1967 Progressive Conservative leadership election

Background[edit]

The leader was elected by the approximately 2,200 delegates to the convention who voted. Most of the delegates were elected from the party's associations in each riding (electoral district), as well as from the party's women's and youth associations.


However, many delegates were ex officio delegates, i.e., they received delegate status as a result of their positions on the national executive committee of the party, the executives of its affiliated provincial parties, and the party's national women's and youth organizations. Former and current Progressive Conservative (PC) Members of Parliament and Senators were also ex officio delegates.


Traditionally, once elected, leaders of the party remained in the position until they resigned or died. In this case, however, the convention was called after the party membership passed a resolution to force a leadership convention even though party leader John Diefenbaker was unwilling to resign. Many in the party believed that his mercurial leadership when the party was in government from 1957 to 1963, and his failure to win the support of Canadian voters the 1963 and 1965 federal elections meant that he would be unable to lead the party back to government. Party president Dalton Camp organized the successful campaign within the party to force a leadership convention.

Robert Stanfield, the 53-year-old PC Premier of Nova Scotia, was a late entrant to the campaign, and was the eventual victor. He had disclaimed any interest in running for the federal leadership having won a healthy mandate in the spring 1967 Nova Scotia election. He finally bowed to pressure from Dalton Camp and other Ontario opponents of Diefenbaker, and joined the race. According to reportage in the Toronto Star, it was his "honesty, forthrightness, and quiet demeanour" that set him apart from other candidates. Stanfield was supported by many party members from the Maritime provinces, but had little support from Quebec or the Western provinces. Running as a "right-of-centre" candidate, his successful convention presence, and especially his very well received speech at the Tuesday night policy session, attracted many of the anti-Diefenbaker delegates, and made him "the man to beat".


Dufferin Roblin, the 50-year-old PC Premier of Manitoba, was another late entrant to the campaign. He was the youngest serious contender, and was reported to have the behind-the-scenes support of the conservative Union Nationale party in Quebec. He portrayed himself as having been outside of the fighting over Diefenbaker's leadership, and independent of the Diefenbaker and Camp bloc. He would therefore be able to bring the party together. Roblin was seen to be on the left of the party, i.e., supported by Red Tories. He delivered an emotional appeal at the policy session for harmony between English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians. His call for party unity struck a chord with delegates, and it appeared as though he might lead on the first ballot. His Quebec delegates, however, were very critical of Diefenbaker at the convention, and undermined Roblin's image as a compromise candidate.


E. Davie Fulton, a 51-year-old lawyer from British Columbia had been defeated in the 1956 leadership convention by Diefenbaker. He had served as Minister of Justice and then Minister of Public Works in the Diefenbaker government, and left federal politics in 1963 to take over the leadership of the British Columbia PC Party. His attempt to revive that party's fortunes failed, and he returned to federal politics in the 1965 election. His campaign was run by Lowell Murray, later to be an important figure in the next PC government under Joe Clark. To support from his home province, he added considerable support from Quebec because of his ability to speak French. He was plagued with the reputation of being a bad politician, but he dispelled that notion during the campaign. He campaigned under the slogan, "It's Fulton - All across Canada!"


George Hees, the 57-year-old former Minister of Transport and then Minister of International Trade and Commerce in the Diefenbaker government, was described as a "millionaire bon vivant". Hees had been successful as trade minister, aggressively promoting Canadian trade in other countries, but left politics before the 1963 election. As head of the Montreal Stock Exchange, however, he had done nothing innovative, and returned to politics in the 1965 election. Hees did not come across as an intellectual, but injected glamour into the campaign, spending the most of any of the candidates, an estimated $200,000. The Globe and Mail newspaper noted that, surrounded by chanting young supporters, the "arrival of Hees was like something from Hollywood". Hees descended from one of two red London double-decker buses that he had hired to transport his campaign workers between his headquarters at the Royal York Hotel and the convention centre at Maple Leaf Gardens. Hees's speech, delivered in carnival-barker style, at the Tuesday night policy session, however, was not well received by delegates, and his support began to drift off to other candidates.


John Diefenbaker, the 72-year-old party leader and former prime minister, kept the other candidates, the delegates, observers and pundits waiting for his decision on whether or not he would run to succeed himself until the very last minute. He filed his nomination papers for the convention very close to the closing of nominations. Although he could not reasonably have expected to win, putting his name into the race allowed him one more opportunity to address the convention, and to appeal to the party to reject the ‘’Deux Nations’’ policy. By letting his name stand, however, he was pledging his support for the winner under the rules of the convention.


Wallace McCutcheon, a 61-year-old Senator joined the campaign to be the voice of the party's right-wing. He had served as Minister without Portfolio in Diefenbaker's government, and then as Minister of Trade and Commerce. He campaigned aggressively against "big government" and "creeping socialism". McCutcheon was seen as the candidate of Bay Street (Toronto's financial district). He used dozens of attractive young women in his demonstration at the convention (dubbed "blonde goddesses" by the Toronto Star). He advocated a guaranteed annual income of $10,000 per adult as an alternative to the various social programs offered by different levels of government. He proposed a "made-in-Canada" constitution to replace the British North America Acts and to guarantee the rights of Canadians, including language and cultural rights.


Alvin Hamilton, the 55-year-old former Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and Minister of Agriculture in the Diefenbaker government, had stayed out of the leadership campaign while Diefenbaker dithered about running. He appealed to Diefenbaker loyalists, but remained in the race even when Diefenbaker decided at the last moment to seek the leadership again, and continued to call himself a Diefenbaker loyalist. Hamilton warned the party that the delegates to the convention were out of touch with the grassroots of the party, and presented himself as the main alternative to the "reactionary conservative" candidates, and was opposed to the "continentalism" of the Liberal Party. His campaign used signed that portrayed a red-yellow-green traffic light with the slogan "Stop - Think - Go Hamilton".


Donald Fleming had run for and lost the PC leadership twice already. Having served as Minister of Finance and then Minister of Justice in Diefenbaker's government, he had left Parliament in 1963, and had only reluctantly agreed to run for the leadership this time. His campaign had a promising start, attracting many Diefenbaker loyalists, but had fizzled when Roblin and then Stanfield joined the campaign. Over the two months leading up to the campaign, Fleming's supporters steadily left his campaign to join those of the two provincial premiers, and then to Diefenbaker when he finally joined the campaign. Fleming was seen as an old man who had little to offer but sound fiscal policy. He had been promised a large bloc of Quebec votes by Jean-Paul Cardinal, an organizer for Quebec premier Daniel Johnson, Sr, but these votes failed to materialize. Fleming's campaign slogan was "Unite with Fleming". He had the support of many Diefenbaker loyalists, and was rumoured before the convention to have the support of Diefenbaker himself.


Michael Starr, former Minister of Labour in Diefenbaker's government, MP for Oshawa, Ontario, and PC House Leader in the House of Commons, was considered to be the most loyal of the Diefenbaker supporters, and declared that he was running only because Diefenbaker was not. Many believed that he was just a “stalking horse” for Diefenbaker, i.e., trying to hold delegates’ support until Diefenbaker himself joined the campaign. Starr did not, however, withdraw when Diefenbaker joined the campaign, and even stayed for the second ballot even though he had won only a few votes. Starr did little campaigning prior to the convention because he said that he did not have the resources of the other candidates. He focused on meeting delegates at the convention, but by then, most of his campaign team, headed by future Deputy Prime Minister Erik Nielsen, had quit in frustration over the lack of organization, and joined other campaigns. Starr proposed a “wage and price freeze” to fight inflation – a policy that ended up as the centrepiece of the 1974 PC campaign, and replacing personal income taxation by a “trading tax” on goods and services – a policy that was implemented by the PC government of Brian Mulroney in 1990. He also proposed that the British North America Acts be brought back to Canada without amendments. During the campaign he suggested that Canada withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a comment that he later regretted and withdrew.


John MacLean was an unsuccessful PC candidate in the 1965 election who was the first to declare his candidacy for the leadership. The 40-year-old was the operator of a Hertz car rental agency and British Petroleum gas station in Brockville, Ontario. MacLean had worked as a journalist for the Toronto Telegram, Quebec Chronicle, Ottawa Journal, Financial Post and Toronto Star newspapers. In the 1965 election, he was narrowly defeated, receiving 10,066 votes (47.1% of the total vote), compared to Liberal candidate Ross Matheson's 10,365. Maclean set himself up as the spokesperson for youth in the party, and ran largely in order to create a larger role for himself in the party. He was not successful in doing this: he failed to win a delegateship from his home riding of Leeds, and was also defeated for the PC nomination in the riding during the campaign by Desmond Code, who was the sitting MP for neighbouring Lanark riding. He said that the party should declare a moratorium on tax increases, and aim to “squeeze” government spending in order to reduce taxes, and train a corps of military specialists for civilian emergencies in Canada and abroad. His speech at the convention also did not increase the party's respect for him: he spoke without a prepared text for only 12 of the 19 minutes allotted to him.^[1]


Mary Walker-Sawka, a 51-year-old movie producer and freelance writer, was a surprise last-minute candidate. She was the first woman ever to seek the leadership of a major political party in Canada. She said that she was a Diefenbaker supporter, but was running because she felt she could “add a few things” to Diefenbaker's program. She gave a short speech setting out her ideas for PC party policy:


When she was nominated at the convention, she had no seconder. Some time passed before a female Hees supporter seconded Walker-Sawka's nomination in order to save her the embarrassment. Walker-Sawka called upon the women of the party to stand with her. She won only two votes on the first ballot, and was dropped from the ballot.

The campaign[edit]

John MacLean was the first candidate to enter the race in January 1967. As an unknown, he was not taken seriously, and the campaign did not begin in earnest until George Hees and Davie Fulton joined the campaign. For most of the campaign, Hees and Fulton appeared to be the most likely winners. Stanfield's entry on July 19 changed the situation dramatically. Duff Roblin's entry on August 3 – a little more than a month before the vote—changed the campaign again as the campaign began to focus more on the two popular premiers. Support for Donald Fleming's campaign, in particular, began to decline as his supporters left to join the Stanfield and Roblin campaigns.


There was considerable pressure on Ontario premier John Robarts to join the race until he announced on September 5 that the province would be holding an election on October 17.


Going into the convention, it appeared that any one of four candidates could win: Roblin, Fulton, Stanfield and Hees. There were many uncommitted delegates, especially from Quebec.