John George Diefenbaker is the only really interesting prime minister since John A. Macdonald, and we’ve forgotten about him. I say this, among other reasons, because he was the only prime minister that, by our blue blood standards, probably should never have got there in the first place. Any other leader in Canadian history has some indicator that they are heading for prominence, whether it be a neighbourhood in Montreal (Trudeau), a benefactor of John Rockefeller (King), or just an education at Upper Canada College (Harper). There is a continuity of early markings among these super-brains that love using the word “folks” in order to gain a few votes. Diefenbaker was folks, and at times he was even folksy - but mostly he was just angry. He was mad at the world for judging him on his last name, the German connotations inviting the same wariness that a middle eastern name would invite now. Diefenbaker lost six elections before finally getting into parliament, and some of these were embarrassing elections - municipal elections. He ran against Mackenzie King (then prime minister) twice and lost both times. When he finally did get into parliament he lost two leadership contests before finally winning the bid in 1956. Perhaps these stats bore you but they say something - this man was not a quitter, and he spent so much time on the outside, the real outside, that by the time he finally did gain power he had a list of enemies longer than princess Di’s wedding veil. The way he swept to power was dramatic as well, we think people went nuts over Trudeau, but it is nothing like the way the swooned for Dief, I mean swooned. Full on delirium. Elvis type stuff. But they didn’t swoon for his good looks as they would’ve for The King or The Beatles. It was for the disbelief that one of their own might actually get into power, the whole nation believed in Dief the way a child would believe in his mother if she ran for PM. His hand was so swollen after greeting people he literally could not touch it at the end of many of his campaigning days in the 1958 election, an election that still holds the record for highest turnout in our nation’s history.
And once in power things fell apart. His suspicions of his enemies, his suspicions of the U.S.A., and his failure to circle the wagons on the eve of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis dulled his shine. Such are the hazards of electing a true outsider. Diefenbaker acknowledged it himself right after taking power “we have nowhere to go but down.” It was a twisted political version of The Babe’s called shot, as if he were pointing not to the center bleachers at Yankee stadium but to the opposition benches in parliament that he had just vacated. Adoration was his downfall as well, he couldn’t handle the new reserves of ego that he had pooled during his dramatic rise to power. His tirades against any opposition sounded worse and worse as he descended into paranoia later in his political career.
But he did good things too. A point of Canuck pride is multiculturalism; we often credit this to Trudeau and Pearson and all of these feel good 20th century Liberals. It was Diefenbaker that got the ball rolling, a man that liked to be photographed in traditional native head dress at a time when some First Nations didn’t even have the right to vote (it would be Dief that extended this right). It was also Diefenbaker that gave the first Cabinet seat to a woman, created the Coast Guard, sold wheat to a starving China, and visualized economic growth in the North.
Furthermore, and something that shouldn’t be overlooked, is that even The Chief’s scandals were interesting, The Avro Arrow project that he shut down - that fast plane with the Heritage Moment that featured Dan Aykroyd - is one of the few good political conspiracies we have. His “Diefenbunkers” built during the Cold War are another quirky legacy of his reign. While other political scandals involve the sickening image of mysterious suits handing each other brown bags of cash Dief chopped up super-jets and burrowed away from nuclear war. It is not surprising that there was never scent of political scandal while Diefenbaker was in charge.
As part of the recent announcement of the feds to build new ships it has been revealed that they will replace the icebreaker “Louis St. Laurent” (a prime minister that couldn’t have broken an ice cube with a sledge hammer) with a brand new ice breaker - the “John G. Diefenbaker.” Fitting for a man that did a grind through elitist ice his entire political career. I can picture him on the bow, wagging his finger at everything ahead, busting through the deep freeze with only his glaring maniacal eyes. He alone will be able to plow through anything in his way, which will inevitably be everything.