The Making of a Prairie Populist
Since Confederation in 1867, those who have governed Canada have worked to realize a cohesive national identity. Founded on a compromise between largely French-speaking Catholic and English-speaking Protestant values, Canada’s foundational national narrative purposely excluded portions of citizens who populated the vast land. It was Diefenbaker’s personal experience with life on the margins of the ‘two founding nations’ narrative that compelled him to advocate for a more inclusive Canada with protected rights for its citizens. His political journey began in 1920, when he joined the village council in Wakaw, Saskatchewan, but it would be a long and often disappointing road to the House of Commons. He did not succeed in any of federal elections where he was often a candidate until 1940, and then he served as a Tory backbencher for sixteen years before he was finally successful in becoming the party leader.
Before this chapter explores the language of Diefenbaker’s Speeches from the Throne and his Leaders’ Day replies, it is necessary to consider, even if briefly, an overview of the Canadian political and social climate that set the stage for Diefenbaker’s success in the election of 1957. Timing is everything, especially in politics, and this was most certainly true for John Diefenbaker. If he would have won any of the multitude of elections he had contested between 1925, when he first ran for federal office, and 1956, when he became the leader of the Progressive Conservative party, he might not have found his way to the office of the Prime Minister, his ultimate ambition since his humble childhood in Saskatchewan.
As Canada, still a relatively young country in the early 1950s, entered the modern era following the Second World War, there was a “proliferation of writing on the philosophies and principles of Liberalism and Conservatism in Canada” which “reveals the extent to which political thinkers and politicians believed they were in the midst of a period of ideological flux.” Beginning in the 1950s, the Conservative narrative was re-energized, due in part to the new writing of Canadian history, specifically, the publication of Donald G. Creighton’s biography of Sir John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician, and The Old Chieftain, which “defined the conservative view of Canada to a whole generation.”Diefenbaker realized that Canadians, who were no longer British citizens after the passage of the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1947 and under threat of cultural and economic absorption into the fast emerging world superpower the United States, were looking for a home grown narrative with which to identify. Canada was changing and Diefenbaker’s narrative attracted many, specifically Western Canadians but others, too, yearning for a new, modern, inclusive national identity.
In the prosperous years following the Second World War, Canadians did not think of Macdonald as an “architect of genocide” as some do in 2020. Therefore, there was no irony for the public that Diefenbaker harkened to the legacy of Macdonald while espousing a vision and rhetoric for an inclusive Canada which included “unhyphenated Canadians” of varying ethnicities and religions. A cursory glance at the legislation proposed by each federal leader highlights this stark contrast in defining a “Canadian”. Macdonald introduced the Electoral Franchise Act and Chinese Immigration Act in 1885 in an effort to ensure “…that the new polity of Canada was to be for European men who owned property”. By contrast, Diefenbaker assigned his Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (and Indian Affairs), Ellen Fairclough, the first female cabinet minister in the history of Canada’s parliament, to introduce regulations that would eliminate racial discrimination from Canada’s Immigration legislation.
Diefenbaker biographer, Peter C. Newman, remarked at the time that in the post-World War II era of “the easy materialism of the lush Fifties, many Canadians were groping for some deeper national purpose. John Diefenbaker successfully drew upon this widespread frustration to create a shared vision of a more vigorous and more noble future.” The prairie grown populist capitalized on any opportunity to launch into a targeted speech to appeal to his audience. Cara Spittal, in her Ph.D thesis “The Diefenbaker Moment” highlights Diefenbaker’s experience as a successful defence lawyer in which he selected high profile cases where he could represent the underdog. “Experience had taught him that the greatest speeches—political or otherwise— were stories designed in the manner of dramas that involved an introduction, a problem and conflict, periods of rising and falling action, a climax, and a resolution.” In contrast to the Liberal party of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, Diefenbaker clearly understood the importance of rhetoric and speeches, and embraced every opportunity to engage with citizens.
In December 1956, Diefenbaker became the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party after poor health lead to the resignation of his predecessor, George Drew. Drew had played a significant role in the Pipeline Debate of 1956 and Diefenbaker claimed this victory as his. The pipeline debate represents a watershed moment for the long reigning Liberal party because in an effort to begin construction on the pipeline that would carry natural gas from Alberta to Montreal by June of 1956, the Liberal party implemented a time limit on debate for the bill introduced to Parliament. The Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation Act, 1956 proposed the creation of a Crown Corporation that would construct the problematic portion of the pipeline through the Canadian Shield. The Crown Corporation was necessary to demonstrate Canadian ownership as Canadians were becoming more aware of the extent to which the country’s economy was owned and controlled by foreign, specifically American companies. Diefenbaker seized the opportunity, citing Liberal arrogance by highlighting the party’s disregard for Parliamentary institutions. The Pipeline Debate played a significant role in the defeat of the Liberal party in 1957, giving Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives a minority government.
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