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  • Robert Stanfield’s Canada: Perspectives of the Best Prime Minister We Never Had
  • Larry Glassford
Robert Stanfield’s Canada: Perspectives of the Best Prime Minister We Never Had. Richard Clippingdale. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008. Pp. 124, $39.95 cloth

When Robert Stanfield went to bed in the early morning hours of 31 October 1972, it appeared that he had unseated Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government, winning the general election by a seat or two. [End Page 368] By next day, the see-saw of tight races in a handful of ridings had reversed. It was the closest Stanfield would come to power at the federal level. When the cliffhanger of 1972 was followed by another Liberal majority two years later, he announced his intention to step down as Conservative chieftain. In 1976, Joe Clark captured the leadership mantle, and Stanfield retired to relative obscurity.

Given this mediocre career path, is there justification for a new book on Stanfield, particularly in view of the 1973 biography by Geoffrey Stevens that provides comprehensive and largely sympathetic coverage of the Nova Scotian’s eleven years as provincial premier, followed by his successful run for the national Tory leadership? Not if we accept the all-too-easy characterization of Stanfield as a perpetual ‘loser.’ Certainly he failed three times in his quest to become prime minister of Canada. But he turned over to his successor a far healthier party than he inherited, one much more attuned to the needs of post-Centennial Canada. It was his fate to face off, not against the likable yet bumbling Lester Pearson, but opposite a charismatic, postmodern master of telemedia politics, Pierre Trudeau. And still, he came within a handful of votes in two ridings of topping his Liberal adversary in the campaign of 1972.

Richard Clippingdale’s thesis is captured in the subtitle of this slim volume of thematic essays, intended as a tribute to ‘the best prime minister we never had.’ Had Stanfield been Pearson’s successor, rather than Trudeau, Canada might just be a better country now, the author contends. Certainly, the gentlemanly Maritimer would never have given the finger to protestors, nor uttered the fuddle-duddle phrase in Parliament, nor dismissed backbench mps as nobodies. Neither can one imagine his marrying a flower child. More substantively, it is doubtful if Stanfield would have proclaimed the War Measures Act, reduced Canada’s nato commitment, or commissioned a Gray Report on foreign ownership. While he doubtless would have pursued the John Diefenbaker–inspired openings with China and Cuba, it is doubtful if he would have consorted so openly with either Fidel Castro or Chairman Mao. And Stanfield would never have forced patriation of the constitution without provincial consent from Quebec, or rammed through the controversial National Energy Program in the face of Western Canadian opposition. Where Trudeau helped to block both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, Stanfield threw what influence he had behind their passage. In an uncharacteristically pugnacious jibe, he attributed his old foe’s condemnation of Meech to jealous insecurity: ‘Sure we know he is the toughest kid on the block. I just wish he did not try to prove it to himself too often’ (94). [End Page 369]

While faulting both Trudeau and Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells for contributing to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, Stanfield ultimately placed the blame for the debacle elsewhere. ‘Some Canadians may blame our leaders,’ he noted at the time, ‘but the ultimate responsibility and the failure are ours, the citizens of Canada’ (102). He believed that people got the government they deserved. He saw as worrying trends both the increasing reliance on the state to solve every problem, and the growing tendency to dismiss elected politicians ‘as clowns or rascals or both’ (90). For him, the concept of political life as a sincere form of public service was neither embarrassing nor outdated. Moreover, he abhorred extremists and fanaticism. ‘Compromises are not demeaning,’ he stated in a 1992 public lecture at Carleton University. ‘They are essential to democratic government’ (106).

As the author makes clear, Robert Stanfield epitomized in his life and career the peculiarly Canadian brand...

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