The life of a great man: both domestically and internationally, Pearson made his mark.

Westell, Anthony

Lester B. Pearson

Andrew Cohen

Penguin

207 pages, hardcover

ISBN 9780670067381

I SHOULD BEGIN BY SAYING THAT AS A REPORTER and, later, a columnist in Ottawa while Lester Pearson was prime minister, I both liked and admired him. We developed a cordial relationship, but he was never a personal friend and even when he was in retirement and we lunched occasionally at the Rideau Club I never referred to him as Mike, as do many today, including some who never met him. He invited me into his home only once, and that was to his basement office to go through his files--with another journalist--to see and copy the evidence he said refuted the charge being made in several books at the time that he had sacrificed colleagues to save his own neck during one of the scandals that besmirched his record as PM. Both I and my colleague--the late W.A. (Bill) Wilson of the late Montreal Star--thought he had a good defence, and we separately wrote series of articles that were syndicated to almost every daily paper in Canada. Ah, those were the days ...

Pearson later published a three-volume memoir, ghosted in part by two historians, John Munro and Alex Inglis, who, ironically, had performed the same service for his enemy--and I use the word advisedly--John Diefenbaker. (Pearson's sharp-tongued wife, Maryon, referred to Dief as "that awful man.") Pearson died before the completion of the second and third volumes, which ended up being largely the work of Munro and Inglis, to whom I supplied the papers from his files. Later, John English wrote what will, I think, be the definitive biography in two volumes, and numerous lesser writers and journalists have contributed at least one library shelf of books and articles on "Mike."

So is there a place for this slim volume of approximately 50,000 words by Andrew Cohen, a well-regarded journalist, author and teacher? It is one of a series of 18 books about 20 "Extraordinary Canadians" selected by the series editor, John Ralston Saul.

(If I may be permitted a brief diversion, this enterprise itself prompts inquiry. The "extraordinary Canadians" become elsewhere "influential Canadians," and "our society's most remarkable figures," and "rebels, reformers, martyrs, writers, painters, thinkers, political thinkers." Looking at these, says Saul, will help us "imagine" our civilization, whatever that means. Shortly, there are to be matching TV documentaries in English, Cantonese, Hindi and Italian. The absence of French may explain why there is only one Quebecker among the 20--Pierre Trudeau, of course--although Metis westerners Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont are included as well. By reading the books and watching the documentaries on TV we are to "discover what it means to be Canadian." I doubt it.)

But back to Pearson, who was both extraordinary and influential. Cohen is less ambitious than Saul, and his purpose as an admirer of Pearson is simply to make sure the great man's achievements are not forgotten. If that means going over much familiar ground, so be it. His book is not a quick and easy study for, say, students, and if it adds new facts or insights I confess I missed them.

But it is the life of a great man, and Cohen shows how Pearson transformed Canada in two dimensions. As diplomat and later foreign minister, he made Canada a player on the world stage. Cohen spends much of his limited space on this subject, culminating of course with Pearson's "invention" of United Nations peacekeeping to defuse a major crisis in the Middle East in 1956, which won him the Nobel Peace Prize. But that was after many years of labour in the international agencies during and after World War Two, honing his skills as negotiator and problem solver and earning the reputation that made him successful on the world stage, moving Canada into the diplomatic big leagues.

In my view, Cohen does not give sufficient weight to the fact that demand for food and munitions during World War Two transformed Canada from a rural and, in some regions, poverty-stricken backwater into one of the few solvent democracies, with significant military forces. So of course the world was ready to listen to what Canada had to say, and Pearson had the skills to exploit the advantage. When both Europe and Asia began to recover from the war, Canada started to lose its influence. No foreign minister following Pearson has made much of a mark, although all have benefited from his reputation.

As prime minister of two minority governments, Pearson transformed Canada into what was called then a welfare state, and the results are still with us: medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Assistance Plan to improve social assistance, the Guaranteed Income Supplement for needy pensioners, and more. He also strengthened national identity, notably with the new flag. Pearson's political strength was not his personal popularity, which was never high, but the unpopularity of the alternative prime minister--the leader of the Conservative opposition, John Diefenbaker. Six years of Diefenbaker government, from 1957 to 1963, had persuaded many in his own party and much of the media that he should be retired, kicking and struggling, if necessary--which he was in 1967. Meanwhile, Pearson could be endured. The NDP, of course, readily supported Pearson on his social programs.

Cohen tracks Pearson's attempts to accommodate Quebec's Quiet Revolution within Confederation, from the appointment of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism leading to the adoption of French as an official language, through the endless negotiations with Quebec on jurisdictions, shared and otherwise, and federal/provincial conferences. Pearson deserves great credit for recognizing the rising storm in Quebec before most of Canada, and attempting to pacify it, but by 1965 he had doubts about whether he had been too generous and recruited three strong French Canadian federalists--Pierre Trudeau, Gerard Pelletier and Jean Marchand--to take a harder line. Cohen records these events, but does not examine what damage, by way of raising expectations, may or may not have been done in the soft years.

In sum, this book is a condensed account of Pearson's life without much critical assessment--in fact, just the sort of biography I might have written, except I would have paid a little more attention to Mrs. Pearson and her influence on her husband. Cohen takes space to report that each may have had an affair while separated by his travels, but also that they were devoted to each other. I think there is more to it than that. Pearson liked to tell the story of how she brought him down to earth when he phoned to tell her breathlessly that the government in which he was External Affairs minister had fallen and he was no longer a Cabinet minister. As I recall, her reply was something like, "Oh yes, so now you can stop at the store on your way home and do the shopping." Then there was the occasion when she was travelling with him in his constituency to meet the voters. At each stop, coffee and doughnuts were served, and always he ended his remarks by asking his supporters, "Is there anything you'd like to bring up?" After a few such meetings, Maryon, who never liked politics, could take it no more. "Yes," she replied, "the last two doughnuts and coffee." While admiring him greatly, she never let him get exaggerated ideas about his importance, and Pearson appreciated it.

Anthony Westell was Ottawa bureau chief for The Globe and Mail from 1964 to 1968, and Ottawa editor for the Toronto Star from 1969 to 1972.