Full Comment - The man who saved Canada’s Conservatives from political irrelevance

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00:00:18.940 John Diefenbaker still holds the record for winning the largest majority ever in Canadian history.

00:00:24.600 And yet his legacy, his time in office is greatly misunderstood.

00:00:28.860 Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:00:33.180 In his new book, Freedom Fighter, John Diefenbaker's Battle for Canadian Liberties and Independence,

00:00:38.160 author Bob Plamendon dives into trying to save Diefenbaker's legacy.

00:00:43.820 Ask most people what Diefenbaker is all about and you might hear about the Avro Arrow,

00:00:48.380 you might hear about the Diefen dollar, but you're not going to hear about his many accomplishments.

00:00:53.320 Bob Plamendon wants to change that. Here's our chat about his new book.

00:00:57.140 Bob, would you say that John George Diefenbaker was an unlikely politician, an unlikely prime minister?

00:01:05.880 Well, when you think that he grew up poor, born in small-town Ontario, grew up in small-town Saskatchewan,

00:01:19.880 didn't go to an elite college or university for education, was a perpetual outsider and did not come from British or French origin.

00:01:35.400 The first person actually even to be in cabinet who was neither, that he ran for five elections,

00:01:42.840 went zero for five before he came into the House of Commons and was largely despised by the elite and the power structure within the Conservative Party,

00:01:51.900 then I would say yes, it was unlikely that he became prime minister.

00:01:56.180 I mean, we look at his name now, everyone's used to Diefenbaker,

00:02:00.060 that would have been a name that would set a lot of people back in the 1950s.

00:02:05.520 An ethnic name! He's one of them Germans!

00:02:09.480 Well, of course, we had just gone through two world wars against Germany,

00:02:17.440 and he's got this Germanic surname.

00:02:19.700 But that was part of who he was.

00:02:24.080 He did not like hyphenated Canadians.

00:02:26.820 He did not like any form of discrimination or prejudice.

00:02:30.320 So, you know, he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder when it came to that.

00:02:33.700 But it was a lot to overcome, to have that as part of your legacy.

00:02:41.020 Of course, half of his legacy was German, the other half was Scottish, but he was all Canadian all the way.

00:02:47.520 I've always liked that about him.

00:02:50.860 I say that as someone whose parents are direct immigrants.

00:02:53.720 And my parents never liked the idea of hyphenated Canadians.

00:02:58.220 And I guess they passed that on to me.

00:02:59.980 I know that you listened to the podcast episode by my colleague Tristan Hopper,

00:03:05.800 Canada Did What?, on Diefenbaker.

00:03:08.800 Do you agree with the way he portrays it,

00:03:12.640 that Diefenbaker is the biggest political rock star this country's ever seen,

00:03:17.520 and that at the height of his popularity, it was bigger than Trudeau mania?

00:03:22.780 So, you know, of the full episode on that one particular issue, I do agree with him.

00:03:28.920 And then, so he won in 1957 when the Conservatives had lost eight of the previous nine elections.

00:03:38.220 It was only R.B. Bennett that squeaked in there in 1930 during the Depression.

00:03:42.640 But the Liberals had owned the electoral landscape in Canada.

00:03:47.600 So, in 1957, you know, the Liberals were assured of victory with Louis Saint Laurent.

00:03:55.100 And lo and behold, Diefenbaker wins this minority government.

00:03:58.980 And people are really surprised at that.

00:04:01.520 Nine months later, there's another election where he does win the largest majority in Canadian history,

00:04:07.260 bar none, in terms of percentage of the seats.

00:04:11.500 So, it was just a complete electoral landslide.

00:04:16.400 And there was an attachment to Diefenbaker, a charisma about Diefenbaker,

00:04:22.600 that we'd had these politicians, you know, that spoke down to people in some respects,

00:04:27.600 that they didn't have, you know, his flair.

00:04:30.640 You know, he talked about representing the poor, the disadvantaged, those who, you know, ordinary Canadians.

00:04:39.300 He said, I represent ordinary Canadians.

00:04:42.720 I can't help it.

00:04:43.620 I'm one of them.

00:04:45.380 And, you know, here he, and he was running against a fellow who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, Lester Pearson.

00:04:51.680 But Lester Pearson didn't have that connection with ordinary Canadians.

00:04:56.360 He didn't, he didn't speak their language or have their aspirations.

00:04:59.580 So, people thought with John Diefenbaker, we've got somebody who knows us,

00:05:04.580 who will represent us, who understands who we are, who's going to make our life better.

00:05:09.300 So, he was a rock star to the point where, and he was, he was, he could deliver a speech like no other at the time.

00:05:16.120 He was funny.

00:05:17.580 You know, he was, you know, he could deliver lines like lightning bolts against his opponents.

00:05:22.800 So, you know, he just captured hearts and minds to the point that people went to his rallies.

00:05:27.600 They said they just wanted to be near him.

00:05:29.020 They wanted to touch his coat.

00:05:30.740 He was a folk hero in his time.

00:05:34.420 And even in Quebec, where the Tories had been nowhere in Quebec since the days of Sir Johnny MacDonald,

00:05:42.480 he picks up 50 of Quebec's 75 seats.

00:05:45.220 Now, of course, he had Maurice Duplessis on his team helping him out, the Premier of Quebec.

00:05:49.580 But, yes, so Tristan Hopper's right.

00:05:51.240 That was an election like we've never seen before.

00:05:53.780 I encourage everyone to go listen to that episode.

00:05:56.900 It's a lot of fun.

00:05:58.000 Unlike this podcast, Tristan has fun.

00:06:01.140 I'm having fun.

00:06:02.200 You said he had the Premier of Quebec, Maurice Duplessis, on his side.

00:06:07.240 But he didn't have the Central Canadian power brokers.

00:06:12.140 And just from your preface, you write,

00:06:15.660 The Premier of Ontario, Leslie Frost, remarked, 0.74

00:06:18.120 Sometimes I really do think he's crazy.

00:06:20.860 Party organizer Eddie Goodman responded,

00:06:24.400 Why only sometimes?

00:06:25.400 They didn't want him near the leadership of the Conservative Party when he ran in 1956.

00:06:31.220 He'd run previously and lost.

00:06:34.360 But after George Drew stepped down, a guy who had previously been Premier of Ontario but couldn't win a federal election,

00:06:43.780 they wanted to work hard to stop him.

00:06:46.480 Why did they dislike him so much in the party brass when people were obviously drawn to him?

00:06:52.500 So the party brass did not like him for two reasons.

00:06:58.580 One, he came to Ottawa as an MP and did his work,

00:07:03.700 but he really did not ingratiate himself to his fellow members of Parliament.

00:07:09.440 He didn't try to win them over.

00:07:11.020 His connection was with the rank-and-file members of the party.

00:07:14.600 So they didn't see him necessarily as a team player.

00:07:17.300 They saw him as a guy certainly with a vision and a passion and a great orator,

00:07:22.640 but they weren't sure that they could trust him.

00:07:25.280 I'd say more so the opposition came from,

00:07:28.560 let's just say, the bastion of the Albany Club in Toronto,

00:07:34.340 which was sort of like Tory headquarters.

00:07:36.320 So the bankers, business people, you know, the wealthy,

00:07:42.660 the people that had great academic credentials were wary of him

00:07:47.460 because he was talking about helping people across the country

00:07:51.920 in ways that the Conservatives had not done before.

00:07:56.040 That the Conservatives were laissez-faire.

00:07:58.860 They didn't think that poverty was something that politicians addressed.

00:08:01.920 People just worked hard and free enterprise would take care of everything and everybody.

00:08:07.040 So here he came forward with a completely different message and vision

00:08:12.640 that countered what was the established Tory tradition.

00:08:17.860 So, you know, they thought he was a little bit crazy for some of the ideas

00:08:22.300 and some of the sentiments that, you know, that he produced.

00:08:25.660 And, you know, they, you know, there's beyond the, you know,

00:08:30.640 the quotes of Drew and Goodman and others, you know,

00:08:34.780 they say, they would say, Devenbaker wants it. 1.00

00:08:36.980 Let's just let the crazy son of a bitch have it. 1.00

00:08:38.840 He's going to lose the next election anyway, and we'll come back in charge. 1.00

00:08:42.080 There's no point in kicking against the pricks who want him.

00:08:45.800 This is the rank and file members.

00:08:47.620 Devenbaker's got them, you know, sort of in their back pocket.

00:08:50.400 He's going to win.

00:08:50.980 So let him have his shot and we'll be done with him.

00:08:53.120 But lo and behold, he wins it, wins the next election.

00:08:57.320 Well, actually wins three in a row.

00:08:59.600 And they didn't even forget that, Brian, because in 1963, when he's prime minister,

00:09:06.060 he faces a revolt from within his own party while he's prime minister.

00:09:10.720 That precipitated his downfall in that election.

00:09:14.620 In terms of his style and some of what you've described,

00:09:18.700 you know, as I'm reading the book, I'm thinking,

00:09:25.180 Pierre Polyev.

00:09:27.560 Now, Pierre didn't win in this last election,

00:09:29.560 but Polyev is someone who obviously studied Devenbaker and appreciated him.

00:09:35.640 He invoked him often, not quite as often as Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Canada's Freedom stand.

00:09:42.560 But did you get that sense watching Polyev over the last couple of years that he was

00:09:47.520 like Stephen Harper before him, inspired by Devenbaker?

00:09:50.900 So certainly Pierre Polyev would quote Devenbaker's mantra that he spoke of when he passed the Bill of Rights

00:10:02.160 about, you know, how he was a free Canadian, you know, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion,

00:10:09.320 you know, freedom to pursue my passion.

00:10:11.380 These freedoms that he bequeathed to all Canadians.

00:10:13.860 And that was certainly a central theme in Pierre Polyev's campaign and his mission,

00:10:20.920 and I think his entire political life.

00:10:23.920 And, you know, one thing about Devenbaker is that he was not particularly ideological.

00:10:29.940 And, you know, you think of the various factions of conservatism and say,

00:10:33.420 which one do you represent?

00:10:34.560 I would say that Devenbaker didn't represent any of them, you know, particularly strongly.

00:10:39.440 Um, he was a populist in the sense that he wanted to solve people's problems and he didn't come to office

00:10:46.280 with a pre-fixed set of ideas.

00:10:50.060 In fact, he launched more royal commissions than any other prime minister before or since,

00:10:57.120 because, you know, he did want to have the benefit of the experts.

00:11:00.480 He wanted to study the problems and he wanted to see what would work.

00:11:03.660 So I'm not sure that, you know, that that would have been Pierre's approach had he become prime minister.

00:11:10.020 But there there is a lot about the the way that they address crowds.

00:11:14.800 They both attracted large crowds and they've tracked out a following and people invested,

00:11:19.820 you know, a lot of a lot of hope in them.

00:11:21.900 And they they didn't say things that you would get out of central casting from a politician.

00:11:27.440 So in that respect, there are some similarities.

00:11:29.620 Yeah, well, I understand what you're saying about, you know, different styles of populism.

00:11:36.260 I think Pierre had more ideology rooted within him.

00:11:41.780 But, yeah, it's just some of the the ways that he acted comparing to what you were describing.

00:11:50.300 I'm thinking back to my time visiting the Devenbaker Center at the University of Saskatchewan.

00:11:54.840 And it's just an amazing experience that anyone should go and see, being able to sit behind his desk,

00:12:03.000 being able to sit at his cabinet table, seeing all the artifacts.

00:12:07.200 We don't do that a lot for our prime ministers.

00:12:09.580 Of course, we we tend to forget about them as soon as they're they've left office.

00:12:13.880 Have you been through the center?

00:12:15.340 So I haven't been through the center other than virtually and, you know, talking with people who are resident there.

00:12:22.380 But there's one thing about Devenbaker.

00:12:26.280 He certainly appreciated not only Canadian history, but, you know, world history and his place in it.

00:12:33.480 And in fact, he offered to donate his home to the government of Canada for a dollar to serve as a as a place where Canadians could come and visit in Ottawa, where he lived.

00:12:44.900 And, of course, that was turned down by the government of Canada, which is unfortunate.

00:12:49.480 And we and we and we don't do that.

00:12:51.680 I mean, there is a there is a center in Shewinigan for Prime Minister Crecce that, you know,

00:13:00.040 we also have the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, which had lots of money attached to it.

00:13:04.700 But otherwise, we don't we have we haven't put up a statue on Parliament Hill to a prime minister since since Pearson.

00:13:15.520 So Canadian history has taken a bad rap.

00:13:18.480 But so we've got an airport named for Pearson, the biggest airport in the country.

00:13:23.660 Yeah, I'm sitting steps from an area, University of Toronto, where they've got the Lester B. Pearson Peace Garden is a beautiful spot.

00:13:33.780 My dog and I love to sit there in the mornings and sip coffee.

00:13:36.460 Well, I sip the coffee.

00:13:37.300 The dog doesn't know all these things named for Pearson.

00:13:41.600 And Diefenbaker was demonstrably more successful in terms of electoral terms.

00:13:48.780 But is it just that liberals get all of these platitudes, all of these honors and conservatives don't because conservatives aren't in power as often or won't do this?

00:13:58.580 And liberals want to, you know, elevate Pearson and Trudeau and talk about their wonderful legacies.

00:14:04.820 Well, it's true that since the days of McDonnell, liberals had held power, you know, at least two thirds of the time.

00:14:13.200 So they've had not only the opportunity to govern, but the conservatives had had fewer opportunities to recognize their own.

00:14:23.120 As far as Diefenbaker is concerned, you know, one of the challenges that we have is there hasn't been a real honest assessment and an evidence-based assessment of his record.

00:14:35.760 He's seen in popular Canadian literature as a bit of a buffoon, a cartoon character, a man out of step with his times, a bit of a lunatic.

00:14:46.180 So if with that sentiment that was established, I think largely because of a book that Peter C. Newman wrote, you know, Renegade in Power, that the press popularized.

00:14:59.740 The CBC certainly they created a documentary series on the Avro Arrow that was slanderous and a gross act of fiction that sort of cemented what people thought about John Diefenbaker.

00:15:14.040 So he needed to be rescued, not from the slander.

00:15:19.900 I mean, there's things you can say positive and negative about him, but it was all negative.

00:15:24.020 It was only when Stephen Harper became prime minister that quite, I think, cleverly, they renamed the building that sits right beside the Lester B. Pearson building where external affairs, foreign affairs is located.

00:15:40.960 And the building that's right beside it, they renamed the John George Diefenbaker building.

00:15:45.240 So they are side by side, institutionally, staring at each other, these two massive structures that house foreign affairs.

00:15:53.700 Well, and of course, I went to many, many news conferences where they would invoke the name of Diefenbaker during the Harper government and they would talk about his Bill of Rights, which you wouldn't know had ever been passed.

00:16:10.860 But, you know, this is a man who appointed the first Chinese Canadian to cabinet, the first woman to cabinet, gave Aboriginals to vote.

00:16:21.000 So maybe I know more about Diefenbaker because, you know, he seemed to have a bit of a lore in Hamilton where I grew up because there was Ellen Fairclough.

00:16:30.920 She was the first woman appointed to cabinet.

00:16:32.920 Who put her there? 0.88

00:16:34.320 John Diefenbaker or Sean O'Sullivan, who was a hero, especially for those of us going through the Catholic school system,

00:16:40.640 who Diefenbaker had been talking to and listening to since he was a teenager at Bishop Ryan High School.

00:16:45.900 Well, maybe I just know more of that, but you're correct.

00:16:49.760 It is this constant, you mentioned Diefenbaker's name, and people will go off about the Avro arrow.

00:16:56.020 In fact, I want to play a clip of Jason Kenney from that Canada Did What podcast that I mentioned earlier here,

00:17:03.320 where Kenney's talking about the fact that until maybe 20, 25 years ago, you'd still have people say,

00:17:09.160 I haven't voted Tory since Diefenbaker canceled the arrow.

00:17:12.500 Here it is.

00:17:12.960 Let me say that it was a great tradition of conservative campaigns to see how many times

00:17:20.500 would you get a comment at the door, I haven't voted Tory since Diefenbaker scrapped the Avro arrow.

00:17:26.300 Now, I think the last time I heard that was probably circa 2000, but that legend lived on

00:17:33.380 in Canadian politics for several decades that you could talk to almost any conservative candidate

00:17:39.180 federally or provincially for the better part of the latter half of the 20th century.

00:17:44.960 And they will have heard voters say right up into the late 90s,

00:17:48.480 I've never voted Tory since Diefenbaker scrapped the arrow.

00:17:51.520 So is that part of the reason for this book and, you know, setting the record straight on things

00:17:56.480 like the arrow, setting the record straight on his passion for fundamental rights and freedoms

00:18:03.880 for human rights? Is that part of the reason that you did this book?

00:18:07.100 So it is part of the reason, but I start with the premise, Brian, that Canada in itself is an

00:18:14.620 improbable country, you know, given our geography, our diversity language. And, you know, somehow 0.59

00:18:19.860 we've been able to bring this country together and make it an incredibly successful, much admired

00:18:25.640 nation beating all the odds because we've had over our history, exceptional political leadership at

00:18:32.800 various points in time. And we can learn from our, from our history to help us solve the problems

00:18:38.760 of today. So the more we know about Canada, where we've come from, I think the less we apologize for

00:18:43.580 Canada, the more we celebrate Canada, the more that we, we come together as a country. And part of

00:18:49.400 that is knowing and understanding the true history. So I think John Diefenbaker is much

00:18:55.400 misunderstood the issues that he faced, the decisions that he made, the foundation

00:19:00.480 that he laid out that, you know, whether it was, well, we can talk about the Avro arrow,

00:19:06.460 but the roads to resources that opened up the North and our resources to development,

00:19:11.280 the way that he stood up to an American administration that was quite belligerent

00:19:16.520 about Canada, about Diefenbaker and the most severe form of election interference in Canadian history

00:19:23.820 comes at a time when John Diefenbaker is in power. His efforts to diversify trade away from the United

00:19:30.980 States around the world, which seems pretty topical these days, all come from Diefenbaker.

00:19:36.820 Our, our social safety net at the, the hospitalization coverage that was a precursor to Medicare

00:19:43.860 comes from John Diefenbaker. These things are not well understood. What we do know because of the

00:19:49.000 CBC's docuseries, well, we are, and others is we know that he canceled the Avro arrow and he sacked

00:19:55.380 the governor of the Bank of Canada. And how could a prime minister ever have done that? And when you

00:20:00.080 look at the evidence as I do in, in the, and, and standing up to an American administration

00:20:04.400 and, and, and not having American controlled nuclear weapons on Canadian soil, these are all

00:20:10.540 Diefenbaker decisions that were, that put him on the right side of history and have not been reversed

00:20:16.660 by his successors in any way. You know, this may upset a certain political columnist, but he was

00:20:23.700 right to fire the governor of the Bank of Canada, in my view. He was a hundred percent correct. At the

00:20:29.740 time you had a governor of the Bank of Canada, if anyone had gone rogued, um, it was Coyne,

00:20:35.300 James Coyne, who was a lawyer and was made governor of the Bank of Canada because the liberal government

00:20:41.520 of the day did not want to have, um, a Jew, Louis Razminski as the governor of the Bank of Canada, 0.84

00:20:47.820 who was eminently more qualified. And here you had the James Coyne talking down the Canadian economy,

00:20:54.160 speaking out critically of the government of Canada's fiscal policy, not, you know, impact on

00:21:00.460 monetary policy, um, and, and instituted, um, erratic monetary policy where we saw the, the,

00:21:09.340 the interest rates in Canada fluctuate from 2% to 6% to 2% all over the map and quite distinct from

00:21:16.660 what was going on in the United States to the point that he did something no other, um, Bank of Canada

00:21:22.980 governor could do is he united economists across the country to come together, all whom who say we

00:21:30.720 value our independence, but we, we think this man is doing tremendous damage to the Canadian economy

00:21:36.120 and he needs to be sacked. And the only way, and he, before he became governor, he said, if I was ever

00:21:42.700 in disagreement with the government, the government of the day, I would do the honorable thing and resign.

00:21:47.640 The government of the day asked him to resign and he refused. And so Diefenbaker at the end,

00:21:55.760 you know, for that and other reasons, uh, passed a bill in the house of commons to, to declare the

00:22:00.640 office of the Bank of Canada vacant. And, um, did he have a message for the Canadian public about,

00:22:07.240 uh, the recession and the economy at the, at the time? Well, so the governor of the Bank of Canada

00:22:14.860 essentially said, you're going to have to consume less. You're going to have to spend less. You're

00:22:20.180 going to have to borrow less. Your standard of living is going to have to decline. Um, because,

00:22:26.720 you know, as, as he saw it, the government was deficit was too large, but in, in relative terms,

00:22:32.740 it was, it wasn't large at all. It was, it was, it was quite minor. And in his messages that from the

00:22:40.240 governor of the Bank of Canada is we have to kick the Americans effectively or diminish their role 1.00

00:22:46.220 in investment in, in, in Canada so that we have a made in Canada economy. So he's asking Canadians

00:22:51.380 not only to tighten their belts, but to, to lower their expectation and their standard of living.

00:22:56.760 This coming from the governor of the Bank of Canada. But, but what was, uh, Diefenbaker's

00:23:00.920 message after he, you know, fired coin? Well, Diefenbaker's message after he fired coin is he put in

00:23:08.680 a new governor of the Bank of Canada, the economy recovered quite strongly from, from, uh, from,

00:23:14.480 from a recession. Um, and then coin went on, you know, to, uh, you know, to, to become a, uh,

00:23:22.280 you know, chairman of a, of a bank. And they asked him to resign from that after a scandal and he

00:23:27.040 refused to resign from that, uh, you know, as well. All right. So we've set the record straight on the

00:23:31.780 coin affair. When we come back from this quick break, I do want to ask you to set the record straight

00:23:35.960 on the Avro arrow. And then we'll get into the accomplishments of, I think, one of the most

00:23:42.120 underrated prime ministers in Canadian history. Back in moments.

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00:25:43.560 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What?

00:25:46.860 Where we unpack the biggest, weirdest, and wildest political moments in Canadian history

00:25:51.340 you thought you knew and tell you what really happened.

00:25:54.940 Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favourite episodes.

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00:26:03.400 Everywhere you get podcasts.

00:26:05.560 So Bob, I don't want to make the whole episode about the Arrow.

00:26:09.540 I think it is something that people talk about far too much, but there is popular perception

00:26:15.880 due to CBC and others, as you've noted, that he killed the Avro Arrow and this was the most

00:26:22.540 advanced jet ever invented.

00:26:25.700 And, you know, the Americans only got to the moon because all the guys fired from that

00:26:29.620 went to NASA and we could have been this superpower on the defence side if he hadn't done this.

00:26:37.320 What's the reality?

00:26:38.960 Well, if only, Brian.

00:26:41.000 If only that was all true.

00:26:43.740 But what is true was the Arrow Arrow was an engineering marvel.

00:26:49.980 That it flew at an incredibly fast speed.

00:26:53.160 Now this is, this is the Arrow without any, you know, military equipment or any, any ballistics

00:26:59.800 equipments on it, you know, no missiles, but it was a project that started off by working

00:27:05.760 with an international consortium.

00:27:07.220 The consortium ditched it.

00:27:08.860 It became a made in Canada, all Canadian affair. 0.93

00:27:13.120 But there was no need for it.

00:27:16.160 It didn't respond to the military threats of the day.

00:27:19.740 What do you mean there was no need?

00:27:21.160 So this was, we were in the midst of the Cold War and all of the, at the time, if you were

00:27:28.160 growing up in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and you were in grade school or high school,

00:27:34.220 you were practising in your classroom, hiding under your desks because there was, the Russians 1.00

00:27:40.840 had acquired nuclear weapons and that was the threat.

00:27:43.560 You know, this is just before the Cuban Missile Crisis where, you know, this, the Cold War was

00:27:49.720 searing hot.

00:27:51.560 And so how do you defend against nuclear missiles coming in from, from Russia or elsewhere from

00:27:59.240 a Warsaw Pact country?

00:28:00.840 It's not with an interceptor flight.

00:28:02.980 The defence requirements that the military were saying was we need our own missiles.

00:28:07.360 We need, we need to defend against missiles.

00:28:09.720 We need our, a bone mark missile program, the interceptor flights, you know, for surveillance.

00:28:14.920 And they could only fly a short distance.

00:28:16.960 They were very fast, but could, couldn't stay in the air for very long.

00:28:20.100 We're not responding.

00:28:21.120 And they were aimed, they were designed to, to take down bombers, right?

00:28:25.160 Well, well, another, like, take, take on fighter jets or bombers.

00:28:29.880 Now we have intercontinental ballistic missiles.

00:28:31.980 They're, they're not flying, you know, at, you know, conventional speeds.

00:28:35.540 These things are, you know, are, are rockets and, and, and, and, and the Avro Aero would

00:28:40.540 be useless against it.

00:28:42.160 On top of that, but we still needed some coverage, you know, we still needed some air coverage,

00:28:46.680 but the cost of this had gone up by more than 500%.

00:28:50.420 And the only way that the Avro Aero could have been viable and feasible is if the technology

00:28:57.380 we developed had a market around the world, if we could develop this and sell this, make

00:29:01.480 it part of, you know, the NATO compliment, make it a, you know, a standard, but there

00:29:06.220 was no market whatsoever for this plane, um, for, for lots of reasons, including that it

00:29:11.980 had, you know, the program had been infiltrated by a Russian spy, but that wasn't known specifically

00:29:16.340 at the time.

00:29:17.040 So the, the government of Louis Saint Laurent, the liberal government had determined to scrap

00:29:22.180 the program.

00:29:23.120 The, the recommendation from the Canadian military to the Louis Saint Laurent government was to

00:29:27.780 scrap the program.

00:29:28.660 We, we can't, it's too expensive.

00:29:30.340 It doesn't meet our needs.

00:29:32.400 Fancy, fancy, um, and, and, and an injuring marvel, but this is the wrong plane for our defense

00:29:39.960 requirements.

00:29:40.580 It needs to go.

00:29:42.540 Um, and this lands on Diefenbaker's lap.

00:29:44.580 The liberals did not make that decision because they were afraid that before an election,

00:29:48.280 it would be viewed negatively by the public who, you know, were amped up about this, uh,

00:29:52.520 about this jet.

00:29:53.580 So they deferred the decision until after the election.

00:29:57.600 Diefenbaker is left to make the decision when he's, he's setting government priorities,

00:30:03.300 you know, spending restrictions need to be put in place.

00:30:06.260 The plane is a waste.

00:30:07.540 It's a white elephant of epic proportions.

00:30:09.880 And so he makes the very tough call.

00:30:12.480 Some say it's because he was, it was, he was dictated to by the American government that

00:30:17.940 he was just following what they had told him to do.

00:30:20.640 Anybody who studied John Diefenbaker knows that, that, you know, if, if, if, if he was

00:30:26.020 told by the American government to cancel it, he would have been more likely to keep it

00:30:29.420 than cancel it.

00:30:30.800 He was not in bed with the Americans in any way.

00:30:32.980 He made a tough call that every expert who's looked at it, who's looked at the evidence

00:30:38.620 since then.

00:30:39.160 And I went through all of the records concluded that that was, that was the right call to make,

00:30:43.260 but it became the subject of great conspiracy theories that, you know, they, they had to

00:30:47.940 destroy the planes and put them at the bottom of Lake Ontario.

00:30:51.220 And, you know, essentially none of that, none of that is true.

00:30:54.520 Although it's perpetuated because as I said, people never wanted to come to Diefenbaker's

00:30:59.080 side.

00:30:59.360 You know, the liberals would say, you know, the Tories are like mumps, you get them once

00:31:03.420 in your life.

00:31:04.620 So they, you know, they weren't going to come to his, uh, his defense.

00:31:08.740 And then there was the battle within the conservative party that he held on for leadership too long.

00:31:13.880 And so, you know, his defenders were few and far between, but canceling the Avro Arrow was

00:31:18.620 the right decision for Canada.

00:31:21.140 Claiming that he canceled the Arrow because he was, you know, being dictated to by the Americans,

00:31:26.440 you describe him fighting not one, but two presidents in the book.

00:31:31.060 Like, you know, he, he, he stood up to both Eisenhower and to Kennedy at different times.

00:31:38.160 He did, um, certainly more so with Kennedy than was Eisenhower.

00:31:43.320 I think they were more kindred spirits, maybe because of, you know, the generation and the

00:31:47.780 respect that Diefenbaker had because of Eisenhower's wartime record.

00:31:51.200 But Eisenhower did not want China to come into the United Nations.

00:31:57.320 Diefenbaker thought this was inevitable.

00:31:59.100 They called him naive for thinking that that, that, that could happen.

00:32:01.840 Of course, he was right.

00:32:03.520 Eisenhower did not want Canada to sell wheat to China.

00:32:07.980 And Diefenbaker said, I'm elected by the people of Canada and by the farmers of Canada.

00:32:13.180 And there's a market for our wheat.

00:32:14.640 And so I'm not, he's, I'm not selling them strategic, um, intelligence or, or, or, or weaponry.

00:32:21.360 I'm selling them wheat.

00:32:22.380 So he had battles with, with, with Eisenhower, but, you know, nothing compared to what he had

00:32:27.840 with Kennedy.

00:32:28.760 Kennedy despised Diefenbaker.

00:32:31.400 Kennedy thought that Diefenbaker should do whatever he was told.

00:32:35.300 And Diefenbaker didn't like that.

00:32:38.160 He didn't, never wanted to be seen as a satellite of the United States.

00:32:42.120 So, you know, the title of my book is his fight for Canadian, uh, the subtitle, Canadian

00:32:47.640 independence.

00:32:48.560 He viewed Canada as having a voice in the world stage.

00:32:51.620 And it was a country that mattered not because, you know, it was friends with the United States,

00:32:56.320 but we, we had virtue in our, in our own right.

00:32:59.300 And, you know, it's why he loved McDonald so much.

00:33:01.560 McDonald was the, the man who, who kept us out of the hands of the Americans in their 1.00

00:33:06.600 manifest destiny.

00:33:07.500 And, and, and, and, and Diefenbaker was a, a firm believer in the monarchy and the traditions

00:33:13.060 and the Magna Carta and the petitions of rights and habeas corpus.

00:33:17.100 He embraced all that tradition that, that came from, from great Britain.

00:33:20.940 So he wanted to keep his distance from, from the United States and Kennedy didn't like it.

00:33:25.300 What do you think drove him to do things like, uh, extend the vote to first nations to look

00:33:35.860 at someone like Doug, Douglas young and say, this man's going to be in cabinet.

00:33:41.080 You know, it wasn't that long ago that Chinese Canadians couldn't be citizens.

00:33:45.180 He's going to put them in cabinet and then send them to the United nations.

00:33:48.660 I love the story.

00:33:50.000 I believe it was old video that I saw Douglas young saying he's at the United nations, sitting

00:33:55.540 at the desk for Canada.

00:33:56.760 And someone came over looking at him, this Chinese looking man.

00:34:01.600 And they say, sorry, sir, you're at the desk for Canada.

00:34:03.780 And he said, I speak for Canada.

00:34:05.600 Yeah.

00:34:06.120 Um, I mean, those would have been out of step with a lot of what people wanted or expected

00:34:13.000 at the time is same with putting Ellen Fairclough in cabinet.

00:34:16.160 What, what drove him to, to take steps like that, that we're, we're at the forefront really

00:34:22.080 of, of moving the country forward.

00:34:24.080 Well, it go back, it goes back to where we started, which was he opposed any form of discrimination

00:34:29.660 or prejudice of any kind, be it where your country of origin, the color of your skin, your

00:34:36.460 sex, how can we be a great country if we're holding back anyone who can contribute to our 0.86

00:34:44.560 greatness and potential.

00:34:46.480 And so, you know, and, and he was a long time advocate for indigenous people and, and spoke

00:34:53.520 about, about their contributions to Canada, how their over contribution to Canada during

00:34:59.260 the second world war.

00:35:00.620 The fact that without the support of the indigenous people, we would, we may not have won the 1.00

00:35:05.800 war of 1812.

00:35:06.640 He knew his history.

00:35:07.560 And he, and he, so he wanted to bring all those forces together when it came to, to South

00:35:12.720 Africa, for example, South Africa would say, well, how can you lecture us on apartheid when

00:35:19.180 you don't have any indigenous people in your, in your government, which is, well, he, he might 1.00

00:35:24.820 have said that's, well, he did say, I can't well lecture them when we don't have Canada free

00:35:32.320 of discrimination.

00:35:33.320 So he appointed Gladstone, Chief Gladstone to the Senate of Canada to be the first parliamentarian

00:35:38.840 to, to pave, to pave the way for indigenous people to become parliamentarians.

00:35:44.700 He was able to speak up at the Commonwealth against the British prime minister who did

00:35:51.120 not want South Africa to be removed from the Commonwealth, but he led the charge. 0.98

00:35:55.940 He was a troublemaker as, as the British prime minister said at the time, you know, standing

00:36:01.700 high and mighty and being sanctimonious about it to Diefenbaker.

00:36:05.120 It wasn't sanctimony.

00:36:06.220 It was just pure, pure equity, um, giving indigenous people the right to vote.

00:36:11.680 The liberal said you could have the right to vote.

00:36:13.540 If you surrender all your treaty rights, if you surrender your status and Diefenbaker said,

00:36:18.720 no, those treaties endure.

00:36:20.100 They were made, you know, by the crown with indigenous people. 1.00

00:36:23.720 And that should not prohibit them from exercising democratic rights.

00:36:28.000 So he said, you have open democratic rights, no conditions attached to it.

00:36:33.780 This was freedom.

00:36:34.580 This is why he would never join one of the clubs of the clubs at the time, the private 0.78

00:36:38.720 clubs that wouldn't let in blacks or Jews. 0.84

00:36:41.360 He wouldn't go.

00:36:43.220 Um, this was not the conventional thinking at the time and why he was seen somewhat as a

00:36:47.620 troublemaker because he made people who were attached to these institutions and clubs

00:36:52.180 uncomfortable, but for a good reason.

00:36:55.300 So this was just part of his character and who he was.

00:36:57.600 And I don't think he struggled with it.

00:36:59.280 I think he knew this was his purpose and his vision and his destiny.

00:37:02.480 And he exercised it.

00:37:04.200 You know, he appointed the first Ukrainian, um, to cabinet and the people in Saskatchewan

00:37:10.580 who, who, who spoke Ukrainian, you know, we're in tears thinking, I can't believe that 1.00

00:37:15.480 there's a member of cabinet in our government who speaks our language, you know, and who's

00:37:19.940 representing our voices in, in cabinet.

00:37:22.200 This is something that, that, that Devenbaker was, uh, was incredibly proud about and, and

00:37:26.880 the country should be proud about.

00:37:28.800 Well, I mean, those were remarkable steps, uh, and removing the, um, country of origin as

00:37:36.780 a deciding factor on whether you could immigrate or not.

00:37:39.900 He changed the immigration system so that it became colorblind and he, you know, here's

00:37:46.520 another brave thought.

00:37:48.080 He took country of origin off the census because he said, what does it matter where you came

00:37:53.140 from?

00:37:53.360 You're Canadian now. 0.93

00:37:54.160 He did not like the, you know, hyphenating Canadians. 0.99

00:37:56.920 In fact, he didn't even like English Canadian versus French Canadian.

00:38:00.860 He thought we're all Canadians, but it, you know, of course he, he didn't hesitate to appoint

00:38:05.700 the first Francophone governor general of Canada.

00:38:09.560 Um, he wanted to embrace Canada and all of its respects and all its language and its cultural

00:38:15.720 diversity.

00:38:16.820 The bill of rights, um, I guess supplanted in many ways by the charter.

00:38:24.320 Uh, but it was a clearer, simpler document.

00:38:28.400 It's still enforced by the way, for people that don't realize that.

00:38:31.260 Uh, and, and sometimes it does get cited, uh, in court decisions.

00:38:35.300 It does happen from time to time.

00:38:37.700 Uh, would we have been better served if the bill of rights had stayed as it was instead

00:38:43.660 of going to the charter?

00:38:44.740 Could they have altered the bill of rights a little bit just to, to keep it cleaner, uh,

00:38:52.480 more easy to understand, less convoluted than that thing that we got in 1982, 84?

00:38:58.120 Well, whatever you think of the charter of rights and freedoms, and I certainly wrote

00:39:02.360 a lot about it in my book on Pierre Trudeau, about how it came about and what its power and

00:39:07.700 force would be.

00:39:09.960 Uh, but the bill of rights, certainly if you, if you consider this an evolution, this was

00:39:15.240 the first and very critical and important step.

00:39:18.460 So this was a statement to say essentially that no law should be passed that is discriminatory

00:39:24.840 in nature on religion, on sex, on, on, on a whole range of grounds.

00:39:29.940 The problem with the bill of rights, and no one was talking about it at the time.

00:39:33.560 This was, you know, the, the political parties weren't talking about it.

00:39:36.860 It was, it was, it was not on the agenda.

00:39:40.160 And I don't think it got Diefenbaker many votes, but he felt it was the right thing to

00:39:45.220 do. Um, the problem was because it wasn't a constitutional amendment, it only applied

00:39:52.380 to federal laws and federal domain.

00:39:54.940 So it didn't apply to the provinces.

00:39:56.680 So you, you could not on the basis of the bill of rights, strike down a provincial law,

00:40:01.360 um, you know, on that basis, only a federal law.

00:40:04.080 And you're right.

00:40:04.660 It was used in the courts of law, particularly when a government bill or regulation was overtly

00:40:13.200 discriminatory, particularly with respect to indigenous people.

00:40:15.920 So, you know, you could, you could, you could consume, if you're an indigenous person, you 0.99

00:40:19.960 could consume alcohol, um, on the reserve, but not off.

00:40:24.140 And, and, and so this was, you know, highly discriminatory and that, and that law was,

00:40:28.760 was, was, was struck down.

00:40:30.440 Um, the, but the bill of rights was all within the, the, the power structure of the federal

00:40:38.440 parliament.

00:40:39.640 Um, the, the judiciary had some role in interpreting, uh, the, the, uh, that bill, but the charter

00:40:46.700 of rights changed that fundamentally.

00:40:47.920 The charter of rights was a massive transfer of power away from parliament and into the hands

00:40:54.240 of the judiciary where up until then they were basically arguing disputes between federal

00:40:58.600 and provincial jurisdiction.

00:40:59.600 And now all of a sudden, you know, they were remaking social policy in Canada from, from

00:41:05.540 the bench.

00:41:06.400 But, um, I would say that the charter of rights built on the foundation that existed in the,

00:41:12.280 in the bill of rights.

00:41:14.320 What's Stephen Baker's legacy in the end?

00:41:18.500 Um, we we've talked about how he doesn't get credit for a lot of things, but does he have

00:41:23.980 a legacy that Canadians should know about?

00:41:26.220 Um, they should know about it and his legacy is a strong one.

00:41:31.180 He is a great prime minister.

00:41:33.340 And as I said before, almost nothing that he did was undone.

00:41:38.380 And in fact, it was, uh, reinforced by his successor.

00:41:42.140 So his policy on, on not accepting nuclear American controlled nuclear weapons on Canadian

00:41:48.140 soil, that was reversed by Lester Pearson.

00:41:50.520 Pearson brought in American controlled nuclear weapons on Canadian soil.

00:41:54.120 You know, Pierre Trudeau sent them back.

00:41:56.980 And so that policy that Diefenbaker advocated for has been the policy of the federal government

00:42:01.020 for the past 60 years.

00:42:04.580 Um, I think on the world stage, I've mentioned South Africa.

00:42:08.580 This is a, is this a key part of his legacy?

00:42:10.760 And it inspired not only people around the world, um, but certainly set a, a high watermark

00:42:16.600 for Canadian prime ministers in standing up for, for discrimination.

00:42:22.380 Um, you know, I encourage anyone who, who, um, who cares about indigenous Canadians to read

00:42:29.020 the book and the, and, and what happened in the parliament of Canada between 1940 and 1979

00:42:34.460 when Diefenbaker was there, what were the issues that they were facing?

00:42:37.680 How did the government respond to them?

00:42:39.480 How did Diefenbaker lead that charge and so show respect and the admiration that, that

00:42:44.380 he received from indigenous people?

00:42:46.820 That's part of his, that's certainly part of his legacy.

00:42:50.200 Um, his roads to resources project, developing the far North.

00:42:55.160 Um, and, and he used to say, don't give me this, these bureaucratic studies to say it's

00:42:59.040 too expensive.

00:42:59.640 We're changing the character and the nature of Canada by developing our resources and making

00:43:04.280 these investments in our infrastructure.

00:43:06.080 That's foundational to the prosperity that we enjoy today.

00:43:09.800 Um, that he, um, just as an aside on that, Bob, uh, you know, the Stephen Harper picked

00:43:18.900 up on that when he was in office, Trudeau kind of lost interest or never had interest in

00:43:24.900 it, but I remember speaking to a Biden administration official about the, the trade irritants with

00:43:32.340 Canada and why, you know, cause people think it's just under Republicans or Trump that there's

00:43:38.020 issues.

00:43:38.540 And they said, why won't you just get Gray's point built the port in Nunavut?

00:43:45.900 It needs a road to get up there to connect it.

00:43:48.560 And it needs the port infrastructure.

00:43:50.240 And it's just languishing.

00:43:51.360 Now it might get built with these national projects of great importance, but the Americans

00:43:56.840 wanted this stuff built.

00:43:58.080 They, they, they wanted these roads to resources as, uh, Diefenbaker called it.

00:44:03.860 That is still an issue today that is resonating in Canada and was actually causing friction between

00:44:09.900 the Trudeau government and the Biden government just a few months ago.

00:44:13.600 Well, without John Diefenbaker's vision and his leadership and his insistence, none of that

00:44:19.960 would have happened between 1957 and 1963.

00:44:23.960 He had over 6,000 kilometers of road built during that period.

00:44:29.120 I mean, it would take us that long to study it today before, before it got off the ground,

00:44:33.940 but he, you know, he delivered it in, in additional rail lines.

00:44:37.400 Um, so this, this, this, this is, this is a key part of his, his legacy.

00:44:43.440 I've mentioned how he, he, he, he saw that there was a role for government in helping people

00:44:48.960 who were poor through no fault of their own.

00:44:51.740 Um, he wasn't a laissez-faire guy, you know, built, you know, the, uh, the foundation for hospital

00:44:56.480 care in Canada, um, stood up for Canadian independence and showed we didn't have to follow the American

00:45:02.580 example, stood up to the Soviets and the United Nations with a thundering speech taking on Nikita

00:45:08.620 Khrushchev and show that Canada had a strong voice on the, on, on the world stage, you know, 0.89

00:45:13.560 for conservatives, they should appreciation because he turned a party of losers into a

00:45:19.760 party of winners.

00:45:20.840 They had lost eight of the previous nine elections and John Diefenbaker comes around and wins

00:45:26.460 three elections in a row.

00:45:27.780 Um, so he showed how, how conservatives and conservatism can actually be a winning force

00:45:34.420 in, in, uh, in Canadian politics and a national party.

00:45:38.080 This was not, you know, and I should, I should say that he believed in a truly national party

00:45:43.280 with representation in, in, in, in all parts of the country.

00:45:46.540 He was not, um, he was not a fan of social credit in the West who he saw as a regionally

00:45:52.240 based populist movement.

00:45:53.460 He wanted a party that was, that was relevant nationally and that's, and that's what he

00:45:58.640 built.

00:45:59.540 Uh, you, you've talked about the impact on the conservative party.

00:46:02.740 I have to ask you as we close about two liberals.

00:46:05.040 Um, he was famously saved by one, John Turner while on vacation, almost drowning, but you've

00:46:11.020 got the foreword in your book, uh, from Jean Chrétien, uh, who says many nice things about

00:46:17.000 him and, uh, uh, I love how Chrétien put it that he was my opponent, not my enemy.

00:46:24.620 And then hearkens back to them being small town lawyers.

00:46:28.940 Uh, I know that you've spoken to Mr. Chrétien many times.

00:46:33.440 What was his sense of John Diefenbaker?

00:46:35.800 Um, so he, he saw John Diefenbaker as a man who loved his country, as a house of commons

00:46:44.780 man who respected the institution of parliament, uh, a great debater, a great speaker, all lot

00:46:52.140 of the qualities that Chrétien has himself.

00:46:55.540 You've mentioned they both come from small town, small town lawyers, you know, not from

00:46:59.880 the elite, uh, institutions sticking up for ordinary Canadians.

00:47:04.140 They had that in common, but you'll also notice in the foreword that John Chrétien wrote is

00:47:09.280 that John Diefenbaker could throw a punch below the belt.

00:47:13.000 Um, now that's his way of saying that he was, he was highly competitive.

00:47:17.740 He didn't dis, he didn't agree with, with Diefenbaker.

00:47:21.340 They had, you know, famous, uh, battles over the Canadian flag.

00:47:24.820 The liberals were instituting a new Canadian flag and John Diefenbaker opposed it, but he

00:47:29.460 could, he could admire the, the courage and the conviction and the flair, um, that, that

00:47:35.380 John Diefenbaker possessed and that he had a strong social conscience, which I think, you

00:47:41.080 know, puts him in line with, with, uh, Diefenbaker.

00:47:44.460 Uh, I don't think that he appreciated the attacks that, um, many of, of, of, of John Chrétien's

00:47:51.000 colleagues faced under Diefenbaker's wrath.

00:47:54.080 So he didn't want to, you know, create the impression that they were, they were friends

00:47:57.960 in any way, but he could certainly admire his, his commitment, dedication and love of Canada

00:48:02.700 and, and how he, how he carried on a battle without, without becoming, um, enemies.

00:48:09.340 And in, in, in fact, in one of John Chrétien's books, um, when he was a backbuncher, whenever 0.98

00:48:15.800 Diefenbaker would take on a liberal minister and really skewer them, they'd send notes over

00:48:21.400 to Diefenbaker to congratulate them because they thought this was that much easier for them

00:48:26.240 to move into cabinet if he took, if he took one of the liberal cabinet ministers down.

00:48:30.460 So, you know, he, he appreciated that, that aspect of it to the extent that it advanced

00:48:35.680 his career.

00:48:36.600 So I, I think it says something about John Chrétien, a liberal prime minister, that he's

00:48:40.940 prepared to write a forward to a book about a conservative prime minister, about his love

00:48:45.800 for Canada.

00:48:46.720 I think everyone that reads the book, uh, Freedom Fighter will have a greater appreciation

00:48:50.280 for John Diefenbaker.

00:48:51.360 Bob, thanks so much.

00:48:52.680 Brian, pleasure.

00:48:53.380 Full comment is a post-media podcast.

00:48:55.660 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:48:57.580 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:49:01.000 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:49:03.180 Hit that subscribe button, hit a like button, wherever you're getting your podcasts.

00:49:07.360 Please help us out, leave a rating or a review, and tell your friends about us.

00:49:11.420 Until next time, thanks for listening.

00:49:13.400 I'm Brian Lilly.

00:49:17.400 Here's that clip from Canada Did What?

00:49:19.980 I promised you.

00:49:23.380 Two years later, he was still opposition leader, and he lost again to the Pearson Liberals.

00:49:30.400 Despite this, Diefenbaker doesn't resign as leader of the Progressive Conservatives,

00:49:35.680 which put the party in an awkward situation that hasn't really happened before.

00:49:40.560 The typical rules of a Canadian political party were that you stayed leader until you

00:49:44.940 died or resigned.

00:49:46.620 And if you lost twice in a row, you were supposed to do the honorable thing and step aside.

00:49:51.340 But Diefenbaker just didn't, prompting the party to take the unprecedented step of forcing

00:49:58.100 a party convention in Toronto for the singular purpose of crowbarring Diefenbaker out of the

00:50:03.700 leadership.

00:50:05.700 Diefenbaker shows up, pretends everything is fine, and gives a finger-wagging speech chastising

00:50:11.520 his fellow party members for their disloyalty.

00:50:14.280 I followed this party when I didn't agree with policies.

00:50:20.380 I gave loyalty to leader after leader.

00:50:24.820 Because I believe that there is no other way.

00:50:28.500 He's politely cheered by the assembled conservatives, and then abjectly humiliated in their subsequent

00:50:34.460 leadership vote.

00:50:35.600 On the first ballot, Diefenbaker gets a distant fifth place, and even then he refuses to admit

00:50:41.480 defeat.

00:50:44.220 If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?

00:50:49.140 everywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - August 18, 2025

The man who saved Canada’s Conservatives from political irrelevance

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