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Oligarchs at Otta-wa
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Austin F. Cross
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VERY year on budget night, like an to advise the minister (that's the term, E unspectacular star at the tail of but actually our man writes the stuff) on that bright comet, the Hon. Douglas the technical aspects of taxation. His Abbott, there moves into the Press Gal- is the ethical concept of taxation. Not lery ' reception rQom, among others, Ken' immediately has he to be concerned with Eaton. In title, Assistant Deputy Minister such matters as whether the Fisheries of Finance: in fact, he is the fell ow who needs the money, or Trade and Com- wrote a lot of
Man of Destiny offered the kind of intellectual company that stimulated Mr. Taylor. So before Kenneth Taylor, associate Deputy Min- long, it was a deal. Taylor stayed, and ister of Finance, and all last summer the the government started making plans for acting Deputy Minister of Finance, is worth him. noting. He may well be the coming man in His pre-war record of writings, his being fiscal Ottawa. Ear-marked, one can guess, economic advisor to a Royal 'Commission as the next Deputy Minister of Finance, on Coal, his subsequent acting as counsel high in the favor of the Government, a for the Province of Ontario during the softly imperturbable :financial expert, a Rowell-Sirois Commission on Dominion- magna cum laude graduate from the direc- Provincial Relations. all combined to fit tion of the Wartime Prices and Trade him admirably for the jobs Ottawa threw Board, the Oriental-born, ex-McMaster at him m quick succession right after University professor by all signs is on his arrival. way to the top. Thus he was secretary of Wartime He appears .to be not merely well round- Prices and Trade Board early in the ed, but widely rounded. Many in Finance game; later he was co-ordinator of foods seem to have "a piece" of the business. administration in WPTB; he had graduated Taylor, like the boa constrictor which to deputy chairmanship by 1944; ultimately swallowed the goat, seems to have all of he was made Prices Board chairman. it inside him. It is stretching it a bit to He was president of the Commodity Prices slur him with omniscience, but that is the Stabilization Corporation after October way some of his colleagues are prone to 1947. Add to all this, that he has been regard him. chairman of the National Joint Council This then is the build up I am giving of the Public Service of Canada since you for somebody I think is quite a man. September 1950; and finally throw in I cannot document my case; I cannot that he is director of that latter day prove that the government has big plans bureaucratic mammoth, Central - Mortage for Ken Taylor. But if you are around and Housing Corporation. · Ottawa long enough, you seem to develop certain characteristics. I call it osmosis. HIS may sound like a dull recital of My osmosis tells me that the blond and T jobs. But it is also a recital of lean faced Ken Taylor is the Heir Appar- important jobs brilliantly handled. It ent for all kinds -of interesting mantles. was because of the skill he showed in the As a man who has worn Donald Gordon's earlier routines that he was ·made Assist- toga, and stepped into Deputy Minister ant Deputy Minister of Finance as far Clark's shoes, they have long since meas- back as 194 7. It is precisely because of ured Ken's breeches to see if he cannot his outstanding performance ever since fill the seats of the mighty. that he is now earmarked . for the big As it turns out, Ken Taylor has been job; that he is in effect deputy-designate Brain Trusting around here for a long in Finance. I do not think there is much time, in one way or another. The 52- doubt that he is the future Deputy Fin- year-old China-born economist was already ance Minister. · extremely well educated when he came to Yet, if Ottawa has strange ways of Ottawa. He slipped quietly into the · recognizing merit, that is not precisely in Capital, and many believed he would be the apostolic succession, but instead, kicks just another Wartime Willie. Indeed there a fellow upstairs deviously, I would say is reason to believe that at one time, Ken that Ken Taylor hasn't a thing to worry Taylor had no plans for remaining in the about between now and pension time, in Capital beyond VE Day. But Taylor 1964. For if ever there was a fell ow the and Ottawa grew on each other. The Government has plans for, it is Ken Taylor. former professor had the kind of mind Once again, it is not precisely because of that people in Ottawa appreciate; what is something akin to genius on one spot; it is more, the Capital's - top civil servants because he has come up through all the 24 OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA, PART II
wearying maze of interwoven government Graham Towers is still functioning, jobs. He is another top government almost 20 years later, his augmented official sitting on the interlocking directo- powers unchallenged, his prestige enhanced. rate of civil service brains. This is no accident, No one can linger Calm to talk to, always cool under long in Ottawa and not be cut down to pressure, almost imperturbable, Ken Taylor size, if a cut-down is what the diagnosis moves swiftly and yet with what seems calls for; contrarily, no one can survive, like an almost dawdling. gait. His brain without developing a deserved aura if is more difficult to conceal than his phy- earned. Towers had the goods, and so sical traits. He is precise as to verbiage, he stuck. direct as to statement. He is quick to You still see this rather shy man with sidestep devious questions. He can spiel the suggestion of a lisp, around at the off government policy as quickly as he better cocktail parties. You can go up can count his fingers, if the subject is and talk to him if you like, but much good an open book. Should this be "a matter it will do you. Not a man with a loose of Government policy which will be an- lip, precisely, he'll exchange pleasantries _nounced in due course," his face gets a in a prim way, but soon enough, you will little bleak, his voice gets a little bleaker, find yourself :m.oving on. There is not and you learn nothing. What delights me, much sunshine in Graham Towers' party though, is to see the quick way he picks manners. As soon discuss dahlias with up your ideas, and the equally quick way Dior. On the other hand, he is polite he formulates answers and hustles them on the phone in a business call, and his back at you,. Unless you are quick with crisp if not clipped conversation is cor- pencil or even faster with the memory, his dial, if telling you the utter minimum. pearls before scriveners are all but wasted. It may well be that bankers as between I wind up this way; I like the man, I themselves have cabalistic jollities all think he has brains, I believe he will go far. their own, and that every second sentence is punctuated with a belly laugh. But The Ultimate Virtuoso that is contrary to what all my spies inside the Bank of Canada-and I have F Paderewski, it was always said a few- tell me. Towers is always a pretty O that he was the ultimate virtuoso. cold fish, but he is extremely able. It was not that he played Chopin any It is of course nonsense to try and assess more pleasingly than half a dozen others. a man's banking· skill by his telephone It was that he played it just exactly right. technique. The plain fact is that Towers He was a pianist's pianist. Graham Towers rates primus inter pares among Ottawa's is the bankers' banker. He is the ultimate Braintrusters. virtuoso, fiscally. Long the head of the Graham Towers is respected by fiscal Bank of Canada, the boy prodigy now authorities. As I said about Deputy glides imperceptibly toward the fifties, Minister Clark in the first of this series and still the top man in Canadian banking. of articles, Ottawa is roughly divided Way back in the dismal thirties, Prime into Towers men and Clark men. They Minister R. B. Bennett reached out into tell me that, from a banking sensevTowe_rs the Royal Bank of Canada, and from thA almost never makes a mistake. In fact, Montreal office, extracted a 32-year-old I might even be safe in deleting the unknown to head his n:ew Central Bank. adverb 'almost'. Yet the truth is that That he should pick this shy, young boy he was hired originally·as a sort of clearing with the owlish stare from behind his house for the chartered banks of glasses, to go over the heads of white Canada. He was to be their man, run haired' ban){ presidents, baffled many their errands, and take orders from them. for a long time. But where death has not Today it is the reverse. When Towers by now taken the sceptics, reason has whistles, the bankers come running. From converted them. All agree that Towers Busboy to Boss in 20 years, an Alger story was an admirable choice. of the counting rooms. OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA, PART II 25
Towers is not exactly a monetary 1945 or 194 7. Before and since he has Grand Lama, r(?mote and inacessible. He sired many a scheme which works as is rather like the late Montagu Norman, efficiently, noiselessly, and as matter-of- head of the Bank of England when the factly as the ball bearings in a machine. Bank of England was really something. But ·back of his seeming effortlessness is Norman had strange and weird blind spots, · endless effort. his mind was dappled with wordly igno- You are apt to give the headlines to an rance, and yet for all his remoteness from able negotiator. That at best is only the reality, he was a genius at banking. Our negative appraisal. It is like the hospital own immaculate Towers, with his exqui- at the bottom of the cliff fixing broken sitely cut clothes, offers comparisons of legs. MacNamara is the fence around the sorts. top of the same cliff that keeps people Towers is a banker all the way, and of from falling off the cliff in the first place. course finds himself opposing Finance So instead of being assessed only as an Deputy Clark sometimes. Personally I able negotiator, he is a gifted anticipator. think these Olympian tussles . are over- He can smell trouble a mile away, has a played, and that for the most part, these hundred remedies for stopping it in that men get along as well as two men on a mile. cross cut saw. When presented with un fait accompli, he starts in. He believes tµere is always Leader of The Band a compromise somewhere, inevitably a solution somehow. He understands the EARL HARBOR had come and gone, importance of saving face. He can scent P and we were in a mess. But in no an area of compromise, even if it is no place were we in · a worse mess than in bigger than a pin head. Or compare it the general area of labour. Mackenzie to a tiny drop of ink on an absorbent sub- King had just drafted a new Minister, the stance. Just as the spot expands, Arthur late Humphrey Mitchell, there had been MacNamara can extend the area of com- trouble over selective service with Elliott promise. Before you know it, it is big Little, and nothing was going right. It enough for both parties to get their feet was then that the Prime Minister got on on. the phone and told Arthur MacNamara As a man gets to know his way around to come and get us all straightened out. Ottawa, he integrates himself and his So the soft-spoken, drawl-tempo, pale- processes with other departments. Thus skinned, white haired deputy began his MacNamara becomes a key man in say, more than ten year stretch in Ottawa. Trade and Commerce, he is vital these "You watch," predicted Grant Dexter days in Defence Production. H e is per- then in Ottawa for the Winnipeg Free sona grata to other departments. This Press. "This MacNamara is quite a boy. means that we can pop our deputy Min- He'll come to the job, he'll quietly. go to ister of Labour off to Geneva to a con- work, you will hardly know he is here. ference, with profit. He can slip quietly But in about six months, all the troubles on a plane and trouble shoot his way out will disappear." of a national dilemna with a few soft It was not actually ever quite as good syllables. He can pick up a phone and as that, but it was almost. The quiet soothe a strike into settlement. deputy all but cleaned up labour troubles, Here then lies a power beyond normal got the new minister started out on the assessment. Here indeed is a .man whose right path, gave a friendly signal to labor greatest achievements are paradoxically leaders, inspired confidence in management, the things that never happened. Any- and so went through a successful war on body can settle strikes; how many can "the home front. stop them? Yet his effectiveness is not Arthur MacNamara is one of our veteran to be measured solely in terms of labour Braintrusters. He is the survivor too, of strife; it is rather the balance wheel he · many a forgotten battle back in 1943 or represents in the Canadian economy. No 26 PUBLIC AFFAIRS wonder then, that, though he is one year up Mackenzie. Today, however, few recall past the statutory retiring age of 65, the that a man called M. W. Mackenzie was government has twice urged him to stay No. 2 to the robust Donald Gordon in on at his desk. that never to be forgotten economic cru- sade. The Man Behind The Guns In 1944, when it looked as if the war would end the way our side wanted, Max HOSE few people on whom Hon. C. Mackenzie went back to Montreal, to T D. Howe has smiled usually went far. pick up his career where he had left off, For quite some time now, has the great five years before. But he had hardly "C. D." beamed approvingly on Maxwell hung up his hat when he was drafted for Weir Mackenzie. Today he is Deputy membership in the Royal Commission on Minister of Defence Production, having Taxation of Annuities and Family Cor- moved into that new portfolio when Hon. porations. Again, that over, he was once C. D. Howe did so. The minister, who more getting ready to settle down in still holds Trade . and Commerce, thus Montreal when Mackenzie King called today holds two portfolios, along with Mackenzie to Ottawa to become the new Defence Production. Thus he has a foot Trade and Commerce Deputy. Over the in both camps, peace and war. heads of many an older man he went, but But to play it safe, and have the kind it hardly took more than a quick look of man he wanted under him, Mr. Howe for anybody to agree that he was the right quickly assigned the new deputyship to man for the job. Time proved that. his competent and trusted friend, M. W. It can be seen therefore, that long before· Mackenzie. A longtime Brain Truster, Max Mackenzie made the next move, into the tall, blond ex-accountant has an amaz- Reconstruction and Supply, in 1948, ing backlog of achievements which are he was admirably suited to be one of our more than useful in Defence Production, senior tribunes around here. For, the come war or come peace. The Victoria- sine qua non of any Brain Truster is that born ex-Montrealer was turned down by he must know more than one department. the army at the beginning of the war. Too Whether or not he has ever worked in skinny presumably to make the grade, he another department is not so important, was once before waived out for the same but he must have a knowledge of at least reason for he never made the senior one other section of government. Here McGill football team! Not enough avoir- then you have a man that knows finance, dupois. But in Ottawa, ability is not and foreign finance to boot. As Deputy assessed either by avoirdupois or troy Director of Wartime Prices and Trade weight, and so it happened that Max Board, he embraced .a vast knowledge of Mackenzie was one of the earliest draftees countless things. Heap onto that deputy- to the Capital. ships in three portfolios, and you pile As far back as the fall of 1939, the Pelion on Ossa. Government in something of a frenzy was get'ting together ·a staff to administer its NLY just past 30 when he first newly flung together Foreign Exchange O got to Ottawa, not too far past 40- Control Board. Max Mackenzie, then a now, here you have a man who really 32-year-old gangling accountant, had can find his way around. Max Mac- already earned some good opinions, and kenzie is definitely of the stuff from which he was )lustled to Ottawa ihto the afore- Brain Trusters are made. He understands mentioned Foreign Exchange Control the inside workings of the Capital. He Board. But it is surprising how many knows finance, he knows commerce, and originally recruited to that sector ulti- with contacts all the way from the Rideau mately were drafted to Wartime Prices Club to suburban Rockcliffe, he really and Trade Board. Almost inevitable there- knows his way through Ottawa civil ser- fore was it that when the newly formed vice portocol. WPTB was talent shopping, they snapped Today, he is the buyer extraordinary of OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA, PART II 27
armaments. If the army .wants anything on backstage Ottawa; he has served a from a bow and arrow to an atomic bomb, long apprenticeship under exacting, in- it is Max Mackenzie's job to get it. He exorable masters. Today, in 1951, Arnold knows supplies in all stages, from raw Heeney is the synthesis of 15 long years products to finished articles. He saves working elbow to elbow with the big shots. his country money by knowing where to When he acts, he knows what he is doing. buy, and . how. He is today the man The ·career of Mr. Heeney is not with- behind the gun. out a picturesque background. Son of I do not, however, think you can get Canon Bertal Heeney, who is still alive, the full measure of any Ottawa official he was born in Montreal, but educated in merely by a recital of achievements. I Winnipeg. An M.A. of the University of think you have the measure of the man. Manitoba, he was Rhodes Scholar from I have watched this chap at work for quite Manitoba in 1923. He took his Oxford a while now. He exudes a quiet confidence. B.A. in 1925, his Master's degree there 11 He can get -things done over a cup of coffee years later in 1936. He practised law in at the club as well as across a desk in the Montreal with an impressive firm, was ramshackle Temporary Buildings. He has President of the Junior Board of Trade a way with people and he understands before he was 30, and had already piled human nature. Above all, he knows how up a series of unu·sual attainments when governments work. Mackenzie King drafted him during his If Stalin ever gives the word, more and first post-Bennett regime. Then he be- more you will see Max Mackenzie m eame principal secretary to the Prime action for our side. Minister before he was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council and -Secretary to Diplomatic Glamor Boy the Cabinet in March 1940. During the war, therefore, as secretary HE Glamor Boy among the Brain to the cabinet, Heeney got to know all T Trusters is Arnold Danford Patrick the secrets there were. Chances are he Heeney. Under Secretary of State for would be one of less than half a dozen who External Affairs, he is Hollywood's idea knew about the atomic bomb before it of what a professional diplomat should was dropped. It is a good guess that he look like. But don't let the glossy exterior had D-Day on his mind, long before June fool you. Behind the suavity there lurks 6, 1944, and would be au fait with Italian a brain that operates with the grim finality surrender pourparlers weeks before they of a bear trap, and inside the fashion plate were announced. If, nowada,ys, the cri- facade is a hard bitten realism. He can terion of a man's importance is the size also brush you off about as fast as a super ' of secrets he is entrusted with, certainly vacuum cleaner works. Like a fine Swiss Mr. Heeney ranked with the best at that watch, Janey on the outside, intricate and time. efficient on the inside, Arnold Heeney Then, in 1950, there was one of those really ticks. civil service shuffles which gives every- Tod!l,Y, without a doubt he is a true body a new lease on life, and a fresh in- policy maker. He is one of the real centive. That was when Heeney was brains behind Canadian foreign affairs. moved into External Affairs, while his While Hon. L. B. Pearson, the minister, old job was taken by Norman Robertson. is as capable as anybody in our generation, It was not precisely a straight swap, since I believe he would be the first to admit Robertson had in the interim served a that curly-haired, handsome looking, im- term as Canadian High Commissioner to maculately groomed A. D. P. Heeney has the United Kingdom. But it is a fact that taken his share, and often more, of deci- today Robertson is where Heeney used to sions that had to be made behind the be; and Heeney where Robertson used to scenes. And if he is able to make those be. I stress this because it indicates two decisions, it is because Deputy Minister points. The first is that our Brain Trus- Heeney has been thoroughly conditioned Eers in Ottawa of. necessity know each - 28 PUBLIC AFFAIRS
other and know each other's jobs, and mulates policies for the minister's sugges- therefore can co-operate closely. The tion which will have the one virtue of second is that Heeney in External Affairs workability. By his knowledge of the is at least twice as valuable as if he had cabinet, and how things are done there, come m there "cold"; and ditto for Ro- thanks to a decade as inside man, he is bertson. able to make foreign policy tie in with domestic policy, and offer something that EENEY always was a very cautious makes sense. Having -had more experi- H man to the outside world, but a ence inside the cabinet even than his own brilliant one to intimates. Once, in my minister, such a man is invaluable. Again, capacity as a reporter, I enquired if his while his boss is Marco-Poloing around External Affairs news service ever got the world, Heeney is keeping the home news ahead of the sharp ears of the world fires burning in the East Block. Every- press. With a smile significantly smug, thing won't wait, even for the fastest plane, he said External Affairs often "scooped"· and so Heeney is able to make decisions the daily press. What's more, his scoops right off the cuff, knowing from his own never saw the light of day. I think it is experience what the situation calls for, pretty clear then that Heeney has a very and knowing with utter certainty that the good, indeed an unusual grasp of world minister when he gets back will give his affairs. One tends to glamorize Vishinsky, OK anyway. Finally, on the endless Eden or Acheson, and their deputies. routine which never rises to the heights One tends to forget that Canada, though of ministerial signature, Heeney can run infinitely small in the world of affairs, the department like a Maharajah can run nevertlieless has access to the same sec- his own elephant hunt. rets that the big fellows have. Thus there Thus you have double-barreled Heeney, trails across his desk, an end~ess series of survivor of two big jobs, a two-in-one despatches from the far corners of the Brain Truster. world. For example, it is now revealed that we were much better informed about Ottawa's Eminence Grise Korea as of June 1950 than the Americans were. Our own Canadians had been in SUPPOSE no one ever thinks of there, and had sent back to the East I Charles Bland being a Brain Truster. Block, factual, realistic size-ups. But Yet the Chairman of the Civil Service while the Yanks had sent Big Names Commission often has a great deal more who apparently did not get down to the to say about how Ottawa is run than people, our almost anonymous operators many a figure with a national name. somehow managed to glean the real goods. ' Cabinet ministers come and go, but Charlie As in Korea, doubtless elsewhere. Who Bland stays here to run the civil service. knows for instance, what Heeney's Turkish Some say, to run the government . • and Near Orient desk knows about Persia This mild mannered man has a great and Russia? Or Kashmir? or Egypt? deal of influence. If you admit a govern- Now it is one thing to be walking around ment is mad~ up of civil servants, and if with international secrets, but it is another you concede that much of the workaday thing to be able to do anything about policy of any government is the product them. For instance, you can dream up a of civil service brains, civil service men: dilly of a foreign policy but if the alfalfa tality, and civil service routine, then you bloc in Parliament doesn't know what it must admit that the man who runs the is all about, you're finished before you start. civil service comes as close to running the Mr. Heeney, however, has the advantage country, in some cases, as anybody does. of ten solid years in the Privy Council. Outside Ottawa, I suppose nobody gives So when he undertakes to formulate Charlie Bland a second thought. But as foreign policy, he is not devising some- Chairman of the Civil Service Commission thing that is remote from reality and poli- he is a much more important man to tically unworkable. He inevitably for- thousands of Ottawans than any prime OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA, PART II . 29 minister can ever hope to be. Consider through to him just about when he wanted. the case of the private, and how he fears The same is true of the new prime minister. the sergeant. Rarely does Pte. Smith But you'd likely find it was the other worry about getting into the toils of the way round, and that it was they who OC; it is the sergeant who is the biggest wanted to see Bland. I cite this mainly man in his life. Similarly, Bennett, King, to show that the man enjoys prestige on St. Laurent hardly touched the welfare, high, and that he is esteemed by our the happiness, the problems, of the civil leaders. Under the circumstances, it is servant, except in a remote and indirect not hard to see how the Civil Service sense. But Charles Bland can make a Chairman wields enormous influence. I policy, and every civil servant in Ottawa might say that it is easier to get a quote feels the effect of it, instanter. fro~ St. Laurent than Bland. And as Bland, by name and bland by nature, far as the Ottawa papers are concerned it the longtime civil servant has a mild is more important to get a quote from approach to life, is a sunny souled individ-- Bland. ual who has the good luck never to get So don't take a top lofty view of all mad. That is why his 65 odd years rest this, and say: surely, the cabinet runs so lightly on his almost beatific face; it is the country. Maybe it does, sometimes. equally the reason why Prime Minister But dollars to doughnuts if you want St. Laurent the other day persuaded the something done in the civil service, it's normally-retiring chairman to hold on better to have Bl~d on your side than a for two more years. riiere cabinet minister. Ask any cabinet Starting with the civil service way back minister. So I say, as I end my perhaps in 1909, and interrupting his career only over-long vista of Brain Trusters, that long enough to fight World War I with Bland too has his place. I may place him the 20th Battery CFA, he returned tD last, but among them all, certainly not become chief examiner of the civil service least. in 1921, rose to be a commissioner in 1933, and was made chairman in 1935. From that day to this, he has done wonders F, as conjectured by Gilbert and Sulli- for the public service. - I van little :fleas have lesser fleas, and It is said that not half a dozen men so ad infinitum, it goes without saying understand how the civil service works. that ·Brain Trusters also operate in dim- The cabinet don't, for sure, and it is equally inishing perspective. I can think of a certain that most of the civil servants dozen of them, James Coyne in the Bank don't, either. Actually, it is such- a vast of Canada, Mitchell Sharp, in Trade and thing, that it takes a good map. to know Commerce, Escott Reid in External Affairs, what it is all about. Just as no lawyer Stuart Bates in Fisheries; and others. knows all the law, but practices successfully In some ways, these men rank with the just by knowing the part he has to know, so true Brain T:rusters, in other ways, they do most civil servants function conscien- do not. And for a good many reasons. tiously under the sections of the service But just as no one can pick the ten finest they know and understand. But Bland'fis books in the English language and not like the lawyer who knows all the la;; leave out some that many think should Bland has to know even the obscure, be put in, so it is impossible to garnish remote and rarely employed machinery my galaxy without jettisoning many a of the Civil Service Commission. It would-be worthy. comes close to ommsmence, sometimes, Finally, there is one rather distressing,- in this field. and extremely disappointing thing about When others couldn't get near Mac- the list. In it there is not one single kenzie King, Charles Bland could get French-speaking Canadian.
The last in a series of two articles on the senior officials of the Public Service by Austin F. Cross.