Opportunity for Reform

MR. STAPELLS:

As a boy, I sat at my uncle's table and listened to the old stories of Grits and Tories; stories of the open vote during two election days of great whisky drinking, jollification and fights;

"when what made all doctrines plain and clear 'twas just 2,000 pounds a year,

and prove that false was true before, the answer plain--2,000 more!"

And in the Commons a century ago during an all night session, while points of order were argued, members hammered desks, blew tin trumpets, let fly balloons, threw sand cracker torpedoes and blue books and sang the Marseillaise, God Save the Queen and plantation songs concurrently in separate groups and sometimes altogether.

Unquestioned partisanship enabled Sir John A. to say after his spectacular return to power in 1878 that a citizen of Toronto assured him that his Conservative cow gave three quarts of milk more each day after the election than before; while a good Conservative lady friend solemnly affirmed that her hens laid more eggs, fresher eggs and more to the dozen since the Tories returned. But enough of the old days. In presenting a picture of contemporary Canada, we have gone to where the action is. Today we have with us an effective political party man who played key roles in the election campaigns that brought Mr. Diefenbaker and the Tories to power in 1957 and 1958 and in the successful provincial campaigns in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Manitoba. He was born in New Brunswick, the son of a Baptist minister. His education included the Columbia School of Journalism and the London School of Economics. In his salad days he was Treasurer of the Young Liberal Association, but under the tuition of that great socialist, Harold Laski, became a Conservative. Now he is President of the Progressive Conservative Association of Canada and, as such, has been campaigning from coast to coast for the reform of his party.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Dalton Camp, President of his own advertising firm Dalton K. Camp and Associates and President of the Tories.

MR. CAMP:

When I accepted this invitation some time in the early summer I thought I would know what I wanted to say, but as late as yesterday evening I was not sure. However, as you know, I have embarked on my own Centennial project. Now, before you indicate your reaction to it you should first know what it is. It is to do what I can to make party politics in Canada less of an occult science, in the spirit of Mr. King, and more of a democratic exercise, in the interests of free society.

43 years ago, as no doubt you may have been told on many occasions by many others, the young Cambridge poet, Rupert Brook, came to Toronto, saw it, and said this about it. "It is all right. The only depressing thing is that it will always be what it is, only larger, and no Canadian city can never be anything better or different. If they are good, they may become Toronto."

"Toronto the good" always meant, to the provincial, Toronto the righteous, or Toronto the square. But Toronto to many of us has meant a city that has been good in its generous provision of opportunity, and to a Maritimer, like myself, who came here as other Maritimers have done, not out of choice but from simple compulsion, we consider Toronto to be no mean city.

It is amazing to me that there are still, in this land those who demean Toronto and do so in the effort to rekindle old provincial passions and prejudices, and to summon to the cause ghosts of the past.

Those who know the new nation, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal and the new Skyline of Halifax, know, despite the sentiments of Rupert Brook, that there are Canadian cities which may well become greater in wealth, vitality or distinction, than Toronto. But they will become so because they will have opened their doors, as Toronto has done, to the tens of thousands from the Old Country and to the tens of thousands more who have come to find their place, who were cast out of areas where the prospects of fulfilment and achievement were limited, to come to a new city in a new world where the prospects for fulfilment are limitless.

I find far less partisanship about Toronto and I have no hesitation in saying I am a member of the community, that the Community of Toronto isn't that much different, if at all different, than the Community of the Nation.

I have difficulty being precise about the condition of Canadian politics. One has, instead, a feeling about it and a sense of it.

I was told a story of Mark Twain who, on the passing of an ancient politician said:

"I didn't go to the funeral but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it."

It could well be the common public attitude to the present condition of Canadian politics. We are either, these days it seems, in a state of noisy disarray or uneasy silence. Politicians are either in a fit of rage or in a veil of tears, and we have had imposed upon our politics the weight of 30 years of mythology until its meaning is now, at long last, coming to be lost on Canadians.

Part of this Canadian mythology is mistaken by some to be Canadian history. There are a variety of clichés and shibboliths and a long irrelevant sequence of empty invective.

As you pointed out, Mr. President, my early political experience was in the rough and tumble of New Brunswick politics and in the Liberal party. The political dialogue of those days was written in the depression years and after the hiatus of the war, renewed again as though it were fresh and contemporary. I can remember Liberal leaders of that day, in the course of raising the spectre of Toryism, talking about "Bay Street." The mere mention of the word, the words "Bay Street," provoked in those days scornful laughter in Liberal audiences. It wasn't until I joined the Conservative party that I realized how funny it really was.

One still hears it today, accompanied by all that sinister innuendo and implication.

The irony isn't lost on me, but the meaning is lost today to something like 80% of this new nation. In a similar vein, the allegations are made that the Conservative Party has been hard on its leaders. This, it is said, is the lesson of our history. But whose history? Is it not more appropriate to say it is the product of a partisan mythology.

In Lord Moran's diary on Churchill he tells of seeing the Bible in Sir Winston's room and he asked him if he reads it and the great man, with such great candour, replied "I read it but only out of curiosity."

My Lord, as a child of the manse I can hardly subscribe to that view, but it is a reasonable and sceptical attitude towards the reading of history. I don't believe that history shows the Conservative Party, more nor less than any other, has been hard on its leaders. In some humility I would offer the view that some leaders have been hard on the Conservative Party.

Much has been made of the unhappy career of R. B. Bennett. Let us examine the facts. Bennett by his nature, and deliberately I think, created a one-man party, using not only his acknowledged brilliance and intellect, but the power of his purse as well, investing by his own account some $600,000 in his cause and complaining later when some $150,000 of it was still owing him.

Consider Stevens' friends persuading him to attend Caucus, the last and fateful Caucus, as a signal of conciliation, and consider Bennett, the leader, cold and imperious and preoccupied, ignoring his presence, and failing, in the judgment of many, to reunite his party through the simple inability to extend the hand of comradeship.

Consider Bennett proclaiming his new deal policy over the airways of Canada, through time purchased by himself, proclaiming a policy, whatever its merits, which had never been a matter of consultation or discussion with his colleagues, or Caucus, or Party.

And finally, consider Bennett, defeated by a depression, warned by one heart attack, wounded in spirit, failing in energy, yet still being beseiged by his colleagues to remain the head of his party.

It is agreed that Bennett, in the end, felt himself a victim of disloyalty, even in those days of blind allegiance and party adherence gained in the cradle. Yet surely no party could be expected to be loyal simply on command.

Borden was to lose two elections and still retain his party's confidence and emerge as its triumphant leader. And Meighen, for all his alleged aloofness and despite his failure at the polls (which can happen to any man regardless of his worth) was to be beseeched by his party's Caucus and executives to lead it once again, even after the debacle in York South.

Macdonald, the greatest leader of them all, formed a nation and forged two parties into one and led both to the end of his life. But history ought to record that Macdonald failed his party only in that he left it leaderless and thus left politics for the next 20 years to Laurier. He left his party leaderless, as did Bennett, and as did Meighen. Mr. Meighen did his best to set matters right, but his party did him no service in charging him with the responsibility of finding its next leader.

For, in simple truth, at Winnipeg, the party in meeting Mr. Meighen's new leader, found itself confronted by a stranger. Surely the lesson of history is that the greatest danger any political party can risk lies in the perilous abdication of its own responsibilities.

We, in Canada, must be considered by the rest of the world, if they consider us at all, as a nation of a certain fixed irresolution. Our parties are models of piety, full of ritual, liturgy and platitude, timid about change, standing forever in the shadows of history, reluctant to embrace the true spirit of the party system, free speech, open debate, the clash of ideas, and hesitant before the rising spirit of democracy.

Let me.summarize that point in one statement of fact. Since 1956 the two major parties in the United States have had six leaders and three elections. Since 1956 the two major parties in Britain have had seven leaders and four elections. In Canada, in ten years, we have had three leaders and five elections, and of the five elections, four have not produced, from the Canadian electorate, a government majority.

Surely it is reasonable to say that any party that sought now to relissess its condition, its policy, its leadership and its organization after five elections in ten years, ought not to be considered headstrong, impulsive or disloyal.

It has not been easy to put this matter before the party or the general public. It is obvious that one has to run the gauntlet of recrimination, personal antagonism, simple misunderstanding and calculated misinterpretation. When one says that the party system has got to be made more democratic, or it will lose both public support and new recruits, the answer inevitably is that the party system is already democratic. The fact is that it is more democratic than it was in Mr. Bennett's day or Meighen's day, but it is not democratic enough for this day.

The reason it is not democratic enough is because of the fixed tradition and habit of making a political party, as Meighen himself said, "The instrument solely of its leaders", so that its organization becomes a creature of its leader, its policies are proclaimed by its leader, and the party becomes the shadow of its leader. Thus, you get in our party system a kind of rough and ready and predictable reaction to its problems.

When the organization fails, it is considered to be the failure of the leader. When its policy becomes incoherent, or when there is an absence of policy, the leader is blamed. When the party wants to protect this situation, it declaims its leader. This is also, of course, some kind of rough justice because in fact, while the party has not bestowed all its authority on the leader, the authority has beeQ assumed. In both major parties in our nation now, there is a growing conviction that there must be some accountability by the leader to his party, and in order to have that, the party must first of all establish its own responsibility, both through its own party constitution and precedents.

The question is asked by some, why should the leader be accountable to this party? It is, I believe, imperative. Then, the question is asked, if this can be done, if the leader is Prime Minister, then he is accountable not only to his party but to the country. The fact is the chief instrument of the leader's becoming Prime Minister, is the instrument of the party and he cannot abandon his responsibilities to his party because he has assumed higher leadership, unless he wants to entertain the possibility of becoming a Prime Minister without a party.

In 1931, Ramsay MacDonald w4s taken in by Mr. Baldwin and did, indeed, become a Prime Minister without a party. Arthur Henderson, who succeeded him in the leadership of the Labour ,Party, described the circumstances "absolutely without precedent in the whole history of Parliament", as indeed it was. It is certain that no leader can become Prime Minister without a party and it is extremely doubtful that he can remain long as Prime Minister without a party.

I believe the argument is sound that his accountability makes his Prime Ministership more responsible, and more secure, and not less so.

I ought to make it clear what I mean by accountability. Any public man ought to be accountable first to his conscience and, of course, he must be accountable to his coun try, but in the course of his duties he must accept his responsibilities to his party. He should never be its slave, nor should he ever be its master.

In all the complexity of his relationships, his responsibilities, some priority has got to be given to the sensibilities of his party. This is a responsibility of his leadership, and in that responsibility there must be the assumption that the party always has the right to bestow confidence in him, or to withdraw it.

The Party must have the right to warn, to encourage or to advise, otherwise the Party cannot be what it ought to be, which is a public instrument of the national will. It cannot be merely the private convenience of a national leader.

It is puzzling to me what all the shouting is about. We have today a party system that is obviously in turmoil and the turmoil is created by reaction to the forces of change and reform. There is a widespread public view that the party system is failing this country, that some politicians often seem more interested in the damnation of their opponents than in the salvation of the country.

All parties live like paupers between elections and squander funds during elections in the desperate attempt, not only for victory, but to force on the Canadian people the task of what they should be doing themselves, and that is their own housekeeping and their own housecleaning. We have in our party system today practically no qualitative research while living as we are in the most complex age in history. We are getting further and further removed from public opinion and the real issues of public concern.

The federal system, and federal parties, are being ravaged by stronger, stabler provincial government, by regional blocks, by special interest groups.

Not since 1958 has any national leader had a genuine mandate to give direction and purpose to national policy, and not since Mackenzie King has there been any continuity of policy or purpose in this nation.

Thus, when one says as plainly as one can, that both major parties need to take stock of themselves, one surely is not speaking for any cabal or clique, but rather one is echoing the prayers of most, if not all, the people of this country.

I am bemused by those who say now is not the time. Now is not the time for what? The authors of those words, in the terms they put to it, thought it was time last year, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago.

What is wrong with ending the dialogue in the broom closets and backrooms, and having the dialogue within the party, free and openly discussed in full view and inviting the full weight of public opinion?

The people want their parties to renew themselves and it seems to me this is so because a good number of reasonable and sensible people have taken the trouble to write to a total stranger, myself, who happened to be the author of that view and publicly expressed it and expressed their own agreement.

This agreement is not 100 %, of course, but really something like 99%.

One does get mail from those whose felicity of expression is only as limited as their profanity is limitless and who are, by choice, anonymous, which is I suppose, some criteria as to the value of their opinion.

But one can say, with regard to all this, that the new generation of Canadians, the most gifted and talented of all Canadian generations now coming into the mainstream of our body politic are almost unanimous in their concern over the present circumstance and in their firm insistence on more meaningful and realistic politics in their country.

It is all very well to say that some of them are mere youth and wet behind the ears, but nonetheless as wet as they may be behind the ears, they have a clear eyed view of their nation and they know what they want their nation to become and they know what they want their political system to do to contribute to it.

Indeed, they profit from their inexperience, and the less they are told by their ancients about the past, the more they are going to understand about the future.

For ten years now, the more the nation has changed, the more politics has remained the same. Unless there is a renewal of our two major parties, unless there is a re-appraisal of national policy, unless our parties are rejuvenated by the knowledge of and presence of fresher and abler men, then the party system cannot effectively discharge its basic obligation, which is that of service to this nation. All I have said in speaking, not for myself, but for so many members of my own party and certainly countless others, is that the Conservative Party, whose importance to this nation surely no one would deny, has a responsibility to decide for itself, its future course. I want to ask the question: what is wrong with democracy? What is wrong with allowing a modern party the democratic right to express itself, its convictions and its conscience in a democratic manner?

Such questions, for example, as whether or not it is in the interests of a more realistic unity and in the interests of certain events in the near future, that the Party have a Convention in 1967. Who is it that fears a democratic expression of view and if they do, why do they fear it?

Is it disloyal or insolent or embarrassing to allow the party to express its free judgment at this critical time? Not merely a critical time in its own history, but at a most critical time in the history of this party's greatest achievement, the Confederation of this nation.

I want to ask why the party, at this critical point, may not be told in candor what its future holds? Why should it not be told? If a party's leader intends to ask its continued confidence from this day through the next election, while his friends say, as they are saying, that this is not so, what is the party to believe? If the leader intends to continue, then surely he will submit this decision to the judgment of his party and allow them democratically and freely to express their wishes. If he intends to. retire, as his closest supporters are saying, why do they have this intelligence when the Party does not?

The interests of the party are paramount and they cannot be served by silence, secrecy or strategy. If the party's interests are to be served it must know what its responsibili ties are going to be in the vital months ahead. If it is to explore a new policy, the search must begin. If it is to find new leadership it cannot wait to be confronted, as it has in the past, with the realization that it has no choice in the matter.

Whatever the decision, whatever the course, the party has to reunite itself and begin the long and deliberate task of preparing for its next challenge, which will almost certainly come in 1968, if not before.

The task that faces us, the tasks that face us in our party system, in our nation and as members of the world community, will demand of both leaders and parties the highest quality of mind and spirit and a far greater commitment and resolution and unity than at any time in our history. Nothing is sure, neither the survival of our sovereignty, nor Confederation, nor prosperity, nor security, nor peace. All that is certain is that we shall all be severely tried, pressed to extend every exertion and effort, and challenged all our lives by the stern demands of a troubled, changing world. And yet, there has never been in this country so much that is hopeful, so much that represents a promise and augurs greatness.

What we must accept, what we must embrace is the spirit of innovation, the sense of adventure, the urge for renewal that is now so strongly felt in this country as to be pervasive.

What a great time it can really be to be a Canadian citizen and to have a role in the processes of politics, the life force of this nation.

Macdonald, looking out on Canada a century ago, said it all and said it in these words:

"I believe that a great party is arising, of moderate men who, casting aside the petty politics of past days, are willing to join together for the future of Canada."

Who could say it any better and who needs to say any more?

Thanks of this meeting were expressed by Mr. Joseph Sedgwick, Q.C.