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Create AccountIn 1957 and 1958, Canadian voters swept aside 22 years of Liberal rule for the untested Conservatives under John Diefenbaker, whose campaign brilliance won him first a minority government, and then a historic majority.
Two elections within 12 months. Two leaders fighting for supremacy: one intellectual and cold, the other deliberately vague and hiding his ambition.
Calling elections is like Goldilocks visiting the three bears — which political stew will turn out to be too soon, too late, or just right? The elections of 1979 and 1980 illustrate the perils of too late, followed by too soon.
Laurier led the country for 15 years — the longest uninterrupted term for a Canadian prime minister — with a policy of systematic compromise.
On January 11, 1914, Vilhjalmur Stefansson's flagship, Karluk, was crushed and sunk by the tumultuous, rumbling ice of the East Siberian Sea. Not an auspicious start for an invasion, but that is exactly what it turned out to be.
When Ken Taylor arrived in Iran for his first ambassadorial posting, he had no reason to expect anything but a serene time as a promoter of Canadian business and trade. Instead, he ran headlong into the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian Revolution.
On 15 February 1965, at hundreds of ceremonies across the country and around the world, the red and white Maple Leaf Flag was raised for the first time. In Ottawa, 10,000 people gathered on a chilly, snow-covered Parliament Hill. At precisely noon, the guns on nearby Nepean Point sounded as the sun broke through the clouds. An RCMP constable, 26-year-old Joseph Secours, hoisted the National Flag of Canada to the top of a specially-erected white staff. A sudden breeze snapped it to attention.
The Baldwin–LaFontaine government of 1848 has been called the “great ministry.” In addition to establishing responsible government, it had an incomparable record of legislation. It established a public school system and finalized the founding of the University of Toronto. It set up municipal governments and pacified French-Canadian nationalism after a period of unrest. Responsible government did not transform Canada overnight into a fully developed democracy. But it was an important milestone along the road to political autonomy. Most importantly, it provided an opportunity for French Canadians to find a means for their survival through the British Constitution. The partnership and friendship between Baldwin and LaFontaine were brilliant examples of collaboration that have been all too rare in Canadian history.
On a Sunday evening, 3 June 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the ten provincial premiers marked the third anniversary of the Meech Lake Accord at a dinner in the architectural splendour of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the Canadian Museum of History) in Hull, Quebec.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on May 5, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
Memories are made of such things - if any of those patrons could later find anyone who believed them. Other than that, there are several prospective lessons to be drawn from the latest escapade of Jean Chrétien, full-time prime minister and sometime prankster.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on November 27, 1995. Partner content is not updated.
Political circles had been buzzing for weeks about a major police investigation into the biggest civil aviation contract ever given by a Canadian government - the 1988 purchase of 34 Airbus A-320 passenger planes from a European consortium for $1.8 billion.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 24, 1995. Partner content is not updated.
Even for a fish tale, the story had started to strain the bounds of credulity. Victory is at hand, federal Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin repeated like a mantra last week.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on December 20, 2004. Partner content is not updated.
The suits are more conservative these days, the partying is toned down, but there's still plenty of mischief at the heart of Danny Williams.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 10, 1995. Partner content is not updated.
The year was 1980 and a 25-year-old Brian Tobin badly needed advice. Grit organizers wanted Tobin, a cocky former radio disc jockey, television newscaster and provincial Liberal party operative, to run in a traditionally Tory riding on Newfoundland's west coast.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on September 29, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on May 13, 2002. Partner content is not updated.
The beauty of a referendum is that no matter how complex or inappropriate the question, the answer can only be Yes or No. Except, apparently, in British Columbia, where Up Yours is also gaining a measure of popularity.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on June 2, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
In 1982, Canada fully broke from its colonial past and “patriated” its Constitution. It transferred the country’s highest law, the British North America Act (which was renamed the Constitution Act, 1867), from the authority of the British Parliament to Canada’s federal and provincial legislatures. The Constitution was also updated with a new amending formula and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These changes occurred after a fierce, 18-month political and legal struggle that dominated headlines and the agendas of every government in the country.
To a tremendous extent, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples defines slavery in Canada. Fully two-thirds of the slaves in the colony of New France were Indigenous. After 1750, the number of Indigenous slaves brought into French Canada began to decline. When slavery was abolished in British colonies in 1834, Black slaves far outnumbered Indigenous slaves. (See also Black Enslavement in Canada.) The enslavement of Indigenous peoples is part of a dark legacy of colonization that has had implications on generations of Indigenous peoples in Canada and throughout North America.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on November 18, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
For many, those three words, uttered by the villainous financier Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street, sum up the Eighties - a decade of excess, self-aggrandizement and corruption.
