The Big Book of Canadian Trivia

• The motto “A Mari usque ad Mare” (From Sea to Sea) was first officially used in 1906, when it was engraved on the head of a mace in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. The phrase was adopted by the federal government in 1921, although another motto, “In memoriam in spem” (In memory, in hope), had also been suggested.

• James Gladstone was Canada’s first Native senator. A member of the Blood tribe, Gladstone was appointed to the Senate in February 1958 and gave his first speech there in Blackfoot.

• Richard Bedford Bennett, prime minister from 1930 to 1935, is the only one to hold that post who is not buried in Canada. Bennett is buried in Surrey, England. Bennett, Canada’s 11th prime minister, was the first millionaire to hold the country’s top office. The New Brunswick native earned his fortune in Calgary on legal fees from the CPR and Hudson’s Bay Company and through real estate investments and business ventures such as cement production, power, beer, grain elevators, and a flourmill.

• E.D. Smith was the first senator to resign from office. Smith, the founder of one of Canada’s leading food manufacturing companies, based on Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula, quit in 1946 because he felt he wasn’t worth the money Canadian taxpayers were paying him.

• Sixteen of Canada’s 22 prime ministers have been lawyers. Non-lawyer PMs are Alexander Mackenzie, a stonemason; Mackenzie Bowell, a printer and editor; Charles Tupper, a physician; Lester Pearson, a senior public servant and diplomat; Joe Clark, a journalist and university lecturer, and Stephen Harper, who has a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Calgary.

• Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott was the first senator to serve as Canada’s prime minister and was also the first PM born in Canada. He was the country’s third PM, holding the office from June 16, 1891, to November 24, 1892. A former mayor of Montreal, he became prime minister when Sir John A. Macdonald died while in office.

• In addition to Macdonald, 316 members of Parliament have died while in office since 1867, including Sir John Sparrow David Thompson, who was the country’s fourth prime minister when he died on December 12, 1894; John Diefenbaker, the country’s 13th prime minister, who was a Progressive Conservative backbencher when he died on August 16, 1979; and Liberal-Conservative D’Arcy McGee, who was shot to death in Ottawa on April 7, 1868. An MP who died in more recent times while in office is Chuck Cadman, an Independent representing Surrey North in British Columbia, who died on July 9, 2005.

• Canada’s longest serving member of Parliament is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who was an MP for 44 years, 11 months, and 23 days in the late 1880s and early 1900s. For now, Lau-rier’s record looks pretty safe.

• In 1951, Louis St. Laurent became the first prime minister to live at 24 Sussex Drive, official residence of Canada’s prime minister. The 34-room residence was built between 1866 and 1868 for Joseph Merrill Currier, a prosperous Ottawa lumber mill baron.

• Pierre Elliott Trudeau is the first Canadian prime minister born in the 20th century. Born in Montreal on October 18, 1919, Trudeau held the nation’s top political office from April 20, 1968, to June 3, 1979, and from March 3, 1980, until June 30, 1984.

• A buckskin jacket, a pair of beaded buckskin gloves, two canoes, and a paddle that belonged to Pierre Trudeau, are part of the collection at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario, which bills itself as “home of the world’s largest collection of canoes and kayaks.”

The Trudeau artifacts are by far the most popular items in the museum, said collection manager Kim Watson.

Sir John A. Macdonald may be long gone, but Canada’s first prime minister is certainly not forgotten in Kingston, Ontario, where he launched his political career.

Macdonald held the country’s top elected post from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. Those with an interest in the flamboyant political leader will find plenty of landmarks in Kingston that commemorate the life and times of Macdonald, who, in addition to being on the city’s municipal council and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Canada in 1844, was a successful lawyer and businessman, holding directorships with at least 10 companies.

They Said It!

“This government can’t afford two drunkards and you’ve got to stop.”

— Sir John A. Macdonald to colleague D’Arcy McGee

In a career smattered with controversy, Macdonald’s achievements include the confederation of the colonies of the United Province of Canada (Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into the Dominion of Canada in 1867.

His policy of westward expansion resulted in a transcontinental nation in 1871 and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway by 1885. When the Glasgow, Scotland-born Macdonald died, the foundation for the nation had been well laid, despite his penchant for heavy drinking and his involvement in controversies, including his acceptance of large campaign contributions from Sir Hugh Allan, which were later considered bribes when Macdonald awarded Allan’s syndicate the contract to build the CPR.

• 110–112 Rideau Street is the house where Macdonald lived as a teenager, and at age 15, began training for the legal profession as an apprentice. It’s now a private residence marked with a plaque. Which reads:

Statesman and Patriot. His boyhood days, those critical years that decide the character of the man, were spent in the Old Town, which has seen more than a Century of Canadian History. Erected by the National Committee for the Celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, A.D. 1927.

• 169–171 Wellington Street became in 1835 Macdonald’s first law office, where he later took in two law students, Oliver Mowat and Alexander Campbell, both of whom later became Fathers of Confederation. The building, now a restaurant, has a plaque affixed to the outside, which notes its significance.

• Bellevue House, at 35 Centre Street, was Macdonald’s home from August 1848 to September 1849. Staffed by costumed interpreters, the house and gardens were restored and are kept much as they would have been during the time that Macdonald lived there with his wife, Isabella, and infant son. A month after the couple moved into Bellevue House, their 13-month-old baby died.

Sir John A. lived in Bellevue House in Kingston for about a year. It is now a popular tourist attraction.

• 180 Johnson Street was built in 1843. It housed Macdonald and his wife from 1849 to 1852. Their second son, Hugh John, was born in the house in 1850. The building is now a private home and is marked with a plaque.

• 343 King Street East served as Macdonald’s law office between 1849 and 1860. Although he was away from Kingston for extensive periods in his role as MP, Macdonald retained his partnership in the Kingston law firm until 1871. The building is marked with a plaque and in 2009 housed a gourmet pizza restaurant.

• 79–81 Wellington Street. is marked with a plaque that indicates Macdonald rented this double house from 1876 to 1878 for his sister Louisa and his brother-in-law James Williamson, a professor at Queen’s. According to author Margaret Angus’s book John A. Lived Here, the 1877 assessment roll lists Macdonald as a resident in this house, which was in his name.

• Macdonald is buried at the Cataraqui Cemetery on Purdy Mill Road in Kingston. The modern Sir John A. Macdonald Chapel, beside the cemetery office, features a dramatic stained glass window, commissioned in 1891 in memory of Sir John A. Installed in a tiny church at Redan, north of Brockville, the window was donated to the cemetery in 1980 when the chapel was built.

His grave is marked by several plaques, all erected by the Government of Canada: one marking his grave as that of a Father of Confederation, one as a Canadian prime minister, and a third as part of a program by Parks Canada to mark the grave sites of Canadian prime ministers. A simple stone cross marks his grave.

• a statue in City Park at the corner of West and King Street East in Kingston commemorates Sir John A.

• the town hall erected in 1856 at 124 John Street, in nearby Napanee, Ontario, has been carefully preserved. Macdonald delivered his last campaign speech from its balcony in 1891.

Every year on June 6, the anniversary of Macdonald’s death, the Kingston Historical Society organizes a memorial service in honour of Kingston’s most famous son. For more information, visit www.heritagekingston.org.

“Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status.”
— Stephen Harper, while leader of the Conservative Party

“Mr. Day is a past master of reducing complex arguments to billboards. I’m not sure if he’s running for prime minister or game show host”
— former prime minister Joe Clark

“Edmonton isn’t really the end of the world — although you can see it from there”
— Ralph Klein, former mayor of Calgary and premier of Alberta

“Canada Post doesn’t really charge thirty-two cents for a stamp. It’s two cents for postage and thirty cents for storage”
— former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan

“Canadians can be radical, but they must be radical in their own peculiar way, and that way must be in harmony with our national traditions and ideals.”
— Agnes MacPhail, first woman elected to the Canadian Parliament, in a 1935 speech

“In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that tear nations apart, Canada stands as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect.”
— former American president Bill Clinton

“In the long run, the overwhelming threat to Canada will not come from foreign investments or foreign ideologies or even foreign nuclear weapons. It will come instead from the two-thirds of the people who are steadily falling farther and farther behind in their search for a decent standard of living.”
— former prime minister Pierre Trudeau in 1968

“The promises of yesterday are the taxes of today.”
— William Lyon Mackenzie King, 1916

“I didn’t know at first that there were two languages in Canada. I just thought that there was one way to speak to my father and another to speak to my mother.”
— Louis St. Laurent, former Canadian prime minister

“We’ve marched together; we’ve won over and over again. The reason is the rank and file, you men and women in the constituencies. And as long as you remain true to the faith, this party, even though predictions are made to the contrary, shall not die.”
— John Diefenbaker, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, 1967, in a speech to his supporters

“I am publicity-prone, just as some people are accident-prone.”
— former Liberal MP and cabinet minister Judy LaMarsh about her highly visible public profile in the 1960s

“On the beach behind us, Canadians gave their lives so the world would be a better place. In death they were not anglophones or francophones, not from the West or the East, not Christians or Jews, not aboriginal people or immigrants. They were Canadians.”
— former prime minister Jean Chretien, at Juno Beach, France, on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day

“Everything points to Canada as being one of the key countries in the new race for survival. If all politicians were like Mr. (Pierre) Trudeau, there would be world peace.”
— John Lennon talking to the Parliament Hill media in 1969

“I want to ask you gentlemen, if I cannot give consent to my own death, then whose body is this? Who owns my life?”
— Lou Gehrig’s disease victim Sue Rodriguez, November 1992, in a videotaped presentation to a House of Commons subcommittee about assisted suicide

Q: Can Members of Parliament take their House of Commons chairs with them when they leave politics?

A: They can, and several have. A spokesperson for the Commons Speaker affirms that MPs who are defeated or retire can buy the chairs they sit on in the Commons for $900.00, which is exactly what it costs the government to replace them.

The chairs, on which MPs sit at their desks in the Commons, are made of solid oak and have green leather or crushed velvet on the backs, seats, and arms. MPs have been permitted to purchase them since the conclusion of the 1988 federal election.

“They are souvenirs, mementos of a member’s stay in Parliament,” the spokesperson says. “MPs spend a lot of time in them. They are a little piece of history.”

Among those who have doled out $950.00 for their chairs over the years are former NDP leader Ed Broadbent; former International Trade Minister Pat Carney of British Columbia; and former Environment Minister Tom MacMillan, an MP from Prince Edward Island. Carney and Broadbent retired, and MacMillan was defeated in the 1988 election.

A: Although Tommy Douglas usually gets most of the credit, the first government-prepaid medical plan in Canada — and North America — was introduced in the rural municipality of McKillop, about seventy kilometres north of Regina, on June 1, 1939, by Matthew Anderson.

According to a privately published biography, Anderson, the long-time reeve of McKillop, became convinced in the late 1920s that a health-insurance plan similar to those of his native Norway was desirable. He began to quietly lobby for legislation to establish such a plan, and after watching the suffering caused by the Great Depression in the 1930s, he became even more convinced that such legislation was needed.

The biography, written by Harold A. Longman, observes that, in 1938, the outlines of Anderson’s plan were submitted to the voters of the municipality in a plebiscite and received overwhelming approval. The Saskatchewan Legislature then introduced a bill officially known as An Act Respecting Medical and Hospital Services for Municipalities, which was often referred to as the Matt Anderson bill.

The bill allowed municipalities to collect taxes for health services, a procedure which was previously forbidden. It was passed by the legislature in March 1939 and went into effect a few months later. McKillop was the first to take advantage of this bill, thanks to Anderson’s strong belief and lobbying.

Political BITE!

The prime ministers who served the shortest terms in office:

1. Sir Charles Tupper, Conservative. 69 days:
May 1–July 8, 1896.

2. John Turner, Liberal. 80 days:
June 30–September 17, 1984.

3. Arthur Meighen, Conservative. 89 days:
June 29–September 25, 1926.

4. Kim Campbell, Conservative. 135 days:
June 13–October 25, 1993.

Longman’s book mentions that the initial annual cost per year was five dollars, with a maximum of 50 dollars per family, for which a patient received complete medical attention, including specialist services, surgery, hospital accommodations for up to 21 days, and prescription drugs.

When the bill was passed, the Regina Leader-Post praised Anderson in an editorial which said that “Matthew S. Anderson’s name will go down in municipal history in Saskatchewan as one who had the courage and initiative to be the first to put a new idea into practice.”

Douglas introduced the concept of Medicare on a province-wide basis in 1946, some seven years after Anderson’s municipal initiatives.

Q: On the first moon walk, Apollo astronauts left messages behind from every country. What did Canada’s say?

A: Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left messages on the moon’s surface on a grey disc the size of a half dollar. The Bilingual message from then prime minister Pierre Trudeau was: “Man reached out and touched the tranquil moon. Puisse ce haut fait permettre à l’homme de redécouvrir la terre et d’y trouver la paix.” The French translates as “May that high accomplishment allow man to rediscover Earth and there find peace.”

Q: How did a football once influence the outcome of a Canadian federal election?

A: A football mishandled by Conservative leader Robert Stanfield during the 1974 federal election campaign is possibly the most famous pigskin in Canadian history.

Those in the know say the dropped ball was among the factors that caused Stanfield to lose the election to Pierre Trudeau.

On May 30, 1974, Stanfield’s DC-9 campaign airplane was flying from Halifax to Vancouver when it stopped for refuelling at North Bay where the leader’s campaign staff and the trailing press corps embarked onto the tarmac to stretch their legs.

With the RCMP and airport security watching closely, Brad Chapman, director of Stan-field’s campaign tour operations, produced a football and began playing catch with members of the media.

“I had carried the football as a means of exercise for the weary press corps, having to sit long hours in airplanes, buses, and bars, with little chance to loosen up,” recalls Chapman, who with colleague Peter Sharpe was looking after the needs and wants of the press.

Unknown to Chapman, Stanfield had also decided to go for a stroll around the aircraft.

Seeing the football being tossed, he slipped out of his suit jacket and called for the ball. To the amazement of many, the leader began to throw thirty and forty-yard perfect spiral passes to willing receivers.

Political BITE!

Doug Ball, who took the famous Stanfield photograph and was rewarded with a National Newspaper award for feature photography, joined the Montreal Gazette photo desk in 1984. In 1987 he joined his friend, Trivial Pursuit co-inventor Chris Haney, to build two golf courses near Toronto, the Devil’s Pulpit and the Devil’s Paintbrush. Ball left the Pulpit in 1999 and since then has been a freelance photographer for a number of corporate clients. He is still a member of the Pulpit and in the fall of 2005 published two coffee table books, Life on a Press Pass, with his brother Lynn, which includes photos the pair took over forty years as photographers in the media, and The Greatest New Golf Courses in Canada with writer John Gordon. Life on a Press Pass includes Doug’s photos of Stanfield catching and dropping the football.

“Occasionally, a receiver dropped the ball. And the ball was thrown back to the leader. Occasionally, he dropped the ball. Most of the time, though, like the press receivers, he caught the ball,” recalls Chapman.

Meantime, Canadian Press photographer Doug Ball was snapping away with his camera. Before the plane took off en route to the west coast, his roll of film, which contained photos of Stanfield catching and dropping the ball, was shipped to Canadian Press’s photo desk in Toronto.

The next day a Ball photo of Stanfield fumbling the football was on the front page of the Globe and Mail and other newspapers across Canada. “Political Fumble?” said more than one newspaper caption that spring morning in 1974, when Stanfield’s Conservatives were fighting to unseat Trudeau’s minority Liberal government in an election forced by a non-confidence vote.

“The picture made him look really old,” Don Sellar, who was covering the election for Southam News was quoted as saying. “The long boney fingers, the ball slipping through. He looked terrible. And yet he didn’t look terrible on the tarmac.… He looked to be quite competent. He knew how to throw and catch: it’s just that he dropped one.”

Although the vote was still five weeks away, veteran Southam News reporter Charles Lynch told Ball: “Trudeau just won the election.”

When the results were tallied on July 8, Canadians returned Trudeau to power with 141 seats, enough for a majority government. Stanfield’s Conservatives won ninety-five ridings, 11 fewer than the party held when the election was called.

Few pundits blame the photo for Stanfield’s defeat, but most say it played a role.

“It came at a particularly bad time, campaigning against Mr. Trudeau, who was perceived by the public as a very athletic guy — flips off diving boards and you name it,” said Art Lyon, a lifelong Tory organizer who was working the campaign. “Then all of a sudden there’s this one picture of a football and Mr. Stanfield, this crouched-over, bald guy in glasses. Put it this way: it didn’t help.”

Stanfield died in 2003 at the age of 89. The infamous football was kept by Chapman but during the 1980s and 90s, he went through several life transitions, during which time his personal goods were in storage and somewhere along the way “the” football went missing.

“Some young fella might have chanced through my goods and, seeing an old football, thought he might put it to good use. If it still exists, it’s probably in pretty rugged condition. The last time I saw it in the 1980s, it had become pretty beat up. Like all good politicians, the ball has probably long since been recycled into anonymity.”

Political BITE!

Brad Chapman, went on to a variety of other political posts following the 1974 campaign including transportation director for the 1975 Bill Davis election campaign in Ontario, tour director for Michael Meighen’s 1975 winning bid for the federal Tory Party Presidency and for the federal Tory leadership campaign in Alberta of Jim Gillies in 1976, tour operations director for both Joe Clark federal election campaigns of 1979 and 1980 and for the Ontario Tory leadership campaign of Alan Pope in 1985. In 1979 he was appointed Chief of Staff for John Fraser, Minister of the Environment and Postmaster General of Canada. In 1987, he managed a Bay Street analyst’s tour to Hong Kong, Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. After a tour with Saskatchewan Trade and Investment as Director of Investment Strategy and Policy, in 1992 during a sweat lodge ceremony on the Little Big Horn River in Montana, Chapman was given the Crow Indian name of “Shamrock.” Soon after, he served as Director of Public Affairs for the late Senator and Sawridge Band Chief, Walter P. Twinn. In 1994, he managed the Juniper Lodge in Alberta where he coordinated a spiritual wellness program. He now lives in Toronto where he works in strategic investment banking, image marketing/consulting, and political history research and writing.

Now it’s time for a Question Period of our own. Take our quiz and test your Canadian political IQ. No catcalls, please!

1. I was a champion of justice issues including women’s rights when I was elected to the House of Commons in 1921. Who am I?

3. When Canada was formed in 1867, what was the maximum yearly salary a member of Parliament could earn?

4. What was Joey Smallwood’s occupation before he became premier of Newfoundland in 1949?

5. What is the name of the statue on the dome of the Manitoba legislative building in Winnipeg?

8. Where did MPs meet after fire gutted the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings in 1916?

9. Unscramble the following letters to form the name of one of Ontario’s Conservative premiers: