THE BRANDING OF THE PRIME MINISTER: ‘Uncle Louis’ and Brand Politics in The Elections of Louis St. Laurent 1949-1957

A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science

TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Cory Baldwin, 2017 History M.A. Graduate Program September 2017

ABSTRACT:

THE BRANDING OF THE PRIME MINISTER: ‘Uncle Louis’ and Brand Politics in The Elections of Louis St. Laurent 1949-1957 Cory Baldwin

From 1949-1957, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent was the face of the Liberal Party.

Party branding was wholly devoted to his friendly, ‘Uncle Louis’ brand image. St.

Laurent’s image was manipulated and manufactured without public preconception, establishing the modern tactics of personal branding still used by his successors. This thesis studies the elections of 1949, 1953, and 1957, analysing photos, advertisements, speeches, archival documents, memoirs, newspapers, and other sources to show the development of Liberal branding strategy. It employs political scientist Margaret

Scammell’s conceptualization of brand theory, showing how marketers used emotional brand differentiators and rational substantive performance indicators to sell ‘Uncle Louis’ to Canadians. The Liberals used St. Laurent and branding tactics to win two massive majorities in 1949 and 1953, and the Diefenbaker Tories used those same tactics to defeat them in 1957. ‘Uncle Louis’ proved the effectiveness of personal branding and leader- centered campaigns in Canadian politics.

KEYWORDS: Brand Theory; Canadian Politics; Political Strategy; Political Marketing; Political Branding; Liberal Party of Canada; Louis St. Laurent; John Diefenbaker; George Drew; 1949 election; 1953 election; 1957 election;

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Christopher Dummitt, my committee members Professor Dimitry Anastakis and Professor Antonio Cazoria-Sanchez for their wise advice and criticism which strengthened this project far beyond what I could have accomplished on my own.

I would also like to thank my external reader, Professor Stephen Azzi of Carleton University.

I would also like to acknowledge the History Graduate Program Director Professor Jennine Hurl-Eamon, and the other members of the history program and the broader Trent community who supported this project.

I would also like to acknowledge the members of the Royal Canadian Navy’s History and Heritage Directorate, Dean Boettger, Cdr. Ramona Burke, Dr. Richard Gimblett, and John Knowles for their support of my education and my career.

I would also like to thank my good friend Bafumiki Mocheregwa, who provided a better example than I deserved of hard work and dedication.

Finally, I would like to thank my mother, Joy Baldwin, and my sister Melissa Baldwin for their love and support through the dark days and the bright ones.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ~II~ Abstract ~III~ Acknowledgements ~IV~ Table of Contents ~1~ Chapter One: The Branding of the Prime Minister ~32~ Chapter Two: The St. Laurent Story and the Core Elements of ‘Uncle Louis’ ~72~ Chapter Three: The 1949 Election Campaign or St. Laurent’s Debut ~101~ Chapter Four: The 1953 Election Campaign ~126~ Chapter Five: The 1957 Election Campaign or ‘Uncle Louis’ Rides Again ~168~ Chapter Six: The Legacy of ‘Uncle Louis’ ~172~ Bibliography

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CHAPTER ONE: THE BRANDING OF THE PRIME MINISTER

“It was in 1953 that an austere patrician corporate lawyer of great dignity and bearing was converted to the image of ‘Uncle Louis.’”1 Dalton Camp, Progressive Conservative Strategist

Figure 1.1: 'Uncle Louis' campaigns in Summertown, ON.2

To his opponents in the Tory War Room,3 ‘Uncle Louis’ must have seemed like magic. In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, a quiet, competent, backroom lawyer with a bit of a temper transformed into the country’s grandfather. Louis St. Laurent, a man who had never sought power or public office,4 and who was resentful when he was called to it, proved himself to be a remarkably adept campaigner and politician. ‘Uncle Louis,’ the media’s name for the persona he adopted on the campaign trail, led the Liberals to two majorities and through three elections. He embodied the Liberal party; he became its

1 Dalton. Camp, Gentlemen, Players and Politicians, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 1970), 137. 2 Norman James, “Like Their Elders, Children Greet Prime Minister with Enthusiasm,” Toronto Daily Star, (Toronto, ON), 1 June 1949. 3 For the purpose of this study the terms ‘Tory,’ ‘Progressive Conservative,’ ‘Conservative’ when capitalized, and ‘PC’ are used interchangeably to refer to the federal Progressive Conservative party. 4 This idea of the ‘Call to Service’ was a somewhat fabricated as well. This will be explored further in the next chapter. 2 leader, its mascot, and its brand. By the time of his traditional Maple Leaf Gardens rallies before voting day, no Canadian could have failed to understand that a vote for their local

Liberal was really a vote for ‘Uncle Louis.’ By placing the leader of the party as the primary focus of the campaign and making the party brand and messaging subordinate to that of the party leader, the Liberals gave a face to the party. The Liberals used ‘Uncle

Louis’ and an advanced understanding of branding techniques to win massive majorities.

And, in 1957, his opponents used those same techniques to defeat him, cementing them in the Canadian political toolkit and driving Canadian elections towards a modern, leader- centred campaign style and away from the party-centered politics that had been dominant before.

The Liberal party was the ideal mechanism for this experiment in leader-focused branding and ‘issueless’ campaigning. The Liberal party was, in many ways, the central institution of Canadian political life in the 1950s. They were the bureaucratic party of efficient government, with cabinet ministers of sufficient skill, talent, and authority that they could control their departments absolutely. The Liberal party was absolutely associated with government, so much so that “the distinction between state and party becomes difficult to draw.”5 Government was central to the lives of ordinary Canadians in this period. This made the Liberal party central to Canadian public life as well.

The term 'Natural Governing Party' is generally used either as a way to talk about

Liberal arrogance and entitlement, or perhaps to indicate that the party’s ideology was a natural fit with that of most Canadians. But there is a subtler, deeper meaning as well.

5 Reginald Whitaker, The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party of Canada 1930- 58, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), xxiii. 3

Mackenzie King is often credited with not making Canada into much of anything. F.R.

Scott’s famous poem WLMK contains this stanza:

We had no shape Because he never took sides, And no sides Because he never allowed them to take shape.6

Scott is referring to Canada as a whole, but this applies perhaps even more significantly to what King had made of the Liberal party. He had taken a party that could stake out strong ideological positions on issues such as conscription, as they had under Laurier, and turned it into a party that could take any position at all if it was advantageous, a party that could mean all things to all people because it did not really mean anything in particular. By the mid-1950s, after three decades under King and another under his protégés, the Liberals had become almost entirely ideologically neutral. They had become an administrative party representing managerial efficiency.7 Their function was not to represent a particular point of view, but to govern.8 They did not know who they were if they were not in power. And they had been in power so long that it had become almost unthinkable that anybody else ever would.

This meant that the Liberals could run without a platform, or policies, instead focusing their campaigns on a leader and mascot that radiated trustworthiness. They could point to their leader and their record and say, in effect, ‘We are obviously the best for the job, and we obviously have the best leader. If you want another four years of competent administration vote for us. You have no other real choice in the matter.’ This

6 F.R. Scott, “WLMK,” in The Eye of the Needle: Satires, Sorties, Sundries, (Montreal: Contact Press 1957). 7 John English, The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson Volume II: 1949-1972, (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1992), 148. 8 For a more thorough analysis of this and how it influenced Liberal thinking outside of campaigns, see Reginald Whitaker’s The Government Party. 4 allowed them to run what they called ‘issueless’ campaigns, avoiding proposing potentially unpopular policies, and avoiding attaching their leader to such policies. These campaigns were not entirely devoid of policy discussion, but the Liberals and St. Laurent steadfastly refused to introduce new policies or change existing ones. Instead, when necessary, they described what the government had been doing and would continue to do.

These policy discussions were never central to the Liberal campaign, and were presented more as examples of competent administration than anything else. But this strategy relied on the trustworthiness of both their candidate and the party, which had been eroded somewhat between the 1953 and 1957 elections, with the pipeline debate, the Suez crisis, and other high-profile scandals and crises. This was not the only factor in that loss, but it was a significant one.

The goal of this project is to explain the ‘Uncle Louis’ phenomenon, to find out just how the Liberals were able to win two elections despite deliberately having no meaningful policy platform beyond their existing policy, priding themselves on running

“issueless”9 campaigns where the only real question they asked was ‘Should this government continue?’ It also seeks to find out why they failed to win a third election.

This study will demonstrate how the Liberals used sophisticated branding techniques to create and exploit St. Laurent’s personal brand, and his ‘Uncle Louis’ persona. It will examine the text and images of the advertisements, handbills, posters, speeches, radio spots, television spots, and films that the Liberal party used to propagate the brand image of their candidate. It will also examine the newspaper coverage of St. Laurent and the in- person media events and rallies that introduced him to the voters.

9 Lawrence Leduc et al, Dynasties and Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2010), 150. 5

We are in an age where many voters care far more about personality than platform, where candidates hire media consultants to coach them on the slightest hand movements or vocal inflections, where the ability to act is often seen as more important than the ability to lead. It is vital that we understand this process.

St. Laurent was the first modern prime minister to assume that role without already having a significant public image, being virtually unknown outside Quebec.10 In the previous federal campaigns where the leader’s personal brand was a significant part of the strategy and messaging, Sir John A. Macdonald’s Liberal Conservatives in 1891 (with the slogan ‘The Old Flag, the Old Policy, The Old Leader’), and W.L. Mackenzie King’s

Liberals in 1935 (‘It’s King or Chaos’), the leaders had already had a long public life before the campaign. They were a known quantity, with a fixed public image. This was also true of Wilfrid Laurier once he became party leader. He burst onto the scene quite publicly as a young man, and served dutifully (and prominently) until his turn as leader.

While their parties were able to exploit the public image and personal brand of all three of those men, none of them presented the opportunity that St. Laurent did: the chance to professionally manufacture the image of a leader and a prime minister largely without any public pre-conception, a semi-fictional character rooted in the man himself but also able to be used independently. This was the chance to create a candidate designed to win elections.

The Liberals took advantage of that, creating a brand image and a persona potent enough that they felt confident it could win without new policy or promises, even when

St. Laurent’s behaviour began to undermine it. In doing so, they devoted their brand and

10 John Duffy, Fights of our Lives: Elections, Leadership, and the Making of Canada (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers ltd., 2002), 160-164; Leduc et. al., 133-136; Christopher Pennington, The Destiny of Canada: Macdonald, Laurier, and the Election of 1891, (Toronto: Penguin Group, 2011). 6 campaign strategy almost completely to their leader’s personal brand. St. Laurent and the

Liberals established the model for the leader-centred campaigning that has become the norm in Canada today.

Theoretical Framework

Much of this study’s analysis of the success of the marketing of St. Laurent draws on the conceptual language of brand theory. Brand theory has given a technical vocabulary and rigorous method of analysis for concepts that, while not entirely new, have not benefited from coherent, vigorous tools for academic study. Brand theory allows for the specific isolation and conceptualization of the components of the presentation of

St. Laurent and the ‘Uncle Louis’ persona.

This is especially true of Margaret Scammell’s conceptualization of political branding. Scammell is one of the foremost scholars involved with brand theory, and her book on the marketing of Thatcher, Designer Politics, has become a required political manual in Britain. Brand theory, which has only really come to prominence in the last ten years, essentially challenges traditional rational-economic models of voter behaviour by arguing that voter choice is informed not only by analysis of policy but also by the interaction between how parties and candidates present themselves and how they are perceived by the voting public. As Scammell puts it, “The essentially rational choice models of both political science and political marketing cannot account for the aesthetics of political appeal and performance.”11

Unlike purely economic models of voter behaviour, or rational benefits analysis, brand theory offers the ability to discuss political performance and personality in relation

11 Margaret Scammell, Designer Politics: How Elections are Won, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 10. 7 to voter behaviour and perception of a party’s image.12 The terms Labour or Republican conjure up certain images and associations in much the same way as Coca-Cola or

Volkswagen. Brand theory looks at the balance between substantive performance indicators, such as policy promises and record of competence, and brand differentiators,

“the cultural, psychological, and social associations in consumer choice.”13 Substantive performance indicators speak to the rational mind of the voter, while brand differentiators play on the heart and emotions.14

I have chosen to work with Scammell’s framework specifically because it offers a more nuanced approach to questions of substantive performance indicators than other methods. One of the principle selling points of the Liberal party was St. Laurent’s competence and vague performance metrics about how things were improving.

Scammell’s approach allows for a certain amount of overlap between substantive performance indicators and brand differentiators on topics such as ‘leadership,’ among others. This provides a greater ability to address the vague overlaps that the party was presenting in many of their ads.

The essence of the Liberal political strategy in the St. Laurent years was the leader’s personal brand. St. Laurent was front and centre in their campaigning, their marketing, their advertising, and their messaging. By 1953 voters were urged to “Vote St.

Laurent”15 and that a vote for a Liberal was a vote for St. Laurent. When analysing that

12 Margaret Scammell, "Politics and Image: The Conceptual Value of Branding," Journal Of Political Marketing 14, no. 1/2, (January 2015), 10-11. 13 Scammell, Designer Politics, 12. 14 Scammell, "Politics and Image,” 15. As an example, In the 2004 US presidential election, John Kerry’s positive advertisements emphasized his substantive performance indicators with specific references to things like his voting record on tax cuts, while Bush’s ads focused more on brand differentiators, connecting him to patriotic, optimistic imagery, family, etc. This was very similar to how St. Laurent and George Drew conducted their 1953 campaigns. 15 National Liberal Federation of Canada, Ad. No. 5305-D, MG 28 IV-3, volume 815, folder GE-1953 Advertisements-Proofs, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 8 brand, it is important to distinguish between St. Laurent’s personal traits (his brand differentiators), and the metrics by which voters could judge his, and his party’s, success

(the substantive performance indicators). While there is a certain amount of overlap between the two, they are distinct and were employed very differently by the Liberals and their marketers. Brand theory not only provides the technical language to make these distinctions, but the conceptual tools to recognize and work with them.

The Questions Driving this Project

The initial question that drove this project was why St. Laurent was so successful, and was his success an aberration? Only three times in Canadian history has the new leader of a party in power won the subsequent election (St. Laurent, Pierre Trudeau, and

Martin). I had numerous questions about the process of leadership transition and how parties present new leaders to the public. In the process of working through the archival material, it became apparent just how central St. Laurent, and particularly the ‘Uncle

Louis’ persona he adopted on the hustings, was to the Liberal election strategy. There was also a profound disconnect between St. Laurent the Cabinet Minister and ‘Uncle Louis’ the Campaigner. As a cabinet minister under Mackenzie King, St. Laurent was primarily known for being a solid, competent, and understated man. While he was the face of the party and of Canada in Quebec, he had very little profile outside that province. He was hardly a likely candidate to be the nation’s grandfather, but the ease with which he took to campaigning, and how well he fell into the role, was a surprise to even his closest advisors.

I could not believe that the elections in 1949 and 1953 were as boring and forgettable as they have been presented, nor that there was only one way to tell the story of 1957. Why has no one investigated this? Why is there such a dearth of scholarship on 9 federal politics between 1945 and 1957? Are there unique problems facing this topic and period?

There are several questions guiding this project. The principle questions, of course, are how much of the Liberal party’s strategy revolved around the idea of ‘Uncle

Louis’, and how much of their success could be attributed to that strategy? To answer those questions, a few more need to be asked. How much of the Liberal brand and strategy was bound up in the ‘Uncle Louis’ persona? How much of a presence was ‘Uncle

Louis’ in the three elections where St. Laurent was a leader (1949, 1953, 1957), and how much did that contribute to success in those three elections? Was the loss in 1957 in part because of this strategy? How much of ‘Uncle Louis’ was an affectation and how much was genuine, how much of St. Laurent was in ‘Uncle Louis’ and vice versa? Was it solely a product of political marketers? Who was in charge of election strategy, the politicians, the marketers, or the party operatives? Why did that persona resonate with voters? What strategies did the Tories use to oppose this phenomenon? To what extent did this phenomenon represent something genuinely new in Canadian politics?

One of the major problems facing anyone who would look into St. Laurent and his campaigning is, quite simply, a lack of evidence from the man himself. His predecessor

Mackenzie King, was a notorious packrat who kept every scrap of paper and correspondence. King’s expansive diary is, almost unequivocally, the most significant single source for the study of Canadian history and politics. Entire generations of historians could get lost plumbing its depths. St. Laurent has left little behind, and even less in his own words. Unlike his successors John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson, there is no diary or memoir, and his archives are also famously, and frustratingly, scant. While it is comforting to know that he responded to every letter from national diabetes charities, 10 anyone looking to understand his inner thoughts about his work or the art of campaigning, or, frankly, anything else, will soon be frustrated and stymied.

St. Laurent also committed the unpardonable sin of being an ostensibly boring prime minister in ostensibly boring times, particularly in terms of the domestic politics that dominate elections. Canada enjoyed, for the most part, a “comfortable period of placid prosperity,”16 where the vast majority of people who wanted a job could have one, unlike the calamity of the Great Depression. The Quiet Revolution had yet to arrive, or to bring with it the spectre and threat of Quebec nationalism and separation. Many of the realities of the Cold War had yet to sink in, and the Korean War was hardly the existential crisis or national project that the Second World War had been. In terms of foreign policy, the fifties were hardly the dynamic post-war period when the world was remade. And even when there were specific cases of interest, like the Suez Crisis, St. Laurent had been replaced by his protégé Pearson as the face of Canadian external relations.

St. Laurent also seems to be a boring man between interesting men. The revelations of the King Diary have kept generations of political historians interested and employed. Diefenbaker’s rise and paranoia-fuelled fall is the great story of promise unfulfilled. His contrast with Pearson, not to mention Pearson’s implementation of universal health care, has made the later into something of a folk hero. Essentially, excepting among specialist scholars of foreign affairs, St. Laurent has been seen as something of a placeholder prime minster, his legacy suffering too much from the competent management and relative calm that were some of his greatest assets during his career.

16 Robert Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 20, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 24, 2015, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/st_laurent_louis_stephen_20E.html. 11

There are many reasons as to why one might be drawn to this particular topic.

There is a significant lack of scholarship on the elections between 1945 and 1957, a hole in our understanding that needs to be filled. There are two national elections that no one has examined in a meaningful way, and an entire government that has been largely forgotten. The conventional presentations just do not go far enough and, in fact, obscure a lot of what was going on. Only a few works discuss these elections, and those are mostly general works that only mention them in passing. These will be discussed more fully in the next section on historiography.

There are also several unique facets to these elections. In the 1949 election, the winning party ran a positive campaign with no new policy proposals. They simply put the leader front and centre and relied on general goodwill and trust to carry them through.

This was substantially different from the traditional methods of campaigning in Canada.

By 1953 voters were often told not to mark the ballot for the local candidate, or evens the

Liberals, but for St. Laurent. This was a strategy that the Diefenbaker campaign borrowed in 1957. Much of the groundwork for modern campaigning was laid down here. There are eerie similarities, for example, in how the ‘Harper Conservatives’ and the ‘Harper

Government’ packaged Steven Harper as a sweater-wearing father figure who had a steady hand on the rudder of the nation’s business. Questions about the marketing of candidates remain crucial and important in contemporary politics.

Historiography

Not much research has been done on electoral politics during St. Laurent’s time as prime minister. There are only a few academic studies that reference the period, some general works and texts with a brief note, and a few popular histories. Nearly all of these 12 sources exclusively discuss the 1957 election, and those that do reference the previous campaigns only provide a few sentences or a short paragraph on the subject.

Much of this scholarship tends to repeat a particular narrative, particularly those works that only focus on 1957. The Liberal party under St. Laurent is, essentially, treated as simply an extension of the party under King. It carried on much as before, propelled by the momentum of inevitability and incumbency, refusing to change or innovate. They simply applied “King’s formula for holding power,”17 exploiting the French-English divide in Quebec, and the domination of the centre-left in the rest of the country. As this story goes, they continued this practice until, in 1957, they hit the brick wall that was

John Diefenbaker and his political wunderkinds led by Dalton Camp, as the scandals and failures of more than twenty years in power finally caught up with the Liberals. No one had seriously thought that the Tories had any “chance of turfing the ‘natural governing party’ out of office.”18 But it was the Tories that ushered in the “birth of the modern in

Canadian politics,”19 dragging political strategy out of the Great Depression and into the

Atomic Age.

This story is repeated all over, from general texts such as Bothwell, Drummond and English’s standard text Canada since 1945, to more specialized and specific works such as McCall-Newman’s Grits: An Intimate Portrait of the Liberal Party, to non- academic popular histories like John Duffy’s Fights of our Lives. It is easy to see why.

It’s a compelling David and Goliath story for a period often seen as rather dull and unexciting. It’s also a progress narrative and a story of modernity, where the dynamic, new, young ideas of electoral strategy and tactics defeated the old, tried, and true.

17 Duffy, 177. 18 Duffy, 174. 19 Duffy, 176. 13

There are many Canadian elections that have these sorts of convenient narratives or shorthands that allow us to explain them quickly and move on. They become how we remember, and misremember, what actually happened. The only moment that mattered in

1984 was Mulroney saying, “You had an option, sir” and the only issue in 1917 was conscription. But things are never as simple as we want them to be, and nothing ever comes done to just one moment or cause. Voters are complex animals, making decisions for a wide variety of reasons.

While there are no studies that thoroughly examine the 1949 and 1953 elections, there are a few academic studies that at least reference them. These studies are less prone to buy in to the conventional narrative than the popular and academic works that only examine 1957. However, none of those studies seriously, or thoroughly, looks at political branding or campaigning strategy and methods, especially in the years covered by this study.

One of the first volumes consulted for this project was Reginald Whitaker’s 1977 study of the Liberal party, The Government Party. Beginning as his doctoral dissertation, this volume describes the internal party organization and financing from 1930 to 1958.

Whitaker argues that that period saw the height of ministerial power over the party. He also argues that the influence of the advertising agencies over party politics began in the post-war period, as advertising men, particularly H.E. Kidd, found themselves in positions of power and influence within the party itself.20 This points to the strong shift towards the role of professional marketers and advertisers in politics, “those skilled in the techniques of mass selling were gradually becoming more important than old-fashioned

20 Whitaker, 186. 14 politicians or organizers.”21 However, as Whitaker demonstrates, the ad men were not yet in charge. This was the height of ministerial authority, with St. Laurent tending to stay out of the way of his ministers, particularly C.D. Howe. This “ministerialist” 22 structure allowed his best ministers to have the freedom to push for sound policies, but being disconnected from political realities also left them open to arrogance, missteps, and scandal. The freedom that Howe had led to the pipeline debate that cost them so dearly in

1957.

Whitaker is singularly useful as no one else really describes this aspect of the party’s internal workings, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s. However, he is also almost aggressively apolitical, not examining “voting support, party ideology, parliamentary behaviour, administrative performance, or the social and economic basis of recruitment,”23 choosing instead to give the necessary space to questions of party organization and finance. For the purposes of his study these were the correct decisions.

However, given that this study is explicitly interested in questions of political strategy, it does limit his utility in those respects.

As this is an analysis of the entire period from 1930 to 1958, he does make mention of both 1949 and 1953. He is one of the few sources to recognize that the fifties signaled a change in the conduct of professional politics, arguing that “in a real sense, the elections of 1949 and 1953 were the first Canadian elections dominated by a consciously manipulated media image of the party leader.”24 This is very similar to the position taken in this thesis. However, these sorts of questions were not the focus of his work. He only

21 Whitaker, 186. 22 Whitaker, xxiii. 23 Whitaker, viii. 24 Whitaker, 237. 15 devotes a few sentences to the topic in his much larger work. Until now no one has picked up this off-handed comment and done a more thorough study on media image and branding.

Another study that looks beyond 1957, and one of the more comprehensive recent accounts of Canadian elections, is Dynasties and Interludes by Lawrence Leduc et. al.

Leduc, a professor at the University of Toronto, is one of Canada’s foremost experts on voter behaviour. The authors argue that Canada has followed a pattern of extended periods of hegemonic rule by a single party or leader punctuated by short disruptions caused by new parties, leaders or social movements. There are a number of problems with this approach. The authors tend to force their metaphor along party lines, identifying each

Liberal government as a dynasty while only identifying one Conservative dynasty, that of

Sir John A. Macdonald. The long tenures of both Brian Mulroney and Sir Robert Borden were characterized as “extended interludes.”25 This re-enforces the notion that the

Liberals are Canada’s natural governing party, which prevents the authors from impartially commenting on extended periods.

Despite this, the discussion of individual elections, when divorced from the overall narrative they present, is thorough, albeit brief given the breadth of the study. The short accounts of the 1949 and 1953 elections are some of the only academic treatments.

The authors do acknowledge the St. Laurent’s personal popularity and media exposure represented something new in Canadian politics, and are what allowed the Liberals to run an “issueless” campaign.26 They do not devote much time or space to the topic, however, and their analysis is weakened by the need to make the facts fit their narrative. They also

25 Leduc et al, 29. 26 Leduc et al, 150. 16 rely extensively on secondary sources rather than original research. For the purposes of their narrative, they treat St. Laurent’s time in office as an extension of King’s dynasty rather than on its own terms.

One of the works that Whitaker makes frequent reference to is Meisel’s The

Canadian General Election of 1957.27 Written as a PhD thesis, this is an extensive, statistical analysis and post-mortem of the election. It provides a granular sense of the election, with regional voter breakdowns and commentary as to what resonated with voters. Meisel also speaks to larger issues, going into considerable detail on issues of party messaging, candidate performance, and the use of new media, particularly television. It was published only five years after the election and benefits from being fresh and current but still manages to maintain an appropriate distance from its subject matter.

Despite the strength and depth of his analysis, there are several weaknesses with

Meisel’s work. He fails to thoroughly study images and advertising, weakening his ability to discuss candidate image in a campaign where that was vital. Even where he discusses advertising, he does not include the actual advertisements, or parse them as would be done in a more modern study. He also does not contextualize the 1957 campaign sufficiently in relation to 1949 and 1953. As this was a study specifically on the 1957 election, this can be forgiven. But as this study will show, many of the Progressive

Conservative strategies in 1957 were taken from the Liberals’ successful 1953 Liberal campaign and that the 1957 election cannot be fully understood in isolation.

27 John Meisel, The Canadian General Election of 1957, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 159. 17

Meisel does not over-romanticize Diefenbaker and the Tories’ victory, or the difficulty of the challenge they faced as do the popular histories that look exclusively at

1957. Instead, he carefully analyses the weaknesses of the Liberal campaign: its spending strategy; the difficulties with specific ministers (Howe especially); and St. Laurent’s age, temper, and resistance to change. He compares these quite effectively with the strengths of the Tory campaign, presenting a thoughtful, compelling and invaluable analysis that is a considerable step up from any prior campaign post-mortem. Unfortunately, no such accounts exist for the two previous elections, posing a barrier to more casual and general research. This may have contributed to the lack of study of those two elections.

The other significant book on the Liberal party, besides Whitaker, is Christina

McCall-Newman’s Grits: An Intimate portrait of the Liberal Party. Her study begins after Whitaker’s, in the aftermath of 1958, but is mainly focused on the Trudeau years.

McCall-Newman was a journalist, and, unlike Whitaker, her account is principally based on interviews and correspondence rather than archival work. Also unlike Whitaker, she is more interested in personalities than organizational structure. McCall-Newman uses the

1979 election as a framing device, which allows her to give her narrative some coherence, but strips events of some of their inherit importance as they are all elements culminating in that moment, rather than events worthy of studying for their own sake.

Her discussion of the 1958 election, as well her impression of the period, draws heavily on Keith Davey’s recollections. Davey took over the party’s electoral strategy in the early 1960s. His memoir tends to inflate his own importance, and he presents the party before his arrival as hopelessly backward and mired in the past and the old ways of doing things. McCall-Newman presents the party before 1958 in much the same way, playing in to the conventional narrative. 18

Susan Delacourt’s 2013 book Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them is a popular primer on political marketing techniques. She has provided a valuable introductory text in political marketing, particularly in a contemporary Canadian context. Delacourt essentially argues that marketing and branding have come to dominate politics, with platforms being designed to appeal to niche groups of voters rather than attempting to provide broad consensus or national vision. Her evidence as it relates to contemporary politics is compelling, she has been an award winning political journalist since the 1980s. However, being a non-academic work,

Delacourt is more interested in presenting a compelling, rather than a critical, account and there are number of problems with how she handles St. Laurent in particular.

Delacourt was not writing a history, and she provides only a brief discussion of a selected number of elections. She makes no mention of 1949 or 1953, but does offer one of the more extreme versions of the conventional narrative. She does not discuss the

Liberal marketing efforts, preferring to present a hero narrative of the Progressive

Conservatives, particularly Diefenbaker, Alistair Grosart, and Camp. She credits Grosart and Camp with the idea to make the leader the main focus and the main product of the campaign, something the Liberals had been doing for eight years at that point. Camp’s memoirs make it clear that the Liberal strategy, particularly in 1953, played a significant role in inspiring the PCs to employ similar methods in marketing Diefenbaker. Grosart and Camp were instrumental in bringing these tactics to the Tories, and particularly to

Diefenbaker, but, as will be demonstrated in the chapter on that election, they were well aware that they were co-opting Liberal strategies.

Delacourt makes frequent reference to John Duffy’s Fights of our Lives, another popular work on federal elections that the author has selected as important or critical. 19

Delacourt’s dragon-slaying story is primarily taken from how Duffy presents it. But while

Delacourt was not writing a history focused on particular elections, Duffy was. That being the case, his tendency to shape events to fit his narrative is of greater concern.

Duffy argues that 1957 was of critical importance, while providing only a few sentences discussing 1949 and 1953. Duffy claims that the elections of 1957 and 1958

“make up a single fight that marked both the eclipse of the political system that had prevailed for thirty years and the birth of the modern in Canadian politics,”28 arguing that the campaigning of St. Laurent followed directly on King’s practice of employing divisions between French and English Canadians in Quebec, and occupying the ‘mushy middle’ on the political spectrum in the rest of the country. This ignores how St. Laurent was marketed and the other changes that occurred in 1949 and beyond. St. Laurent cannot and should not be accused of exploiting the French-English divide in this way. King knew he could not personally speak effectively to Quebec, and relied on his Quebec lieutenants,

Lapointe and St. Laurent, to represent the party in that province. This often resulted in a disconnection between the campaigns in English and French Canada.

St. Laurent had no such problem, and prided himself as speaking to all of Canada with one voice. Being able to speak effectively and represent both French and English

Canadians was central to his brand image. A frequent (and justified) attack on George

Drew and his Tories was that they were saying one thing in Quebec and another in the rest of Canada. Duffy’s argument that St. Laurent was simply an extension of King and his policies and practices is wholly inaccurate.

28 Duffy, 176. 20

Very few studies have looked into any of the elections of the 1950s, and those that have almost exclusively look at the 1957 election exclusively. These tend to play into the conventional narrative, over-romanticizing the Tory victory and failing to understand how it was based on previous Liberal successes. Those that do touch, however briefly, on the previous two elections do acknowledge that something more complicated was going on, but do not delve much further than that. In any case, there is a sizable hole in the historiography, as there are no significant studies of the 1949 and 1953 elections, or of

Liberal branding and strategy in those campaigns.

Archives and Other Primary Resources

In determining how to approach the archival research for this project, there were the dual problems of both incredible abundance and stunning paucity. Many of the fonds available are vast and detailed, but not all of them. As might be expected with a project of this kind, the bulk of the research was done at Library and Archives Canada and benefitted from the support and resources of a major government department. Many of the subjects of this study also had a keen eye towards how they would be remembered, and this extended towards the materials they kept and memoirs they wrote. The party files hold an incredible amount of material.

Unfortunately, this care and consideration for posterity did not extend to this study’s principle subject. St. Laurent’s personal fonds are infamously scanty, and this assessment is based on more than a comparison with his packrat of a predecessor. Little was kept in terms of personal information, government business or the business of the party. Because of this, the fonds and memoirs of both cabinet colleagues and others who worked closely with him on the business of the cabinet or the party, or who knew him in more personal moments, particularly Jack Pickersgill and Brooke Claxton, have been 21 consulted. These individuals were selected because they wrote expansive memoirs

(Claxton’s is as yet unpublished, but contained in his fonds) which are contrasted with the archival sources to fill in the gaps in both. Pearson and Paul Martin Sr.’s memoirs, and

Pearson’s fonds, were also consulted but these proved to be less useful to the project than those of Pickersgill or Claxton.

Brooke Claxton served in many roles during his political career, including

Minister of Health and Welfare and Minister of National Defence. However, for the purposes of this study, his role as the unofficial political head of the party organization is most relevant. While St. Laurent was technically head of the party both inside and outside the House, he did not relish the political machinations required of the later role, preferring to leave the politics to others while he focused on governance. Claxton was the chief voice of the cabinet in the party’s internal workings, particularly when it came to election strategy.29 He had a very close working relationship with H. E. Kidd, who was the party’s publicity director and the head of their election operations until 1958. The 1953 campaign saw Kidd “seeking Claxton’s approval for virtually every piece of publicity material used in the campaign.”30 This relationship extended even after Claxton’s retirement from politics in 1954, with a great deal of correspondence and commiseration on the 1957 results. Claxton also worked extensively with Cockfield Brown, the Liberal party’s advertising agency in the period under review, and there is a good deal of correspondence back and forth there as well. Claxton’s fonds also contain his unpublished memoir, and while he tends to inflate his own importance in certain events, he provides considerable insight into the national campaign.

29 David Jay Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1993), 203. 30 Bercuson, 258. 22

One of the first people selected for this project was Jack Pickersgill. Pickersgill was the civil servant turned partisan politician, serving as Mackenzie King’s private secretary before becoming cabinet secretary and, eventually, a member of Cabinet under

St. Laurent. He also served as something of a ‘batman’ to St. Laurent in the 1949 election, travelling with him, writing his speeches, and seeing to his schedule and daily needs. In this role, he was also the connection between St. Laurent and the party apparatus, and a key strategist. He also served in this role in the 1953 election, although as he was standing himself in Newfoundland. By 1957, he had largely given up this role, although he might have been able to mitigate some of the disaster of that election had he stayed on. He offers considerably more access to the day-to-day campaign of St. Laurent than any other source and has been indispensable to this project. Two of his three memoirs, the more political My Years with Louis St. Laurent and the more personal Seeing Canada Whole, are full of useful and interesting stories.31 He was considerably closer to St. Laurent than anyone else on the campaign trail and indispensable for this project. His fonds are also curiously sanitary and small, however, but they do contain some useful correspondence with party insiders.

One of the other elements to the shallowness of St. Laurent historiography is the lack of good biographies, although whether this is symptom or disease is unclear. There are only three biographies of St. Laurent: the dry, short entry in the Dictionary of

Canadian Biography by Robert Bothwell, Jack Pickersgill’s very brief biography from the ‘The Canadians’ series, and the only significant biography, Dale Thomson’s 1967 book Louis St. Laurent: Canadian. There are a number of problems with this last account.

31 His other memoir, The Road Back, is in a similar style to My Years and covers the period after St. Laurent’s retirement. It is of less use for this project. 23

Thomson, who was St. Laurent’s principle secretary, wrote a very personal account which sometimes drifts too far into being a hagiography, and at other times is very similar to the memoirs of Jack Pickersgill and Gordon Robertson.32 There is value to this approach,

Thomson has considerably more knowledge of the day-to-day affairs of St. Laurent’s office than an academic historian would be able to discover from the archives,33 and he was able to work closely with St. Laurent and his family, although that meant that his biography does not address the last six years of St. Laurent’s life. However, the lack of a full and more dispassionate academic biography with which to contrast Thomson’s work is an obvious and significant problem.34

The Liberal party also holds its own fonds at LAC (which are combined with the

H.E. Kidd fonds), and while they are extensive, they are also fairly disorganized. There are some very valuable materials, including campaign literature and correspondence with the Cockfield Brown advertising agency, both of which provide insight to the planning of campaign stops and appearances and overall strategy. The fonds also contain responses to the Gallup polls and weekly handouts for local canvassers, which show a week by week change in what the party was focusing on and what people were responding to. The fonds also contain many transcripts of radio and television addresses and numerous other treasures.

There are a number of issues with these fonds. A great deal of material simply is not there. While official correspondence, receipts for payments to Cockfield Brown,

32 My Years with Louis St. Laurent and Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant respectively. 33 Thomson was actually in charge of moving St. Laurent’s papers to the National Archives when he retired. Bothwell, in his commentary on his Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry, has speculated that this might be one of the reasons that those fonds are so famously paltry and inadequate. One is left to wonder what files specifically did not make their way to the archives. 34 Bothwell himself identifies the general inadequacy of his short piece for this task, and St. Laurent historiography in general, in the comments made to direct people to further reading. 24 mock-ups and finished pamphlets and other advertisements were all plentiful, there is really no way to know what was said that was not written down. During a campaign where quick decisions are important, high level decisions are far more likely to be made by picking up the phone or walking down the hall than waiting for written correspondence. While one should not expect verbatim transcripts of every conversation, there are few phone records or meeting minutes (although some follow-up correspondence exists), which makes it difficult to understand what sort of strategy discussions were taking place. On matters directly relating to this subject, specifically marketing and messaging, there is relatively little in the party files. They can describe precisely how many of a particular pamphlet were ordered, but rarely what thinking went in to designing it. There are a few instances where those sorts of conversations were transcribed, recorded for a report, or carried out through correspondence, but these are rare. Memoirs, interviews, and the occasional hint in correspondence have been relied on to get around this issue, as well as looking for when party messaging changed in speeches and the talking points given to local canvassers.

The Progressive Conservative party fonds were a different beast altogether. It was hoped that this collection might help fill in some of the gaps that were left from the

Liberal party papers, which dealt with a lot of nitty gritty issues (such as how many flags, banners, flyers and matchbooks were order for every campaign event), but little on overarching strategy. It was also hoped that they would offer a sense of how the Liberals’ chief rivals dealt with the Liberal campaign, particularly going in to 1957. These fonds contain a treasure trove of material. The PCs had extensive records on their own campaign materials, which in many respects were quite different to the Liberal materials.

For example, George Drew made no effort to humanize himself the way St. Laurent did, 25 and his pictures on flyers and the like stand in stark contrast to those of the Liberals. The

PCs also included many of the planning materials for their local canvassers, including the ground game manuals given to local riding associations. While these are particular to the

PCs, they provide valuable insight into how campaigns were organized and carried out.

Much of this can be generalized for the Liberal campaigns as well.

The PCs also kept meticulous records of mentions of St. Laurent in many newspapers across the country, including many smaller papers whose archives, where they exist, would have otherwise been geographically inaccessible. It becomes clear that the PCs, particularly under Drew, were obsessed with the media coverage of St. Laurent but were unable to effectively combat it; there are far, far fewer mentions of Drew in the newspaper clippings and it seems unlikely that the PCs would have ignored how their own leader was being covered in collecting this material.

Beyond the extensive material collected in the Progressive Conservative party fonds, a conscious decision was made to use the coverage provided by three specific papers: the Toronto Daily Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, and to a lesser extent the Globe and Mail. As three of the largest daily papers, they had great access to the prime minister’s tours and extensive coverage throughout the campaign. They were able to follow him with their own reporters. These papers also had complete collections that were relatively accessible, either as digital archives or on microfilm. Beyond that, and the impossibility of working with every newspaper in the country, there are some specific reasons for choosing these papers to work with.

In the period under review, the Toronto Daily Star was one of the most widely circulated Liberal-friendly papers in the country. There are three particular reasons it was chosen for this project. Firstly, the Star more often printed the full text of St. Laurent’s 26 speeches, or at least the bulk of them, rather than just excerpts or quotes. Given St.

Laurent’s tendency to improvise and go ‘off book,’ this is invaluable. Secondly, the Star had the most extensive photo journalism of any major paper, not just the Liberal friendly ones. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the editorial board had feuded with George

Drew, the former Premier of Ontario and St. Laurent’s chief rival, for some ten years before and was determined to not let him win.35 In fact, the Star’s publisher Harry

Hindmarsh “spent more than $5,000 establishing a bureau in Quebec”36 hoping to expose potential ties between the federal Conservatives and Maurice Duplessis’ Union Nationale to embarrass Drew in British Ontario.

Figure 1.2: The Globe and Mail was well aware of the Star’s bias in the 1949 campaign.37

The Star had been a Liberal paper long before the period under review, but the connection was particularly strong in these years. The Star could be reliably counted on

35 Allan Levine, Scrum Wars: The Prime Ministers and the Media, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1996), 193. 36 Levine, Scrum Wars, 193. 37 Jack Boothe, “Panic? Who’s in the Panic?,” Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 2 June 1949. 27 to report exactly the talking points, themes, and, perhaps most importantly, images that

Claxton, Kidd, and Pickersgill wanted them to. As much of this project is about demonstrating how the brand of St. Laurent was used and not just how it was received, this sort of biased coverage is invaluable in understanding how the Liberals wanted St.

Laurent to be perceived.

The Winnipeg Free Press was perhaps the most significant daily in the prairies, and certainly the most important Liberal-friendly paper. The Free Press was more loyal to liberalism than Liberals, however, and was not afraid to call out the party when the editorial board felt that they were not cleaving close enough to those values. They also often printed full texts, or at least large sections, of St. Laurent’s speeches, particularly those delivered in western Canada that the Star did not always cover. The Free Press has been used extensively, particularly for the 1957 election, where the leaders’ western tours were even more important, and eventful, than in other elections.

The Globe and Mail, the most significant Conservative friendly daily, has also been consulted. Their coverage of the Liberal campaign was not nearly as extensive as either the Star or the Free Press, but they were invaluable in showing the Tory reaction to the Liberal campaign. Their biting editorial cartoons were of particular use for this.

A weakness in the selection of papers is the relative lack of French language titles.

Part of the reason for this was access, as fewer French language titles were available either in searchable, digital archives or on microfilm in the university libraries where the bulk of the research on newspapers was done. Another part of this was my own lack of ability in French, which impeded the sort of detailed analysis done on other newspapers cited in this study. The Montreal paper Le Devoir was consulted in the later stages of this project, but it has not been cited as extensively as other papers. While I am less able to 28 speak to the reception of the St. Laurent brand image for French-speaking audiences, I have cited some of the Liberal party’s own French language materials, which demonstrate that Liberal messaging remained consistent in both French and English. The poll numbers and vote tallies included in this study also demonstrate the effectiveness of Liberal campaigning in this period.

Part of this project involves understanding the effectiveness of the Liberal campaign in winning over voters and which aspects of their campaign were most effective. One of the main tools used to do this here is the Gallup polls. By the period under review, Gallup, as the Canadian Institute of Public Opinion, was a well-established organization that had been operating in Canada for several decades. CIPO published regular scientific polls during the campaign asking a host of questions on topics such as leadership and policy. While the Liberals were not commissioning polls themselves

(despite some flirtations with this in the 1940s), they were paying attention to the results of the public polls. The CIPO polls provide one of best tools available to gauge campaign effectiveness. Unfortunately, while they were effective in tracking voter preference in terms of parties, they did not thoroughly track leader preference, or which aspects of party platforms or campaigns were resonating with voters. Some individual polls addressed this, but they were not a regular part of the questionnaire throughout the campaign.

In many ways Dalton Camp’s memoir, Gentlemen, Players and Politicians, is the most interesting and the most infuriating book consulted for this project. Interesting because it is an inside track on how the campaign was managed, giving an unparalleled insight into campaign strategy, tactical thinking, and party organization at the top.

Infuriating because he worked for the wrong party. Camp is widely credited with being one of the people most responsible for modernizing Canadian political strategy, working 29 as campaign manager for several provincial elections before taking over as public relations director for the Tories for the 1957 campaign. He was a part of the inner circle of professional political managers who ushered in such innovations as targeted campaign spending in marginal ridings rather than country-wide efforts, the heavy, focused use of scientific polling data and numerous other tactics that have become part of the standard political toolbox. Unfortunately, Camp does not provide insight into the Liberal war room, but he does describe the kind of thinking that was typical of election strategy during the period under review, as well as an understanding of how the Tories were surprised by, and sought to combat, the ‘Uncle Louis’ phenomenon. He is also vital to understanding how the Tories later used the Liberals’ 1953 playbook when marketing

Diefenbaker.

In a similar vein to Camp, telling the Tory side of the story, is Peter Stursberg’s

Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained 1956-62. For this remarkable and invaluable work of oral history, Stursberg interviewed some 40 people,38 nearly all of the major players in both the PC and Liberal parties. Diefenbaker, St. Laurent, and Pearson39 are not personally featured, but such figures as Dalton Camp, Gordon Churchill, Allister Grosart,

Merrill Menzies, Paul Martin Sr., and Jack Pickersgill are, among many others. Stursberg presents their words essentially verbatim (with some allowances for the transfer to the written word),40 grouped chronologically and thematically. The project is, of course, focused on Diefenbaker, but there are plenty of stories about how both parties viewed each other and their respective campaigns. This work is a landmark of Canadian oral

38 Peter Stursberg, Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained 1956-62, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), IX. 39 Pearson unfortunately died before the project was properly underway. 40 Stursberg, XV. 30 history, a thoroughly engrossing read, and supremely useful for this project.

Unfortunately, it has no equivalent for either the 1949 or 1953 campaigns.

Chapter Structure

The chapters of this work are structured both chronologically and thematically.

The second chapter breaks down the components of the ‘Uncle Louis’ persona based on the concepts of brand theory, using the film The St. Laurent Story, developed long before

St. Laurent went on the hustings, indicating that the persona was cultivated and did not develop organically. The next three chapters each study a particular election, tracing the development of Liberal leader-centred strategy and the use of St. Laurent nd ‘Uncle

Louis.’ The chapter on the 1949 election looks specifically at how the use of the St.

Laurent persona developed on the hustings. The chapter on the 1953 election focuses on how the leader-centred strategy became the dominant Liberal tool, and also demonstrating the flaws that ultimately led to their defeat. The subsequent chapter looks at the 1957 election, when the Liberals largely failed to properly use the strategies that had been successful in the past, while still going through the motions of their former successful campaigns. It also looks at how the Tories co-opted the leader-centred style of campaign, as well as other Liberal tactics, proving that it was not only St. Laurent who could employ them effectively.

‘Uncle Louis’ was the face of politics in the 1950s, both figuratively and literally.

Literally because of the aggressive marketing of St. Laurent as leader and the use of the

‘Uncle Louis’ persona, using his face and image on the vast majority of their advertisements, and also because of his presence in media reports of the campaign. The party brand became essentially synonymous with that of St. Laurent, becoming subordinate to the brand of the leader. Figuratively because the ways in which the 31

Liberals marketed St. Laurent are some of the earliest examples of the modernization of political strategy, tactics, and the methodology of political branding that were so prominent during the late 1950s and the 1960s.

Despite this, the majority of the slim historiography that does exist tends to minimize, downplay, or ignore the role that ‘Uncle Louis’ played in the modernization of

Canadian politics. By working with archival sources and memoirs, and by employing the concepts of brand theory, this study will demonstrate the importance of ‘Uncle Louis’ and the marketing of St. Laurent as leader, both for the party’s electoral fortunes and for the practice of political marketing in Canada generally.

32

CHAPTER TWO: THE ST-LAURENT STORY AND THE CORE ELEMENTS OF ‘UNCLE LOUIS’

Figure 2.1: 'Uncle Louis' could always be counted on to find time for children while on the hustings, especially if there was a camera nearby.41

In the run-up to the 1949 election, the Liberals had two key concerns: introducing

St. Laurent to the country, and explaining why they deserved another mandate after 14 years of uninterrupted Liberal governments. Both were tricky propositions, and each fed into the other. The Liberals now faced the daunting task of convincing the electorate that a new leader represented enough change to keep them in power, but not so much change as to scare off voters who were largely pleased with Liberal policies. Attempting this tightrope walk has toppled many governments in Canada, but in this case the Liberals succeeded. They crafted the public perception of St. Laurent as both a new man and a non-threatening part of the old government, and they did this work immediately after his election, not giving their opponents the time to frame their candidate.

41 Norman James, “Prime Minister St. Laurent Tells Windsor Audience Liberal Government Will Campaign on Its Record, Not Promises,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 23 June 1953. 33

This early framing of candidates has become an increasing pressing concern in modern politics. If you do not tell the voters who your candidate is, your opponent will.

In recent history, electoral disaster struck for John Kerry in 2004 (‘flip-flopper’) and

Michael Ignatieff in 2009 (‘just visiting’) when they allowed their opponents to craft their image and brand identity. The Liberals’ own research showed that most Canadians were

“not aware of St. Laurent at all.”42 Liberal control over how he was perceived was vital.

And so “the presentation of (their) new leader to the people of Canada (was) project No.

1.”43

This presentation, particularly in 1949, focused principally on brand differentiators and positive emotional images rather than substantive performance indicators, which were more closely tied to the Liberal party.44 This was very similar to

George W. Bush’s 2004 US presidential campaign, which subjugated “policy to brand identity.”45 Karl Rove, the chief strategist for Bush’s US presidential campaigns, believed that voters only really care about three questions: “Is the candidate a strong leader? Can I trust him? Does he care about people like me?”46 The Liberal answers to these questions shaped how they packaged St. Laurent, and the key emotional themes they used to sell his party, namely: optimism; prosperity; family; stability; and security. These sorts of

42 The National Liberal Federation, Pre-election Period Activity, 1949, MG 32 G9, volume 5, file 11 NLF Liberal Party -Strategy + Functions, Draft Papers, Memoranda, Reports 1952-57, Henry Erskine Kidd fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 3. Unfortunately, the first two pages of this document, with its proper title, have not been preserved in the archives. 43 Pre-election Period Activity, 4. 44 This would start to change in 1953 as the party’s messaging became increasing subordinate to the St. Laurent brand. More specifically, the party’s record of achievement was identified as the record of achievement under the leadership of St. Laurent. 45 Margaret Scammell, Consumer Democracy, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 96. 46 Joe Klein, Politics Lost, (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 144-145. 34 positive themes are particularly effective, as “hope, above all other emotions, is essential to the formation of a candidate image that will translate into votes.”47

Figure 2.2: St. Laurent was shown with crowds of children as often as he was with them one on one.48

This chapter will present the key components of St. Laurent’s persona, brand, and the marketing campaign of the Liberal party, broken down between four key themes: St.

Laurent’s bi-cultural nature and ancestral history in Canada; St. Laurent’s role as a parent and grandparent and his interactions with children; St. Laurent’s ‘call to service’ and his personal achievements; and finally the importance of continuity, both in terms of the continuity of the Liberal government, and(in 1953 and 1957), the importance of continuing the St. Laurent government. This shows how the Liberals constructed the brand identity of St. Laurent as they wanted it to be perceived by the voters, and, in the

47 Todd L. Belt, Marion R. Just, and Ann N. Crigler, “Accentuating the Positive in US Presidential Elections,” Conference Papers- American Political Science Association (2005 Annual Meeting, Washington DC 2005) 1-42. Politcal Science Complete, EBESCOhost (accessed July 7, 2016). 23. 48 Norman James, “St. Laurent Tour Greatest in Canadian History,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 20 June 1949. 35 next chapters, to show how the overall Liberal election strategy and marketing campaign was able to manipulate this image through eight years and three elections.

To do this, this chapter will use one of the first efforts to shape the image of St.

Laurent as leader, the short, biographical film The St. Laurent Story. This film was a novelty in Canadian politics, no other federal leader had been presented this way in this medium. In many ways, it presaged the sort of television advertisements that came in towards the end of St. Laurent’s time in office.

This project began early in 1949, well before St. Laurent did any campaigning as leader, and was finished in time for use in the 1949 election. It was distributed in the 1953 campaign as well. This film was carefully crafted by the chief political strategists of the

Liberal party, H.E. Kidd, Brooke Claxton, and Jack Pickersgill, and the script went through many drafts before it was finalized. St. Laurent himself was consulted early on, but remained largely uninvolved, leaving this political work to his advisors. This film represents the most cultivated image of St. Laurent to be presented to the public, as St.

Laurent’s personal touch and idiosyncrasies are largely absent. It represents the clearest image of St. Laurent as the party itself wanted the public to see him, St. Laurent’s brand identity (how his team wanted him to be viewed), rather than his brand image (how the voting public actually saw him).49

There were both French and English versions of the film produced. Unfortunately, only the script for the English version is preserved in the archives. Given the detailed records of every edit and change to the script, however, it is very likely that there were no substantial differences between the two, as it is nearly certain that they would be

49 These terms have been borrowed from Margaret Scammell’s magnificent Consumer Democracy. 36 documented. The Liberal fonds do contain a version of the pamphlet PROGRAMME

LIBERAL50 from 1949. This pamphlet has a two page, abridged French version of the script for the St. Laurent Story which touches on all the same topics,51 often with precisely the same language, demonstrating that the strategy for selling St. Laurent in

French was largely the same as in English.

Both Pickersgill and Thomson, in My Years with Louis St. Laurent and Louis St.

Laurent: Canadian respectively, argue that the ‘Uncle Louis’ persona emerged organically on St. Laurent’s pre-election tour of Western Canada in 1949,52 coming from

St. Laurent himself and surprising his handlers and political operatives. Pickersgill puts it like this: “There was no need to create an image; St. Laurent merely had to be himself to appeal to the public.”53 But this film predates the tour by several months, disproving that assertion. Kidd, Claxton, and Pickersgill knew the image of St. Laurent they wanted to sell long before he set foot on the hustings as leader. The brand identity of St. Laurent was rooted in the man himself, which made it easier for him to authentically occupy the role, but it was also partially artificial and carefully managed and cultivated.

The film demonstrates all of the key aspects of the ‘Uncle Louis’ persona before the term had even been coined, and highlights the performance indicators and brand differentiators that were key to St. Laurent’s public image. The key brand differentiators were: relatability, fairness, authenticity, humbleness, caring, kindness, protectiveness, trustworthiness, shared values, and biculturalism. Key substantive performance indicators

50 Programme Liberal, MG 28 IV-3, volume 810, folder Leaflets-Litterature Corr, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 51 Much of the abridged version is a direct translation, for example the film describes St. Laurent as a “unique public figure—the man who was sought by the office,” whereas the pamphlet says, “Figure unique dans notre histoire politique, il a été réclamé par son poste.” In other places, it has been abridged for space or edited to read more properly in French. 52 Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian, (Toronto, Macmillan of Canada,1967), 264-265. 53 Jack Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 94. 37 included: trustworthiness, being a hard worker, St. Laurent’s personal record of achievement, and the record of achievement of the party under his leadership (this came into play principally, but not exclusively, in 1953 and 1957). The terms used in these lists are my own and not specifically derived from how the party spoke about itself or its leader.54 This is contrasted with his principle opponents: Drew, who had “acquired the image of a harsh, malevolent partisan – and a stuffed shirt to boot,”55 and the prairie firebrand Diefenbaker.

The film itself was not originally a part of the Liberal strategy for introducing their candidate, but came about through fortunate happenstance. Universal Pictures had prepared a similar film, The Truman Story, for use in the 1948 US presidential campaign.

A Liberal supporter had heard of the film and asked Paul Nathanson, a distributer for

Universal in Canada, to arrange for a showing in Ottawa.56 Nathanson then offered to produce a similar film for the Liberal party free of charge.57

The script was deftly crafted, with careful attention to minute details. Pickersgill,

Claxton, and Kidd were all involved, having frequent conversations, telegrams, and phone calls during the development of the project. The film used footage from the

National Film Board, filling it out with extra footage of St. Laurent’s home town of

Compton, QC.

The film was distributed through several channels. The whole, ten-minute film was distributed through provincial offices and to groups of projectionists, such as

54 In some cases the terms used here are similar or the same to the ones the party used, but not in all cases. In others terms from other scholars have been used. 55 Camp, 137. 56 Philips, Letter to Armand Daigle, January 8, 1949, MG 26-L, volume 38, folder B-10-2(c) Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 57 Memorandum: Subject Film Project, February 9, 1949, MG 26-L, volume 38, folder B-10-2(c) Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 38

Sovereign Films.58 Most importantly, sections of the film were widely distributed in newsreels, so that a large segment of the public outside of Liberal party circles would be exposed to it in cinemas across the country. This took advantage of the increase in disposable income available in the economic boom times of the late 1940s and 1950s, as a trip to the movies was less of a luxury than it had been before the war. The final film was screened in late April 194959 and excerpts started to appear in movie theatre newsreels starting in June.60

Biculturalism and Bilingualism: “Here is a statesman who may truly say: ‘I am proud of being Canadian.’”61

St. Laurent’s ancestry gave him many qualities that positioned him almost uniquely to be a prime minister. Like Laurier, he was fluently bilingual. But, unlike

Laurier, his parentage was bicultural as well. His father, Jean-Baptiste-Moise St. Laurent had been born to a Quebec family with roots in Canada going back to 1660.62 His mother,

Mary Ann Broderick, came from an Irish immigrant family, but was raised by Phoebe

Ford, a devout American puritan.63 St. Laurent was a product of both francophone

Québécois and British Anglophone lineages, and his mother had been raised by a

Loyalist.

That St. Laurent was a native speaker of both French and English was no accident.

While his mother could speak French with an accent (She had been born in Compton in

58 Memorandum Subject Film Project, 1. 59 H.E. Kidd, Letter to Jack Pickersgill, April 25, 1949, MG 26-L, volume 38, folder B-10-2(c) Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 60 H.E. Kidd, Letter to George Fogo, May 16, 1949, MG 26-L, volume 38, folder B-10-2(c) Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 61 The St. Laurent Story (script), MG 26-L, volume 38, folder B-10-2(c) Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 62 Thomson, 19. 63 Thomson, 25. 39 the Eastern townships, the same small Quebec town where Louis St. Laurent grew up),64 she refused to speak it in the home. Thomson remarks that she said to a visitor “I married a Frenchman…and I knew that if I spoke French there would not be a word of English spoken in the house, so I was firm about not saying one word of French, and not letting them speak French to me.”65 All their children were perfectly bilingual from an early age.

Figure 2.3: A young St. Laurent with his parents and siblings.66

Compton, QC had a mixed population, so St. Laurent had learned to deal with different people from early childhood. Jack Pickersgill put it this way in a telegram to

H.E. Kidd, discussing the script to the film, “The Village of Compton with its mixed population of United Empire Loyalist, English, Scottish, Irish and French ancestry was an ideal place to learn that people do not need to speak the same language or go to the same church to be good and mutually helpful neighbours.”67 Pickersgill’s words made their way into the final script with only slight alterations.

64 Thomson, 24. 65 Thomson, 25. 66 “Integrity of St. Laurent Moulded by Life in Village,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 June 1949. 67 Jack Pickersgill, Telegram to H.E. Kidd, April 17, 1949, MG 26-L, volume 38, folder B-10-2(c) Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 40

This was also a note that the Liberal friendly press picked up. An editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press put it this way, “In Mr. St. Laurent the public has found at last the stuff of Canada, a French Canadian who is half Irish, speaks English with no trace of

French, has a Gallic shrug and gesture, and might have been brought up in Halifax,

Winnipeg or Victoria.”68 What we see here is the careful effort to highlight St. Laurent’s family history and how it enhanced his ability as a leader. National unity, as embodied by

St. Laurent, was a key theme, particularly through the first two elections. St. Laurent’s bicultural nature meant that he “represented in his own person the things that unite

Canadians.”69

St. Laurent arrived on the national political scene at almost the same time as Hugh

MacLennan’s landmark 1945 novel Two Solitudes. Much like St. Laurent, the hero of the novel, Paul Tallard, was born to a Québécois father and an Irish-Canadian mother, but is seen as French by English Canadians. MacLennan was trying to bridge the French-

English divide with his story about family, unity, and two cultures occupying the same country but still fundamentally isolated from each other. Unfortunately, MacLennan wrote his novel about the French-Canadian experience without really knowing any

French Canadians.70 The novel was a sensation in English Canada, but ignored by the other solitude. A French translation was finally produced in Paris in 1963, but it was not published in Quebec until 1978.71 By then, Tallard was seen by many Québécois as more of an Uncle Tom than as a hero, a character created by an English Canadian that ignored much of their experience and celebrated assimilation.72

68 Winnipeg Free Press, April 18, 1949, quoted in Thomson, 266. 69 Jack Pickersgill, Louis St. Laurent, (Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd., 2001), 61. 70 Linda Leith, Introducing Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, (Toronto: ECW Press, 1990), 33. 71 Leith, 25. 72 Leith, 25. 41

But French Canada did not need the fictional Tallard, because they had the real thing in St. Laurent. While both French and English saw him as a French Canadian, he was a French Canadian who could speak to both sides not only in their own language, but in their own experience as well. St. Laurent’s ability to straddle two worlds and two languages and to make equal claim to both enhanced certain key elements of the image that the Liberals were trying to sell. In terms of brand differentiators, the qualities that distinguish a candidate from their opponents in the minds of the public but are not easily quantifiable, there are several. It made him more relatable to much of the voting public, non-threatening to many groups, presented him as humbler and less removed from the general population, and it demonstrated his implicit fairness and ability to deal with the majority of the population on their own level, as a part of their group.

Relatability is important, and is closely tied to a sense of honesty and authenticity.

Most voters want someone they can relate to. In the Liberal party’s 1949 election handbook of talking points for candidates and staffers, the very first sentence in the chapter on St. Laurent is this: “Louis Stephen St. Laurent likes to think of himself as a typical Canadian, doing a job and trying to do it well.”73

Canvassers were explicitly instructed to introduce St. Laurent as somebody who thought of himself as ordinary, a typical Canadian like the people they were speaking to, and someone that understood their issues and concerns. This was the very first thing canvassers were supposed to say about the prime minister, not his record of personal and professional achievements, or what he had done in government, but how relatable he was.

73 The National Liberal Federation of Canada, Liberal Party Handbook 1949, MG 32 G9, volume 5, file 5, Henry William Erskine Kidd fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Chapter 2, 1. 42

Many of the Liberal radio advertisements featured ‘ordinary Canadians,’ farmers, factory workers, housewives, veterans etc., talking to their fellow Canadians about why they were voting Liberal,74 or voting for “Mr. St. Laurent,”75 who was “not only a great leader but the most typical Canadian in public life.”76

Figure 2.4: St. Laurent with a 'typical' Canadian.77

The use of both his first and middle name is also important. He normally went by his first name, his French name, Louis. This was true for the party advertisements as well, as space was at a premium and the size of type important. But in this case, when instructing people as to how to speak of the prime minister in person, they use both his

French and English names. Conservative advertisements in Quebec often explicitly only used ‘Stephen’ when speaking about the prime minister negatively, something that drew his potent, but generally concealed, ire.78

74 G.A Phare, Letter to Louis E. Leprophon, 18 May 1949, MG 28 IV-3, volume 607, folder Radio Advertising C-49-2B, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 75 “Truck Driver,” Letter to Louis E. Leprophon, 7. 76 Letter to Louis E. Leprophon, 15. 77 Norman James, “Crowd Double That of ’49 Greets Premier in Windsor,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 23 June 1953. 78 Thomson, 270. 43

Describing the work of the prime minister as a “job,”79 rather than a profession, career, or a calling re-enforces this ‘ordinary,’ humble idea. It also demonstrated his lack of elitism, helping distance him from his chief opponent, George Drew (Diefenbaker was able to lay even more claim to this position than St. Laurent in 1957), or at least the image of Drew that the Liberals wanted the public to have. It also emphasizes the idea that this was something he was doing for other people, not for himself. Most Canadians had ‘jobs’ rather than ‘careers.’ This was repeated in the bulk of the campaign materials going forward (particularly in 1953). Even in the space of a few words, we can see how deftly the Liberals crafted the image of St. Laurent, and how complex that image was.

Figure 2.5: The Liberals found many ways to make St. Laurent more relatable to the voters.80

St. Laurent’s handlers quickly became masters at tailoring his message and anecdotes about his own life to the audience he was speaking to. As a lifelong Catholic on both sides of his family, it might have been difficult to appeal to a protestant audience, but the Liberals were able to find commonalities to exploit, using his other life

79 The National Liberal Federation of Canada, Liberal Party Handbook 1949, Chapter 2, 1. 80 “Canada’s Prime Minister Wins Hearts of Young and Old as Ontario Tour Becomes Triumphal Procession,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 3 June 1949. 44 experiences to make the voters share something with him. During a meeting of the

Ontario Section of the Canadian Bar association in 1949, Jack Pickersgill insisted that St.

Laurent include a specific anecdote in his address.81 St. Laurent had grown up next door to the Methodist parsonage, and his mother “was determined to bring up her children just as well as the Methodist minister’s children,”82 so St. Laurent never learned to dance.

Pickersgill “realized instantly how much this story would appeal to the thousands of former Methodists in the United Church,”83 and included it in the speech. This anecdote received more press than anything else St. Laurent had to say, and “he also received several offers of free dancing lessons.”84

Figure 2.6: St. Laurent and his grand-nephew, Bernard during his 1953 return to Compton.85

The effort to show St. Laurent in his rather modest hometown was also key to cultivating this humble image, and something that the Liberals were careful to show

81 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 88. 82 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 88. 83 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 88. 84 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 88. 85 Norman James, “Prime Minister Enjoys Restful Visit to Compton, QUE, Birthplace Prior to Swinging Into Final Days of Campaign,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 4 August 1953. 45

Canadians, both through the press and the film. His 1949 election tour began in Compton,

QC,86 and a visit there, on a smaller scale, became a fixture of subsequent campaigns.

One reporter described St. Laurent’s 1949 visit like this: “for here was a quiet, humble and certainly unpretentious man, being welcomed home with a fervour and deep feeling of respect that would do credit to a king.”87 This image of St. Laurent was a powerful one, and it stuck, at least through his first two campaigns.

St. Laurent’s biculturalism and humble origins made him more relatable to the voters. He could lay claim to being a part of many of the groups he would be speaking to, or, as the dancing anecdote demonstrates, he and his handlers could find elements of his history that resonated with those he was speaking to when he was not a part of their demographic. Voters could also imagine that he would share their values, at least to a certain extent, as he came from something approaching their own background. He was non-threatening to both Francophones and Anglophones in a way that some previous prime ministers had not been. The film specifically cites his origins as a source of his fairness, “here (Compton) he learned the code of fair dealing he practiced throughout his career.”88 Many prime ministers had struggled to balance the needs of French Canada and

English Canada, or had sometimes strongly favoured one over the other. Mackenzie King was aware that he could not really claim to speak for Quebec and had always ensured that he had a Quebec Lieutenant to deal with this issue. This was how St. Laurent had entered politics in the first place. St. Laurent had no such difficulty, he could speak for both

French and English, and the Liberals could sell the idea that he was not likely to overly

86 Thomson, 268. 87 Thomson, 269. 88 The St. Laurent Story (script), 1. 46 favour one over the other. This was a key component of their ability to win seats in both

French and English Canada.

In Quebec, this set St. Laurent up as the staunch face of federalism and the federal government. As King’s Quebec Lieutenant, he had served as the chief representative of the government in that province, particularly during the latter part of the war. In that role, he was a fierce supporter of the government’s policies. As the film script states, “the minister from Quebec East never wavered in his support of an all out war effort.”89 Given the context of the World Wars as they related to internal Canadian politics, this statement is loaded with meaning that the voters would have picked up on immediately. In the First

World War, the conscription crisis, where many Quebecers publicly refused to be drafted to fight a war for the British that they did not believe concerned them, nearly ripped the country apart.

In English Canada, the perception very much became that Quebecers could not be counted on in times of war, that they were not willing to make the sacrifices needed to get the job done, and that they were not patriotic Canadians. Many of these same sentiments echoed into the Second World War, and had it not been for the deft political maneuvering of King, and his Quebec Lieutenants, Ernest Lapointe and then St. Laurent, it might have boiled over. This particular phrase from the film, “never wavered in his support of an all out war effort,”90 told English Canadians that St. Laurent was one of the ‘good French

Canadians,’ reliable, trustworthy and sharing the same opinions as them. Someone that could be trusted in time of crisis and who would not abandon the rest of the country.

89 The St. Laurent Story (script), 2. 90 The St. Laurent Story (script), 2. 47

For French Canadians, this phrase had an entirely different meaning. By being a supporter of an “all out war effort,”91 this was a signal that St. Laurent sided with the federal government rather than the provincial one, and would be willing to stand up to the provincial government should the need arise. This was not the same thing as siding against the people of Quebec, however, particularly during the premiership of Maurice

Duplessis, whose dominance over Quebec politics has been well documented elsewhere.

The provincial government had not agreed with the federal government’s war policies. As

King’s Quebec Lieutenant, he had been the face of federalism in Quebec, and chief salesman in that province during the referendum to allow conscription.

This particular phrase was, in fact, a signal to Quebecers that St. Laurent would be willing to risk a fight with the provincial premier in order to protect the interests of the people of Quebec. St. Laurent had, in fact, been prepared to risk his leadership bid to wade into the provincial election of 1948 against Duplessis,92 but ultimately it was decided that he should not take that course. St. Laurent presented an alternative and a foil to Duplessis for Quebec voters, and Duplessis would actively work against him with the

Tories though all three elections being studied.

Duplessis was not the only provincial premier to engage in the federal elections, but he was perhaps the most significant. The PCs had no effective party organization in

Quebec through the whole period,93 and no provincial party to draw on. While Duplessis and his Union Nationale remained officially neutral,94 he provided support, fundraising, and access to George Drew’s campaigns in Quebec, and essentially funded and managed

91 The St. Laurent Story (script), 2. 92 Charles Power, A Party Politician, ed. Norman Ward(Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1966), 387. 93 Meisel, 174. 94 Meisel, 174. 48 that of Diefenbaker in 1957.95 His cabinet ministers were free to come out against Liberal candidates in the press as well.96 This was not any sort of formal alliance, however, with either Drew or Diefenbaker, but instead a temporary aligning of interests against a common enemy.

Figure 2.7: The Opposition sought to discredit St. Laurent in Quebec by stirring up tensions between the French and English. It did not work.97

Of the provincial premiers, Duplessis came closest to actively engaging with the image of ‘Uncle Louis’ by attacking his credibility as a French Canadian, both by using his English middle name and by attempting to use his past support for conscription as a wedge issue and an attack on his trustworthiness, as can be seen in fig. 2.7. But other aspects of the image were largely left alone. Some ads in Quebec claimed that a vote for

St. Laurent was, in fact, a vote for one of his ministers, like Mike Pearson98 or Douglas

95 This is explored more fully in Chapter 5. 96 Meisel, 174-175. 97 “St-Laurent capable de déclarer la guerre sans consulter le parlement,” Montréal Matin (Montréal, QC), June 1949, reprinted in “The Smear in Quebec,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 17 June 1949. 98 Progressive Conservative Party, “Ad FPC 3014,” Le Devoir (Montreal, QC), 7 June 1949. 49

Abbott,99 often claiming that St. Laurent’s age made him likely to retire quickly, leaving

Canadians with a prime minister that they had not actually elected. This sort of attack on

St. Laurent’s age would be repeated through all three elections in French and English.

Most of Duplessis’ time and energy was spent on attacking individual candidates at the riding level, however.100

But while the fight could be vicious on an individual level, it was not fought particularly hard by either the Liberals or Tories more broadly in the province. It was essentially treated as a forgone conclusion that the popular son of Quebec would hold on there. While St. Laurent would rail against particularly dirty tricks, such as the name issue, more of his energy was spent on preventing “the atomization of Liberal votes among official and Independent candidates,”101 as candidates in many ridings sought to capitalize on the popularity of the party by running against the official candidates as

Independent Liberals,102 who could easily split the vote.

Other premiers were also involved with the elections. Joey Smallwood of

Newfoundland was a vocal and active supporter of the Liberals through all three campaigns. So much so, in fact, that except for the local candidates, the Liberals felt no real need to campaign in the province. For the most part, other premiers would stay out of the national campaigns until 1957, when three conservative premiers, Leslie Frost of

Ontario, Robert Stanfield on Nova Scotia, and Hugh John Fleming of New Brunswick, would actively campaign for Diefenbaker. Their focus, however, was principally on

99 Progressive Conservative Party, “Unnamed Ad,” Le Devoir (Montreal, QC), 14 June 1949. 100 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 321. 101 Miesel, 177. 102 Miesel, 177. 50 financial issues, such as equalization and tax rentals, and on the suitability of

Diefenbaker, rather than personal attacks on St. Laurent or his brand image.

The bicultural and bilingual nature of St. Laurent’s ancestry and upbringing was one of the core components of his image. Emphasizing that St. Laurent could effectively lay claim to both French Canadian and English Canadian heritage demonstrated that he could empathize with the bulk of the Canadian, white, voting population, and that he was unlikely to stringently favour one over the other. The relatively humble nature of his childhood effectively distanced him from the sort of elite status that frequently accompanies cabinet ministers and high-ranking members of the legal profession, and from the image of his chief opponent, George Drew. Specific choices (such as calling the role of prime minister a ‘job’) emphasized this. Here was a candidate who could call himself ‘Canadian’ and who most voters could call one of their own.

Family: “Grandfather is always in demand to his thirteen grandchildren. Affairs of state are forgotten for the moment by the man who derives inspiration from family life. Here is not a Prime Minister, but the affectionate head of a family, conscious of his duty and responsibilities to the generations to come”103

Figure 2.8: St. Laurent with some of his grandchildren. Photos like this helped cement the image of ‘Uncle Louis’ as the grandfather to the nation.104

103 The St. Laurent Story (script), 5. 104 Norman James, “St. Laurent speaks at Maple Leaf Gardens June 21,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 June 1953. 51

While St. Laurent’s parentage and upbringing was a crucial aspect of his image and brand, the most prominent, and most important, aspect of the ‘Uncle Louis’ image was his role as a family man. This was frequently shown through his interactions with children. Virtually every photo of St. Laurent used by the Liberals in campaign advertisements that was not a simple head-and-shoulders, was an image of St. Laurent with children.

St. Laurent’s two predecessors, dating back to 1926, were the bachelors R.B.

Bennett and Mackenzie King. As Jack Pickersgill points out: “After decades of bachelor prime ministers, a family man as leader had a novel public appeal.”105 Many Canadians could not remember a time in their adult lives where the prime minister had been anything but a bachelor. But it was more than just novelty. The idea of the ‘Family Man’ is a powerful one, and displays a range of brand differentiators and performance indicators, from tenderness to strength. This is particularly contrasted with the idea of the

“fussy old bachelor”106 who, in the minds of many in 1950s Canada, was a closeted homosexual.107 That was one charge that could not be leveled against St. Laurent and his large family. The Liberals, particularly Kidd and Claxton, who were in charge of advertisements and pamphlets, exploited this to the full, presenting a candidate that voters could trust with their own children, and their future.

The Baby Boom (1946-1962),108 the post-war period where Canadians were marrying and having children at a historic rate, encompasses all of the period covered by this study. Family and children suddenly became the central fact of life, not just for

105 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 94. 106 Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby Boom Generation, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 15-16. 107 Owram, 15-16. 108 Owram, 4. 52 women or for parents but for society as a whole.109 Advice columns and books sprung up to help people navigate parenthood. Children were the primary topic of conversation, and advertisements began to explicitly target parents and children.110 The Liberals played directly into this trend, asking voters who they wanted to shape the future their children would inherit.

In the minds of 1950s Canadians, home and family meant stability. This was a powerful idea to people who had grown up through the Great Depression and the Second

World War.111 In many ways, it was the values of home life that they had been fighting for. The Liberals made extensive use of this, using words like ‘home,’ family,’ and

‘protect’ alongside pictures of St. Laurent and his family.

Figure 2.9: The Liberals would make frequent references to home and family in their advertisements and handbills in both French and English. The photo shows St. Laurent playing board games with his own grandchildren.112

This aspect of the image of St. Laurent is more about brand differentiators than substantive performance indicators. This was more about appealing to the emotions of

109 Owram, 5. 110 Owram, 5. 111 Owram, 12. 112 National Liberal Federation of Canada, A Liberal Government protects your home, MG 28 IV-3, volume 810, folder Leaflets-Litterature Corr, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada; National Liberal Federation of Canada, LA POLITIQUE LIBÉRALE PROTÈGE LE FOYER ET LA FAMILLE, MG 28 IV-3, volume 810, folder Leaflets-Litterature Corr, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 53 voters, their hearts rather than their heads. This image of St. Laurent was relatable, because voters could see themselves, or perhaps their own fathers, grandfathers or someone else they knew, in that picture of a family man playing with his grandchildren, or in the relationship with his wife. This was not a cold, distant figure governing from on high, but a warm, caring person on the same level as his grandchildren and the rest of the country. This was a man who voters could understand on their own level, who could speak on the world stage, but who was not so arrogant that he would not speak to children on theirs. St. Laurent could be trusted to both care for and protect voters’ children, and, by extension, the country.

One of the last lines in the film picks up on this point:

Grandfather is always in demand to his thirteen grandchildren. Affairs of state are forgotten for the moment by the man who derives inspiration from family life. Here is not a Prime Minister, but the affectionate head of a family, conscious of his duty and responsibilities to the generations to come.113

To many Canadians, this answered all three of Karl Rove’s questions: As a husband, father and head of a household St. Laurent was a strong, paternal leader; He could be trusted because he would do what was necessary to protect and take care of his family, and those decisions would help take care of voters’ families. He put it this way: “I like to think that what I do is the best I can do for the St. Laurent family and therefore the people of Canada…That sums up the whole of my political philosophy.”114 St. Laurent cared about people like them much in the same way that they could see him care for his own grandchildren, and the rest of the children of Canada. The film often demonstrates this point explicitly, “Louis Saint Laurent, father and grandfather, has been quick to champion

113 The St. Laurent Story (script), 5. 114 Beland Honderich in Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), June 3, 1953. 54 the cause of crippled children,”115 drawing a connection between his role in his own family and how that has led him to policy decisions that allow him to take care of others.

St. Laurent extended the family metaphor to the country as a whole. He considered “all Canadians in each region and each province to be a part of the same national family.”116 He brought “to the administration of public affairs all the care of a family father who loves all his children equally.”117 This family metaphor not only sets him up as a patriarch for each and every Canadian, but also touches on themes of national unity, a key message through the first two campaigns. No matter how much family members may fight and disagree, they (in theory) come together in the end.

Figure 2.10: Jeanne St. Laurent's performance was almost as important as that of her husband.118

The relationship with his children and grandchildren was not the only one on display. His marriage and partnership with his wife was almost equally important.

Emphasizing the role of Jeanne St. Laurent and how much of an impact she has had over

115 The St. Laurent Story (script), 3. 116 Meisel, 159. 117 Meisel, 159. 118 Gerald Richardson, “Wife, Devoted Mother of 5, Behind St. Laurent Success” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 June 1949. 55 him and his professional life, was crucial. The film states: “But he was not alone. A devoted support in all his efforts was his wife, Jeanne, his companion for over forty years and the mother of his five children,”119 and “To Mrs. Saint Laurent , wife, counsellor and partner, belongs a great share of the philosophy that has made the Prime Minister, first of all a protector of the home.”120 In this way Louis and Jeanne St. Laurent presented an idealized version of Doug Owram’s concept of ‘constitutional patriarchy,’121 where husband and wife were partners sharing the responsibilities and decisions, although the patriarch was firmly in charge. This was a softer father image than the stern, distant patriarch of the Victorian family,122 and something that more approximated the lived experience of many of the new, Baby Boom families. Men and women could see in the

St. Laurents idealized versions of the sorts of parents that they aspired to be.

Canada had had bachelor prime ministers for almost thirty years. In a world where female MPs were vanishingly rare, and no woman had ever been appointed to the

Cabinet,123 the role of the wife of the prime minister allowed women to see themselves having some influence over government beyond just voting every four years or so.124 His wife also helped to soften his image, making the idea of the caring family man easier to sell. They presented an idealized version of the sort of relationship many young families

119 The St. Laurent Story (script), 2. 120 The St. Laurent Story (script), 5. 121 Owram, 19. 122 Owram, 19. 123 Diefenbaker rectified this, appointing Ellen Fairclough after defeating St. Laurent in 1957. He had promised during the campaign to appoint a female member of cabinet, undercutting the Liberals’ ability to present themselves as the champion of women. Fairclough was no simple token, either. She was appointed as Secretary of State and when Diefenbaker was on a trip became the first woman to be acting Prime Minister. 124 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 87. St. Laurent tried to appeal to women in other ways as well. His final radio broadcast before the election was addressed to the Women of Canada. He invited those listening to write him personally “about the problems of government that concerned them.” He personally signed every reply to the hundreds of letters he received in response. 56 had, or wanted to have. Jeanne would frequently accompany her husband on his national tours and during campaigns.125 When she was unavailable, or unable to keep up with the rigorous schedule, he would be accompanied by some of his children and sometimes grandchildren. He was always surrounded by family.

Figure 2.11: Jeanne St. Laurent was often shown with her children and grandchildren as well.126

These images also carried a great deal of authenticity. The clearly staged photo-op of a candidate surrounded by children or with their family had yet to become a cliché.127

Here was a prime minister allowing the public into his private world, a world not so different from much of the voters. These sorts of images of private life would later humanize Pierre Trudeau, and, later, his son Justin and US president Barack Obama. The image presented St. Laurent in a paternal light as well, as both caring and protective.

125 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 87. 126 Douglas Cronk, “Do for Canada What I Have Done for Own Family—St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 7 June 1953. 127 Although Liberal overuse would turn it into one by 1957. Diefenbaker would point this out several times during that campaign. 57

Figure 2.12: In this 1949 photo St. Laurent is energized by his contact with young people.128

Seeing St. Laurent with children also helped to give a sense of youthfulness and vitality to an admittedly elderly candidate. St. Laurent was 75 by his last election, only one-year shy of Laurier by the time he died, and the same age as King when he had died.

St. Laurent would be consistently questioned about the state of his health and his age.

This began almost immediately upon his assuming the leadership. He would perpetually be dogged by questions about when he would retire and who might replace him.

Emphasizing his vitality and ability was crucial.

Call to Service: “The man who was sought by the office”129 St. Laurent was presented to Canadians, both at the time and for posterity, as someone who was “called to serve”130 Canada in time of war, and was thoroughly uninterested in seeking power for himself. According to this narrative, particularly pushed by Thomson and Pickersgill, he had only the noblest of goals and wanted to leave and

128 ‘Louis St. Laurent, campaigning for the 1949 election,’ in Leduc et. al., 149. 129 The St. Laurent Story (script), 1. 130 Thomson, 1. The opening chapter of Thomson’s biography of St. Laurent is titled ‘Call to Duty.’ 58 give up power as soon as the task, meaning the war and postwar planning, was done.

Only when his party needed him did he agree to stay on as leader.

This idea that St. Laurent was not there for himself in any way, but rather sought to serve his country, was repeated in many different places and ways. The film references this several times and frequently compares St. Laurent’s joining the Cabinet to military service, “The call came to Saint Laurent …Like millions of his fellow Canadians he responded at once to the call of duty.”131 With so many people having served in the military and sacrificed at home, presenting his work in government as another form of wartime service was valuable. Wartime service and sacrifice was something people could understand, and St. Laurent was presented as someone who could understand and respect their sacrifice. He would take care of them back home, much as he had when they were over there.

It was also described as a job. One 1953 handbill and ad proclaimed “You gave him this job to do and St. Laurent is getting results!”132 emphasizing that he remained in

Ottawa to serve Canadians, not himself. This was a theme that was repeated over and over. St. Laurent’s position was described as a calling, a service, a noble sacrifice, a necessary task, or a job, but never as something he did for himself in any way (excepting the joy he got from meeting with and serving Canadians). This became a crucial element of how St. Laurent was presented.

There are many elements that come out of this ‘call to service’ narrative. In terms of substantive performance indicators, it links closely to St. Laurent’s record of achievement, principally, but not exclusively, before he joined the government. It

131 The St. Laurent Story (script), 2. 132 Ad 5305-C, MG 28 IV, volume 815, folder GE-1953 Advertisement Proofs, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 59 provides an avenue to discuss how accomplished he was before he joined the government, having had, as the film describes, “a career destined to become one of the most brilliant in

Canadian history.”133 The narrative argues that he sacrificed many opportunities for personal and professional advancement in order to serve his country and Canadians, also allowing the possibility of describing his many fine qualities that allowed him to be such a success while still portraying him as modest and humble.

St. Laurent had had an impressive career in and out of politics before assuming the leadership of the party. As a lawyer, he was frequently retained to argue for both the

Canadian and Quebec governments.134 He was successful enough at this “to join the select and highly remunerated elite who pleaded before Canada’s highest court of appeals, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England,”135 earning their praise for his argument in one 1928 case. He would appear before them several times. St. Laurent served as the bâtonnier of the Quebec bar in 1929 and from 1930-32 as the president of the Canadian Bar Association. He also served as legal counsel on the

Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, arguably the most significant royal commission ever appointed.136 It was this career that St. Laurent gave up to enter politics.

St. Laurent had also had an accomplished career in government before becoming leader. He entered politics as King’s Quebec Lieutenant in 1942 following the death of

Ernest Lapointe. St. Laurent would enter the government as the Minister of Justice just as

133 The St. Laurent Story (script), 1. 134 Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne).” 135 Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne).” 136 Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne).” 60

King decided to call for a referendum to release him from his pledge to not implement conscription.

Not only was St. Laurent the representative of Quebec in the cabinet, he was the representative of the government in Quebec. He argued for conscription, as this was not merely another war “in the service of the British empire,”137 but in the service of

Canada’s own interests. He also pushed for increased social security and social welfare, something vehemently opposed by right-wing members of Quebec’s clergy.

St. Laurent would move from Justice to become the first Minister of External

Affairs that was not also prime minister. In this role, he saw his greatest achievements in government before assuming the leadership. With King, he would attend both the Breton-

Woods conference and the founding conference of the United Nations (of which he was the most vocal supporter in the cabinet). He was also the most ardent voice in the cabinet for the union with Newfoundland,138 and as prime minister he oversaw that union shortly before the 1949 election. He was also one of the earliest proponents of what would eventually become the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).139

Bruce Hutchinson, a journalist who had a close relationship with the government, described St. Laurent this way in the early 1949 article “Canada’s New Statesman,” a piece intended to introduce St. Laurent to the country: “Canadians think of him as the constitutional lawyer, the man of business, the sophisticated and rather dashing figure of clubs and board rooms. But he is, in fact, pure homespun, a simple man most at home

137 Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne).” 138 Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne).” 139 Bothwell, “St-Laurent, Louis-Stephen (baptized Louis-Étienne).” 61 with small town folk.”140 By undercutting his elite status he became more relatable, making more overt descriptions of his excellence more palatable.

Not every description of St. Laurent was undercut in this fashion, but many had other overtones that are worth analysing. This quotation comes from the final draft of the script for the St. Laurent film: “Among the men who may be said to be fathers of the

North Atlantic Security Pact, history will include the name of Saint Laurent.”141 This line was specifically edited from previous versions to refer to St. Laurent as a ‘father,’ invoking both the ‘Fathers of Confederation’ and the father image already discussed, and relating that image to policy.

This ‘call to service’ narrative also shows St. Laurent to be trustworthy, another substantive performance indicator. Because they presented St. Laurent as not in the role for his own benefit, Canadians could trust him to do what was right for them and the country, rather than what was best for himself personally. This indicator was emphasized in several advertisements, handbills etc., that presented a lengthy list of minor Liberal promises (particularly on issues related to taxes and the economy, but not exclusively) and how they had been achieved. This was a major component of the 1953 election strategy, closely linked to ideas of the Liberal record of achievement and the importance of continuity. By 1957, in the wake of the 1956 pipeline debate and other scandals and crises, this would become a harder sell as the perception of Liberal arrogance had eroded some of the public’s trust.

140 Bruce Hutchinson, National Home Monthly, March 1949, quoted in The National Liberal Federation of Canada, Liberal Party Handbook 1949, Chapter 2 3. 141 The St. Laurent Story (script), 4. 62

Figure 2.13: St. Laurent 'hard at work.'142

The last major substantive performance indicator highlighted by the ‘Call to

Service’ narrative was that St. Laurent was a hard worker. The first section in the 1949

Liberal handbook describes him like this, using variations on the term ‘hard work’ no fewer than six times:

No other Prime Minister worked less to get the job than Mr. St. Laurent but no other worked harder at the job after he got it. St. Laurent likes hard work; he has been working hard all his life. Hard work at one job has always brought his other jobs. Hard work at bigger and bigger jobs put him at the top of the legal profession. Hard work put him in politics when former Prime Minster Mackenzie King wanted a top-notch minister for the war cabinet.143

Important to note here is the frequent use of the word ‘job’ to explain his career path,

‘hard work’ and ‘job’ both serving again to humble him and make him less of a member of the elite, while still allowing them to discuss his notable career accomplishments and elevate him as someone worthy of admiration. When possible, they also tried to show a picture of a more down-to-earth prime minister as well. In a letter to Cockfield, Brown &

Company, the Liberals’ advertising agency, Kidd makes a particular point of this asking

142 "The Day of a Prime Minister," Montreal Daily Star, July 10, 1954. 143 The National Liberal Federation of Canada, Liberal Party Handbook 1949, Chapter 2, 1. 63 for a different photo for a particular ad. The first image had “much too much a white collar atmosphere. I would take the man’s tie off, open up his shirt, roll up his sleeves and make him look like a working man."144 The implication here is also that if St. Laurent had worked hard at all of these other things, he will work hard in his new position, and that he will work hard for voters, that he will be “getting results.”145

Continuity “Louis Saint Laurent was leader of a United (sic) party, a worthy successor of Laurier and Mackenzie King.”146

Figure 2.14: The continuity of government was a key element of Liberal messaging. This photo is from the leadership convention, but large banners depicting King and Laurier flanked the stage at every Maple Leaf Gardens rally.147

Continuity was an important selling point for the Liberals, although the precise meaning of it changed between 1949 and 1953. Unlike the other major categories already

144 H.E. Kidd, Letter to C. Nelson, 18 May 1953, MG 28 IV, volume 815, folder AD…..Dailies English, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 145 National Liberal Federation of Canada, Ad. No. 5305-D. 146 The St. Laurent Story (script), 3. 147 Norman James, “St. Laurent is Worthy Successor to Mantle of Laurier, King,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 21 June 1949. 64 discussed, this had little to do with St. Laurent himself, at least in 1949. It was, however, an important part of their electoral strategy and very much became about St. Laurent and his government in the 1953 and 1957 campaigns. By 1949, the Liberals had been in power for 14 years, and were open to attacks that they had been in for too long, that they were stale, old, etc. Many parties in a comparable situation, an old government with a new leader, try to emphasize that newness, presenting a ‘fresh face’ that revitalizes an old party with just enough cabinet shuffling that the government looks new, and some of the skeletons and scandals can be blamed on the old guard.

This was not the strategy the Liberals employed in 1949. They were coming out of one of the most accomplished premierships in the country’s history. Mackenzie King’s government had ended the Great Depression and won the Second World War. How much credit the government deserves for those achievements is up to debate, and it is not the goal of this particular study to address that. However, it is the case that the Liberals, rather than trying to over emphasize the ‘newness’ of their leader, doubled down on the record of the party and emphasized the new leader’s connection to the old government.

St. Laurent was the heir of Laurier and King,148 and rather than representing a new

Liberal party instead continued with the tried and true.

Selling this idea was made easier by the economic boom Canada enjoyed for the decade and a half after the Second World War. The First World War had seen a boom, followed quickly by a recession. King had specifically tasked Howe with ensuring that this would not happen again. Howe had plans that helped wartime industries and manufacturing transition into peacetime production. This was helped by the devastation

148 The St. Laurent Story (script), 5. 65 that crippled much of Europe’s industry.149 There was a market for Canadian and

American goods overseas.

Canada also became a market for American money, as they were enjoying much the same sort of conditions for prosperity as Canada and many American companies were looking for opportunities to invest. Howe ensured that there was a very favourable environment for American investment. Many American companies opened branch plants in Canada to serve the Canadian market. Considerably more money was invested in getting Canadian resources to market. Between 1945 and 1955, US capital in Canada doubled from $4.9 billion to $10.3 billion, and direct investment tripled.150 This direct investment led to accusations from the Tories and the CCF that the Liberals, and especially Howe,151 were selling Canada piecemeal. The 1956 pipeline debate proved to be a particularly egregious example, and the focus of the opposition parties’ efforts on this point, as much of the money for that project was from American companies.152

Americans were investing in Canada because there was a market. Wages were high, as was employment. Unemployment during the postwar years was between 3-6%.153

Industrial wages doubled, from $1,516 per year in 1946 to $3,136 per year in 1956.154 Not everybody enjoyed this prosperity, notably aboriginal people, the elderly, and “especially families in hinterland regions”155 dependant on more traditional industries and occupations. But the vast majority of the voting public was enjoying an affluence that

149 Roger Riendeau, A Brief History of Canada, 2nd ed, (New York: Facts on File Inc., 2007), 301. 150 Desmond Morton, “Strains of Affluence,” in The Illustrated History of Canada, 25th anniversary ed. Craig Brown, ed.(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2012), 480. 151 Howe was born and raised in America, but was a Canadian citizen and had spent his adult life north of the border. 152 Morton, “Strains of Affluence,” 480. 153 Reindeau, 315. 154 Morton, “Strains of Affluence,” 482. 155 Morton, “Strains of Affluence,” 482. 66 they had never experienced. The 1951 census showed that the poor had become a minority. By 1961, only 15% of Canadians were in that category.156

Eventually, as St. Laurent’s government began to have achievements of its own, continuity took on a different, but even more emphasized and important, meaning. Much of the messaging was based on the idea that Liberal policies, in a myriad of major and minor ways, were responsible for the dramatic improvement in the standard of living and post-war prosperity being enjoyed by many Canadians, and that only the Liberals could keep this boom going and progress even further. Cockfield Brown proposed the following list of slogans in the run-up to the 1953 campaign:

1. Liberal Policies mean better living 2. Liberal Policies create better living 3. Let’s keep moving ahead 4. Let’s keep it up 5. Let’s carry on 6. Let’s keep going ahead 7. Let’s keep growing 8. Let’s keep pace with progress 9. Let’s keep progressing 10. Protect prosperity 11. Let’s keep Canada progressing 12. Get things done 13. Good times, good government, go together 14. March on with Canada157

Cockfield Brown recommended “Let’s keep growing,”158 but perhaps more telling was suggestion 10. In 1953, the Liberals were determined to not run a negative campaign, but the implicit insinuation was that a change in government was certain to ruin the prosperity that the country was enjoying; anything other than the current government was a disaster

156 Morton, “Strains of Affluence,” 481. 157 Cockfield Brown, Letter to Brooke Claxton, ‘Strictly Confidential,’ 26 May 1953, MG-28 IV-3 v. 826, folder GE-1953 Cockfield Brown Campaign Plans, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 158 Cockfield Brown, Letter to Brooke Claxton, ‘Strictly Confidential,’ 26 May 1953. 67 waiting to happen and voters should not take the risk. ‘Protect Prosperity’ implicitly implies prosperity is under threat. This covert scare-mongering became more overt in the

1957 campaign. The Liberals eventually settled on “A Great Leader for a Greater Canada-

Vote St. Laurent.”159

The campaign advertisers specifically used St. Laurent to sell this message of continuity, subtly adjusting billboards “to imply that this message, “LET’S KEEP UP

THE GOOD WORK!” is, in effect, coming from Mr. St. Laurent, and is a personal appeal from him,”160 or using more overt ads like fig. 2.16:

Figure 2.15: In this ad St. Laurent appeals directly to the voters.161

159 National Liberal Federation of Canada, Ad. No. 5305-D. 160 S.D. Denman, Letter “RE: POSTER CODE BB8”, April 13, 1953, Box MG 28 IV-3, volume 817, folder BBB…..Billboards-English, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 161 National Liberal Federation of Canada, Ad. No 5306.C Rev, MG 28 IV-3, volume 815, folder GE-1953 Advertisements-Proofs, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 68

In this ad, they are using a direct appeal, trading on trust in St. Laurent to sell the message that now was not the time for change. They are trading on the prestige and respectability of the prime minister himself, not the party.

It is also useful to note the subtle distinction between St. Laurent making an overt statement, and his asking the question “Do you think it is time for a change?”162 This is very similar to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 question “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Instead of making a statement that could be easily refuted, they were asking questions that their respective audiences had to answer for themselves. But by placing the question within a context that implies a certain answer, they can force the desired result, or plant a certain idea, without overt manipulation, much in the same way that dubious pollsters can manipulate surveys.

This is also why the Liberals did not want to introduce major policy during elections. When people believe that things are going well, then there should be no need for change, and the suggestion of significant change is likely to make them fearful. The

Liberals did not want to suggest that there was a need for anything to be different, in case voters wanted too much change, such as a change of government. The Liberals in this period prided themselves on running what one Liberal staffer called “issueless”163 campaigns. The only issues that they wanted considered were the party record and the leadership of St. Laurent, not any policy or promises.

St. Laurent himself refused to make any election promises, except that he did

“promise good government.”164 St. Laurent “knew very well that words were needed to

162 National Liberal Federation of Canada, Ad. No 5306.C Rev. 163 Halifax Chronicle-Herald (Halifax, NS), May 12, 1949, Quoted in J.M. Beck, Pendulum of Power: Canada’s Federal Elections (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 264. 164 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 92. 69 persuade the voters there was no alternative government.”165 This Liberal-government-or- nothing messaging was on display through all three campaigns. They argued that the

Tories would not ever be able to win a majority, and that they would not be able to hold the confidence of the House in a minority.

Conclusion

Figure 2.16: The image of St. Laurent was not ‘Just Plain Grandfather,’ but that was one of the most important elements of his brand identity.166

The image and brand identity of St. Laurent and ‘Uncle Louis’ was not entirely fabricated from whole cloth. If it had been, it would not have rung authentically, and it would have been much harder to sell. But while it was rooted in some of the aspects of the man himself, it was also a carefully cultivated and managed performance; it did not emerge organically on the campaign trail, as Pickersgill and Thomson would have us believe. This careful attention to the personal brand of the leader was the central

165 Pickersgill, My years with Louis St. Laurent, 92. 166 Norman James, “When “Prime Minister” Happier as Just Plain “Grandfather”,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 June 1949. 70 component of Liberal campaign strategy through 1949-1957. These personal brand politics formed the base of the leader-centred campaign.

The film The St. Laurent Story proves that this was not the case. It was released before St. Laurent ever went on tour and presented a manufactured image of the leader.

The creation of ‘Uncle Louis’ was not a fortunate, organic happenstance; the image was intentionally designed.

The film highlights the brand differentiators and substantive performance indicators that form the basis of this brand and persona. These were the things that Liberal campaign strategists wanted the voters to pay attention to. Through showing St. Laurent’s bicultural upbringing in Compton, QC, they were able to make him relatable to both

French and English Canadians and were able to show his humility, fairness and the other values he shared with them. Through his family and his interactions with children, they were able to present a strong, caring, kind leader, one who could be trusted to protect their children, and, by extension, the voters themselves, and to make the right decisions for them. The Liberals were also able to give women some sense of influence, through St.

Laurent’s wife Jeanne, even if they did not yet have a seat in the cabinet. By presenting him as someone who was ‘called to serve,’ rather than someone who had sought his office, they were able to maintain the image of his humility while still showing off his ample record of personal achievements, and they were able to argue that this was a candidate who could be trusted to make decisions that were best for Canada, not best for himself. And, finally, by emphasizing the need for continuity, they were able to use St.

Laurent to sell the idea that it was continued Liberal government that was responsible for

Canada’s current prosperity and that any change would spell disaster. 71

The ‘Uncle Louis’ image that was so prominently on display when St. Laurent was campaigning, and so central to the Liberal branding strategy, was about emotion, not rational benefits analysis. That is why it was so powerful. It was also more about showing than telling. By appealing to voters on this level, the Liberals were able to demonstrate that St. Laurent shared some of their values and that he cared about people like them.

They were able to show that he was humble, kind, and trustworthy. And they were able to do that in a way that felt authentic and genuine without being overly forced, despite the extensive work that went into it.

This image of a smiling grandfather, of a humble leader and a man who could speak for the whole country was sophisticated, complex, subtle, cultivated and constructed. This was one of the first Canadian example of intentionally cultivated brand politics based on a leader, but it is also one of the finest examples. Diefenbaker and his team used the lessons of ‘Uncle Louis’ so that they could beat him with ‘Dief the Chief’ in 1957, and nearly every successful leader since has followed in those footsteps.

72

CHAPTER THREE: THE 1949 ELECTION OR ST. LAURENT’S DEBUT

Figure 3.1: St. Laurent was often pictured with his grandchildren.167

The Liberal campaign strategy in 1949 was based on one chief aim: to introduce their leader and his image to the voting public and to allow him to do the work. By the end of the campaign the Toronto Daily Star estimated that more than three million

Canadians had seen him in person,168 although the friendly Star might well have inflated the numbers. But the Liberal campaign did focus on putting their leader in front of

Canadians in person, and offered more chances to rural Canadians to see their prime minister. This, combined with their record in office, propelled them to victory. The prime minister's speeches made a point of not making promises, but only talking about results, and taking pains to avoid talking about his opponents whenever possible.

167 H.L. McDonald, “Prime Minister Returns to Scene of Boyhood to begin his Election Campaign,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 10 May 1949. 168 “3,000,000 Saw, Heard Their Prime Minister in his Unique Campaign,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 June 1949. 73

The 1949 campaign ran from 9 May to 27 June 1949. It was, for the Liberals, the most successful of the three campaigns from 1949-1957. Indeed, it was, up to that point, the most successful campaign in Canadian history, with the Liberals capturing 190 seats and 50.1% of the popular vote. Not only was this campaign wildly successful, it also set up the pattern for both subsequent campaigns, not just in terms of the types of events and

‘stage pieces,’ but also the messaging, the use of St. Laurent, and his work habits on campaign. The focus of this chapter will be demonstrating what, precisely, the Liberals set up for their future, and asking why those things were successful. It will also look at how St. Laurent was kept on brand and how that contributed to Liberal success.

Figure 3.2: The Globe and Mail mocked St. Laurent's ‘Issueless’ Campaign.169

169 Jack Boothe, “Up the Creek,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 5 May 1949. 74

The campaign was managed principally by three chief insiders. H.E. Kidd was the

Secretary of the National Liberal Federation, who managed the marketing and advertising and co-ordinated between the NLF, the Cockfield Brown advertising agency, and the party organization.170 Kidd’s salary was actually paid by Cockfield Brown for over a decade in this period, a significant step towards the formal integration of the party and its advertisers.171 Brooke Claxton managed the party brand, or what Whitaker called the

“party publicity and image making,”172 and the national strategy.173 He was also the chief political contact for Kidd. Finally, Jack Pickersgill managed the prime minister as a combined speech writer, travel agent, scheduler, and batman. These were the men tasked with establishing, selling, and protecting that brand. This team remained in place through the 1953 election, but by 1957 Claxton had retired from politics,174 and Pickersgill's changing role in the party and the government prevented him from travelling with the prime minister for nearly the whole campaign. These three men were the chief architects of the victories in both 1949 and 1953.

170 George Fogo, the President of the NLF, was, in theory, responsible for co-ordinating with Claxton, but Kidd’s personal friendship with Claxton, as well as his close ties with Cockfield Brown (who continued to pay his salary while he worked for the NLF), meant that he was a natural focal point between the three organizations. By 1953 it was an open secret that he was the real power in the NLF, and the actual role of the president would be greatly diminished. 171 Whitaker, 186. 172 Whitaker, 183-184. 173 There were several other powerful political operatives managing the regions, such as C.D. Howe in Ontario, who controlled the riding associations, the approval of candidates, and patronage. The power of these individuals within their regions cannot be understated, particularly C.D. Howe, especially as the ministerial structure of St. Laurent’s government and his personal disinterest in partisan politics meant that the NLF, which should have done the bulk of that sort of work, had withered to a shadow of its former self. Claxton and Pickersgill largely prevented these players from controlling the agenda of the Prime Minister and the more national aspects of the campaign and its messaging, however, and thus the regional power brokers are not the focus of this study. For an excellent and exhaustive study of party organization and the ministerial power system under St. Laurent, please refer to Whitaker’s The Government Party. 174 Claxton and Kidd worked particularly closely, and even after he had retired Kidd went to him for advice, or just to complain about what was going on. 75

There were three key events which are crucial to understanding the Liberal strategy for the prime minister in 1949: the western pre-election tour, St. Laurent's return to his hometown that opened the Eastern tour and the campaign proper, and the massive rally at Maple Leaf Gardens that ended the campaign. Not only were these events the most significant uses of St. Laurent during the 1949 campaign, they were also the most managed and publicized events. They formed the basis for the subsequent campaigns.

The Western Tour: Mr. St. Laurent Goes from Ottawa

Figure 3.13: Both the train and his wife Jeanne featured prominently in St. Laurent’s whistle-stop tours.175

On 8 April 1949, the parliament went into recess for its Easter break. These breaks are frequently used by politicians to make a trip back to the riding, to shake hands, meet constituents, and show their faces in the appropriate places. This is especially true in an election year. As prime minister, St. Laurent’s constituency was, in effect, the whole

175 Norman James and Gerald Richardson, “St. Laurent Tour Greatest in Canadian History,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 20 June 1949. 76 country. It was decided that he would use the break for a western tour, to visit the half of the country he had never had cause to campaign in before now. He had already done some weekend trips locally around Ottawa, but this was his first major public outing as prime minister. The train took him through Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary

Saskatoon, and Winnipeg with dozens of stops at small towns, like Edson, AB, along the way.176 This tour not only served to introduce the West to St. Laurent, and vice versa, but also to give St. Laurent a practice run of campaigning before the election was called.

The party wanted to “give the people of Canada a picture of the man as a leader – as an aggressive, down to earth campaigner; as a new side to his other qualities already acknowledged – i.e. statesmanship, integrity, intellectual brilliance, etc.”177

The day before leaving on the tour, 7 April, the prime minister made his final radio broadcast before the election. Addressed “To the Women of Canada,”178 St. Laurent spoke of women’s issues and implored women across the country to write him personally of their concerns and the problems of government that affected them. These broadcasts were intended to inform the public and to put a personal face on the work of the party and the government, specifically St. Laurent’s face.

There is a myth about the western tour that claims that the persona of ‘Uncle

Louis’ emerged organically during this tour and it would only be decided after to make him the face of the party and the campaign. This is repeated by Pickersgill and Thomson, but also in popular histories such as Allan Levine’s Scrum Wars and others. The core components of the ‘Uncle Louis’ persona and branding had already been decided on, and filmed, months before the tour was even planned, let alone actually underway.

176 Thomson, 265. 177 Pre-election Period Activity, 3-4. 178 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 87. 77

What was a surprise during the tour was just how successful St. Laurent was with voters in person. An important reason for this tour was to give the somewhat stuffy St.

Laurent some experience, but it turned out that he took to these smaller, more intimate events with unexpected ease and natural grace. One reporter for Maclean’s put it this way, “In all close-range contacts he left a warm, friendly impression.”179 St. Laurent was especially successful with children, with whom he was more comfortable and who

“crowded around the prime minister and seemed to be completely fascinated by him.”180

Whenever possible, the Liberals arranged to have him seen with children.

Figure 3.4: St. Laurent speaking to a crowd of Children in Caledonia, ON.181

When St. Laurent gave a formal speech at an event, it tended to conform to standard partisan speeches given by other politicians. He stuck to the elements that formed the basis of the party platform, such as it was, touching on topics such as the

Liberal record, NATO, and the importance of continuing the Liberal government

179 “Backstage at Ottawa: Is It Time for a change?,” Maclean’s, 1 June 1949, 14. 180 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 90. 181 Gerald Richardson, “St. Laurent Tour Greatest in Canadian History.” 78 uninterrupted. Only existing policy was discussed, when it was discussed at all, as opposed to new promises. Most of his speeches were in this dry style, more appropriate for a shareholders meeting than a campaign to enflame the passions of voters. This was especially true of later campaigns, where St. Laurent stood in stark contrast to the firebrand speeches of Diefenbaker. Much of the campaign revolved around the idea that the country was doing well and did not need a change. After all, “Why should anyone want to change a government… which has shown it can make effective changes to meet changing conditions?”182 For that message this style of speech worked well. It was not during his prepared speeches where ‘Uncle Louis’ won their hearts in any case.

St. Laurent made no promises, choosing instead to focus on the party’s record.

This allowed him to demonstrate the record of accomplishment, while avoiding being tied down to specific promises that could cost them later on. The written speeches also avoided talking about the opposition, helping to present a positive image of the Liberals, rather than a negative image of the Tories. This positive messaging was not shared by many of the members of his cabinet, particularly C.D. Howe, who often delivered scathing attacks on the opposition parties in their speeches. Channeling these attacks and responses through other candidates allowed the prime minister to stay on the high road and keep up his optimistic, positive image, while still getting those arguments out to the voting public. This strategy continued into the campaign proper, but St. Laurent’s increasing tendency to go off script sometimes saw negative attacks creeping in These became more common in 1953 and, by 1957, they were a central element to his personal campaigning.

182 Hugh Boyd, “St. Laurent on Whirlwind Brandon Tour, Says Liberals Changing with the Times,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 20 April 1949. 79

Figure 3.5: While most of St. Laurent’s campaign events happened in smaller towns, he did have larger events in bigger cities, such as this meeting of 5000 in Hamilton, ON.183

In Edmonton on 12 April he read a laundry list of bread-and-butter economic accomplishments, focused on jobs, minor trade issues, and improvements to working conditions.184 This demonstrated, the fairness of the Liberals and Canada in general.

Fairness was both a brand differentiator and, particularly in this case where St. Laurent was outlining specific accomplishments, a substantive performance indicator. It was this fairness, now being used as a brand differentiator, which would prevent “the Reds”185 from gaining a toehold in Canada. He put it this way, “We must have in Canada a spirit of fairness and neighbourly love for our fellow-man. It is that spirit which is producing the results of stemming the tide of their subversive ideas.”186 He says that “We must have,”187 an imperative statement demanding a specific action. In this case that action is

183 E. Mackintosh, “To Speak in Toronto June 21, Prime Minister Closes Western Ontario Tour,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 6 June 1949. 184 Robert Taylor, “Liberals Policies of Share the Wealth Beat Reds—St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 12 April 1949. 185 Taylor, “Liberals Policies of Share the Wealth Beat Reds—St. Laurent.” 186 Taylor, “Liberals Policies of Share the Wealth Beat Reds—St. Laurent.” 187 Taylor, “Liberals Policies of Share the Wealth Beat Reds—St. Laurent.” 80 maintaining the status quo. By saying “it is that spirit which is producing the results,” he was implying that the state of affairs that currently existed was what was creating the fairness, and, in the context of the rest of the speech, that state of affairs was obviously having a Liberal government.

While the bulk of this statement is largely optimistic, another brand differentiator, he was introducing an element of fear about what a change to the status quo would mean, in this case possible communist subversion of Canada. This type of optimism and elevating language concealing the fear of change was typical of many of St. Laurent’s speeches. In many cases, he did not need to talk about his opponents at all, only hint at the disaster should any change in government occur.

Figure 3.6: When the Liberals ran negative ads, they avoided any association with St. Laurent, whose name, and often picture, appeared in every other ad.188

188 “Vote Liberal for Protection Against DREW,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 22 June 1949. 81

In Regina on 19 April he spoke about how the Liberals were the only party able to form a majority, and thus the only party able to govern effectively, carefully omitting the name of any other party.189 That speech generated one of his few memorable ‘sound bites,’ when he described the CCF as “Liberals in a hurry.”190 He continued to use that phrase in later elections.191

Figure 3.7: At this rally in the riding of Ste. Anne, the excitement of Liberal supporters was palpable. The banner which reads “A Vote for Healy is a Vote for St. Laurent.” Similar messages would be central to the 1953 campaign.192

More important than his actual speeches were the more informal interactions he had with voters, and, especially, their children. This was a whistle-stop tour, with St.

Laurent travelling by train and taking advantage of the opportunity to stop at many smaller towns that would not have otherwise gotten an appearance. This had several

189 Robert Taylor, “Reactionary Toryism What Canada Spurns- St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 19 April 1949. 190 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 90. 191 This must have been particularly gratifying for Pickersgill. As a young speechwriter for King, he had been expressly told to strip the memorable lines from his speeches, the lines he was most proud of. 192 V. Davidson, Scene at a rally in Louis St. Laurent’s campaign on behalf of Liberal Party candidates during federal election. Montreal 14 June 1949, Copy Negative PA-109485, The Gazette (Montreal) fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 82 advantages over a campaign exclusively focused on larger rallies. It gave St. Laurent many opportunities to practice his interactions with voters in low pressure situations where the stakes were not so high. A major gaffe in Toronto or Montreal might cost him the election, but in Edson, AB, it would have minimal impact. Many of these whistle- stops were covered only by the local press and the reporters who traveled with the tour.

This meant that while they received front page coverage in many cases, they would not have the multi-page spreads that the more major events received.

Figure 3.8: St. Laurent was often pictured with ‘ordinary’ Canadians.193

The whistle-stops also tended to be shorter events than the more significant stops and speeches. This allowed the elderly St. Laurent to conserve his stamina, something that was even more important in subsequent elections. Because these events were shorter, they could also be more frequent, giving the entourage of journalists travelling with him something to report on almost every day of the tour, keeping St. Laurent in the public eye even while he was travelling from place to place. It also meant that should he make a

193 “Man of the People, St. Laurent in Toronto on June 21,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 15 June 1949. 83 gaffe, it would not stay in the news cycle for long, as there would be something new to take its place. Visiting these small towns also enhanced the view of St. Laurent as a humble, small town man of the people, something key to the image that he was trying to project.

These whistle-stops, which were the style of campaigning employed during the actual election period as well, provided some of the more memorable moments during the tour. The stop at Edson was notable for two reasons. During that stop, a large number of children crowded around St. Laurent. It had not been planned for those children to come to the event. They had been taken along by their teacher.194 After his success with them, similar school trips would be planned in future. As a part of his remarks, St. Laurent made a special point of thanking the children for coming, speaking to them directly “in simple terms the meaning and promise of being young Canadians,”195 and “he remarked that if it was in his power he would give them a holiday from school for the rest of the day. Immediately …members of the local school board…announced that the holiday had been granted.”196 This unplanned holiday became a staple of subsequent campaigns, each time presented as a spur of the moment idea. By 12 May, still in the very early days of the campaign, at least seven such holidays had been granted.197 There is no indication that it was planned this first time, however.

One sardonic reporter remarked that the stop was a waste of time as children did not have votes. Pickersgill replied “No, but their parents have.”198 There is a good chance

194 Thomson, 265. 195 Thomson, 265. 196 Thomson, 265. 197 Warren Baldwin, “Seven School Holidays Result of PM’s Visits,” Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 13 May 1949. 198 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 90. 84 that this anecdote, appearing in Pickersgill’s memoir, is apocryphal, but it clearly demonstrates a core component of the Liberal strategy. If they got St. Laurent interacting with children, and their parents (who were likely leaning Liberal in any case if they had come to see St. Laurent) would surely give him their votes. It was at this same stop that another reporter remarked that “Uncle Louis is going to be hard to beat.”199 The persona and brand that the Liberals had been developing had been given a name, and it stuck.

Figure 3.9: In another family centered moment, Louis and Jeanne St. Laurent celebrated their anniversary while on tour.200

During the actual election, these whistle-stops would often be where St. Laurent announced major platform items or topics, such as they were in an ‘issueless’ campaign that avoided discussions of new policy. He insisted that each speech have something new in it, even if much of the speech was a standard stump, to ensure that the press would not

199 Thomson, 265. 200 “Man of the People, St. Laurent in Toronto on June 21.” 85 get so bored that they would not report anything.201 This kept the journalists on their toes, as a major announcement could happen at any time.

The schedule was arranged so that there was only one major address per day, so as not to overly tire the candidate, a practice that would continue in the campaign proper.202

Pickersgill prepared the basic texts of the speeches, but St. Laurent spoke off only a rough outline or a few notes in large type.203 This meant that the speeches felt spontaneous and fresh, as St. Laurent improvised much of them, but it also opened the door to his going off script and saying something unfortunate or giving into his worst tendencies, something that would be a problem in later campaigns.

The western tour did several things. By allowing St. Laurent to practice before the high stakes of an actual election he gained the confidence he needed to face the voters in earnest. The tour also allowed him to have the sort of casual encounters with voters that really demonstrated the persona and in which he shone. The whistle-stops kept him in the news cycle in a way that was less fatiguing for him, having minor events daily, rather than major ones less frequently. These whistle-stop tours formed the core of all three election campaigns. After the success of the western tour, or the ‘little campaign,’204 St.

Laurent decided immediately upon his return to Ottawa to call an election in earnest. The date was set for 27 June.

The bulk of St. Laurent’s participation in the Eastern tour of Ontario, Quebec, the

Maritimes, and Newfoundland consisted of exactly these sort of whistle-stops and smaller events in local constituencies, with a few larger meetings in big cities. This all built up to

201 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 94. 202 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 93. 203 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 90. 204 “Backstage at Ottawa: Is it time for a change?” 14. 86 the rally at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. However, the opening event of the campaign proper, a return to his hometown, was something else entirely.

Homecoming: St. Laurent Returns to Compton, Quebec

Figure 3.10: Louis and Jeanne St. Laurent are greeted by young Louise Audet in Compton, QC.205

On 11 May 1949, St. Laurent did something not seen before in Canada. He brought the press home with him. Not to his house in Ottawa, but to his boyhood home in the small village of Compton, QC, for an impeccably stage-managed event designed to introduce the humble, small-town man to the country, and to introduce the image of St.

Laurent the Liberals wanted portrayed to the press who would be writing about him. The

Star picked up on those themes:

The prime minister returned to his boyhood village of Compton yesterday- and promptly broke down and cried. Louis St. Laurent, the dignified statesman, the lawyer who has pleaded case after case in the highest courts in the land, was overwhelmed with emotion as he stepped from his car to be greeted by a cheering mass of children and old friends.206

205 Norman James and Harold Barkley, “Prime Minister Visits Old Friends, His Native Village and the Modest Home Where He was Born,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 11 May 1949. 206 Beland Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 11 May 1949. 87

This might be more at home in a campaign ad or over-the-top hagiography then on the front page of a major daily paper, but it sums up in two sentences nearly all of the themes the Liberals were trying to present with this event. St. Laurent returned to his boyhood village. It would have been equally valid to only refer to Compton by name, rather than using the word village. This choice displayed not only his humble origins, something that considerably enhanced his relatability to the voters, but also hinting at the values that they likely shared. Then he was deeply humbled by the show of affection for him, from old friends and the ever-present children, and was overwhelmed with emotion, again showing both his humility and his authenticity.

That the author of this piece, Beland Honderich, managed to do this while also naturally invoking St. Laurent’s considerable record of achievement speaks to his skill as a partisan journalist. The Star accompanied the written coverage with several pages of photos of St. Laurent with his family or with cheering crowds and children, and his boyhood home and local church (by contrast, the Tory Globe & Mail only provided a few column inches).207

Figure 3.11: St. Laurent speaks to a large crowd in front of his childhood home.208

207 Warren Baldwin, “PM on Pilgrimage. Revisits his Birthplace, Weeps Before Villagers,” Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 11 May 1949. 208 James and Barkley, “Prime Minister Visits Old Friends, His Native Village and the Modest Home Where He was Born.” 88

The text of St. Laurent’s speech, delivered in front of his boyhood house (where, as the Star was quick to point out, he had been raised by a French-Canadian father and an

English-Canadian mother), was even more explicit in addressing those themes:

You people look on this as a great day for Compton; a day on which a son of Compton comes back as prime minister of Canada. Let me say it is also a great day for my family and myself to be greeted by such a feeling of goodwill and joy as is shown here today.

We so often speak of government of the people, for the people, by the people. I say, haven’t we a striking demonstration of it right here before us?

We pick a man as a leader of a party and if he is worthy, we make him prime minister. If that man has been intimate with the people, and knows their needs, if he is honest, and if he can make others believe he is honest, it is easy for him to carry out the will of the people. There you have the very essence of democracy.

There is something fine about our democracy, our way of life, that a tiny village such as Compton can produce a man to be prime minister of all Canada. This, too, to me, is democracy at its very finest.209

In this speech, St. Laurent begins by referencing his humble origins as a ‘son of

Compton,’ while also referencing his personal record of achievement. That he manages to give a speech that talks about his own accomplishments, while avoiding making it about himself or even mentioning himself directly, is a testament to how skillfully those two conflicting elements of his brand were balanced. By expressing gratitude on behalf of his family, and not just himself, he shows the emphasis on family values. He talks about his own connection to the people, and how that lets him know their needs, playing off his relatability, and how he can use that to best serve them. He then describes his own honesty, expressing his general trustworthiness and authenticity. In one, short speech, he

209 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 89 managed to introduce nearly all his brand differentiators and substantive performance indicators. The rest of the event addressed the others.

Figure 3.12: St. Laurent's brother, J.B.M. St. Laurent, in the store where they once worked for their father.210

After the speech, St. Laurent greeted local people, shaking as many hands as he could. The Star made a particular note of one interaction with one Mary Power, under the now unfortunate subtitle “Chats With Cripple.”211 When St. Laurent noticed her, after

Mrs. St. Laurent pointed her out, “he made straight for her chair,”212 before thanking her for writing and promising to reply to her again soon (his last reply having gone out some two days before). She had, apparently, been writing him for years to keep him abreast of local affairs in Compton, demonstrating that he still made time for the hometown he had grown up in. This particular interaction demonstrates several brand differentiators, including his kindness (by focusing on the interaction with this woman rather than the other people who wanted to see him), as well as his caring and protectiveness (by expressing how he wrote to her frequently, even during an election campaign), all

210 James and Barkley, “Prime Minister Visits Old Friends, His Native Village and the Modest Home Where He was Born.” 211 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 212 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 90 heightened by the overemphasis on her being “crippled,”213 and treated as a greater target for sympathy and pity.

St. Laurent was then swept around by the crowd for twenty minutes as

“Everybody…was trying to shake hands at the same time,” as “here was a quiet, humble and certainly unpretentious man, being welcomed home with a fervour and deep feeling of respect that would do credit to a king.”214 For the Star, this was “obviously was not a staged political demonstration. It was a spontaneous outpouring and expression of the high regard Compton has for its distinguished son.”215 One gets the feeling that the Star reporter might have been perhaps a bit overzealous, and certainly over-partisan, in his descriptions.

The event ended shortly after that, but not before St. Laurent had the chance to repeat one of his greatest hits from the western tour. During a visit from the Governor

General some time before, a school holiday had been declared. As quoted in the Star, St.

Laurent ended his remarks by saying “I, too… would like to give you children a holiday from school but I regret that it is not in my province to do so. But I pray…that those who have the right to decree it will do so.”216 This was met by a “mighty cheer”217 by the many children in attendance.

The event ended with photo ops with St. Laurent and his extended family, including his brother, nephews, and other relations, in front of the family home and his father’s store. Images that were again intended to cement his connection to family and to the small village of his birth.

213 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 214 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 215 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.”. 216 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 217 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.”. 91

Figure 3.13: St. Laurent with his extended family.218

The staged events of St. Laurent’s return to Compton lasted less than an hour, from 5:30-6:15 pm,219 and, with a candidate who traded less on his personal image and brand, they might have been well forgotten and unimportant. But as the opening salvo of

St. Laurent’s first campaign, this event is of paramount importance. The Liberals displayed to a sympathetic press all of St. Laurent’s brand differentiators, and nearly all of his substantive performance indicators. They were also able to set the standard for how they wanted him to be spoken about. A 45-minute press event in a small Quebec village thus became one of the most significant events of the tour.

218 James and Barkley, “Prime Minister Visits Old Friends, His Native Village and the Modest Home Where He was Born.” 219 Honderich. “Government by People Always Liberal Plan St. Laurent Declares.” 92

The Rally at Maple Leaf Gardens

Figure 3.14: A capacity crowd of 13 500 people attended the closing rally at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.220

The ultimate event of the Liberal campaign was also its largest, a massive rally at

Maple Leaf Gardens in the heart of Toronto. The event was scheduled a few days before the election. This was considerably out of character for a campaign based around presenting a humble man meeting small groups on a whistle-stop tour, but the event was specifically intended to contrast the Toronto meeting of George Drew at Massey Hall.

Drew’s event had considerably more limited seating.221 It was far from the only aspect on the evening designed to contrast St. Laurent and the Liberals with Drew and the Tories.

Ontario was also the principle battleground of the election, and Toronto was the Tory heartland. In the dying days of the campaign, it was important to not only show confidence, but also to prove they could draw large numbers in a Tory stronghold.

220 E. MacKintosh, “Leave Rally confident St. Laurent Will Win June 27,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 22 June 1949. 221 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 93. 93

It was a gamble that paid off, as the room was packed with 13,500 cheering supporters, local campaign staff, and whoever else the local candidates could bring in

(including one, lone heckler).222

The central component of the event was a speech by St. Laurent himself, but before that there was a great deal of pomp and circumstance. Local candidate Charles

Henry arranged for his own team of cheerleaders which became an expected fixture of later Maple Leaf Gardens’ rallies. There was also a live band in the scaffolding above the stage to entertain the crowd.223

The arena was filled with flags and bunting, and, at one end opposite the stage, large, lighted pictures of Mackenzie King, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and St. Laurent (who had another picture over the stage as well).224 This design was not only designed to invoke a celebratory atmosphere to encourage the idea of the inevitability of St. Laurent’s victory and to excite the crowd, but also to highlight the continuity of Liberal government, something St. Laurent’s speech emphasized as well.

When the event started in earnest, the local candidates processed to the platform, followed by senators and cabinet ministers including Senator Gordon Fogo (head of the

NLF), C.D. Howe, and Lester Pearson.225 St. Laurent, his daughter Marthe Samson, and granddaughter Louise Samson were then led in by pipers. Marthe Samson in particular had been a fixture for the campaign, appearing in several prominent photoshoots and substituting for her mother on several occasions. The three generations of St. Laurent’s family remained on stage throughout the event. Ruth Radford, the only female candidate

222 Jack Karr, “Unforgettable sight of Tremendous Rally Amazes St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 22 June 1949. 223 Karr. 224 Karr. 225 Karr. 94 participating in the rally, gave each of St. Laurent’s female relations a bouquet of flowers,226 and they all featured prominently in the speeches and party-friendly press accounts and photographs of the event.227 This highlighted St. Laurent’s role as a family man and grandfather, and the family values that the Liberals were eager to display, as well as his positive relationship with women.

Figure 3.15: St. Laurent's eldest daughter, Marthe Samson, frequently accompanied him on tour, often substituting for his wife when the schedule was too much for her.228

There were other speakers, but it was clear who the headliner was. Pearson gave a stock speech defending his record as Secretary of State for External Affairs and predicting that “Drew plus Duplessis plus Toryism”229 was about to be defeated. C.D.

Howe was then given the task of introducing St. Laurent for what would be the culmination and climax of the event. Howe attacked the Conservatives for their attacks on the Liberal trade policies. He claimed that it was those policies that had made Canada “an

226 Harold Greer, “Ever Hear Tory Citing Party’s Record? Howe Asks Crowd of 13,500,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 22 June 1949. 227 Greer. 228 “Man of the People, St. Laurent in Toronto on June 21.” 229 Greer. 95 oasis of prosperity in a world that is far from prosperous.”230 He further stated that “you know and I know…that it is possible to talk ourselves into a depression,”231 as opposition predictions of economic collapse were likely to destroy consumer confidence. In this

Howe illuminated another theme of the night: Liberals were the only competent managers of the country, both economically and otherwise. His speech also spoke to the optimism for the future that had been characteristic of the Liberal campaign.

Howe’s introduction of the prime minister also addressed several of the brand differentiators and performance indicators that were specifically on display at this event, continuity and the record of achievement. “Mr. St. Laurent has amply demonstrated that the traditions of Laurier and Mackenzie King are safe in his capable hands. He has already realized the hopes of the fathers of confederation by bringing Newfoundland into the Dominion. The Atlantic Pact is also a triumph of his leadership, as he had much to do with its origin.” He emphasized the continuity of liberal Leadership, by harkening back to

Laurier and King, as well as the Fathers of Confederation. He also touched on St.

Laurent’s record of achievement.

St. Laurent’s speech went heavily negative against George Drew, something that had been uncharacteristic of his campaigning to this point. While he had called out Drew a few times for specific transgressions, for his working with Duplessis in Quebec, for example, or for trying to use race politics as a wedge issue,232 or for calling St. Laurent and his ministers liars,233 these had largely been secondary points to his main message, or

230 Greer. 231 Greer. 232 “St. Laurent’s Condemns Prog Con’s Campaigning,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 2 June 1949. 233 Hugh Boyd, “St. Laurent’s Election Campaign Has New Fire,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 1 June 1949. 96 in direct response to questions. He had managed, for the most part, to stay on a positive message and avoid discussing the opposition at all and “did not bother to mention the name of his main opponent.”234 He had referred to him a few times as “the leader of the opposition” or “a certain type of Tory which were not the rank and file,”235 or other euphemisms, but avoided speaking of him directly.

This time was different. St. Laurent was in the Tory heartland and would have to act accordingly if he wanted to make headway. Drew, still never mentioned by name, was the main focus of his 45-minute speech, although he found time to speak proudly of both the local Toronto candidates and the record of his government and ministers. 236

St. Laurent attacked Drew personally. He said part of the strength of a democracy was that two men could hold opposing views and still be honest and patriotic.237 There were times when two parties could disagree profoundly “without descending to personalities and abuse,”238 as with Borden and Laurier. But the leader of one of the old parties was conducting himself in a way that undermined the democratic system, “to judge by his public utterances, he seems incapable of believing that a good many people can hold a different view from his own and still be honest and sincere and good

Canadians.”239 Anybody opposed to the petty Drew would face “violent and indiscriminate charges of attempting to mislead and deceive the public,”240 a fairly aggressive and severe characterisation of a man whose job had been to hold the

234 Hugh Boyd, “’It’s Great to be a Canadian’ is St. Laurent’s Text in N.S.,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 13 May 1949. 235 Hugh Boyd, “St. Laurent Speech Answers Prog Con Leader’s Charges,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 16 May 1949. 236 Robert Nielsen, “St. Laurent Prefers The Truth Sure Voters Will Repudiate Wild-Swinging Drew Charges,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 22 June 1949. 237 Nielsen. 238 Nielsen. 239 Nielsen. 240 Nielsen. 97 government to account in the House. These attacks let St. Laurent contrast himself as the candidate best able to be a prime minister for all Canadians, even those he disagreed with.

St. Laurent described the good works of Howe, Claxton, and Pearson, emphasizing both the government’s record of achievement and its competence, and hoping to prove that men who had such a record of good works could not also be guilty of the sins Drew had accused them of. 241 St. Laurent was demonstrating that he was loyal to his ministers, and therefore would be loyal to Canadians.

He then began his more severe attacks on Drew, arguing that Drew had accused

St. Laurent of bribing the public when he cut taxes the previous year (which let St.

Laurent subtly remind the crowd that he had cut taxes) while also claiming that the cuts were not deep enough Now Drew was offering even bigger cuts himself, which was “a pretty irresponsible way to conduct an election campaign.”242 This sort of attack had been a common theme throughout the campaign, arguing that Drew said one thing in Quebec and another in the rest of Canada. This was a direct contrast to St. Laurent’s pledge to speak to all of Canada with one voice, no matter what language. He made this comparison explicit in this speech as well.

St. Laurent closed his speech with an anecdote. When he entered the government, his friends had told him that he knew nothing about politics, but, as it turned out, he knew nothing of “a certain kind of politics.”243 When he spoke in front of a judge, he expressed

“the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”244 The audience was meant to infer that Drew practiced the other kind of politics.

241 Nielsen. 242 Nielsen. 243 Nielsen. 244 Nielsen. 98

By the Numbers: The Polls and the Results

The Gallup organization released four polls throughout the campaign, two in May and two in June. Each of those polls tracked party preference, likelihood of voting, and other relevant variables. Only the first poll tracked why people preferred a particular party, meaning that data cannot be used to track how much of an impact St. Laurent had as the campaign gone on. The study methodology provided is not specific on this point, but the poll would have been taken in late April or very early May This was before the campaign to introduce ‘Uncle Louis’ to the country began in earnest, but the results are nonetheless illuminating. Of those that responded that they would be voting Liberal, the three highest ranking reasons were: that they had a good past record (38.6%), that they had the best platform (16%), and that they liked the leader (11.1%).245

It is interesting to note that at this stage of the campaign 12.5% of PC supporters were voting that way because they preferred the leader, compared to 11.1% of Liberal supporters, but that was almost all in Ontario (6.7% to the Liberals 2.7%), where Drew had been premier. In Quebec, St. Laurent had the advantage (7.7% to Drew’s 3.1%), but the sample was slightly weighted towards Ontarians (36.6% of respondents, with Quebec at 25.2%),246 Anglophones made up 69.2% of respondents. Even in Quebec the majority took the survey in English, although 42% of respondents listed themselves as bilingual, and 49.9% as francophone only.

245 Canadian Institute of Public Opinion (CIPO), 1949, Gallup Poll, May 1949, #186 [Canada]. [public-use microdata file]. Toronto, Ontario. Gallup Canada Inc. [distributor]. 246 “Section A: Population and Migration,” Historical Statistics of Canada (11-516-X), 2nd ed., (Ottawa: Statistics Canada), 1999, accessed September 18, 2017. http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/olc- cel/olc.action?ObjId=11-516-X&ObjType=2&lang=en&Limit=0. The 1951 national census recorded Ontario as 32.8% of the national population, and Quebec with 29% of the national population. 99

During the course of the campaign, the Liberals managed to pick up support from people who had voted for every other party in the previous election,247 and held on to

79.7% of previous Liberal voters (the PCs, in contrast, only held on to 69.6% of their previous voters). They also had the support of nearly twice the number of those who had been too young to vote in the previous election than the Tories (44.2% to 24.7%), and more than half of those who had not voted previously (54.8%). This makes sense due to their commanding lead of the youth (21-30) vote, 47.2% to the Tories 17.9%. The

Liberals led in all other age categories. They also led with the English (43.5%), French

(60.4%), and bilinguals (66%). The last poll before the election had the Liberals holding on to 50.4% support generally.248

On election day that number remained roughly the same. With voter turnout at

73.8%,249 the Liberals captured 50.1% of the vote and 190 seats, the largest majority yet reached, compared to the Tories 29.7% and 41 seats.250 The Liberals won a plurality in all provinces except Alberta, which went Social Credit, and were particularly dominant in

Quebec and Newfoundland.

247 Except Labour Progressive as only two respondents listed them as their preference, and neither had been old enough to vote in 1945. 248 Canadian Institute of Public Opinion (CIPO), 1949, Gallup Poll, June 1949, #189 [Canada], [public-use microdata file], Toronto, Ontario. Gallup Canada Inc. [distributor]. 249 “Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums,” Elections Canada, Revised on 9 January 2017, http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index&lang=e. 250 “Electoral Results By Party: 21st General Election,” Parliament of Canada, Revised on 22 October 2015, https://lop.parl.ca/ParlInfo/compilations/ElectionsAndRidings/ResultsParty.aspx?Season=0&Parliament =a30aaff3-4b37-4184-9400-434cbc76d5ed. 100

Conclusion: A Perfect Campaign

Figure 3.16: St. Laurent expressing “genuine affection” for a young Linda Francis on tour.251

The 1949 general election was as close to a perfect election as the Liberals ran under St. Laurent, and was the biggest landslide yet seen in Canadian politics. The use of

St. Laurent was textbook. The western tour, and the later whistle-stops modelled after it, exposed the country to St. Laurent and his campaigning persona. It won over voters and their children alike, while forcing the press to hang on his every word lest they miss an important announcement. The return to Compton was a nearly perfect advertisement for the image of St. Laurent, displaying in 45 minutes every brand differentiator and setting the tone for how the Liberals wanted the press to present him. The final rally packed

Maple Leaf Gardens with supporters even in the heart of Tory Toronto. St. Laurent managed to keep up the positive messaging that was such an important component of his brand. He mostly left negative campaigning to his ministers, except at the closing rally, something he would find difficult to avoid in later years. The 1949 election was the

Liberals’ greatest success, and it established the model for what was to come.

251 E. Mackintosh, “To Speak in Toronto June 21, Prime Minister Closes Western Ontario Tour.” 101

CHAPTER FOUR: THE 1953 ELECTION OR ‘UNCLE LOUIS’ RIDES AGAIN

Figure 4.1: One of the odder tropes that developed throughout the three campaigns were pictures of St. Laurent in various hats. This cowboy hat replaced a rather unfortunate native headdress from the 1949 campaign.252

In many ways, the 1953 election (22 June-10 August) was simply a sequel to

1949, but some of the cracks that eventually led to the disastrous result in 1957 were starting to show. The same actors occupied their familiar roles, with both St. Laurent and

Drew returning as leaders, and with St. Laurent having largely the same team around him.

The same set pieces were in place, with a rally in Windsor replacing the return to St.

Laurent’s home town, but the same whistle-stop tour of the country and rally at Maple

Leaf Gardens. And the same tactics were employed, exploiting the personal popularity of

‘Uncle Louis’ to boost the party’s fortunes.

252 Norman James, “Prime Minister Welcomed to Calgary Stampede,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 13 July 1953. 102

Figure 4.2: By 1953 both the Liberal party and Canadian voters had embraced ‘Uncle Louis.’253

But there are significant differences as well. The 1953 campaign was a study in extremes. While St. Laurent had been central to the party’s strategy in 1949, in 1953 he was the strategy. They had spent more than four years cultivating this image, and it was time to reap the benefits. The Liberals went all in with ‘Uncle Louis,’ making him the focus of all their marketing, and even running under the slogan “A Great Leader for a

Greater Canada—Vote St. Laurent!”254 Many advertisements stopped referring explicitly to the Liberal party at all, or they buried the Liberal branding in a much smaller typeface.

But while the campaign was focused on the positive image that had been created, the embodiment of that brand was busy undermining it. St. Laurent was as popular as ever, and as photogenic, but he increasingly ran a negative campaign that undermined his positive image. While his negative comments had been confined to a few specific days

253 Douglas Croak, “St. Laurent Big Hit With Young Canada at Every Stop,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 25 July 1953. 254 National Liberal Federation of Canada, Ad. No. 5305-D. 103 and the rally in 1949, they appeared with increasing frequency and animosity in 1953.

And while the ‘Uncle Louis’ image was complex and could incorporate many things, mean-spiritedness was not one of them. The Tories under George Drew were not adept at capitalizing on this, but four years later Diefenbaker’s team would exploit it to devastating effect.

Figure 4.3: Images such as this one from 1950 with Doris Roper, a young, black girl, maintained the ‘Uncle Louis’ image even between elections.255

This chapter will principally focus on the ways 1953 was different from 1949, particularly the use of St. Laurent’s brand by the party, and contrasting that with how St.

Laurent himself was undermining that brand through his own negative messaging. This all culminated in the Maple Leaf Gardens rally and set the stage for the Liberal defeat in

1957, where the negative Liberal campaigning ran headfirst into the Tory co-opting of

Liberal strategies.

255 ‘Louis St. Laurent as ‘Uncle Louis’ with a young Canadian, Doris Roper; Dresden, Ontario, April 21, 1950,’ in Dale Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian, 229. 104

The Use and Abuse of ‘Uncle Louis’: How the National Campaign Exploited the Image of their Leader

Figure 4.4: The Tories had run into the wall of ‘Uncle Louis’ and the Liberal record in 1949, something the Liberals hoped to repeat into 1953.256

In 1949, the Liberals used St. Laurent’s personal popularity and their record to steamroll their opponents and win a massive majority. But by 1953, the voters had experienced four years of Liberal government, and there were signs that not all of them particularly liked it. From June 1949 to December 1951, there had been 22 by-elections.

There were only five where the Liberals lost a seat to the Progressive Conservatives.257

On 26 May 1952 there were six by-elections, all in Liberal ridings. Three of those seats were lost to the Tories, and the other three saw substantially lower numbers for the

Liberals. The seats lost were in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, provinces that were the core of the Liberal majority. Pickersgill attributed these losses to a rejection of the 1952 budget by Liberal supporters, as it only minimally cut taxes despite a substantial

256 “Hard to Get Around,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 2 July 1953. 257 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 171. 105 surplus in revenues.258 There was also a sound rejection of Liberals provincially in the five elections of 1952, where Liberal governments in BC and New Brunswick being defeated, and Liberal oppositions seeing substantial losses in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Only in Quebec did a Liberal party gain seats, but that still placed them firmly behind the

Duplessis government.259

In the May 1953 Gallup poll, the only one in the Gallup archive that was released before the election was called, 55.4% of respondents reported having voted Liberal in

1949, but only 44.4% said that the Liberals remained their preferred party.260 A June report showed that the Liberals had lost support in every region since 1949 except

Quebec, where they gained two points. They only lost two or three points in any given region (except in Western Canada, where they had lost 8 points to Social Credit),261 and their numbers were still very strong, but there was a disconcerting trend. It should be noted, however, that in every one of these surveys, the question asked was which party they preferred and did not mention the leaders. That data was, unfortunately, not captured.

What was happening was a turn away from Liberal governments and policies, but, interestingly, not from the prime minister himself, who remained consistently popular.

After the end of the parliamentary session in July 1952, St. Laurent was sent a memo from Claxton begging him not to retire. Claxton saw that “St. Laurent as leader was the

Government’s greatest asset.”262

258 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 172. 259 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 172. 260 Canadian Institute of Public Opinion (CIPO). 1953. Gallup Poll, May 1953, #227 [Canada]. [public-use microdata file]. Toronto, Ontario. Gallup Canada Inc. [distributor]. 261 Canadian Institute of Public Opinion, Parties Starting Campaign Where 1949 Vote Left Them, 24 June 1953, box MG 28 IV-3, volume 827, folder GALLUP POLLS GE-1953, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 2. 262 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 173. 106

Figure 4.5: The Liberals wanted the public to know that a vote for a Liberal candidate was a vote for St. Laurent. Particularly interesting here is how much more prominent St. Laurent is compared to the Liberal party.263

There are a few reasons why this dichotomy might have come to pass. Unlike with other leaders at other times, St. Laurent was not consistently the face of policy. The ministerial structure of the government and cabinet concentrated authority in the ministers themselves for policy decisions, with St. Laurent largely trusting them to get on with it.

Given the talent of his cabinet, this style made sense and it also put less of a burden on St.

Laurent himself. It also meant that policy announcements tended to come from the ministers themselves, both during elections and between them. So, while a voter might have an issue with a particular minister, they could separate that from issues with the

263 The Toronto and York Liberal Association, “A Vote for These Liberal Candidates is a Vote for St. Laurent,” in Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 7 August 1953. 107 prime minister or his party. This ministerial structure ended up having dire consequences a few years later during the pipeline debate, but in 1953 it remained a strength.

Figure 4.6: The Globe and Mail ran several cartoons aping the style and content of specific Liberal ads. Jack Pickersgill is shown with St. Laurent in the bottom right264

This is another reason why continuity was so important to the Liberal branding, particularly the branding of St. Laurent himself. His speeches generally avoided mentioning specific policies. As in 1949, when promises were made, they were generally a pledge to keep doing what they had been doing, rather than a new initiative. The theme of the campaign was, in essence ‘Things are good under St. Laurent, he will make sure they stay that way, and the opposition will not.’ Running on a platform of general good governance meant that they could not be accused of failing to live up to promises, and did

264 “Hail! Hail! The Gang’s All Here!,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 7 August 1953. 108 not have specific ideas that could be attacked by the opposition. Unlike, for example, the conscription election of 1917 or the free trade election of 1988, the 1949, 1953, and 1957 elections were not about a specific policy, they were about leadership and whether voters wanted another Liberal government under St. Laurent. In 1949 and 1953 this worked well, reinforcing the idea that things were going well as they were, and that change was not necessary. Drew was able to present a detailed plan for how he would change things, but not a solid argument for why things should be changed. Four years on Diefenbaker presented both, along with an evocative vision for the country that the Liberals could not effectively counter with a steady-as-she-goes style of oration.

Because of St. Laurent’s personal popularity, and how it compared to the party’s, the Liberals decided to dramatically increase his presence during the campaign. The slogan, which was repeated on most of the advertisements in one form or another, was “A

Great Leader for a Greater Canada—Vote St. Laurent!”265 The choice of emphasizing St.

Laurent, rather than saying ‘Vote Liberal,’ demonstrates that his personal brand was a more valuable selling point than that of the party.

Now that he was more firmly established, the nature of the use of continuity had changed. It was less important to frame him and his government as a continuation of the tradition of the party of King and Laurier, and more important to emphasize that the specific continuation of this government was a good thing. The emphasis shifted to discussing the specific achievements of the last four years, rather than talking about the achievements of Liberalism in general. It also tied the party to St. Laurent’s personal brand, making a vote for a Liberal a vote for St. Laurent. Diefenbaker used precisely this

265 National Liberal Federation of Canada, “A Great Leader for a Greater Canada,” in Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 31 June 1953. 109 strategy in 1957, and it would be a significant part of his appeal as voters who had difficulty voting Conservative were less hesitant to support a leader they liked.

Figure 4.7: This advertisement for English-language magazines was typical of the ads run in 1953.266

Fig. 4.7 was typical of the 1953 advertisements. It linked a vote for St. Laurent

(rather than the Liberals) with prosperity, listed specific accomplishments, and made no specific promises. It is notable that the left column discusses “Liberal policies” and references “Liberal administrations,” but the right column discusses the accomplishments of the “St. Laurent government.”267 Policies which might be disagreed with or could fail,

266 Ad. No. 5301-5, MG 28 IV-3, volume 815, folder AM…..Magazine English, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 267 Ad. No. 5301-5. 110 were attached to the party, but specific accomplishments, which had already come to fruition and were a part of the record, were attached to the person of St. Laurent. So, St.

Laurent had a personal record of achievement, but it was harder to attach him personally to unpopular policies. He was not personally saying anything, or connecting himself to a policy platform.

Figure 4.8: This ad only references the Liberal party briefly in the quotes on the side and in the tiny letting underneath ‘Vote St. Laurent.’ By 1953 St. Laurent was so intrinsically linked with the Liberal party that nothing more was needed.268

St. Laurent’s image was generally more prominent in 1953 advertisements than in those from 1949. While they by no means tried to conceal him in the 1949 ads, except in negative ones, his image was usually relatively larger in 1953, and greater care was paid

268 National Liberal Federation of Canada, “A Great Leader for a Greater Canada,” 111 to the details of it. In one case “a line of demarcation between his shirt collar and his neck,”269 and “the roundness of the face”270 was enough to nearly scuttle one run of posters before the engravers were able to fix the issues.

The overall Liberal branding strategy in 1953 was entirely based on ‘Uncle

Louis.’ Even more than the 1949 election, this was a leader-centred campaign. St. Laurent was central to every aspect, from the slogan to the increased presence on advertisements and handbills. In many cases, they even dropped the word Liberal from campaign materials, or qualified it. In 1949, St. Laurent and his image had been central to the

Liberal campaign strategy and branding. In 1953, he was the strategy. Unfortunately, the candidate himself did not seem to have enough appreciation for precisely what that meant.

On the Hustings: St. Laurent Begins to Show his Rage

While the campaign team was doubling down on the positive brand of ‘Uncle

Louis,’ St. Laurent was busy undermining it with his own negative campaigning. While he had largely confined his attacks on Drew to the closing rally and a period of a few days in 1949, by 1953 they were becoming more of a fixture in his speeches. And while much of what he had said in 1949 was about defending his ministers from Tory attacks, in 1953 he was on the offensive. Gone were the flowery words about Canadian values and unity; in 1953 St. Laurent’s speeches came in two main varieties, the familiar, dull report to the shareholders and the blistering attack on the opposition.

269 Paul Lafond,"Code: BPM," Letter to Gordon Bartlett, 22 April 1953, box MG 28 IV-3, volume 810, folder COCKFIELD BROWN Posters GE-1953, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 270 Paul Lafond,"Code: BPM," Letter to Gordon Bartlett, 15 April 1953, box MG 28 IV-3, volume 810, folder COCKFIELD BROWN Posters GE-1953, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 112

Much like with his speech at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1949, these attacks were an attempt to contrast “the responsible performance of the government and the irresponsible promises of the opposition,”271 highlighting the record of achievement of the government.

But this message increasingly took on a hostile, mocking tone. In his memoir, Jack

Pickersgill claims that he tried to mitigate the worst of these impulses in St. Laurent, saying that “…I felt it was important to first to remind the public of the government’s record of achievements, and, thereby, keep the Tory program in the shade.”272 But as his companion, speechwriter, and manager for much of the campaign, he bears a good deal of responsibility as well.

St. Laurent’s tour “was essentially a repeat performance of the campaign of

1949,”273 at least in terms of the kinds of events and rallies he went to, if not their content.

There were fewer engagements and whistle-stops than in 1949 to allow him more time to rest.274 Pickersgill, who had spent the previous year in the non-partisan role of Clerk of the Privy Council, was running in the safe, Newfoundland riding of Bonavista-

Twillingate. This allowed him to take up his customary roll as batman and speechwriter for much of the campaign, although he was conspicuously absent for several days while

St. Laurent was in Quebec.

Unlike in 1949, the campaign did not open with a major press event in Compton,

QC.275 The country already knew St. Laurent and his story. Instead, the campaign began with a rally in Windsor, ON, on 22 June. This was followed by another whistle-stop tour,

271 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 194. 272 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 194. 273 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 194. 274 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 193. 275 He would return there in the closing days of the campaign as a standard campaign stop with less fanfare than in 1949. 113 and the campaign once again ended with a rally at Maple Leaf Gardens. St. Laurent’s time was principally devoted to Quebec and Ontario, with less time spent in the Western and Atlantic provinces.276

Figure 4.9: St. Laurent greets a crowd of supporters at the opening rally of the campaign in Windsor, ON.277

St. Laurent’s speech in Windsor focused principally on the possibility of the newly minted President Eisenhower raising tariffs with Canada, and what his government was doing to prevent that. He did, however, find time to rebuke Drew’s newly released platform of sixteen promises, something that came to be a recurring theme throughout the campaign. The Liberal party was “not going to compete with other political parties in making empty promises and trying to arouse exaggerated hopes.”278 St. Laurent went on, saying “the Liberal Party believes that promises should be made only when they can be kept and we have a proud record of keeping our promises and carrying out our policies,”279 the implication being that the voters could not trust Drew to do the same. In that same speech, he attacked Drew for claiming that the defence budget was too extravagant, another attack that came up several times in later speeches. Canada had a

276 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 193. 277 Harold Barkley, “Crowd Double That of ’49 Greets Premier in Windsor,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 23 June 1953. 278 “St. Laurent Dubs Tariffs A Threat To Trade Interests,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 23 June 279 “St. Laurent Dubs Tariffs A Threat To Trade Interests.” 114 duty to the free world, and part of having peace was being willing to defend it should the need arise.

That speech outlined the Liberals’ key goals: “a peaceful Canada in a peaceful world, expanding prosperity and expanding opportunities, work for those able to work and security for both homes and families,” and “a strong and united Canada giving full scope for the development of a free and vigorous people.”280 All of these goals were more aspirational than specific, and none of them had much of a metric for determining their success or failure. They also demonstrated the Liberal focus on continuity, as St. Laurent claimed that this “had been the Liberal party’s policy in 1949 when he had been elected to office.”281

Figure 4.10: St. Laurent waves to a crowd of children in George Drew’s hometown of Guelph, ON.282

After the Windsor rally, which “was organized with all the fanfare Canadians were accustomed to associate with American political meetings,”283 including

280 “St. Laurent Dubs Tariffs A Threat To Trade Interests.” 281 “St. Laurent Dubs Tariffs A Threat To Trade Interests.” 282 Leo Harrison, “St. Laurent Outdraws Tory Chief 2-1 in Drew Hometown,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 24 June 1953. 283 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 194. 115 cheerleaders, the campaign opened with a tour of Ontario “which was almost a repetition of the tour in the first week of June 1949.”284 The next day in Guelph, Drew’s hometown,

St. Laurent again attacked the Tory leader’s 16-point plan to ramp up expenditures while also decreasing taxes by five hundred million dollars, going after it quite literally point by point. He took or a much more mocking, patronizing tone then in the past, painting the

Tories and Drew more as childish fools then as legitimate opponents. He “knew of no secret formula”285 that would allow the Tories to do all this286 unless they slashed the defence budget and borrowed to make up the shortfall. St. Laurent portrayed Drew and his party as being either fools or liars. In 1949, he had gone to extremes to avoid talking about Drew altogether, or even mentioning his name. In 1953, he came up in most addresses. By the end of the campaign mentioning him was a reliable way to get laughs.287

One of the more flagrant and ill-advised attacks on Drew was in response to a piece in the Tory-friendly Calgary Herald. They had printed an editorial in the style of a bedtime story about “hot air and cold facts.”288 Pickersgill and St. Laurent “becoming rather bored with [St. Laurent’s] conventional speeches,”289 decided to ape this style in a response comparing Drew’s plan to increase spending while reducing taxes to the

Eisenhower campaign of 1952 that promised to do the same thing by eliminating waste.290

St. Laurent’s response contained this passage:

Once upon a time in another land a political party had been out of office so long it was willing to try any kind of hot air to blow its way in. Now it so

284 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 194. 285 Victor Mackie, “St. Laurent Lashes Drew for Pledging ‘Impossible’,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 24 June 1953. 286 The ‘secret formula’ line would recur throughout the campaign, sometimes as a ‘magic formula.’ 287 “St. Laurent gets Ovation in Montreal,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 7 August 1953. 288 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 195. 289 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 195. 290 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 195. 116

happened that the government of that other land had not been paying its way…Well, this political party that had been out of office so long didn’t bother about these cold facts. Oh no, it just went merrily along promising to balance the budget and reduce taxes by… eliminating all the mink coats in the country. And the people believed them and put them into office. Well I can’t tell you what happened to the mink coats but… they are begging people to not ask them to keep their promises to reduce the taxes they need… to meet the cold facts of life.291

This nearly caused a diplomatic incident when the American ambassador complained.292

This condescending, mocking tone was typical of how St. Laurent and the Liberals discussed their opponents, although not usually in so colourful a style. Where in 1949 the

Tories were presented sneaky and underhanded in their tactics, and overly aggressive in their attacks, in 1953 they were foolish children making promises they could not hope to keep. By 1957 one of the chief attacks leveled at the Liberals was that they were condescending and arrogant. Passages like this demonstrate that Liberal condescension long predated that.

Many of St. Laurent’s speeches focused on dismantling the Tory platform, rather than presenting a positive message of his own, as he had in 1949. The ten-day western tour opened up in Winnipeg, and began on a similar note to the Windsor rally. St. Laurent accused Drew of using “scare tactics”293 by claiming that the dominion-provincial tax rental agreements were another form of federal centralization of power.294 St. Laurent had long charged that Drew said one thing in Quebec and another in the rest of Canada, and cited this as proof. In English Canada, Drew simply wanted to restore power to the provinces and municipalities and to “…restore the true principles of our own federal

291 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 195-196. 292 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 196. 293 “P.M. Charges Drew with ‘Scare Tactics’,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 9 July 1953. 294 Quebec was the only province that didn’t participate in these agreements. 117 system.”295 But in Quebec, he was the one fighting the good fight against the demon federalism, as the “…constitution was threatened as it has been threatened at no time since Confederation.”296

In 1949, St. Laurent generally had not discussed policy while on the campaign trail, except to speak to the government’s record and, occasionally, their existing policy.

He preferred to run without promises that would never come to fruition, or that could be attacked by his opponents. He did not always avoid the campaign promise, but they were never central to the party’s platform. When promises were made, they tended to focus on particularly narrow areas of policy where the Liberals were already engaged, such as housing, or on areas of local interest that did not concern most of the country. Generally, these promises were a pledge to keep doing what they had been doing, rather than a new initiative. This lack of promises also allowed St. Laurent to be in a position where he

“repeatedly contrasted the responsible performance of the government and the irresponsible promises of the opposition.”297 This was a theme that he had highlighted in his Maple Leaf Gardens speech in 1949, and it became a running theme of the 1953 election.

In 1953, his speeches often spoke more directly to specific government policies for the future, something that Pickersgill had gone to great lengths to avoid in 1949.

Instead of being a symbolic figure for the country, focused principally on values and image, he was delivering more conventional speeches about policy and promises. These still tended to be minor promises, often on local issues that would not get much national attention, but they tied St. Laurent’s personal popularity more closely to that of the

295 “St. Laurent Accepts Drew’s Challenge,” Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), 9 July 1953. 296 “St. Laurent Accepts Drew’s Challenge.” 297 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 194. 118

Liberal party and its policy. This was something that the advertisements being put out by

Cockfield Brown were trying to avoid, and it hamstrung his ability to campaign in 1957 in the same way as he had in 1949.

Figure 4.11: St. Laurent spoke more about specific policies in 1953 then he had in 1949. They were often of local interest, and he did not focus on any policy for any length of time, something mocked in this Globe and Mail cartoon.298

St. Laurent gave an address in Hamilton to close off the Ontario tour. A good portion of his speech was devoted to a discussion of the development of the St. Lawrence

Seaway,299 a topic he spoke on again in Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.300 While

St. Laurent was again formally committed to “speak with one voice and make the same

298 Reidford, “And Who Said Don’t Change Horses in Midstream?” The Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 11 July 1953. 299 Beland Honderich, “Huge Crowds on Hand to Welcome St. Laurent at Oakville and Hamilton,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 27 June 1953. 300 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 196. 119 appeal”301 in both English and French Canada, his speeches were considerably more tailored to local issues, especially on issues of economics and development. In Edmonton, he spoke about the determination of his government to build a natural gas pipeline to the

East to transport Albertan product.302 In Regina, he said that building a dam for power and irrigation on the South Saskatchewan River would not be cost effective, an issue

Pickersgill credited with the poor showing of the Liberals in Saskatchewan in the 1953 election.303 While discussing local interests allowed St. Laurent to speak more directly to his immediate audience, it diminished his ability to present a more unifying, national message like he had in 1949, making individual speeches less relevant across the country.

Figure 4.12: Despite his more aggressive speeches, St. Laurent had not lost his touch with children or photographers.304

St. Laurent’s speeches on tour were markedly different from the 1949 campaign, and from his friendly, optimistic image as ‘Uncle Louis.’ He increasingly tied himself to local issues and policies that hurt him later. Instead of ignoring the Tories, he went on the

301 “St. Laurent Dubs Tariffs A Threat To Trade Interests.” 302 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 196. 303 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 196. 304 Norman James, “Drew Promises Would Cost Billion Dollars—St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 30 July 1953. 120 attack, openly, and meanly, mocking Drew and his policies. Drew called the Liberal campaign “nothing…but a personal attack unequalled by anything before in this country.”305 While the party was committed to maintaining and using the ‘Uncle Louis’ brand, and St. Laurent was still the master of the photo op, his words undermined that effort. Drew could not effectively exploit that, but Diefenbaker could.

The Closing Rally:

Figure 4.13: The closing rally of the campaign did not attract the same numbers as in the 1949 campaign, but there was still an impressive 10,000 in attendance.306

On 7 August, the campaign ended with a near carbon-copy of the 1949 rally in

Maple Leaf Gardens, complete with pipers and appearances from Howe and Pearson.307

Banners with King, Laurier and St. Laurent again graced the stage.308 Unlike in 1949, however, the stands were not fully packed. In 1949 the attendance was 13,500, but four years later stood at 10,000,309 still a strong number to be sure, but a marked decrease that was reflected in the party’s electoral fortunes.

Jack Pickersgill spoke before St. Laurent, giving the more partisan speech so St.

Laurent would not have to. St. Laurent’s speech was broadcast to the country over the

305 Victor Mackie, “Drew Flaws Liberal ‘Smears’,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 7 August 1953. 306 A. Gilbert, “10,000 Liberals Cheer St. Laurent at the Gardens,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 8 August 1953. 307 James Nicol, “See Victory Omen as 10,000 at Gardens Welcome St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Ontario), 8 August 1953. 308 Nicol. 309 Nicol. 121 radio, but Pickersgill was speaking only to the partisans in the room itself.310 The bulk of his address was focused on getting out the vote, arguing that if his voters felt too confident in the result, as they had every right to be, then they would not get to the polls and all would be lost.311 This was repeated several times in the closing days of the campaign as the Liberals assumed their victory was inevitable. In fact, “almost everyone in Canada, while expecting the Liberal losses, was sure that the Government’s mandate would be renewed.”312

Figure 4.14: Liberal marketing not focused on St. Laurent concentrated on what voters stood to lose, or why no other party could hold the confidence of the House. This ‘Liberals-or- Nothing’ strategy was used through all three campaigns.313

310 Nicol. 311 Nicol. 312 Meisel, 237. 313 The Toronto and York Liberal Association, “You can keep all these things by voting Liberal,” in Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 29 July 1953. 122

The real risk, as presented by St. Laurent, was not that the Liberals would lose, but that they would not have a secure enough government with sufficient seats to prevent the Tories, CCF, and Social Credit from having some influence, “Is that the kind of government we want when we are going into to try and get a real settlement in Korea?”314

The Liberals had long campaigned on the idea that they were best placed to really govern the country, but by 1953, that sentiment had turned into the idea that they were the only party that could do the job. This line of thinking argued that the Conservatives had been out of power so long that they would not know what to do with it if they got it, assuming they could hold it. The Liberals believed that their victory was assured in perpetuity, and they faced a harsh reality four years later.

Figure 4.15: These posters were hung at the rally to promote the idea of continuity.315

As the rally also served as the last of St. Laurent’s national radio broadcasts

(television did not make a significant appearance until 1957), the speech was more

314 Nicol. 315 Harold Barkley, “Introduce 18 Toronto, Yorks Candidates at Big Rally,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 5 August 1953. 123 general than some of the local addresses he had delivered during the campaign. As in

1949, this address marked a sharp contrast to the speeches he gave on the campaign trail.

But where, in 1949, he had switched from a positive message to a negative one, in 1953 he went back to the positive discussion of the party’s record that had been typical in the

1949 campaign. This might have been because of Pickersgill’s sharply negative address, but it is more likely that it is because this was a national radio broadcast, and not a speech to partisans as in 1949. The goal was to present the best possible image of St. Laurent to undecided voters who were likely to be listening in, and to the less committed Liberal voters that they needed to turn out to the polls. It also helped that the broadcast forced him to stick to the script,316 which was not typical of his style at other events where he spoke with few notes and frequently went off script.

St. Laurent’s message focused on the idea that during Liberal governments, good things happened for Canada. There was a large banner across the stage reading “For the

Best Years of Your Life Vote Liberal.”317 He did not need to make new promises, only stand on the record. Under the Liberals, the economy boomed and the quality of life improved. The central argument was that these things might be a coincidence, “but is it not a pretty good idea to have in office the kind of government under which such coincidences happen?”318 This again gets to the idea, that a change in government was far too risky. The only thing that could ensure prosperity was continuity of government.

The image-making worked, at least according to the Toronto Daily Star. They presented St. Laurent as incredibly modest, describing his speech as “telling them earnestly, and in quiet language, without the least attempt to dramatize himself or dazzle

316 Nicol. 317 Nicol. 318 Nicol. 124 the voters, that he and his colleagues had done their best.”319 This attempt to present himself as humble was, in fact, an effort to both dramatize himself and to dazzle the voters, to present a specific image of himself to win over the voters and earn their trust. In any case it worked and had been working. The next day a Gallup poll forecast a 50% vote for the Liberals.320 They were returned in a landslide, albeit a smaller one than the 1949 avalanche. They won 172 of 265 seats, twenty fewer than the 192 of 262 that they had won in 1949, but still a significant victory.

Conclusion: ‘Uncle Louis’ Strikes Again

Figure 4.16: 'Uncle Louis' with two-year-old Ian McCullough.321

The 1953 election was a replay of the successful 1949 campaign with some changes, but those changes were both significant and telling for the future. The advertising campaign was entirely centred on ‘Uncle Louis’ and St. Laurent’s personal brand as the Liberals had constructed it. Every aspect of the campaign emphasized the role of St. Laurent. Ads urged voters to ‘Vote St. Laurent,’ and identified the Liberal party’s record of accomplishment with the ‘Party of St. Laurent.’

319 Nicol. 320 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 197. 321 Norman James, “Fine Civic Welcome Accorded Prime Minister St. Laurent During Strenuous Campaign Tour of Western Ontario Centres,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 24 June 1953. 125

But while St. Laurent’s personal popularity still eclipsed that of his party, the cracks were starting to show in his performance. St. Laurent’s speeches were increasingly negative and condescending, and he was increasingly personally tied to policies that later proved to be highly controversial. Instead of making Drew and the Tories seem like a genuine threat to the prosperity that had been built up under St. Laurent’s governance, they made them into an object of mean spirited ridicule, something that thoroughly undermined the positive messaging of ‘Uncle Louis’ the saintly grandfather. The long record of Liberal rule had let the arrogance seep in, and their ability to beat Drew led them to believe that they could beat any Conservative. These vices ultimately lead to the disastrous results of the 1957 election.

126

CHAPTER FIVE: THE 1957 CAMPAIGN OR ‘UNCLE LOUIS’S’ WATERLOO AND THE VICTORY OF LIBERAL TACTICS OVER THE LIBERAL PARTY

Figure 5.1: As it turned out, the Liberal campaign did a great deal to help the voters change the channel.322

If the Liberal electoral machine was at its peak in 1949, and was still overwhelmingly dominant in 1953, by 1957 they had flown off the rails. Parliament was dissolved on 12 April, and the 1957 campaign went from 29 April to 10 June. The

Liberals presented a retread of the 1953 campaign.323 But this campaign was only a pale imitation, going through the same motions while forgetting what had made them successful in the first place. They gave in to every one of their worst impulses, and forgot many of the strategies that had made them successful even as their opponents used those strategies to win. In many ways, 1957 was St. Laurent’s Waterloo; an aging leader was crushed by the weight of past success and unable to innovate was defeated by a more

322 Kuch, “Editorial Cartoon,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 30 April, 1957. 323 Meisel, 190. 127 energetic and more flexible opponent who could use his own tactics far better than he could anymore.

The Liberals were arrogant, assuming that their win was inevitable no matter how they campaigned. They were behind the times, unable to effectively use television in the first campaign where that mattered. And, for the first time, it was the Liberals running a tired candidate against a dynamic, energetic one, putting the Liberals on the defensive and playing catch-up from the get-go. However, many of the innovative, exciting tactics that the Tories were employing were copied from the Liberals’ 1953 playbook (something the

Liberals themselves forgot more than once).

St. Laurent remained vital to the Liberal campaign. As Jack Pickersgill put it, “the

Cabinet and the Liberal party generally looked on St. Laurent as the platform and the programme.”324 The NLF felt that it went “without saying that the Prime Minister is the greatest political factor in the next election.”325 Even after the pipeline debate, St. Laurent still had wide popular support, with one Gallup poll in August showing him with 64% support.326 This increased to 74% by November of that year. But by election day, this had changed dramatically. Only the Liberal dominance in Quebec327 prevented a total collapse, and their overwhelming support in that province badly skews the overall numbers. Despite St. Laurent being badly off his game, it was the image of ‘Uncle Louis’ that turned what should have been a brutal defeat into one of the smallest margins

324 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 322. 325 Memorandum to D.R. McRobie, 16 November 1956, MG 28 IV-3, volume 836, folder WIN—Cockfield Brown & Co Ltd., Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 326 Letter to Jack Pickersgill, 13 August 1956, MG 28 IV-3, volume 836, folder WIN—57 Canadian Institute of Public Opinion, Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 327 Meisel, 291. The Liberals only won a plurality of the votes in Quebec, Newfoundland, and the territories, and only gained in the Northwest Territories. Of these, only Quebec had sufficient seats and votes to make a significant difference 128 between the governing party and the opposition in Canadian history. And without ‘Uncle

Louis’ in 1958 the Liberals were routed in one of the biggest defeats in Canadian history.

This chapter will discuss the more general issues that plagued the Liberal campaign, then look how the Tories used Liberal strategies in their campaign. It will then look at how both parties, and particularly how the party leaders, used television, and what that specifically reveals about everything else that was going on in the campaign. It will then look at how the Liberal campaign failed, and specifically at how they used St.

Laurent, and how he failed to live up to the standards he had set in previous campaigns. It will finally look at St. Laurent’s last rally at Maple Leaf Gardens, how different, and disastrous, it was compared to previous iterations, and how it was the culmination of all the problems of the Liberal campaign.

The 1957 campaign demonstrated that going through the same motions does not work if you forget why the things you did before were effective. Diefenbaker himself put it this way, “the Prime Minister thought his policy of cuddling and kissing would be enough to allow him to dominate the Canadian public for another four years,”328 and he continued to believe it until the results began to come in. Although ‘Uncle Louis’ was defeated, the 1957 campaign proved that the tactics and strategies that worked for him could be employed successfully by any sufficiently personable leader, and that he was not merely a fluke or aberration. Leader-centered campaigning and elections focused on leadership and not policy are now fixtures of Canadian politics in a way that they never were before.

328 Mark Harrison, “Cuddles, Kisses Fail, Says John,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 6 June 1957. 129

The Liberals’ Problems: Hello Hubris my Old Friend

The Liberals were plagued with problems in the 1957 campaign, many of their own making. Arrogance, which had been a vice for the Liberals well before St. Laurent, had firmly set in. The Liberals “could not believe that a government with nearly two- thirds of the Members in the House… was in any real peril while St. Laurent remained

Prime Minister.”329 The Liberals firmly believed in the inevitability of their victory, and many prominent members, including C.D. Howe, campaigned as though they resented having to do so.

They had also accumulated many scandals, but the pipeline debate of 1956 was the most damaging. Diefenbaker’s more active Tory campaign, which capitalized on that scandal, forced the Liberals on the defensive, preventing them from framing the campaign narrative as they had in 1949 and 1953. Many of their former strengths, such as the stronger members of the cabinet and the continuity of Liberal government, became weaknesses as ministers like C.D. Howe became increasingly belligerent, and the Liberal record became tarnished.

All of this was exacerbated because the successful campaign management team of

Kidd, Claxton, and Pickersgill had broken up. Kidd was still in place, but Claxton had retired from politics a few years before and Kidd did not have as close a working relationship with the Cabinet. As Pickersgill had been promoted to cabinet, it was decided that he should not work as closely with St. Laurent as he had previously. Both he and St.

Laurent felt “that it might create jealousies”330 among the other cabinet ministers if he were to work as closely with St. Laurent as he had in previous elections. The Liberals

329 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 322. 330 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 323. 130 were so confident in their victory that they felt it appropriate to sideline one of their major assets to prevent minor interpersonal conflict later on. Others had moved to step into

Claxton and Pickersgill’s shoes, they were not as experienced or as deft in managing their candidates (like Howe) or St. Laurent.

Given the number of problems the Liberals faced in 1957, it is remarkable that they did as well as they did. Many of these problems stemmed from their past success, not only did they believe that their victory was inevitable, most other people did too.

Maclean’s post-election editorial famously proclaimed that “For better or worse, we

Canadians have once more elected one of the most powerful governments ever created by the free will of a free electorate.331 After twenty-two years in power, the Liberals could not really comprehend the possibility that they could lose, and this manifested in a number of ways, from running a lackluster, low energy campaign, to clearly resenting the fact that they had to stand for election at all.

During the pipeline debate from 8 May-6 June 1956, the Liberals repeatedly forced closure and manipulated the standing orders of the House of Commons to push through a massive infrastructure project in time to secure the funding. This included having the Speaker rule that an entire day’s debate had never happened. This became known as Black Friday, the day that the Speaker ruled that it was, instead, Thursday.332

The Liberals “and particularly St. Laurent were accused of preventing debate and riding rough-shod over the rights of Parliament because of subservience to a dictatorial and domineering minister.”333 The Liberals hoped that the outrage over this scandal would

331 “Editorial: The Election and Democracy,” Maclean’s, 8 June 1957, 4. 332 English, 157. 333 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 298-299. 131 have died down by the 1957 election, but Diefenbaker made it the centrepiece of his argument against Liberal arrogance.

This was hardly the only decision he used against them. The Suez crisis, with its anti-British overtones was a major fixture of Diefenbaker’s attacks, arguing that the

Liberals were turning their backs on Britain. It was “perhaps the deepest emotional issue and may well have cost more seats than any other single cause.”334 When questioned in the House on the issue, St. Laurent had exclaimed that “The era when the supermen of

Europe could govern the whole world is coming pretty close to an end.”335 This was meant as a criticism of colonialism in general, but it was taken to be an attack on Britain specifically. This still carried weight in many circles in Canada, and likely helped secure voters who were already leaning Tory.

Diefenbaker was able to use these events, along with a few others, to paint a picture of a Liberal party that had been in for too long, a party that was arrogant, that had lost respect for the institutions of Canadian democracy and government, and had turned its back on Britain. He presented them as a party that felt that it knew better than the people who it was supposed to govern, and that the people should just be quiet and let them get on with it in perpetuity. Diefenbaker saw the continuation of this government as not only bad for the country, but an existential threat. Another Liberal government would fundamentally imperil the two-party system and erode the relationship with Britain. The

Liberals were unable to effectively refute these charges. Any party in power too long becomes stagnant, arrogant, and entitled, and no party had ever been continuously in power for as long as the Liberals. This effectively turned what had been one of the major

334 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 322. 335 Pickersgill, Louis St. Laurent, 56. 132 strengths central to previous Liberal campaigns, the party’s record and the continuity of government, into a significant liability.

These attacks forced the Liberals to respond. In 1949, they had been able to avoid talking about the opposition at all, focusing on their positive message. In 1953, they had been able to go on the attack, mocking Drew and his ‘unrealistic’ promises. In 1957, they were forced on the defensive, reacting instead of acting, and losing control of the initiative and the narrative. At the same time, the Tories, borrowing this strategy from the

1949 Liberals, steadfastly refused to respond in any significant manner to what was going on with the Liberal campaign, other than to occasionally point out how angry the

Liberals, and St. Laurent in particular, were getting.

Figure 5.2: When you let your opponents control the narrative, you let them control you. Running ads like this one put the Liberals firmly on the defensive.336

336 Liberal Party of Canada, “Before You Say Time For A Change Ask Yourself –To What?,” in Winnipeg Free Press(Winnipeg, MB), 7 June 1957. 133

As with the previous campaigns, the main issue that the Liberals were running on was the continuity of government and their own record. This had been one of their greatest strengths, but the scandals and arrogance of the previous four years was turning that into a significant vulnerability. The Tories made one of the main issues of the campaign that it was time for a change,337 even making their slogan “It’s Time for a

Diefenbaker Government,”338 as opposed to the Liberals’ “A Great Leader for a Greater

Canada - Vote St. Laurent”339 from the 1953 campaign. The Liberals even ran the large ad, pictured in fig. 5.2, in major daily papers to refute it. Rather than being proactive and in charge in the campaign, they were reactive and let the Tories control the narrative.

One of the other great strengths had been the quality of the cabinet and its ministerial structure. This gave more power to the ministers, rather than centralizing it with the prime minister. Each minister could control their department effectively and efficiently. But this also meant that certain ministers were not properly controlled. The most glaring example is C.D. Howe, who was one of the most accomplished ministers ever to sit in cabinet. While Howe had been a tremendous asset in governance and in managing the economy, his arrogance led to the scandal of the pipeline debate, and his resentment at having to run for re-election was clearly evident on the hustings.

Howe had one particularly disastrous public meeting in Morris, MB, that shows what a liability he had become politically. As the man responsible for selling the grain crop and setting the prices, Howe was already having a rough time with the farmers at the meeting. When asked about the pipeline debate, Howe replied “if anyone here is

337 Meisel, 44. 338 Camp, 278-279. 339 National Liberal Federation of Canada, “A Great Leader for a Greater Canada,” 134 disturbed by the pipeline debate… I would remind you that in our parliament a majority governs and we have a majority.”340 This went over as well as could be expected, but it was only the beginning of Howe’s problems at that meeting.

When one man approached the stage, asking the chairman if he could ask a question from the platform, Howe responded instead. Howe said that man would not be allowed to ask a question, and “When your party organizes a meeting, you’ll have the platform then and we’ll ask the questions.”341 The man responded that he was Bruce

MacKenzie, president of the local Liberal Association. He was allowed to take the stage, and began a thorough deconstruction of, and attack on, Liberal wheat and agriculture policy, and C.D. Howe himself. As a Winnipeg Free Press reporter put it in a magnificently wry turn of phrase, “It was at this moment that Mr. Howe discovered the hour was getting late and he had pressing business back in Ottawa.”342 But as the only exit was through the jeering crowd, he was forced to take the stage again and respond to more questions.

While this event was particularly spectacular,343 the tone of it was typical of

Howe’s meetings throughout the campaign. One of the party’s greatest ministers was now one of its greatest liabilities, providing fodder for the Tories and proving what they had to say about Liberal arrogance. If Howe could not win over the president of a Liberal association, what chance did he have with the rest of the electorate? Howe had many

340 “Now, Here’s The Way It Happened, Says Mr. Howe,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 20 May 1957. 341 Ted Byfield, “Jeers, Boos, Catcalls Tear Rally To Pieces,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 20 May 1957. 342 Byfield, “Jeers, Boos, Catcalls Tear Rally To Pieces.” 343 The Winnipeg Free Press’s coverage of this event, quoted here, is highly recommended. It is a brilliant bit of writing, and a terrific, wry deconstruction of what can happen at a political event when absolutely everything goes wrong in the most spectacular fashion. 135 problems with his belligerence on the campaign trail. St. Laurent would prove to have as many issues as Howe, which is discussed in a later section of this chapter.

The Liberals were plagued with their own problems, many of their own making.

But, for the first time through three elections under St. Laurent, their biggest problem would be their opposition.

‘Dief the Chief’ and the Tories: A Bullfighter Enters the Ring One of the things that had benefited the Liberals in the previous two elections had been the rather ineffective campaigning of George Drew and his team. Drew had a reputation as an elitist, and “a harsh, malevolent partisan-and a stuffed shirt to boot.”344

Diefenbaker, the prairie firebrand, had none of these problems. Diefenbaker’s speaking style was closer to a fiery, revivalist preacher345 than anything else,346 and he had a reputation as the greatest attack dog and question period performer ever to sit in the legislature. While establishment members of both his own party and the Liberals, dismissed him as a candidate whose “histrionics”347 could not be taken seriously, he infused a new energy and excitement into the campaign, something Drew had been utterly unable to do.

Diefenbaker understood full well how he was viewed, and looked down on, by the established politicians, particularly within his own party. He had grown up with it all his life, his mother had a British heritage, but he inherited his father’s German surname in an age when that really mattered. Diefenbaker “saw himself as the personification of all those who by their ethnicity, station in life or social views were anathema to the

344 Camp, 137. 345 Meisel, 155. 346 In photos the evidence of his legal training is clearly evident, however, as he almost invariably has his hand on his hip when giving a speech, exactly where a Canadian lawyer holds back their robes when in court. 347 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 323. 136 leadership of his party.”348 He was the perfect model of an ‘outsider’ politician, something that he was able to use effectively and that gave him more credibility when he was criticizing the government. Unfortunately, it also tended to manifest in the paranoia that eventually led to his downfall.

Sometimes the extreme animosity that existed between Diefenbaker and the rest of his party could have surprising benefits, however. One of his first acts as party leader was to clean house at party headquarters. This meant, in part, that he got rid of some of the deadwood that had managed Drew’s defeats. It also meant that he could infuse the place with new ideas. He brought in the now legendary Dalton Camp to a major leadership role. Camp, Gordon Churchill, and Allister Grosart ran the headquarters and the campaign. Camp, who had been building a reputation in provincial elections as a kingmaker and master advertiser, had been in headquarters during the 1953 campaign.

Camp recalled that “while (the transformation of St. Laurent into Uncle Louis) was happening in the campaign of 1953, none of us at Tory headquarters seemed aware of it.”349 But in the aftermath of that election, they certainly were. He was instrumental in the marketing of the Leader using the tactics that the Liberals had pioneered.

While it would never be possible, or advisable, to remake the image of

Diefenbaker in the precisely the same grandfatherly mold as St. Laurent (‘Dief the Chief’ would never be able to take on ‘Uncle Louis’ that way), the Tories did take many of the tactics that the Liberals had employed to such success, specifically in marketing their leader. Diefenbaker became the whole focus of the campaign, much as St. Laurent had in

1953. Allister Grosart said “in answer to your question, ‘Did you structure that whole

348 Ray Argyle, Turning Points: The Campaigns that Changed Canada 2004 and Before, (Toronto: White Knight Publications, 2004), 330. 349 Camp, 137. 137 campaign on the personality of John Diefenbaker?’ The answer is ‘Yes.’ The great criticism that developed after that was that Grosart was an image-maker, that I just took

Diefenbaker and threw away the Conservative party. I did and I said so.”350

This strategy worked for the PCs in much the same way as it worked for the

Liberals, giving the party a face that people could align with. It also had the advantage that it was able to bring in “people who were more comfortable under a Diefenbaker banner than a PC flag,”351 people who might have agreed that it was time for a change in government, but had been leery of voting conservative before. It also presented a real option for another prime minister, someone to vote for, rather than just voting against.

Figure 5.3: This was one of the main ads of the PC campaign, even appearing in Liberal friendly papers like the Toronto Daily Star.352

350 Stursberg, 50. 351 Argyle, 337. 352 The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, “It’s Time For A Diefenbaker Government,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 27 May 1957. 138

The Tories ran large ads in the major dailies, such as fig. 5.3, that featured the slogan “It’s time for a Diefenbaker government!” prominently while relegating the name of the party to the bottom of the page. This ad became a prominent fixture of the campaign not only because of its use by the PCs, but also because it became a central prop of Liberal attacks, even earning a place in the final rally at Maple Leaf Gardens.353 The Liberals attacked the

PCs for referring to themselves more prominently as the party of Diefenbaker, rather than by the name of the party, ignoring the fact that they had done precisely the same thing four years before.

Figure 5.4: As with St. Laurent, many of Diefenbaker's supporters were more aligned with the leader than the party he represented.354

The focus on Diefenbaker was intentional from the start. In a memo prepared by

Camp for Churchill in February, some months before the election, Camp says “the average voter appears to have an intuitive confidence and liking for this party’s leader…our newspaper and magazine advertising, if it is to have the greatest effect on the

353 Stursberg, 51. 354 “Opposition Party Leaders Campaign,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 May 1957. 139 greatest number of people, will give the highest priority to Mr. Diefenbaker. “355 This is very similar to a memo prepared by Cockfield Brown four years before about Liberal advertising.

Not only did the PCs use the Liberal strategy of focusing the campaign on the leader, they also did very much the same sort of whistle-stop tour that had become a fixture of Liberal campaigning. This played into the sort of leader-centred campaign that they were running, much in the same way that it had for the Liberals in 1949. Much like

St. Laurent did in 1949, Diefenbaker had a pre-election tour so that he could introduce himself to voters across the country, and get some practice on the hustings. Beginning in

March, Diefenbaker visited British Columbia, Montreal, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,

Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.356

By contrast, after dissolving parliament in mid-April, St. Laurent returned home for an Easter break, returning to Ottawa on 27 June.357 This left St. Laurent with 28 days on the campaign trail, while Diefenbaker had 39 in addition to the pre-campaign tours.

Diefenbaker visited 130 constituencies in that time, more than any other leader before, while the elder St. Laurent managed just under 120.358 Not only did this get Diefenbaker in front of as many voters in person as possible, it also played into his small-town, man of the people image, much in the same way as it did for St. Laurent. Big city newspapers like the Globe and Mail might insist that he was wasting his time and should focus on big rallies,359 but the men running the campaign knew that these little meetings might have a punishing schedule, but made the people in those towns feel important.

355 Camp, 264-265. 356 Meisel, 181. 357 Meisel, 151. 358 Meisel, 151. 359 Argyle, 338-339. 140

There were differences in the campaigning between Diefenbaker and 1953 St.

Laurent, however. Diefenbaker was more prone to make promises, something that had been anathema to St. Laurent in previous elections, other than minor points of local interest. But as someone seeking to form government, rather than someone seeking to just perpetuate it, Diefenbaker needed to sell a vision for people to sign on to. St. Laurent could say ‘aren’t things pretty great, vote for me again,’ Diefenbaker needed to say,

‘Shouldn’t things be better?’ And, unlike with St. Laurent, there was an effort to make sure that promises “were identified with him more than the party.”360 He announced them himself, rather than having them be a part of party resolutions. This served to give a sense of a new vision, and also helped woo voters that would have had a hard time voting for

Conservative ideas, but could get on board with a Diefenbaker movement. The idea that the Tories were making hundreds of impossible promises became a frequent talking point for Liberals and Liberal friendly media. However, for undecided voters, this only served to enhance the difference between a party that was promising something new and a party that refused to promise any change at all.

Diefenbaker’s strategy relied on going negative, where St. Laurent was largely going against his strategy when he did the same. This was much more effective for Dief than for St. Laurent. Part of this can be explained by the fact that one was in government, and the other was not. Dief was running to replace St. Laurent and, more importantly, the

Liberals. As the underdog, for him to attack their record was not only acceptable, but appropriate. It also played well into his brand image as an outsider, and his fire and brimstone rhetorical style. But for St. Laurent, punching down like this went against his

360 Meisel, 171. 141 brand and came across as mean and temperamental. None of this worked for the genial

‘Uncle Louis.’

Diefenbaker principally attacked the party and other members of the cabinet, particularly Howe, rather than the prime minister himself. This was for a few reasons. St.

Laurent was still personally very popular,361 even as other members of his party were not.

But he was showing his age. He had been dogged by this ever since he had assumed the leadership. The Tories had questioned St. Laurent’s durability before, particularly in

1953, arguing that he was almost certain to retire after winning the election, leaving voters with an unknown prime minister that they had not chosen. The Liberals deflected and ignored this before- simply showing a vital St. Laurent on the hustings had been enough- and that narrative had failed to get any real traction. But in 1957 the PCs were better able to make the narrative stick.362 The Liberals were not doing much to help with the issue. St. Laurent had had a very public celebration of his 75th birthday at the Chateau

Frontenac in February of that year.363 Life magazine had done a large spread for his birthday. The Liberals had planned to reprint it for the campaign, but, perhaps fortunately for the Liberals, Life refused to allow the reprints.364 But St. Laurent’s age was still firmly in the public awareness. In a July 1957 Gallup poll, when asked about St. Laurent’s potential future role should be and why, 28.7% of respondents said that he was too old to take on another official role, more than triple the next highest response.365

361 Meisel, 171. 362 Meisel, 171. 363 Paul Martin, A Very Public Life Volume 2: So Many Worlds, (Markham: Deneau Publishers, 1985), 290. 364 Jim Cleary, Weekly Progress Report as at Noon, 1 March 1957, MG 28 IV-3, volume 836, folder WIN—Cockfield Brown & Co Ltd., Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada, 1. 365 Canadian Institute of Public Opinion (CIPO). 1953. Gallup Poll, July 1953, #259 [Canada]. [public-use microdata file]. Toronto, Ontario. Gallup Canada Inc. [distributor]. 142

Figure 5.5: A frequent Tory argument was that St. Laurent would quickly retire after the election, leaving Canada with a PM picked by Liberals, not Canadians. Pictured in this 1953 cartoon, from left to right are Jimmy Gardiner, Lester Pearson, Paul Martin Sr., Jack Pickersgill, and Walter Harris.366

The Liberals had been talking about the next leader since 1953,367 and by 1955 that speculation had spread into the press.368 By 1956 much of the consensus had concentrated around Pearson, and friendly papers began talking about him glowingly as though the matter was firmly decided, although there were still other contenders.

Diefenbaker was not running against St. Laurent, per se,369 but against a possible government led by Howe,370 Pickersgill, Martin, or Pearson. At various points in St.

Laurent’s tenure, such as in fig. 5.5 from 1953, other names would have been on that list.

But none of these men had the same public affection as ‘Uncle Louis.’

Diefenbaker’s ‘outsider’ mentality and brand also meant that he was not beholden to what had been done before. This allowed him to accept the innovative spending

366 Reidford, “A Vote for Lou is a Vote for Who?” The Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON), 17 July 1953. 367 English, 150. 368 English, 154. 369 Meisel, 171. 370 Meisel, 157. 143 strategy that allowed the PCs to realistically compete with the Liberals, whose electioneering was “considerably more elaborate and vastly more expensive.”371 Gordon

Churchill, the third man in charge of the campaign, had made an intensive study of the

Tories’ 1953 campaign, and had come to what was then a startling realization. The PCs had spent 45% of all of their funds in the Quebec campaign, and walked away with only 4 seats.372 But people like Churchill and Walter Dinsdale, who had won in Liberal strongholds in Manitoba, had received no funds whatsoever. This was true for most candidates in the West.

The revolutionary idea, so obvious in retrospect, was that if the party would

“reinforce success and not failure,”373 and spend money across the country on the campaigns where they actually stood a chance of winning, then they could do without

Quebec. Churchill estimated that if the PCs “could gain 60 seats in the nine provinces exclusive of Quebec, and hold (their) own in Quebec, that (they) might form a minority government.”374 The idea that a party could win and form government without focusing much of its energy and resources on vote rich Quebec was revolutionary. By diverting funds from races they would inevitably lose, they would be better able to compete with the Liberal spending machine. In the end, Diefenbaker was able to strike a deal with the

Premier of Quebec, Maurice Duplessis, who covered most of their costs in the province, allowing the Tories to focus their resources elsewhere.

For the first time, the Liberals had an opponent who could use their strategies as well, or better, then they could. The Tories had a dynamic, new leader, a campaign team

371 Meisel, 190. 372 Stursberg, 41. 373 Stursberg, 42. 374 Stursberg, 42. 144 that had learned from the successful Liberal campaigns, and an innovative spending strategy that allowed them to compete with the greater Liberal resources. They had realized that leader-centred campaigns, as practiced by the Liberals in the last two elections, were the future. It was up to the Liberals to find a way to still compete.

St. Laurent on the Hustings

The Conservatives were running the most exciting campaign that they had managed in decades, possibly even back to the days of Macdonald. Against that, the

Liberals planned to mount an effort that even Jack Pickersgill charitably described as

“unexciting.”375 St. Laurent was past his prime and in many ways, he had become a liability outside of his stronghold in Quebec.376 He and Howe had had serious discussions about retiring after the 1953 campaign, but St. Laurent decided to stay on instead.377 This proved to be a mistake, but the Liberals decided to stick with their beloved leader, and would “run St. Laurent even if they had to run him stuffed.”378

Until about the midpoint, the campaign was a textbook, dull Liberal effort. They ran exclusively on their record and making no new promises. They held the same sort of events, and hit the same notes, but with a decided lack of “enthusiasm and excitement.”379

In some ways, it was like a band well past their prime going on tour playing their greatest hits to a dwindling audience. Old standbys like a return to Compton, QC,380

375 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 323. 376 Quebec voted overwhelmingly for the Liberals in 1957. This was responsible for their victory in terms of popular vote, as they were rejected in every other province. The Anglophone Pearson wasn’t able to replicate this in 1958. 377 English, 159. 378 Peter Newman, Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1963), 34. This quote, attributed to a campaign staffer, while probably apocryphal, sums up the general opinion of the party quite well. 379 Argyle, 342. 380 Norman James, “St. Laurent Takes Time Out From Speeches to Visit Birthplace and His Brother’s Store,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 27 May 1957. 145

‘spontaneously’ declaring a holiday for children at one of his events,381 and the closing rally at Maple Leaf Gardens were all on the set list. Many of these events received far less press coverage than in previous campaigns. However, as the campaign went on it became infused with an angry, destructive energy that undermined St. Laurent’s ability to sell the

‘Uncle Louis’ image.

Figures 5.6 and 5.7: These two photos were the extent of the Toronto Daily Star’s coverage of St. Laurent’s 1957 return to Compton, QC. In previous campaigns, this event warranted several pages of coverage and full pages of photos.382

Pickersgill, who had been St. Laurent’s speechwriter and handler, and who had kept him (mostly) out of trouble, would not work as closely with him in this campaign.

Pickersgill travelled with him for only a week during this campaign.383 Pierre Asselin, his replacement, was capable of competently managing the tour, but not the candidate. This left St. Laurent lacking a competent speechwriter who could manage him as well as

Pickersgill had done.384 In fact, it was “reports that St. Laurent’s speeches were getting

381 Victor Mackie, “St. Laurent Arrives- And School Is Out,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 3 May 1957. 382 James, “St. Laurent Takes Time Out From Speeches to Visit Birthplace and His Brother’s Store.” 383 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 324. 384 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 323. 146 little or no response from his audiences”385 that led Pickersgill to join him for a time and attempt to right the ship. St. Laurent felt that the speeches were largely unimportant, what mattered was “to give people a chance to see him and judge for themselves whether he was likely to be able to lead them for the next four years.”386 Although this is not a direct quote from the prime minister, it is indicative of the general arrogance and attitude of St.

Laurent and the Liberals; the question was never should St. Laurent remain in power, but if he could. If the answer to the second question was yes, then the first one would never enter into it. If they felt “he was sufficiently alert and competent for the job, they would vote for him; if not, no quantity of prepared statements would persuade them to do so.”387

During the campaign, St. Laurent frequently went off script, and often disparaged the idea of a script. In previous elections working without a detailed and precise script had worked for him, particularly in 1949. It made him appear more natural and at ease.

But then he still had respect for the framework and outline that Jack Pickersgill had prepared and stuck to the broad strokes. In this campaign, “his speeches became largely a long and disjointed series of anecdotes, interspersed with comments on newspaper articles and on statements by his opponents.”388 Without someone competent to manage him, and whose opinion he respected as much as that of Pickersgill, he frequently got angry and went negative. For some politicians, this sort of behaviour is on brand and works in their favour. But being disjointed, disorganized, and mean spirited was decidedly off brand for

St. Laurent. Three of the most important elements of ‘Uncle Louis’ were competence, kindness, and optimism. None of these were represented effectively in St. Laurent’s

385 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, 324. 386 Thomson, 511. 387 Thomson, 511. 388 Thomson, 511. 147 speeches after his western tour. While St. Laurent had always had a (well-hidden) temper,

‘Uncle Louis’ never could.

St. Laurent opened the campaign with a rally in Winnipeg on 29 April. As with many of his events during this campaign, the room was only filled to half. His speech was more akin to an “auditor’s report”389 than the barnburners of his chief opponent. He spoke about what the government had been up to for four years, economic growth, and international respect. He also defended the Government’s actions during the pipeline debate.390 This was the sort of dry, rote speech that could be expected of St. Laurent’s prepared remarks during the opening of the campaign,391 but something rather different, and more telling, happened when he diverted from the script.

In what became a recurring moment, he held up the ad that deliberately downplayed the Progressive Conservative name (fig.5.3). St. Laurent accused

Diefenbaker of not really being a Conservative, and not being brave enough to stand behind the party name.392 This conveniently ignored the several ads that the Liberals had run in the previous campaign urging people to ‘Vote St. Laurent,’ or for a ‘St. Laurent government.’ As the campaign developed, this performance became more and more elaborate, but always with the theme that Diefenbaker was not a real Conservative. This was precisely the message that the PC campaign was trying to get across, as more conservative voters would vote for the party anyways, but those on the fence or normally unwilling to vote Tory might be willing to vote for Diefenbaker. Eventually Grosart got an audio tape of this from an Ottawa rally and sent out transcripts to every Liberal

389 Thomson, 505 390 Argyle, 340-341. 391 Meisel, 157. 392 Argyle, 341. 148 candidate, hoping that they too would begin to sell the Tory message for them.393 The

Liberals ended up wasting their own time, energy, and money spreading the Tory slogan to audiences that might otherwise not have heard or paid attention to it.394

This off-message, off-script tirade became a recurring part of several of St.

Laurent’s speeches, and it proved disastrous. St. Laurent had shown some tendencies to go negative in 1953 in comparing Drew’s promises to the responsible, Liberal record.

Now he dove in headfirst. Part of this was because the Liberals felt a need to respond to

Diefenbaker’s energetic attacks, but that strategy inevitably backfired. These sorts of attacks on the ‘enemy’ played well to the base, but drove away moderates and undecided voters. Rather than taking the initiative, keeping to their message, and controlling the narrative of the campaign, they let the Tories take control. And they showed that St.

Laurent could be provoked. Diefenbaker became a bullfighter, starting from a weaker position but more agile. He was able to goad the beast that was St. Laurent and the

Liberal Electioneering Machine until they lashed out in a blind rage, leaving themselves exposed.

As St. Laurent returned to Ottawa from the first, western leg of the campaign,

Solon Low, the Social Credit leader, told the press that Canada had threatened the British that they would leave the Commonwealth if they did not pull their troops out during the

Suez incident. Low also claimed that there was a telegram to prove it.395 These accusations were entirely fabricated. St. Laurent had refuted them in parliament earlier, but Anthony Eden, the British prime minister, refused to allow the exchange of messages

393 Stursberg, 51. 394 Meisel, 186. 395 Thomson, 508. 149 to be made public.396 Had St. Laurent kept control, this story would likely have died down in a day or two-very few people were really paying attention to the Social Credit campaign-but it enraged St. Laurent. He spoke about it at his next several meetings, leveling all sorts of insults at Low, and he was not able to keep his temper in check for the rest of the campaign.

St. Laurent went on the attack at his first Ontario rally in Belleville on 17 May, accusing the Tories of “join(ing) forces”397 with Ontario’s Premier Leslie Frost, and making so many promises398 that it was “as if Canada to them was the promising land.”399

By 3 June, the negative campaigning was in full flight. At the Ottawa rally already mentioned, St. Laurent suddenly shifted gears with attacks that were “a sharp change from the mild, off-hand way in which (he) had referred to the opposition when he toured the West.”400 While “his aides claimed that it was according to plan to open softly, concentrating on the Liberal party’s record; then to unleash big punches near election day,”401 there is no evidence that this was a planned strategy. In previous campaigns, he had taken great pains to avoid discussing the opposition at length, excepting a few specific speeches in the 1953 campaign, much as he had in the 1957 western tour before the Ottawa rally. This had been a very successful strategy, and there was no good reason to change it then. It is clear that St. Laurent’s aides and managers were also surprised by the sudden turn-about, and were doing their best to roll with the punches.

396 Thomson, 508. 397 Victor Mackie, “PM Charges Sell-Out,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 18 May 1957. 398 Meisel, 46n.The National Liberal Federation would eventually compile a 159-page tome entitled “John G. Diefenbaker’s Promises to the People of Canada during the 1957 election. 399 Victor Mackie, “PM Charges Sell-Out.” 400 “PM Takes Gloves Off In Stretch,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 3 June 1957. 401 “PM Takes Gloves Off In Stretch.” 150

Figure 5.8: Diefenbaker often received harsh treatment in Liberal friendly papers, such as the Toronto Daily Star. Often these sorts of images were precisely in line with Liberal talking points and attacks.402

The attacks on Diefenbaker tended to focus on the idea that he was engaged in some sort of nefarious conspiracy with Frost and Duplessis (and, in all fairness, he was working with them), that the Conservatives were making too many promises, and that they were not willing to run as Conservatives. Both Duplessis and Frost were using their influence and resources to help Diefenbaker’s campaign, although they had different reasons for doing so. As the face of federalism in Quebec, St. Laurent had long been a thorn in Duplessis’ side, and Frost was hoping for a better funding arrangement for

Ontario.

Leslie Frost had introduced Diefenbaker at his opening campaign rally. Frost and his provincial Tories endorsed and actively campaigned for Diefenbaker against St.

Laurent in the 1957 campaign. This support came as a surprise to the Liberals, as Frost

“had always insisted that federal-provincial relations should be kept out of politics.”403

Despite being from different parties, he and St. Laurent had enjoyed friendly personal

402 “Editorial Cartoon,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 5 June 1957. 403 Thomson, 509. 151 relations since the 1949 election,404 and had a good working relationship. They had a longstanding dispute, however, on tax rental agreements and equalization. Frost had long pushed for a ‘better deal for Ontario.’ When Diefenbaker offered to expand the program with an extra $100 million for his province,405 he became one of Diefenbaker’s most ardent supporters. Frost focused on this specific financial issue, rather than going after St.

Laurent personally. This promise was met with aggressive attacks from the Liberals,406 particularly as Diefenbaker had not made clear precisely how it would be funded.

Figure 5.9: Leslie Frost, the Premier of Ontario, openly campaigned for Diefenbaker.407

The Liberals had a policy of ensuring that funding for things like social security or tax reduction remained uniform across the country.408 The Liberals largely claimed that this was because every Canadian should be treated equally and fairly, but it also played into the idea that the country was doing well economically. But this ignored the very real

404 Thomson, 276. 405 Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St. Laurent, pg 311. 406 Meisel, 56. 407 “Opposition Party Leaders Campaign,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 May 1957. 408 “One For All And All For One, Says PM,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 25 May 1957. 152 differences in the situations across the country. Alberta cannot be treated as though it was

Nova Scotia or Ontario. Diefenbaker used that to win significant victories in Atlantic

Canada and the West.

There is some question as to how often Diefenbaker actually made promises during the 1957 campaign. Merrill Menzies, one of Diefenbaker’s chief speechwriters and the father of the Northern Vision that was a hallmark of the 1958 campaign, only knew of one specific promise regarding surcharges on automobiles.409 Diefenbaker frequently criticized the government in ways that only implied what his government might do instead. For example, he noted how unreasonable it was that the government was not raising the old age pension amount by more than the paltry six dollars they had budgeted.410 But he did not precisely say that he would do more. Diefenbaker’s stream- of-consciousness oratorical style also implied that he had so many ideas, and was so urgent to get them out there, that he could not take the time to lay them out specifically and fully.411 He “had a habit … of frequently failing to complete his sentences and of moving freely from one idea to the next without indicating where one ends and the other begins.”412 This hard to follow style, fueled by Diefenbaker’s strong emotions and convictions, helped to convey the idea that he had and was talking about all sorts of ideas and promises, even when he was only speaking in general terms about taxes or other issues.

While that might work on the public, and particularly on the specific audience

Diefenbaker was talking to at the time, they were not appreciated by the prime minister.

409 Stursberg, 51. 410 Meisel, 52. 411 Meisel, 156. 412 Meisel, 156. 153

At one rally in Stratford, ON, St. Laurent identified them as “wild, reckless and irresponsible statements” and “tommyrot.”413 He frequently devoted a portion of his speeches to calling Diefenbaker out on it. Diefenbaker’s statements were capable of goading St. Laurent into dropping the dignified persona he had carried throughout his political career. One particular comment, and the response, in the final days of the campaign is particularly illuminating. Diefenbaker had claimed that another Liberal victory, helping cement them as the permanent governing party, would be a threat to

Canadian freedom.414 Not only did St. Laurent call the comment “stupid” but also “the rankest, most irresponsible tommyrot I’ve heard as election propaganda in many years.”415 In previous campaigns, St. Laurent would not have dignified the comment with a response, either letting another minister address it, or ignoring it completely and letting it die. In this campaign, he allowed himself to be dragged down to that level.

Diefenbaker knew that he was having an effect on St. Laurent, and that it was to his benefit. In his words, St. Laurent had “dropped his tactics of “caress, cuddle and coo” in favour of desperate and scandalous speeches.”416 He was “stooping to personal abuse and spouting ‘hooey’…and if hooey rhymes with anyone’s name (the prime minister’s) it’s not my fault”417

While St. Laurent had mostly dropped “caress, cuddle and coo”418 from his speeches, it was still a very prominent feature of the campaign. The vast majority of photos from the campaign trail, considerably more than in previous campaigns, pictured

413 Taylor, “St. Laurent Roused Raps Diefenbaker ‘Tommyrot’ Speeches.” 414 Taylor, “St. Laurent Roused Raps Diefenbaker ‘Tommyrot’ Speeches.” 415 Taylor, “St. Laurent Roused Raps Diefenbaker ‘Tommyrot’ Speeches.” 416 Mark Harrison, “Outdraws P.M. Twice In Seven-Riding Tour John Attacks ‘Hooey’,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 7 June 1957. 417 Harrison, “Outdraws P.M. Twice In Seven-Riding Tour John Attacks ‘Hooey’.” 418 Harrison, “Outdraws P.M. Twice In Seven-Riding Tour John Attacks ‘Hooey’.” 154 him with children. And he always made a point of having moments with children at his meetings. At a rally in Woodstock, ON, on the same day as the anger-fuelled Stratford meeting mentioned above, he was careful to identify 16-month old Allan Gauvin, who was crawling in the aisle, as “an example of Canada’s future,”419 and to make sure that the photographers could get a picture.

Figures 5.10, 5.11, 5.12: Images like these, an old mainstay of St. Laurent’s marketing, appeared even more frequently in the 1957 campaign.420

One of the other reasons that St. Laurent’s temper got out of hand was the constant parade of hecklers that dogged him throughout the campaign. This was not something that he had had to deal with to any great degree in prior campaigns, but now they were coming out in force.

On some occasions, he handled himself like the best veteran stand-up comic, as with one incident in Vancouver, BC, on 4 May. A CCF supporter rankled when St.

Laurent spoke of Canada having full employment, as he had been out of work for 7 months.421 St. Laurent responded that there was usually full employment “for those who

419 Harrison, “Outdraws P.M. Twice In Seven-Riding Tour John Attacks ‘Hooey’.” 420 James Ryan, “Looks Good From Up Here,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 6 May 1957; “P.M.’s Lucky Hat Squelches Rumour,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 May 1957; “St. Laurent Greets Young and Old,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 18 May 1957. 421 Robert Taylor, “We Won’t Stand For SoCreds Giving Away B.C. Power, P.M. Says,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 4 May 1957. 155 want to work.”422 This sort of mean-spirited rebuke got him into trouble later on, but, in this case, he recovered admirably. When discussing immigration, the man began to shout racial epithets. The crowd called to have him removed from the hall, but St. Laurent replied “oh, I do not think he should be thrown out. If he is put out, he won’t be any more polite at the next meeting he attends. If he listens to anything at all, he may improve.”423

This effectively knocked the wind out of the man’s sails, and he remained quiet for the rest of the meeting.

Other times, he was goaded into a fury by considerably more innocuous comments. In Edmonton on 30 April, a few days before the Vancouver event, a member of the crowd twice asked why the governments was not doing more for the “Indians.”424

The Toronto Daily Star, the friendliest Liberal paper, reported that St. Laurent “shouted” at the man with his “face red” saying that they had done more than had ever before,425 and:

As for you, young man, who would interrupt this speech. I can tell you I was chosen to lead this party and to be prime minister of this country, in spite of the fact that I too am a representative of a minority group in this land… Yes, and my selection might not have been ratified by you, young man, but it was ratified by the majority of the Canadian people. And that does more credit to the intelligence of those who ratified it than to your intelligence, young man.426

In this case, St. Laurent was goaded into anger and lashed out at a young man with legitimate criticisms. This was also a display in full force of the arrogance that

422 Taylor, “We Won’t Stand For SoCreds Giving Away B.C. Power, P.M. Says.” 423 Taylor, “We Won’t Stand For SoCreds Giving Away B.C. Power, P.M. Says.” 424 Robert Taylor, “St. Laurent Cheered By 2000, 8 RCMP In Edmonton Audience,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 1 May 1957. 425 Taylor, “St. Laurent Cheered By 2000, 8 RCMP In Edmonton Audience.” 426 Taylor, “St. Laurent Cheered By 2000, 8 RCMP In Edmonton Audience.” 156

Diefenbaker was attacking the Liberals for. St. Laurent had been elected, he had power, and because of that he did not have to listen to the voters. They should remain a passive audience, taking in what he was saying but not responding, except at the ballot box.

St. Laurent’s campaigning was, to say the least, a poor effort. More than in any previous campaign, he was personally responsible for the shape of his campaigning, as the leadership team that had managed both him and the campaign as a whole had broken up and he had no handler. He gave into his temper frequently in the latter half of the campaign, angrily attacking both his opponents and his audience and, in the process, shattering the ‘Uncle Louis’ image. He also put himself on the defensive, responding to his opponents rather than ignoring them, giving them the initiative and providing free advertising for their ideas. Even when he was not giving in to his worst impulses, the campaign was, at best, a lackluster retread of what had come before. He went through the same sorts of events, and even the same sorts of ‘unscripted’ moments, that had worked before, but without the urgency and charm that had made them work. All of these problems came to a head, and a spectacular conclusion, in the rally at Maple Leaf

Gardens.

The Trouble with Television: Two Different Approaches to the New Medium

Given how all-encompassing and vital it is in the practice of politics today, it is hard to imagine how startlingly new television was in 1957. The actual sets had made their way slightly north starting in 1946 and were able to pick up American stations. It was not until 1952427 that commercial stations began broadcasting, and as they were only local stations in Montreal and Toronto, they played no real part in the 1953 campaign.

427 Stephen Cole, Here’s Looking at Us: Celebrating Fifty Years of CBC-TV, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 2002), 6. 157

But by 1954, there were a million television sets in Canada.428 By 1957, Canadians had

2,490,000 television sets and by the end of the 1950s, almost 90% of Canadian homes had one. 429

Figure 5.13: Political television was a brand-new beast in 1957, but this cartoon demonstrates how much commercial broadcasting had already changed how Canadians viewed the world.430

St. Laurent should have worked well on television. The St. Laurent Story, although it was a film and not a television broadcast, showed that the image of ‘Uncle

Louis’ translated well to a related medium. As early as 1949, one reporter had said that

“The P.M. will be a natural on television.”431 And perhaps if it had been around in 1949, rather than 1957, a younger, more flexible, St. Laurent would have taken to it more easily.

Or if the Liberals had been able to film him on the campaign trail interacting with voters, rather than alone in a studio with a script, their efforts would have been more effective.

428 Cole, 6. 429 Cole, 8. 430 Kuch, “Editorial Cartoon,” Winnipeg Free Press, (Winnipeg, MB), 8 May 1957. 431 “Backstage at Ottawa: Is It Time for a change?” 14. 158

As it was, St. Laurent resented doing television spots, and appeared stiff and uncomfortable whenever he could not avoid them entirely. When asked about it by a television reporter early on in the campaign, St. Laurent said, “I will be more interested in seeing people than talking to cameras.”432 He felt that television programs were carefully prepared fictions, like stage shows, and that they could not present a “true-to-life picture of the politician.”433

By contrast, Diefenbaker and his team took to television like a duck to water, using the medium to great effect. They, Camp especially, understood the nature of television. It could not be used to win an argument, but it could be used to create an impression.434 St. Laurent was a master at creating that impression with an audience in person, and having that impression carry through in photos and newspaper articles, but could not do it in an empty studio with a camera staring at him. He did not do himself any favours, either. He recorded three speeches in both languages of the eight free time broadcasts for each language allotted to the Liberals by the CBC (the PCs got 7).435 In all of them, he refused to wear any make-up, making him appear much older on screen than he did in person.436 St. Laurent also refused to use a teleprompter, instead staring resolutely downwards at a written script, much as he would have done for a radio broadcast.437 He kept his eyes down on the page rather than looking the camera, and the audience, in the eye.

432 Newman, 53. 433 Thomson, 512. 434 Camp, 262. 435 Meisel, 163. 436 Meisel, 163. 437 Argyle, 345. 159

Figure 5.14: St. Laurent giving a radio address in 1949. His set up would not change substantially for his television appearances.438

Dalton Camp, in the pre-election memo he prepared for Gordon Churchill said this “The question that begs at every occasion of a political television broadcast in the viewer’s mind is, “Do I like and trust him?””439 The old man, who looked even older on screen, refusing to look the viewer in the eye was hard to like and hard to trust.

Diefenbaker, on the other hand, “had no objection to being made up and was otherwise prepared to adopt any measure or device which would contribute to the effectiveness of his performances.”440 His more flamboyant style also translated better to the medium than the woodenness of St. Laurent’s performance.

The speeches given on TV mirrored what was going on in the rest of the campaign. Diefenbaker was belligerent and on the attack, but was not at all influenced by the Liberal campaign,441 something St. Laurent had managed to great effect in both 1949

438 Duncan Cameron, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, Box 03770, Item 11570A-1, Duncan Cameron fonds, Library and Archives Canada. 439 Camp, 262. 440 Meisel, 163. 441 Meisel, 164. 160 and 1953. St. Laurent, however, was considerably more restrained in his delivery, and responded to Conservative attacks, putting him on the defensive even as he attacked.442

This gave Diefenbaker the initiative and the ability to control the narrative, giving him the power. Diefenbaker’s performances helped his campaign, while St. Laurent’s hurt, or at least failed to help.443

The Final Rally: The Liberals Literally Push People Around

Figure 5.15: A packed Maple Leaf Gardens greeted the prime minister, although some of them may have been more interested in Lorne Greene.444

Originally billed as a “Night to Remember,”445 the final Liberal rally was largely forgettable until an incident cast a pall on the rest of the evening. At first blush, the 1957 rally at Maple Leaf Gardens was largely similar to the previous versions. A large stage was set up at one end of the arena with banners of Laurier, Mackenzie King, and St.

442 Meisel, 164. 443 Meisel, 164. 444 Everett Rosebourough, “Photo,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 445 T.M. Eberlee, “Rally Thrilled Everyone,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 161

Laurent under the words “Liberal Action For a Greater Canada.”446 Pipers led the prime minister, his wife, and his daughter into the arena, along with the 18 local candidates and three cabinet ministers, Pearson, Walter Harris, and Paul Hellyer,447 (After his performance at other rallies, Howe was told that he should make himself unavailable).448

The three ministers all gave speeches leading up to the main event, the prime minister’s address. That much all was precisely the same, but there were some significant changes in the details.

Figures 5.16 and 5.17: Photographers competed for the best picture of the prime minister.449

The first difference was the star power brought to bear at the event. In previous years, the prime minister and his entourage were introduced by a local Liberal, or perhaps a cabinet minister. In 1957, they were introduced by Lorne Greene, the well-known actor.450 He warmed up the crowd with the Leslie Bell singers, before the pipers led in the

446 Monroe Johnston, “Cheering Liberals Outdo All Hecklers Rally Liveliest Ever,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 447 Johnston, “Cheering Liberals Outdo All Hecklers Rally Liveliest Ever.” 448 Morris Duff, “Mike Pearson Most Favored By Rally Crowd,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 449 Federal Newsphoto, “Pandemonium Broke Loose” and “Mr. St. Laurent,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 450 Johnston, “Cheering Liberals Outdo All Hecklers Rally Liveliest Ever.” Greene, who would star in Bonanza two years later, already had numerous credits in both Canadian and American films and television. 162 official party. Given the relatively low turnout of 12,000 it is probable that the entertainment was added to bring out more people and boost the numbers. If this was the case, it was a poor decision. Not everyone in attendance was a staunch, Liberal supporter.

Allister Grosart speculated that at least part of the rough reception that the Liberals received could be blamed on the choice of entertainment, as the Bell singers were far more popular among Tories than Liberals.451 More than a few of the crowd might have turned out just for them.

Figure 5.18: By 1957 cheerleaders were an expected part of the festivities.452

The speakers ended up being heckled from many parts of the audience. Some had even brought banners to parade down the aisles. For the most part, they were able to handle this deftly and it added to the energy of the evening, although most of the vitriol was reserved for the prime minister himself. With the aid of security guards and commissionaires, who patrolled the crowd and asked hecklers to quiet down or removed

451 Stursberg, 49. 452 Federal Newsphoto, “Bouncing Cheerleaders,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 163 the more belligerent, things were kept more or less under control.453 But one heckler disrupted the evening in a spectacular fashion, and put the final nail in the coffin of the campaign. As St. Laurent began speaking, a 15-year-old stormed the stage, tearing up a portrait of the prime minister as he did so. Vincent Regan, the president of the Toronto and York Liberal Association, shoved the boy forcefully off the stairs, and they both hit the concrete floor of the arena.454 Besides a bad bump to the head, the boy was alright, but the incident sucked all the energy out of the room. St. Laurent was visibly shaken, and the barn burner of a speech he had planned became muted. Jack Pickersgill later claimed that the boy had been a Conservative plant, an accusation Grosart vociferously refuted.455

Figures 5.19 and 5.20: After a protest, a 15-year-old boy recovers after being pushed onto the concrete floor.456

St. Laurent’s speech itself was an attack on the Tories and their supporters, and featured the now rote tearing up of the ‘Diefenbaker Government’ ad. St. Laurent. Much

453 “Final Appeals: St. Laurent- Liberal,” Winnipeg Free Press(Winnipeg, MB), 8 June 1957. 454 “15 Year-old Rips Up St. Laurent Picture Is Unhurt By Tumble,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 455 Strusberg, 49. 456 “Schoolboy Rushes Rostrum, Rips St. Laurent Poster, Falls Back Down Steps,” Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON), 8 June 1957. 164 of the speech hammered home the point that Diefenbaker was not the choice Canadians should want, inadvertently driving home the Conservative change message again and again. After spending most of the campaign chastising Diefenbaker for making too many promises, he said that Canadians should not vote for a party who had suppressed, and was ashamed of, their own platform457 (a reference to the practice of tying policy to

Diefenbaker himself, rather than the party). But after the incident with the boy, his heart was not in it.

The rally ended the campaign on a sour note. Strong-arming a passionate, young man so that they would not have to listen to his criticisms made everything that the Tories had said about Liberal arrogance seem true. The rally was a showcase for nearly every problem with the Liberal campaign: the arrogance that led to lazy campaigning; poor handling of hecklers and being easily provoked to anger; and negative campaigning that only reinforced Tory messaging. Rather than being an exciting capstone to another triumphal campaign, it was a train wreck. First impressions matter, and St. Laurent had made good ones on many Canadians. But last impressions matter too, and the rally was the last event before election day. Voters had three days to think about what had happened, and the Liberals had no real chance to fix the damage that had been done.

Conclusion: The Collapse of an Era

The Liberal campaign in 1957 was a mess, especially compared to the carefully managed 1949 and 1953 efforts. At its best, it was a pale imitation of previous efforts. At worst, it was a complete collapse and a poorly managed fiasco. The Liberals gave into their worst impulses. They allowed their arrogance, and the seeming inevitability of their

457 “Final Appeals: St. Laurent- Liberal.” 165 victory, to make them lazy and, in some cases, to even have contempt for the process and the voters.

Many of their strengths became weaknesses. In previous campaigns their record of achievement was one of their greatest strengths. But now, Liberal arrogance had turned that record into a liability, as the Tories were able to exploit what had happened with the pipeline debate, and the Suez crisis, against them.

The Tories, and the hecklers across the country, were also able to get under their skin. Through two elections, they had had no effective strategy for dealing with ‘Uncle

Louis.’ But the new campaign leadership was able to exploit St. Laurent’s temper. St.

Laurent became prone to angry outbursts as he went off script without an effective handler. He also relied on negative campaigning, but while that played well to already loyal Liberals, for those on the fence it reinforced Tory messaging. Both the anger and the negativity worked against the carefully cultivated, friendly, positive ‘Uncle Louis’ persona.

The Liberals did not do themselves any favours in other areas as well. The leadership team of Kidd, Claxton, and Pickersgill that had led the party through two successful campaigns had broken up. Claxton had retired from politics, and Pickersgill had reduced his involvement with St. Laurent’s tour. The Liberals also failed to use television effectively, particularly St. Laurent, whose refusal to use make-up reinforced the Tory insinuation that he was just too old, and whose refusal to use a teleprompter made him look untrustworthy.

All of these problems were compounded by their opposition. Diefenbaker and his team had paid careful attention after the previous election. Camp, Grosart, and Churchill were able to co-opt many of the strategies that the Liberals had used to such great effect, 166 even as the Liberals themselves were falling flat. Diefenbaker and his team understood, as

Drew had not, that fighting a campaign only on the issues would no longer work. ‘Dief the Chief’ was never going to be the same sort of grandfatherly figure as ‘Uncle Louis,’ but the Tories were able to use his fiery passion to run a leader-centred campaign much as the Liberals had done. Negative campaigning did not clash with his brand in the same way that it did for St. Laurent. And like St. Laurent at his best, he also ran a campaign that did not react to whatever was going on with the other campaigns, but instead actively controlled the momentum and the narrative.

A post-election poll found that, of those voters who left the Liberals, 38.2 % had done so because of the pipeline debate, 30% because it was time for a change, 26.7% because of the small size of the increase in the old-age pension, and 5.1% because of the

Suez crisis.458 These were all the points that the Diefenbaker campaign had emphasized.

Diefenbaker and his team’s ability to use the tactics that had led to victory in 1949 and 1953 showed that it was not only St. Laurent who could win that way. Those strategies came to be adopted by nearly every successful leader since.

But despite the campaign the Liberals had run, and how effective the Tories had been, the Liberals barely lost. They won the popular vote by some 218,000 ballots,459 but most of those were wasted in Quebec races that were never close and were barely contested. In terms of seat counts, they were still close enough to the Tories that some in the party pushed St. Laurent to stay on and try and form a coalition, as Mackenzie King had done some decades prior.460 But St. Laurent had no intention of doing so. It was clear that he and his party had been roundly rejected by most of the country at the ballot box.

458 Thomson, 519. 459 Newman, 58. 460 Thomson, 519. 167

They fell from 171 seats to 105.461 Nearly half the cabinet,462 including the once mighty

C.D. Howe, had lost their seats. They regions where they held a plurality were

Newfoundland, the territories, and Quebec, and even in that stronghold the Tories had increased their seat count by five despite barely campaigning.463 The Liberals lost thirteen seats in the Atlantic provinces, and were routed in Ontario and the West.464 Diefenbaker had managed to increase his party’s share of the popular vote by 8 percentage points, to

38.5% overall.465 In most of the country, the Liberals had failed to present a case for themselves worth supporting.

For a Liberal party that had only been in opposition for five years and a month in the last thirty-six years, this caused an existential crisis. St. Laurent would not be the one to lead them through it. On 17 June 1957, the prime minister left for Rideau Hall to ask the Governor General to have the Progressive Conservatives form a new government.

Finally, after decades of public service in a career he had never asked for, the 75-year-old

St. Laurent finally retired. The only grandchildren ‘Uncle Louis’ needed to devote himself to now were his own.

461 Meisel, 238. 462 Meisel, 238. 463 Meisel, 239. 464 Meisel, 239. 465 Newman, 58. 168

CHAPTER SIX: THE LEGACY OF ‘UNCLE LOUIS’

From 1949 to 1957, Canada had as its prime minister Louis St. Laurent, a man of great accomplishment and ability. But more importantly, it had as its leader ‘Uncle

Louis,’ a persona and brand cultivated “by the modern techniques of advertising and publicity…and a willingly helpful press.”466 St. Laurent was transformed in the public eye from a little known, competent lawyer and cabinet minister into “a man of familially common mould, everyone’s handsomely aging uncle, doting on the children, whimsical, a little patronizing and a whole lot more visible.”467

‘Uncle Louis’ introduced leader-centred campaigning based on personal branding to modern Canadian federal politics. The leader of a party became more important than the policy that was being proposed, or the party itself. This changed the nature of the political game in Canada, and the impact of that image and brand is still influencing politics today. From ‘Dief the Chief’ through to Justin Trudeau and his selfies with voters, nearly every successful politician in Canada has borrowed to a greater or lesser degree from the St. Laurent playbook. The ‘Harper Government’s’ steady hand on the economic tiller, and even Pierre Trudeau’s pirouette were all exercises in personal and political branding.

‘Uncle Louis’ was one of the great exercises in political branding in Canada. The

Liberals took a prime minister with little public profile and cultivated an image of the leader they wanted to sell, as seen in The St. Laurent Story. The Liberals included just enough of the real St. Laurent to make their brand identity authentic, basing the

466 Camp, 137. 467 Camp, 137. 169 optimistic, hopeful image around four key areas: St. Laurent’s bilingualism and biculturalism, his family and family values, the idea of him being ‘called to serve’

Canada, and continuity.

These broad themes displayed all the brand differentiators that made up the ‘Uncle

Louis’ brand identity: relatability, authenticity, humbleness; trustworthiness; shared values, biculturalism, fairness, caring, kindness, and protectiveness. They also showed the key substantive performance indicators: trustworthiness, being hard working, St.

Laurent’s personal record of achievement, and that of his party. This allowed them to present St. Laurent as the symbol of hopeful national unity and stability in a post-war world, and as an idealized version of the parent many Canadians wanted to be. They believed that St. Laurent could be a father figure to the whole country, and someone that many Canadians could see themselves reflected in. They wanted the voters to trust their children, and their future, with him.

This idealized version of St. Laurent was created, but there was still much of the real St. Laurent in it. Unfortunately, St. Laurent the man did not always live up to St.

Laurent the brand. His temper repeatedly got the better of him, increasingly so as time went on. While he could all but ignore his opponents in 1949, by 1953 he descended into negative campaigning and outright mockery. By 1957 he could be goaded to the point where that sort of negativity became his default, undermining the positive image that had been created. This made him look like a cranky old man well past the point where he should have retired.

By that point the arrogance of the Liberals had provided their opponents with too much ammunition. It also blinded them to what was happening in their lackluster, lazy 170 campaign. They went through the motions of what had been successful in the past without thinking about why they had been successful, holding the same events but without the same optimism or energy. They mocked the Tories for employing the same techniques that they had used only four years previously. They believed that they would still win right until they lost. The ‘Uncle Louis’ brand could not survive intact forever.

St. Laurent and the Liberal political machine led by Kidd, Claxton, and Pickersgill established the model for the leader-centred campaign in Canada, urging the voters to vote not for their local candidate, or even for their preferred party, but instead to ‘Vote St.

Laurent!’ The Liberals could run a campaign with no real issues and no significant policy, instead relying on their record and their leader to carry the day. And through two elections it worked. The Liberals won what was at the time the largest

Canadian victory ever in 1949, and won another strong majority in 1953.

Diefenbaker and his team of Camp, Churchill, and Grosart employed many of the same techniques in the 1957 election that they had seen the Liberals use in 1953. They created a dynamic image and brand for their leader, made him the focus of their campaign and had him do the same sort of whistle-stop tours and small-town events that had worked so well for the Liberals. They wanted to ensure that even voters who would never vote Progressive Conservative could consider getting behind Diefenbaker. By employing these techniques, they proved that St. Laurent was not the only candidate who could make them work. The leader-centred, personally branded campaign became a permanent part of the Canadian political toolkit. But even though many voters decided that it was ‘Time for a Diefenbaker government!’ St. Laurent’s popularity prevented it from being a complete rout, as it was in 1958. But any defeat was a significant blow. 171

‘Uncle Louis’ and the Liberal branding effort have largely been left out of the historical narrative. The story of the plucky Diefenbaker as David defeating the Liberal

Goliath has proven too enticing. Academic political histories rarely look at the strategies employed during campaigns, particularly before 1957, so while there are tantalizing hints that people like Reginald Whitaker, or Leduc et. al., have seen some of the significance of this aspect of St. Laurent, there has never been a thorough study. Popular histories have preferred the story that has been passed down, giving the Diefenbaker Tories the credit for the techniques they employed, rather than recognizing that even the staid, elderly

Liberals were capable of innovation.

But the Liberals employed this modern personal branding to their leader at least eight years before the Tories did. There could have been no ‘Dief the Chief’ without

‘Uncle Louis,’ and it would not have been ‘Time for a Diefenbaker government!’ if

Canadians had not decided to ‘Vote St. Laurent!’

172

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fonds and Other Collections Duncan Cameron fonds, Library and Archives Canada. Brooke Claxton fonds, Library and Archives Canada. Henry Erskine Kidd fonds, Library and Archives Canada. Liberal Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. Lester Pearson Fonds, Library and Archives Canada. J.W. Pickersgill Fonds, Library and Archives Canada. Progressive Conservative Party of Canada fonds, Library and Archives Canada. Louis St. Laurent fonds, Library and Archives Canada.

Newspapers Toronto Daily Star. Toronto, ON, 1949-1957. Globe and Mail. Toronto, ON, 1949-1957. Le Devoir, Montreal, QC, 1949-1957. Winnipeg Free Press. Winnipeg, MB, 1949-1957.

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