Young Statesman

Alex B. Campbell Young Statesman chapter one Young Statesman “Premier Alex Campbell of Prince Edward Island emerged as the young statesman of the [Februrary 1968] conference. Here was a man who had nothing to gain and little to lose from the subjects under discussion but rose above the parochial concerns of his province to show that his vision was wide enough to make him an important new father of Canada’s reconfederation.” In February 1978, Premier Alex Campbell of Prince Edward Island took part in his eighteenth !rst ministers conference. Campbell had been Canada’s Peter C. Newman, The Distemper of Our Times (1968) longest-serving !rst minister for almost six years. When he took o"ce in 1966 at the age of 32, Campbell was the youngest person to be elected premier in Canada in the twentieth century.1 At the 1978 conference, in addition to being the most senior in o"ce, Campbell was still the youngest in age. Alex Campbell’s !rst six years as premier were a time of leadership turnover in Canada. By 1978 the !rst ministers collectively made up one of the most experienced such gatherings in Canadian history. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Ontario’s Bill Davis had won three elections, as had Campbell. Five premiers had been elected twice: Gerald Regan of Nova Dear Alex, We have been so proud of you when Scotia, Richard Hat!eld of New Brunswick, Allan Blakeney of Saskatchewan, ‘ you represented P.E.I. so very capably at the meetings‘ Peter Lougheed of Alberta, and Frank Moores of Newfoundland. #e group of all the premiers. And your speeches at the Canadian Club comprised many strong personalities, including René Lévesque, elected in in Toronto were full of wisdom and good ideas for the future November 1976 with a mission to achieve Québec’s separation from Canada. of the Island and of Canada. You stood out among all the #e topic of the 1978 conference was not national unity: it was the ‘others‘ and at the [February 1978] Conference of Premiers, economy. Canada and other western countries were dealing with an economic I thought Premier Blakeney was the only one downturn after almost three decades of heady post-war expansion. #e 1973- 74 OPEC oil embargoes shook the world and exposed regional tensions who could hold a candle to you. and disparities within Canada as oil prices quadrupled from $3 per barrel Eleanor Wheeler, retired public health nurse, to $12 in the space of !fteen months.2 In demographic terms, the surge of Fernwood PEI, to Alex Campbell, September 15, 1978 the baby boom had crested. Unemployment and in$ation were both on the rise as Canada’s leaders struggled with stag$ation. After two decades of robust expansion of social programs and public services, governments were worried about spiraling de!cits. #ese conditions set the stage for the February 1978 conference. ii 1 Alex B. Campbell Young Statesman Alex Campbell might have looked upon the 1978 conference as an and foreign controls.” He called for Canada, over the next several decades, to opportunity to crow. For the decade of the 1970s, PEI was third among “reduce our vulnerability ” by adjusting to “conditions more representative of Canadian provinces for GDP growth, after Alberta and British Columbia. the physical and social limits within which we exist, and build a society truly During Campbell’s twelve years in o"ce, his province’s GDP quadrupled. representative of Canadian hopes and dreams.” Moreover, the gap between Prince Edward Islanders’ average incomes and those In order for Canada to be less vulnerable to global economic forces, of other Canadians was reduced by more than 10 percentage points. On the Campbell identi!ed four strategies. First, Canada should aim for self- !scal front, Campbell’s government had a string of !ve balanced or surplus su!ciency in the basics of living, which Campbell enumerated as food, clothing budgets and PEI’s debt-to-GDP ratio was reduced from a nation-leading 35 per and energy: “We must do more to provide for ourselves.” Second, he called cent in the mid-1960s to 15 per cent in 1978, equal to the national average and for Canada to be a conserving society conscious of the principle of stewardship: the lowest of the Atlantic provinces. While unemployment on PEI was rising “#is means that rather than exploit and waste our natural resources, we pass by 1978 it remained below 10 per cent for an unprecedented sixth straight year. on to our children as well cared for an estate as we inherited.” #ird, Canada should focus on an ever-increasing level of home-grown technology, based Opening Address to the 1978 Conference Alex Campbell’s opening address at the February 1978 conference was aimed at the far horizon and was openly critical of conventional thinking about the economy. Depending on the listener, Campbell’s remarks were either hard-hitting or wistful. Prime Minister Trudeau, not known for handing out compliments to the premiers, commented that Premier Campbell had “very brilliantly” made the point that Canada was “moving into a future that is likely to be very di%erent from our past.” Campbell opened by observing that, despite unprecedented statistical a&uence, few political leaders would dare suggest to their electorate that Canadians were well o%. After asking “Why has the drive for material prosperity and the good life not provided us with a quality of life we so much desire?” he criticized the lack of innovative thinking or new ideas, saying that “most public and private institutions continue to pursue avenues and remedies which are based on the implicit assumption that the future will mirror the past.” He protested that “time honoured economic remedies have Premiers gathered on steps of Government House, Charlottetown, August 1973. been simply dusted o%, given a new cover and presented as the means to maintain our momentum and pump another few drops out of a rapidly drying well.” He turned to his fellow !rst ministers and said “For twelve years now I have participated in a great number of economic and social on policies encouraging industrial research and development. “Otherwise,” conferences. #e similarity of solutions over that twelve year period is really Campbell explained “we will sink to the third step of a stagnant economy: that quite astounding. Essentially the same solutions have been advanced as the is from an ownership economy (where we are now), through a branch plant cure for our ailments. But strangely our illness grows progressively worse.”3 economy, to a warehouse economy.” Fourth, Canada should resist excessive Campbell aimed his main criticism for Canada’s economic ills at the urbanization and promote policies of decentralization: “I see communities international economy, which he described as a “global game of economic made up of industrious, self-reliant, conserving people, employing high chess” in which Canadians were being “manipulated by massive external forces technology to manufacture useful goods.” 2 3 Alex B. Campbell Young Statesman Alex Campbell’s remarks to the 1978 conference were not what might equalization ever since I have been around these conference tables.” He be expected from a premier who was twelve years into a successful mandate emphasized Ontario’s support for regional economic development and and within weeks of calling his fourth general election. He did not parade investment tax credits and referred to a speech “for which I have been his record for the audience at home on PEI, nor did he plead for special criticized at home,” in which he urged the private sector “to make investments treatment. #e themes of self-su"ciency, environmental stewardship, in other parts of Canada besides Ontario, knowing that there could be a economic decentralization, and investment in home-grown technology were lower rate of return.” Davis characterized these views as “heresy in terms familiar to people who knew Campbell. of the bottom line approach,” but felt that economic considerations were As his province’s longest-serving premier, Alex Campbell knew all too well outweighed by “an obligation to understand what this country is all about.” about the impact of economic centralization on Prince Edward Island. During Shortly after Premier Davis concluded his remarks, Campbell the !ve years before Campbell became premier, net migration from PEI, rejoined, saying that he and Davis did not share the same understanding mainly of skilled workers and educated people pursuing better opportunities, of decentralization. He told the conference he was not suggesting that the amounted to the equivalent of 15 per cent of the province’s workforce. One industrial infrastructure of Ontario be dismantled and sent down to Prince of the most tangible measures of what Campbell achieved as premier was the Edward Island. Instead, he envisaged Canadians becoming more self-reliant fact that, for the !rst time in decades, the province experienced net positive in manufacturing goods with supply systems from the Atlantic Provinces and migration, for seven consecutive years, from 1972 to 1978. #e ten per cent from the West. Campbell said he could see no reason why Nova Scotian tires increase in the Island’s population between 1970 and 1978 was greater, in could not go into the automobile made in Canada, and criticized the north- proportional terms, than for any period since Prince Edward Island joined south, south-north pattern of trade as tending “to distort the ambitions of Confederation in 1873. During Campbell’s premiership, PEI’s population industrial strategies for the rest of Canada.” would increase by 13,000, surpassing the province’s total gain of 10,000 Campbell acknowledged the continuing support of Ontario and other inhabitants for the hundred years before he took o"ce.

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