Tim Belford

By Tim Belford

Local Journalism Initiative

Two days from now Canadians can stop holding their breath. The Liberal Party of Canada will have a new leader and the ‘natural governing party’ can get back to doing what it does best; studying the nation’s problems.

Justin Trudeau, for all intents and purposes, will be gone and there will be a new pilot at the helm. Who that will be is anybody’s guess, as of press time, but it looks to be either International businessman, banker and ex-pat, Mark Carney, or former finance minister and Trudeau nemesis, Chrystia Freeland.

No matter which of the two you support, or the reasons you favour them, it doesn’t really matter. If you believe that Carney has spent too much time out of the country and is just another millionaire businessman with no feel for the problems of the average Canadian, it’s irrelevant. As far as Freeland goes, if you think her long-time service in the Trudeau government makes her part of the problem and not the solution, don’t lose any sleep.

The thing is that over the past 152 years, starting with our first Liberal Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie, who ruled the parliamentary roost from 1873 to 1878, we’ve managed to survive whatever the party has thrown at us. Mackenzie had about as much political experience as the present Prime Minister Selfie when he started out. A stone mason by trade, he moved on to being a building contractor and finally an insurance executive. Just the same, his term in office managed to produce the Supreme Court, the Auditor General’s Office and the Elections Act that brought us the secret ballot.

Wilfrid Laurier, easily the most successful Liberal icon, spent his three separate terms in the office of Prime Minister defending French language rights. Without him French-speaking Canadians in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, Nova Scotia and every other province and territory wouldn’t even t have the limited rights they do now. As for Quebec? It would have been ‘Au revoir les gars!’ a long time ago.

On the other hand Laurier, unlike his arch rival John A. Macdonald, was big on reciprocity with the United States and free trade. If he’d had his way back then, we might actually already be the 51^st state and Trump could find somebody else to irritate. Laurier also had what has been referred to as an “ambiguous relationship” with a married woman and maybe even a child by her. Can you imagine what today’s social media would have done with that?

As a nation we even made it through nearly 22 years of William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister. No matter what you think of King’s accomplishments, most historians would suggest he was also the oddest P.M. of the Liberal lot.

King guided us through the depression and was responsible for a considerable amount of social legislation. He also managed to get us through WWII and help save the ‘mother country’ while at the same time sloughing off Britain’s traditional controlling attitude. He signed treaties, made boundary adjustment pacts, established an independent foreign service and put our military under Canadian control; all without British permission.

All this being said, the man who some historians rate as our best Prime Minister ever, was also one odd human being. Following his death, it was learned that King was fond of holding séances during which he spoke with both his dead mother and dog, asking advice on governing from the former. He didn’t earn the nickname, Weird Willy, without cause.

So take heart. No matter who wins the Liberal Leadership race and even if he or she goes on to become Prime Minister, no worries. We’ve seen it all before and survived to tell the tale.