymous in the public mind. Furthermore, their popularity scores were substantially higher than any of the others, exceeding the 60 mark out of 100. The Conservatives fared less well, and Stanfield lagged behind his party in popularity. To the extent that the Liberals could focus their attacks on Stanfield, and force a public evaluation of him rather than the party at large, they would benefit. For the NDP, on the other hand, and for the Créditistes in Quebec, leaders David Lewis and Réal Caouette were both more popular than the parties they led. In these cases, the Liberal campaign tactic was to criticize the NDP and Créditiste parties themselves, associating the former with too much state control and the latter with an outdated and problematic philosophy. In regional terms, Stanfield trailed behind Trudeau in every province of the country except his home province of Nova Scotia, and was well behind in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, in particular.
The election of a Liberal majority government on July 8, 1974 was a surprise to just about everyone. Journalists had tended to discount the poll figures that showed the Liberals well ahead because they had been so inaccurate in 1972. The precarious situation of the Liberal minority government from October 1972 until the spring of 1974, and the media’s daily reporting of the mood of the House, had attracted considerable negative attention. Although Gallup’s pre-election figures proved highly accurate, other polls had placed the Liberals somewhat lower than Gallup. In fact, in its telecast on July 4, just a few days before the election, the CBC claimed that its polling suggested that a Progressive Conservative minority government was a distinct possibility.41
The Canadian National Election Study series of academic surveys resumed in 1974, under the direction of a new team. This allowed them, unlike in 1972, to look at the factors which influenced vote choice. The researchers published their main findings in Political Choice in Canada. The book analyzed voting behaviour in the 1974 election as part of a larger examination of the factors influencing the voting decisions of individuals. In addition to a new national post-election survey, the study included a content analysis of 21 major newspapers over 13 sampled dates. In total, there were 1,940 articles about the campaign, which represented an average of seven per issue. An estimated 78 percent of the newspaper coverage was national in scope compared to 18 percent that covered local races. An estimated 43 percent of the stories focused on the electioneering of the party leaders.42 In addition, political issues and the parties were treated frequently in the context of the travels and pronouncements of the leaders. Because of the fixation on leaders, “the importance of their particular personalities was magnified, their family relationships became subjects of popular concerns, and extreme demands were placed on them and their speech writers to have something interesting and different to say on the same subjects several times a day.”43
Table 7.3 compares both the positive and negative images of party leaders during the 1974 and 1968 elections. As shown in this table, Stanfield’s negative image, in particular regarding his personality, was a clear liability when compared to 1968. Another interesting dynamic in this table is that Trudeau’s positive images on the personality dimension in the 1974 election were only slightly below his “Trudeaumania” image of 1968. Moreover, his style and leadership images of 1974 were even higher than they had been in 1968. The Trudeau dynasty, despite the stumbles of the previous six years, was finally in place.
Positive and Negative Images, by Leader, 1968, 1974
Electoral Turnover, 1972–1974
1974 Canadian National Election Study. N = 2197.
A glance at Figure 7.4 shows that the hesitation about predicting a Liberal victory may have been well-founded. These data from the 1974 election study show that the pattern of vote switching between those in the active electorate in both 1972 and 1974 was actually away from the Liberals. This is particularly apparent when direct switching between the Liberals and Conservatives is observed (5.2 percent of the entire electorate moving from a 1972 Liberal vote to the Conservatives as opposed to 3.4 percent going the opposite way). Offsetting this small net loss to the Liberals of their 1972 support, however, was an influx of previous non-voters and newly eligible voters who disproportionately chose the Liberal Party. In particular, the Liberals attracted an estimated 70 percent of the new voters in the 18–20 age bracket in Ontario.44 The leader appeal to these groups played a major part in sustaining the Trudeau dynasty. Trudeau, with a little help from the media, was successful in shifting the focus of the electorate from inflation to leadership, and he took full advantage of his greater personal popularity among voters.
The New Democratic Party result in 1974 was as demoralizing to party officials and supporters as the 1972 result had been heartening. The overall national vote for the NDP dropped only 2 percent, from 17.7 percent in 1972 to 15.4 percent, but the party’s representation in Parliament was virtually cut in half, from 31 to 16 seats. Particularly devastating were its losses in British Columbia, where the party lost 9 of its 11 seats. Leader David Lewis was defeated, and quickly announced his resignation.
As for the Social Credit Party, they had experienced some decline in Quebec and their leader, Réal Caouette, was in poor health. Some pundits were predicting the elimination of Social Credit, which had been a presence in federal politics in some form since 1935. Réal Caouette had his leadership challenged by several members of his own caucus and he had aroused some criticism for meddling with the provincial Quebec Social Credit Party.45 There had also been some administrative gaffes such as nominating two candidates in one riding and no candidate in some ridings that had traditionally been strong in their previous support for Social Credit. Perhaps one of the most controversial positions taken by the leader was stating that he would accept Leonard Jones into Social Credit if he endorsed Social Credit economic ideology. But despite all of these difficulties and controversies, to the surprise of many, Social Credit took 11 Quebec seats. Given the predictions of the collapse of the party, this was an excellent result for both the party and its leader. However, the party ended up being one seat shy of retaining its parliamentary status as an “official” party.46
The Liberals recaptured 19 seats that they had lost to the PCs and the NDP in 1972 and strengthened their hold in Quebec, largely at the expense of Social Credit (see Table 7.1). It was not the majority that they had won in 1968 with 155 seats, but it was a majority nonetheless. The Liberals rebounded in almost every province, but the Ontario result was the key; there, they gained 8 percent of the popular vote and 19 additional seats.
Many Conservatives blamed the press for the failed Conservative campaign. While there was certainly some negative press coverage of Stanfield, the truth of the matter was that the PC campaign was poorly managed. In making wage and price controls the centrepiece of his campaign, Stanfield was vulnerable to challenges about the nuts and bolts of the policy. Indeed, the substantive details of this policy had never been worked out. He had been purposely vague about the scheme in order to reaffirm his personal approach to leadership, which was one of forging consensus. As George Perlin suggested:
He has always tried to formulate policy statements in general terms that permit the adherence of the largest number of interests. The difficulty was that, in this case, general language provoked maximum concern. The benefits of an incomes policy were cast in doubt by the Liberal argument that inflation is an international problem for which there is no domestic solution; meanwhile, all groups with any leverage to adjust their incomes feared that controls would deprive them of their only defence against inflation.47
Perlin hypothesized that the Progressive Conservative Party suffered from a “minority party syndrome.” It had always suffered from an endemic condition of internal conflicts, weak constituency organization, problematic communication between the national organization and constituencies and ad hoc campaigns. The minority party syndrome refers to the idea that the party’s minority status is constantly self-generating.48 When applied specifically to the Conservatives, the result of this “syndrome” is that the party never seems to be happy with its leadership. This is important for a whole host of reasons. Given the organizational disunity of Canadian parties, the role of leaders both within these organizations, as well as a spokesperson for them, has become critical for electoral success, particularly in the television age. In both the 1972 and the 1974 elections, the Conservative leader did not present an appealing image that was capable of attracting new and undecided voters. A slight flirtation with the Stanfield Conservatives had occurred in 1972, but two years later the Trudeau Liberals were swept back into power with a majority.
Research conducted for the elections in the 1965, 1968, and 1974 National Election Studies indicates that, when confronted with a question of which factor — party leader, party as a whole, or local candidate—was most important to their voting choice, 30 percent, 42 percent, and 33 percent, respectively, of the respondents in these studies selected party leaders.49 In 1974, Trudeau was the only leader to have a mean thermometer score (62) above the neutral point (50). Trudeau’s average thermometer rating was positive in all provinces except Manitoba, while Stanfield’s was only positive in the three Maritime provinces. Given that the Canadian National Election Studies since 1965 have found that, for a sizable proportion of the electorate, partisanship is either weak, unstable over time, or inconsistent across levels of the federal system, the importance of leadership can be a critical factor.50
Federal Party Identification in 1974
1974 Canadian National Election Study. N=2343.
In the final analysis, the 1974 election was a confirming election for the Trudeau dynasty, despite its electoral stumble two years earlier. After the election, a measure of party identification showed that nearly half of the electorate thought of themselves as Liberals, about twice as many as those who considered themselves Conservatives (see Figure 7.4). Despite coming so close to capturing power in the 1972 election, Stanfield made the decision shortly after the election that 1974 would be the last he would fight as the leader of the federal Conservative Party. Although he had managed to heal some of the wounds of the party left over from the Diefenbaker era, the Tories continued to be mired in party disunity and regional factionalism. And until such time that they could make significant breakthroughs in Quebec and Ontario, it was likely that the quest for power would be elusive.
The 1974 election also marked the end of David Lewis’s political career as he failed to win his own seat. Perhaps this was the price that he and the NDP had to pay for holding the balance of power. Criticized as being too cozy with the Liberals by their own supporters and seen by the public as the villains that made the government fall early in its mandate, the NDP suffered at the polls. For their part, Réal Caouette and his Social Crediters survived, but lost official party status in the House. The 1974 election results represented the beginning of the end for Social Credit. Its appeal to younger and urban voters was minimal, and its long-time supporters and party workers were aging. Michael Stein interpreted the result as suggesting that sooner or later a right-of-centre alliance of Conservatives and Social Crediters would bring about the end of the Social Credit phenomenon in Canada.51
As for Trudeau and the Liberals, their dynasty was consolidated in 1974. Three fundamental building blocks were established. Despite Trudeau’s controversial image in Quebec itself, he was perceived as the one leader who could maintain national unity in the face of threats to the country. Second, the series of social welfare measures that his government enacted in the 1972–74 period, under the prodding of the NDP, allowed Trudeau to recapture the mantle of custodian of the welfare state, established for the Liberal Party by King, St. Laurent, and Pearson. Finally, the Liberal victory in the 1974 election, fought as it was over economic issues, put this essential issue-area in the Trudeau camp, as well. The next five years would see the entry of two new party leaders as the opposition parties jockeyed to test the Trudeau dynasty. And the majority they achieved in 1974 would give the Liberals the time they needed to demonstrate to Canadians, once and for all, whether they could manage the economy.
Jean-Marc Carisse, photographer.
Pierre Trudeau campaigning in Mount Royal, 1981.
1. Geoffrey Stevens, Stanfield (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973), 252.
2. Stevens, op. cit., 196–97.
3. Globe and Mail, October 11, 1972: 1.
4. For an account of the changing nature of the post-war settlement, see Janine Brodie and Jane Jenson, Crisis, Challenge, and Change: Party and Class in Canada Revisited, 262–72.
5. Joseph Wearing, The L-Shaped Party: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1958–1980 (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1981), 197.
6. John Rolfe, Globe and Mail, September 2, 1972: 1.
7. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993), 57.
8. Wearing, The L-Shaped Party, 171.
9. See note 6.
10. Stevens, Stanfield, 184.
11. David Lewis, Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums (Toronto: James Lewis and Samuel, 1972), quote taken from back cover.
12. Desmond Morton, The New Democrats 1961–1986: The Politics of Change (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman,1986), 139.
13. Jon H Pammett and John Myles, “Lowering the Voting Age to 16,” in Kathy Megyery, ed., Youth in Canadian Politics (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991), 95.
14. Elections Canada, A History of the Vote in Canada (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1997), 102.
15. Data from CIPO #355 (September 1972).
16. As quoted in James Stewart, the Montreal Star, October 12, 1972.
17. William Johnson, “Stanfield-Wagner Coalition Eclipses Party in Quebec,” Globe and Mail, Friday September 29, 1972: 1.
18. Richard Cleroux, “How Wagner Was Chosen As PC Lieutenant in Quebec,” Globe and Mail, September 25, 1972: 1–2.
19. George C Perlin, The Tory Syndrome: Leadership Politics in the Progressive Conservative Party (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1980), 119.
20. Wearing, 200.
21. Geoffrey Stevens, “Return of the Rainmaker,” Globe and Mail, May 11, 1973.
22. The Toronto group as they were called included Keith Davey, Jim Coutts, Dorothy Petrie, Kathy Robinson, Chris Yankou, Martin O’Connell, John Roberts, Boyd Upper, Tony Abbott, Bob Kaplan, Gordon Floyd, Gordon Dryden, and Jerry Grafstein. See Christina McCall-Newman’s article in Dan Azoulay (ed.) Canadian Political Parties (Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 1999), 452.
23. Geoffrey Stevens, “Return of the Rainmaker,” Globe and Mail, May 11, 1973.
24. Jack Cahill, “Trudeau Chooses Pragmatism Over Philosophy,” Toronto Star, November 28, 1972.
25. Desmond Morton, “NDP Can Get More Done By Avoiding Another Election,” Toronto Star, February 2, 1973.
26. Geoffrey Stevens, “What a Difference, Indeed,” Globe and Mail, April 19, 1973.
27. Morton, 163–64.
28. George Perlin, “The Progressive Conservative Party in the Election of 1974,” Canada at the Polls: The General Election of 1974, 105.
29. Keith Davey, The Rainmaker (Toronto: Stoddart, 1986), 165.
30. Davey, The Rainmaker, 182.
31. Norman Webster, “Trudeau Promises Whole New Election Platform Next Week,” Globe and Mail, May 30, 1974: 8.
32. Norman Webster, “Trudeau’s Political Kung Fu,” Globe and Mail, May 27, 1974: 1.
33. George Radwanski, Trudeau (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), 269.
34. William Irvine, “An Overview of the 1974 Federal Election in Canada,” in Howard Penniman, Canada at the Polls: The General Election of 1974, 46.
35. Lawrence LeDuc, “The Measurement of Public Opinion,” in Penniman, Canada at the Polls: The General Election of 1974, 211.
36. Stephen Clarkson, “Pierre Trudeau and the Liberal Party: The Jockey and the Horse,” in Penniman, Canada at the Polls: The General Election of 1974, 90.
37. William Johnson, “Stanfield Promises a Balanced Budget,” Globe and Mail, June 7, 1974: 1.
38. Globe and Mail, May 31, June 3, and June 12, 1974.
39. As quoted in Michel Vastel, The Outsider: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Toronto: Macmillan, 1990), 190.
40. Clarkson, “Pierre Trudeau and the Liberal Party: The Jockey and the Horse,” 80–81.
41. LeDuc, “The Measurement of Public Opinion,” 240.
42. Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon H. Pammett, Political Choice in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1979), 279.
43. Clarke et al., op. cit., 280.
44. Jon H. Pammett, Lawrence LeDuc, Jane Jenson, and Harold D. Clarke, “The 1974 Federal Election: A Preliminary Report.” Paper presented at the 1975 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, 10, 12.
45. Caouette backed a candidate (Yvon Dupuis) for the leadership of the Quebec Social Credit Party who led it to a disastrous defeat in the 1973 provincial election. Caouette’s intervention in provincial politics was opposed by a number of provincial members of Social Credit.
46. In 1974, the perks of being an official party included paying for the leader’s salary and a research budget of $42,000, which would allow for the hiring of a secretary and other office workers.
47. Perlin, The Tory Syndrome, 112.
48. See Perlin, op. cit., 118–19, for a more detailed discussion of this syndrome.
49. Clarke et al., Political Choice in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson), 208.
50. Clarke et al., Political Choice in Canada, 214.
51. Michael Stein, “Social Credit in the General Election of 1974,” in Penniman, Canada at the Polls: The General Election of 1974, 180.
Clarke, Harold D., Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon H. Pammett. Political Choice in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1979).
Clarkson, Stephen. The Big Red Machine (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005).
Davey, Keith. The Rainmaker: A Passion for Politics (Toronto: Stoddart, 1986).
McCall, Christina, and Stephen Clarkson. Trudeau and Our Times, Volume 2: The Heroic Delusion (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994).
Morton, Desmond. The New Democrats 1961–1986: The Politics of Change (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1986).
Penniman, Howard, ed. Canada at the Polls: The General Election of 1974 (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975).
Perlin, George C. The Tory Syndrome: Leadership Politics in the Progressive Conservative Party (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1980).
Stevens, Geoffrey. Stanfield (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973).
Wearing, Joseph. The L-Shaped Party: The Liberal Party of Canada 1958–1980 (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1981).
