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Wind from the West
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During the winter of 1955/56 the leader of the
Progressive Conservative Party and leader of the
opposition, George Drew fell ill from a form of
Meningitis, which people his age did not recover from.
He was treated with a new anti-biotic which saved him
but he was not allow to recover full due to the politics
of image. He was then thrown into the Pipeline debate in
the House which became "the great Conservative
filibuster" and drained Drew. He checked into the
hospital and made the decision to step down as leader of
the Conservatives.
In the summer of
1956 the Conservatives were in an upbeat mode with Drew
looking like he was finally ready to challenge the long
Liberal reign and perhaps threaten their hold on power.
With Drew gone a leadership convention was called for in
December. The party insiders were generally opposed to
John Diefenbaker, who had emerged as the front runner
and then won the convention, on the first ballot, with a
huge majority of 774 votes to the party leaderships
candidate, Don Fleming who received 393 votes and a wild
horse Davie Fulton who got 117 votes.
Now leader of the
Conservatives, Diefenbaker launched pointed attacks on
the Liberals and the their leader Louis St Laurent. The
election was called for June of 1957 and most analysts
didn't give the Conservatives much of a chance of
winning against the mighty Liberal machine but
Diefenbaker spoke with emotion and vision and used radio
in an effective manner. He began to whip up the crowds
and the excitement grew. As election day drew near the
Liberals stumbled and failed to realize how close it
might be. On election night the Diefenbaker phenomenon
took hold and the as the polls closed it appeared as
though Diefenbaker might have closed the gap
considerably.
He had had not won a
majority but the Conservatives had won 112 seats to the
Liberals 105 and Prime Minister St Laurent immediately
congratulated Diefenbaker and stepped down as Prime
Minister to allow him to form a new government and as
leader of the Liberal party to allow a younger man to
lead the party. The man from Prince Alberta Saskatchewan
had become the first Conservative Prime Minister in 22
years and broken to power of the Liberal juggernaut.
The Liberals held a
leadership convention and early in 1958 Lester Pearson
who had experienced unqualified success in the
international realm of diplomacy and the United Nations,
but was lacking in Parliamentary experience, was
chosen as the new leader. Because of the slim
Conservative lead in seats, Pearson, under urging from
advisors, made the same mistake, which another new
leader named Stockwell Day was to make decades later,
and called on Diefenbaker to step aside and let the
Liberals have the seats of power back.
Diefenbaker, sensing
that the country was fully behind him, challenged the
Liberals and called another election, less the a year
since the last and on March 31st, 1958 won a commanding
majority. The Conservatives won 208 of 165 seats leaving
the Liberals with only 49 seats. The CCF were reduced to
8 seats and all other parties were shut out. The
Conservatives had won 54% of the vote, which was 20%
more than the Liberals and won a majority of the seats
in Quebec which was the first time they had managed that
since John A Macdonald.
Diefenbaker had
painted a vision of Canada which the people of the
country could share. He looked to the great promise of
the north, increased prosperity for the farmers,
inclusion of all ethnic and religious groups in the
process of nation building and a government for the
people, not the bureaucracy or big business. He had been
given a great mandate and the power to fulfill his
vision and the Canadian people now awaited for him to do
so.
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