Chapter 9. Cold War Canada, 1945-1991
9.6 Dief is the Chief
From 1896 to 1957, the Liberal Party ran Canada, with only three intermissions. There was the decade from 1911 to 1920, when Robert Borden (1854-1937) and his Conservative/Union governments were in power. Arthur Meighen (1874-1960) was Prime Minister for three months in 1926. R.B. Bennett (1870-1947) held the job from 1930 to 1935. And most of that Liberal lock on power was on Mackenzie King’s watch. By the late 1950s, change was, arguably, overdue, as the leadership of the Liberal Party looked more and more like an aging dynasty, one that included the brusque and arrogant C.D. Howe. St. Laurent’s pro-Americanism grated in many quarters and there was a growing sense that big infrastructure projects helped contractors and their friends while the government’s commitment to social welfare more generally was tempered by a fiscal conservatism.
In 1957, the Conservatives under their new leader, John Diefenbaker (1895-1979), capitalized on Liberal weaknesses and a campaign that was noteworthy for embarrassing moments. Diefenbaker (aka: Dief) represented the left-wing of the conservative tradition in Canada — he was a Red Tory— and was committed to the ideal of the common good. His position on expanding the welfare state, for example, was more aggressive than St. Laurent’s, a fact that probably cost the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) some votes and, indeed, seats. A populist speaker on the campaign trail, Diefenbaker had a near-legendary memory for faces and names; he was, as well, the first credible non-francophone, non–Anglo-Celtic leader. He was, like so many Westerners, from central European stock and was unencumbered by either the old Tory fetish for British royalism nor the reflexive North American continentalist response. He surprised the pundits by winning enough seats to form a minority government. In 1958, he went back to the polls and was returned with the biggest majority to date.
Two issues dominated the Diefenbaker years. One of these was civil and personal liberties. The other was relations with the United States. These would all overlap in ways that could only have happened in the Cold War.
Diefenbaker and the Rise of Rights
Before 1960, the rights that were enjoyed by some Canadians — and denied to others — were of two kinds. There were those established in British Common Law (some of which dated back to the Magna Carta) and those that could be found in various pieces of legislation such as the Persons Act or the Indian Act. There was no single statement of principles comparable to the American Bill of Rights. It is perhaps ironic that the Canadian prime minister most associated with mid-century nationalism produced a legislative statement that brought the Canadian culture of rights more into line with that of the United States. It was, however, a long-term project of Diefenbaker’s. Begun in the 1930s when he was a Prince Albert lawyer, it was probably nudged along