John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1935 and 1979 to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of the seats in the House of Commons.
Diefenbaker was born in the small town of Neustadt in Southwestern Ontario. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the North-West Territories that would soon become the province of Saskatchewan. He grew up in the province and was interested in politics from a young age. After service in World War I, Diefenbaker became a noted criminal defence lawyer. He contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940. Diefenbaker was repeatedly a candidate for the party leadership. He gained that position in 1956, on his third attempt.
In the 1957 federal election, Diefenbaker led the Progressive Conservatives to its first electoral victory in 27 years; a year later, he called a snap election and spearheaded them to one of their greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his cabinet, as well as the first Indigenous member of the Senate. During his six years as prime minister, his government obtained passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights and granted the vote to the First Nations and Inuit peoples. In 1959, Diefenbaker's government cancelled the Avro Arrow project, and in 1962, it eliminated racial discrimination in immigration policy. In foreign policy, Diefenbaker's stance against apartheid helped secure the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth of Nations, but his indecision on whether to accept Bomarc nuclear missiles from the United States would lead to his government's downfall.
In the 1962 federal election, the Progressive Conservatives narrowly won a minority government before losing power altogether in 1963. Diefenbaker stayed on as party leader, becoming Opposition leader, but his second loss at the polls prompted opponents within the party to force him to a leadership convention in 1967. Diefenbaker stood for re-election as party leader at the last moment, but attracted only minimal support and withdrew. He remained in parliament until his death in 1979, two months after Joe Clark became the first Progressive Conservative prime minister since Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker ranks average in rankings of prime ministers of Canada.
Early life
Diefenbaker was born on September 18, 1895, in Neustadt, Ontario, to William Thomas Diefenbaker and Mary Florence Diefenbaker, née Bannerman. His father was the son of German immigrants from Adersbach in Baden; Mary Diefenbaker was of Scottish descent and Diefenbaker was Baptist. The family moved to several locations in Ontario in John's early years. William Diefenbaker was a teacher, and had deep interests in history and politics, which he sought to instill in his students. He had remarkable success doing so; of the 28 students at his school near Toronto in 1903, four, including his son, John, served as Conservative MPs in the 19th Canadian Parliament beginning in 1940.The Diefenbaker family moved west in 1903, for William Diefenbaker to accept a position near Fort Carlton, then in the Northwest Territories. In 1906, William claimed a quarter-section, of undeveloped land near Borden, Saskatchewan. In February 1910, the Diefenbaker family moved to Saskatoon, the site of the University of Saskatchewan. William and Mary Diefenbaker felt that John and his brother Elmer would have greater educational opportunities in Saskatoon.
John Diefenbaker had been interested in politics from an early age and told his mother at the age of eight or nine that he would some day be prime minister. She told him that it was an impossible ambition, especially for a boy living on the prairies. She would live to be proved wrong. John claimed that his first contact with politics came in 1910, when he sold a newspaper to Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in Saskatoon to lay the cornerstone for the university's first building. The present and future prime ministers conversed, and when giving his speech that afternoon, Laurier mentioned the newsboy, who had ended their conversation by saying, "I can't waste any more time on you, Prime Minister. I must get about my work." The authenticity of the meeting was questioned in the 21st century, with an author suggesting that it was invented by Diefenbaker during an election campaign.
In a 1977 interview with the CBC, Diefenbaker recalled he saw injustice first-hand in his youth against French Canadians, Indigenous Canadians and the Métis. He said, "From my earliest days, I knew the meaning of discrimination. Many Canadians were virtually second-hand citizens because of their names and racial origin. Indeed, it seemed until the end of World War II that the only first-class Canadians were either of English or French descent. As a youth, l determined to devote myself to assuring that all Canadians, whatever their racial origin, were equal and declared myself to be a sworn enemy of discrimination."
After graduating from high school in Saskatoon in 1912, Diefenbaker entered the University of Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1915, and his Master of Arts the following year.
Diefenbaker was commissioned a lieutenant into the 196th Battalion, CEF, in May 1916. In September of that year, Diefenbaker was part of a contingent of 300 junior officers sent to Britain for pre-deployment training. Diefenbaker related in his memoirs that he was hit by a shovel, and the injury eventually resulted in him being sent home as an invalid. Diefenbaker's recollections do not correspond with his army medical records, which show no contemporary account of such an injury, and his biographer, Denis Smith, speculates that any injury was psychosomatic.
After leaving the military in 1917, Diefenbaker returned to Saskatchewan where he resumed his work as an articling student in law. He received his law degree in 1919, the first student to secure three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. On June 30, 1919, he was called to the bar, and the following day, opened a small practice in the village of Wakaw, Saskatchewan.
Barrister and candidate (1919–1940)
Wakaw days (1919–1924)
Although Wakaw had a population of only 400, it sat at the heart of a densely populated area of rural townships and had its own district court. It was also easily accessible to Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Humboldt, places where the Court of King's Bench sat. The local people were mostly immigrants, and Diefenbaker's research found them to be particularly litigious. There was already one barrister in town, and the residents were loyal to him, initially refusing to rent office space to Diefenbaker. The new lawyer was forced to rent a vacant lot and erect a two-room wooden shack.Diefenbaker won the local people over through his success; in his first year in practice, he tried 62 jury trials, winning approximately half of his cases. He rarely called defence witnesses, thereby avoiding the possibility of rebuttal witnesses for the Crown, and securing the last word for himself. In late 1920, he was elected to the village council to serve a three-year term.
Diefenbaker would often spend weekends with his parents in Saskatoon. While there, he began to woo Olive Freeman, daughter of the Baptist minister, but in 1921, she moved with her family to Brandon, Manitoba, and the two lost touch for more than 20 years. He then courted Beth Newell, a cashier in Saskatoon, and by 1922, the two were engaged. However, in 1923, Newell was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and Diefenbaker broke off contact with her. She died the following year. Diefenbaker was himself subject to internal bleeding, and may have feared that the disease would be transmitted to him. In late 1923, he had an operation at the Mayo Clinic for a gastric ulcer, but his health remained uncertain for several more years.
After four years in Wakaw, Diefenbaker so dominated the local legal practice that his competitor left town. On May 1, 1924, Diefenbaker moved to Prince Albert, leaving a law partner in charge of the Wakaw office.
Aspiring politician (1924–1929)
Since 1905, when Saskatchewan entered Confederation, the province had been dominated by the Liberal Party, which practised highly effective machine politics. Diefenbaker was fond of stating, in his later years, that the only protection a Conservative had in the province was that afforded by the game laws.Diefenbaker's father, William, was a Liberal; however, John Diefenbaker found himself attracted to the Conservative Party. Free trade was widely popular throughout Western Canada, but Diefenbaker was convinced by the Conservative position that free trade would make Canada an economic dependent of the United States. However, he did not speak publicly of his politics. Diefenbaker recalled in his memoirs that, in 1921, he had been elected as secretary of the Wakaw Liberal Association while absent in Saskatoon, and had returned to find the association's records in his office. He promptly returned them to the association president. Diefenbaker also stated that he had been told that if he became a Liberal candidate, "there was no position in the province which would not be open to him."
It was not until 1925 that Diefenbaker publicly came forward as a Conservative, a year in which both federal and Saskatchewan provincial elections were held. Journalist Peter C. Newman, in his best-selling account of the Diefenbaker years, suggested that this choice was made for practical, rather than political reasons, as Diefenbaker had little chance of defeating established politicians and securing the Liberal nomination for either the House of Commons or the Legislative Assembly. The provincial election took place in early June; Liberals would later claim that Diefenbaker had campaigned for their party in the election. On June 19, however, Diefenbaker addressed a Conservative organizing committee, and on August 6, was nominated as the party's candidate for the federal riding of Prince Albert, a district in which the party's last candidate had lost his election deposit. A nasty campaign ensued, in which Diefenbaker was called a "Hun" because of his German-derived surname. The 1925 federal election was held on October 29; he finished third behind the Liberal and Progressive Party candidates, losing his deposit.
The winning candidate, Charles McDonald, did not hold the seat long, resigning it to open a place for the Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had been defeated in his Ontario riding. The Tories ran no candidate against King in the by-election on February 15, 1926, and he won easily. Although in the 1925 federal election, the Conservatives had won the greatest number of seats, King continued as prime minister with the support of the Progressives. Mackenzie King held office for several months until he finally resigned when the Governor General, Lord Byng, refused a dissolution. Conservative Party leader Arthur Meighen became prime minister, but was quickly defeated in the House of Commons, and Byng finally granted a dissolution of Parliament. Diefenbaker, who had been confirmed as Conservative candidate, stood against King in the 1926 election, a rare direct electoral contest between two individuals who had or would become prime minister. King triumphed easily over Diefenbaker, the Liberals won the federal election, and King regained his position as prime minister.