The Written Word
for October 1, 2000

Our thoughts this week continue to be on Pierre Elliot Trudeau and rightly so – for, with Mackenzie King he ranks in the top drawer of Canadian Prime Ministers of this century.

I think it useful to compare these two men – for they were a contrast in everything.

King was a labour lawyer whose natural instinct was to avoid a fight for the very fact of fight meant a strike or lockout, thus failure. Trudeau was a lawyer-philosopher whose instinct was to fight opponents to the finish using all tactics from Machiavelli to Douglas Haig in the struggle.

King was a dumpy little man who has the physique of the Tilsbury doughboy – Trudeau was thin and tough – an athlete. King might, I suppose, have walked his dog in the Gatineau Hills but one presumes only on the level bits while Trudeau skied, climbed mountains and canoed down dangerous rivers.

Mackenzie King, I’m told, would quickly fade into the woodwork of any room he was in – Trudeau dominated.

King was a terrible public speaker while Trudeau was a masterful debater.

King saw the country as a whole while Trudeau saw it as Ontario and Quebec with some appendages tacked on.

It is this latter point where the contrast is the greatest. Mackenzie King and his successor, Louis St Laurent, saw their mandate as keeping the entire country involved at the center. Regions had powerful and important Cabinet ministers who were listened to even though the number of seats they represented were few in number. In Western Canada there was Jimmy Gardiner from Saskatchewan and Jimmy Sinclair, Trudeau’s father-in-law, ironically, from Vancouver. Pierre Trudeau, after, in fairness, he was rejected by the western Canadian voters, couldn’t have cared less about western representation at the center.

It’s difficult to draw any firm conclusions from this. During the King/St Laurent years Quebec was still in thrall to the church and the conservative coalition that kept Duplessis and the Union Nationale in power. Trudeau, on the other hand, had to deal with the new Quebec that emerged after Jean Lesage. But that does not, in my view excuse Trudeau’s inattention to what became known as western alienation. For with King and St Laurent it was not just that western ministers had big portfolios, they had power to act on regional issues, did wield power and were seen to wield power.

The two giants of the last century in Canada – Mackenzie King, the mouse the pulled strings with immense skill and Pierre Trudeau, the cat that pounced and pounced on all who opposed him.