From this month's Walrus Magazine

CHAMPAIGN LIBERAL

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I’ve no doubt Ron Graham’s “The Stranger Within” (January/February) generated howls of rage from Michael Ignatieff supporters like myself. Rather than listing off the points I disagree with, I’d like to remind readers of an earlier Liberal leader who built his reputation abroad and initially seemed unlikely to become prime minister: Lester Pearson.

In 1958, days after becoming Liberal leader, Pearson asked John Diefenbaker to resign as prime minister and transfer power to the Liberals without an election, citing an economic downturn and claiming his party was better qualified to handle it than the Conservatives. The gambit backfired when Diefenbaker released an internal Liberal document from the St. Laurent era that predicted a recession, proving the Grits knew all along that a crisis was unavoidable. At the time, there were calls for Pearson’s head, and hints about dark plots to replace him with Paul Martin Sr., his opponent during the 1958 leadership convention. Diefenbaker used the backlash as an excuse to call a snap election in which the Conservatives routed the Liberals, winning the largest majority in Canadian history, with 208 of 265 seats. Newspapers considered Pearson hopeless and foresaw a Conservative majority until the end of the next decade.

In 1960, however, after taking some time to recover, Pearson convened a “thinkers’ conference” in Kingston, at which many of the ideas central to his future government were developed. He rebuilt the Liberal Party, bringing in the talent that would be its backbone for decades to come.

Of course, Pearson went on to become one of Canada’s most successful prime ministers. Under his leadership, many of Canada’s major social programs were established, including universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans. He also instituted the forty-hour workweek, two weeks’ vacation for employees, and a new minimum wage.

It’s easy to fall for the Conservative line on Ignatieff — he’s out of touch with Canadians and sure to lose to Stephen Harper in the next election — but Pearson’s story teaches us that great leaders don’t always seem that way at first.