Let me begin with the worst moment in my life as press secretary to Robert Stanfield. This tribute to him can only improve from there. The 1974 federal election campaign had begun badly and was getting worse. As leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Stanfield was promoting a policy of price and income controls that included a 90-day freeze meant to halt rampant inflation. Voters loved the idea of a lid on prices but not on their salaries. The policy was a tough sell and it became more troublesome as the media raised questions daily that required ever more complicated explanations.
Three weeks into the election, Stanfield’s campaign plane, filled with staff and press, left Halifax for a grueling fol- low-the-sun schedule with numerous stops ending in Vancouver 20 hours later. En route, we landed in North Bay, Ontario, to refuel. Everyone deplaned for a little fresh air. Someone began throwing a football around on the tarmac and soon Stanfield joined in ”” tossing, running, and catch- ing the ball with an easy grace that belied his 60 years.
Doug Ball, a Canadian Press photographer, shot a roll of film.
As Stanfield’s press secretary since 1970, such was my delight with Stanfield looking so lithe and athletic ”” just like that fellow Pierre Trudeau we were running against ”” that I accompanied Ball into the terminal and helped him ship the film to Toronto so his editors could put something on the newswires.
Imagine my chagrin the next morning when I saw the photo that appeared in every newspaper in the country. You know the one: Stanfield stooped over, wearing a white shirt and tie, his empty hands clutched hopelessly together as the ball tumbled to the ground below. He looked awkward and knock-kneed. His face was a grimace, his eyes clamped shut. The Vancouver Province, the first place I saw the picture, had added penciled lines to his furrowed brow as if the original didn’t already look bad enough.
As a metaphor for our beleaguered campaign, no image could have been more telling. The Toronto Sun later asked to look at the complete 36-frame shoot, and published a series of photos showing Stanfield looking deft and agile, but the dam- age was done. Stanfield soldiered on to election day in July, but everyone knew that he’d long since lost. ”œZap! You’re frozen!” said Trudeau who, the next year, adopt- ed the very policy he had mocked in order to win his mandate. Politics and life aren’t fair, I know, but that volte face seemed well beyond the pale.
After the humiliation of Trudeau- mania in 1968, and the jubilation of 1972 when Stanfield came within two seats of winning, the 1974 results fin- ished him off. The ”œvictory” party at the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax was a desultory event. Long-faced campaign workers slumped against the ballroom walls while a band played peppy tunes no one wanted to hear. When Stan- field arrived at the funereal affair there were a few awkward moments until my wife Sandy asked him to dance. Soon everyone was up dancing; the event had been successfully rescued.
When Robert Lorne Stanfield died at 89 on December 16, the image that came unsummoned to my mind was of a man who should have been at the lowest point of his life, but was instead enjoying himself among friends and election vol- unteers. He’d rather not have lost. But he didn’t so desperately need to win that he believed the world would stop turning.
Controls weren’t the only Stanfield policy idea later embraced by those who scoffed when first they heard. When inflation-adjusted tax brackets were announced in a Liberal budget, Stanfield rose in the House of Commons and took an author’s bow. Stanfield placed his personal assets in a blind trust years before that appropri- ate step was made mandatory by many jurisdictions. Finlay MacDonald, a long-time friend and a perennial prac- tical joker, once walked into Stanfield’s Parliament Hill office and said: ”œI have good news and bad news. The bad news is that you’re worth nothing. The good news is that all the way down you were never in a conflict of interest.”
Stanfield loved to laugh, and make others laugh, usually at his own expense. Television interviews after Question Period in those days were con- ducted in Room 130-S, in the basement of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill. Stanfield was standing in front of a row of cameras waiting patiently while a technician fixed a problem. Veteran NDP MP Stanley Knowles entered the room, lingered at the back amid the silence, and finally said: ”œSpeak up Bob, we can’t hear you.” Replied Stanfield, ”œI’m in the middle of one of my pauses.”
Ah yes, Stanfield’s halting speech, a charismatic quality that ranked right up there with his solemn looks. Yet year after year Stanfield gave by far the funniest speech at the Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner, an off-the-record evening of drinking and skits and speeches by other political leaders and the governor-general. Elves and shoe- makers would write material for Stanfield, but the best lines were his own, and his deadpan timing was impeccable. Trudeau always delivered a dud. (See sidebar for some examples of Stanfield’s spontaneous wit.)
How we loyal staffers wished the public could hear that dry, self-deprecat- ing wit and see those boffo performanc- es. We endlessly discussed his image and how it might be improved. Except for slightly more stylish suits and a modest bit of TV training, little was done to alter ”œthe man with the winning way” as he was known at the 1967 convention held at Maple Leafs Gardens in Toronto that chose him leader.
Although Stanfield went to Ottawa after 11 years as premier of Nova Scotia, he was not a parochial man. He had a vision of the country as a whole place. He worked hard to learn French, and spoke it reasonably well. He was relentlessly forgiving and endured constant backstabbing from his prede- cessor, John Diefenbaker, who never accepted Stanfield’s leadership. Yet in all the years I worked for Stanfield, I never heard him utter a mean-spirited word about anyone, not John Diefenbaker, not Doug Ball.
Stanfield fought hard for accept- ance of his views. But unlike some peo- ple in public office, he was always tolerant of others’ opinions, particular- ly those that most contradicted his own. His opponents always got a gra- cious hearing as he took into account their differing views even if those beliefs brought bile to his lips.
In this regard, perhaps his strength was also his weakness. In February 1968, soon after Stanfield was elected leader, Lester Pearson’s government was defeat- ed in a non-confidence vote. The Liberals summoned the governor of the Bank of Canada, who advised Stanfield that a precipitous election would hurt the dollar and cripple Canada’s international reputation. Stanfield agreed to another vote, which the government won handily. As his detractors both inside and outside the party put it: He passed up the chance to ”œgo for the jugu- lar” because he was too nice a guy in a cut-throat world.
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When the War Measures Act was invoked in October 1970, Stanfield again gave the government of the day the benefit of the doubt. That particular backing was Stanfield’s only regret in a long polit- ical life. He later admitted that he wished he’d joined his lone dissent- ing colleague, David MacDonald, who voted against the Public Order Temporary Measures Act when it came before the House that November.
To be sure, Pierre Trudeau always managed to have his way with Robert Stanfield. Not content with having beaten Stanfield in 1972, Trudeau set out to belittle him in 1973. Trudeau tabled a resolution to reaffirm the prin- ciples of the Official Languages Act. The measure was totally unnecessary; offi- cial bilingualism had been approved in 1969 with Stanfield’s full support.
Trudeau was just being mischievous. He knew there were those in the Progressive Conservative Party who would not stand with their leader on this issue and he was right. Sixteen Tories voted against the resolution. Thus the Liberals exposed and embarrassed Stanfield as someone who could not sell his own views to his own people.
Stanfield honored the institution of Parliament and worked hard as leader of the opposition. ”œPolitics gave a depth and meaning to my life that I had no right to expect,” he once said. Between elections, he traveled Canada most weekends, highlighting issues such as unemployment, fisheries or energy. During the week he’d arrive at his parlia- mentary office on the fourth floor of the Centre Block well before 9 a.m., head home for 6:30 p.m. dinner, then return for the evening. He’d often be among a diehard handful attentively listening to a late-night speech of little note.
Stanfield fired the opening round in Question Period, daily trying to trip up Trudeau, make a minister look incompe- tent, or raise an issue for the media to pursue. Four staffers in the Opposition research office would spend the morning preparing material for Stanfield and other senior MPs in what they hoped would be a co-ordinated attack. With or without their help, Stanfield could go toe-to-toe with Trudeau and his cabinet ministers on any topic.
After Question Period, I’d beat the bushes in the press gallery, trying to interest one of the networks in con- ducting an interview with Stanfield that might capture some of the fire- works from the floor of the House. In those days before parliamentary pro- ceedings were televised, such interviews were the only way most Canadians could take the measure of the man. Recreating the drama of debate, however, was all but impossi- ble though brief news clips. Who knows how voters’ perceptions of Stanfield might have changed for the better had they been able to see him in action for themselves.
Stanfield was an excellent debater and speaker; he always did well in front of an audience. Peter Reilly, a broadcaster turned MP, drafted some words for Stanfield that became known as his ”œvision” speech. Press coverage was adula- tory. ”œWomen weep at Stanfield vision,” declared one headline. Among the best was his farewell address at the 1976 lead- ership convention held to replace him, perhaps because he felt free to say what- ever he wanted. The night before, Diefenbaker had complimented Stanfield. ”œI want to thank John for his very kind remarks,” said Stanfield, then paused and pointedly added, ”œlast night,” a not-so- subtle reminder that Dief’s praise was a tad tardy. As for those journalists who had so often disparaged him, he simply said: ”œShoo fly, don’t bother me.”
Stanfield issued a warning that February evening, one that still rings true today, 28 years later. ”œSome Progressive Conservatives would rather fight than win. Some of us wish to elevate a legitimate concern for individual self-reliance and individual enterprise into the central and domi- nating dogma and theme of our party. Why do we spoil a good case by exag- geration? Why do we try to polarize a society that is already taut with tension and confrontation?”
Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, the Progressive Conservative Party leaders who followed Stanfield, built well on his tireless efforts and he celebrated their success. I cannot imagine that Stanfield could possibly have approved of the recent merger that not only caused the ”˜Progressive’ portion of the party’s name to disappear but also brought to the fore so many midgets with extremist minds.
Although some of the divisive issues have changed in the intervening years, the number of narrow-minded politicians seems greater now than in Stanfield’s day. There were bigots back then, of course, but when they railed against him in cau- cus, tried to hijack his social policy plans, or plotted his ouster, Stanfield always steered a thoughtful course without ever selling out his principles.
That inclusiveness was the bedrock of Stanfield’s being. He believed that a political party was a powerful means by which to build a national consensus. His other remarkable traits were patience, integrity, decency and fortitude in the face of failure, all of them marks of a man to be much admired. He expected loyalty, and rarely received it, but he gave loyalty freely to all. No matter who you were, you never had to worry about turning your back on Robert Stanfield. He would never do you in ”” no matter what you might have done to him.
I had not even voted for the Progressive Conservative Party before becoming Stanfield’s press secretary. As a journalist, I went to Ottawa thinking I’d spend two years there seeing how that place worked from the inside. Stanfield was a man with such wit and wisdom that I stayed almost six years and never regretted my decision for a moment, never wished that he was anything other than the honest and unassuming man he was.
I would have liked to have been on the winning side. So would he. No, there was no final victory, but if you’re going to lose, far better to do it alongside a good and gallant man than be with connivers who will do anything and say anything in order to win at any cost to the country.
