Pearson's Farewell

Canada's Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, who announced his retirement last month, will be remembered as a great diplomat who shouldn't have gone into politics. And yet to Canadians, Pearson's brief and peculiarily muddled political career is of great interest, for it establishes the man as one of their own. In both successes of his four-and-a-half year administration, and in its drab confusion and its quiet disasters, he had faithfully mirrored the problems and the character of his country.

He is a likeable person with a self-deprecating sense of humor and an oratorical style so uncharismatic that it verges on self-parody. He is possessed of no stirring visions. He believes in peace and in sound government, and he is in all things a conciliator and a moderate.

In 1958, the year after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Suez crisis, Pearson abandoned his brilliant diplomatic career to assume the leadership of the recently defeated Liberal Party. Within two months he had led his party into unprecedented political catastrophe. The Conservatives under John Diefenbaker achieved the most one-sided election victory in Canadian history, and Pearson became the leader of a tiny Opposition.

Diefenbaker gradually squandered his spectacular mandate, and in April, 1963, Pearson squeezed into power with a near-majority in the House of Commons. But to say that Pearson had won would be an exaggeration. His campaign, fought mainly on the issue of U.S. nuclear arms for Canadian bases (Pearson was for them), proceeded from inanity to embarrassment in a bizarre adaption of American public relations techniques.

Pearson's Liberals tried in the 1963 campaign to present the voters a Kennedy image of vigor and purposefulness. Lacking the youthfulness of the Kennedy appeal (Pearson was nearly 65), they relied heavily on ridicule and a self-conscious sense of mission. Among Pearson's campaign gambits was the "Sixty Days of Decision," a promise that a Liberal victory would precipitate two-months of resolute, clear-headed and exciting government to set things right after six years of Conservative misrule.

The Sixty Days were begun with a series of separatist bombings in a wealthy English-speaking district of Montreal, and in an atmosphere of crisis, the new Prime Minister announced the formation of a Royal Commission to investigate French-English relations in Canada. The Commission presented its recommendations a month ago, after more than four years of study. (Pearson's successor will decide on their implementation..) The climax of the Sixty Days came when Pearson's Finance Minister, Walter Gordon, presented a budget so unworkable and confused that its main features were eventually withdrawn altogether.

Gordon was to provide more problems for Pearson in the next few years, as he became the spokesman for Canadian economic nationalism. Gordon declared that increasing American investment was reducing Canada to colonial status, and he campaigned noisily within the Pearson government for sharp curbs on American ownership. Pearson tried, mainly by doing nothing, to find a middle course between the nationalists and the internationalists. Meanwhile his Cabinet began to polarize over the issue. Gordon, apparently defeated, resigned in November, 1965, but returned to the Cabinet a year later in a new post, and quickly embarrassed his P.M. again with a strong denunciation of American policy in Vietnam.

Canada's position is that its membership on the International Control Commission demands her continued neutrality, and Pearson is undoubtedly sincere in his belief that neutrality is essential if Canada is to contribute to any settlement of the Vietnam war. But the timidity of Canada's position on Vietnam has a less obscure basis--a well-founded respect for American power in the Canadian economy. Pearson has nonetheless made an occasional foray into the debate over Vietnam, notably in a Philadelphia speech in April, 1965, when he called for a halt in U.S. bombings of North Vietnam. He met with President Johnson a few days later at Camp David; Johnson was enraged by Pearson's initiative, and the two men did not meet again for well over a year.

In the fall of 1965, Pearson was persuaded to call another general election in the hope of bolstering his government's weak parliamentary position. The campaign was devoid of issues. Unable to campaign on their brief record (of which the highlight was adoption of a national flag in February, 1965), the Liberals argued that their legislative programs could not be implemented without a Parliamentary majority. The electorate, unconvinced and bored, failed to give them one. The Pearson government was narrowly returned to office, with its Parliamentary strength increased by only three seats. Pearson was disappointed and humiliated.

Despite its tendency toward political misadventure, the Pearson government has compiled a surprisingly solid legislative record. It has built up a progressive social security system, and has begun to introduce the principle of the guaranteed annual income. It successfully managed the difficult task of unifying Canada's Army, Navy and Air Force into a single force designed largely for United Nations peace-keeping missions. Most recently it effectively abolished capital punishment in Canada.

But Canada's two basic problems remain unresolved. The first is American economic and political domination. Pearson's effectiveness has been limited to successful lobbying against U.S. balance-of-payment restrictions which would have badly damaged the Canadian economy. But the Canadian public is aware that it owes its high standard of living to American capital, and is unreceptive to calls for a sharp assertion of Canadian economic independence. The Pearson government's failure to bring it about is hardly surprising.

The other problem is the 200-year-old question of French-English relations in Canada. Lester Pearson's greatest ambition was to forge national unity in a country that has never been united, and at his retirement, this ambition has been frustrated. He saw in the Centennial Year of 1967 a chance to begin a new era in French-English relations. Then General de Gaulle raised the cry "Vive le Quebec libre!" in Montreal, and it was clear once again that the ancient conflict cannot be wished away.

Pearson brought intellect and understanding to the problem of national unity, and so Canadians will ascribe his failure to bring about great improvements to his dismal television image, or to his age. But the real source of his failure is the enormous difficulty of the problem itself. It is not one that will suddenly disappear through sentimental reconciliation amid the glitter of a World's Fair, or through the charisma of a Canadian Kennedy.

It is doubtful whether anyone else might have been more successful than Pearson in uniting Canada. What was required above all was a statesman with the perception and tact to avoid further aggravation of Canada's problems, and Pearson, for all the dreary confusion of his administration, was such a statesman. He brought the skills of a great diplomat to a situation where such skills were badly needed; his accomplishments were unexciting, but very real nonetheless. At no time in his ten-year political career did Lester Pearson enjoy the support of a large majority of Canadians, but if another man of his qualities cannot be found to succeed him, he may soon be widely missed.