Diefenbaker’s legacy is worth celebrating: Senator Tkachuk
Tags
On this day, 59 years ago, the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker won his first majority government as Prime Minister.
There is disturbing news that the John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award, established under Stephen Harper, is quietly being shelved by the Trudeau government.
The CBC speculates that this is part of the Liberals’ effort to erase the legacy of the previous Conservative government.
This government seems to have made it its mission to erase any trace of the Harper government. Its slogan, “Canada is back”, coined shortly after winning the 2015 election, and after nine years of Conservative government, was as much a celebration of themselves as it was a rebuke of Stephen Harper.
But more than that, it is a repudiation of the many and valued contributions that Conservatives have made to the 150-year history – in domestic and foreign policy - of this country.
John George Diefenbaker stands squarely at the centre of those Conservative contributions. He was years ahead of his time and his many accomplishments are enough to make even a Trudeau Liberal proud. At least one who is sincere in his or her beliefs.
Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights was a seminal document, without which we would never have had Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Even Trudeau’s former principal secretary, Tom Axworthy, wrote that there would have been no Charter without the Bill of Rights.
And while the modern day Trudeau Liberals salivate over a possible seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, they might remember that Diefenbaker participated in the 1945 San Francisco founding meeting of the United Nations.
He nearly alone took a principled stand against apartheid in South Africa some two decades before that issue was again championed to a conclusion by another Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney.
While this government loudly pronounces its intention to forge a new relationship with Canada’s Indigenous people, they might recall that it was under Diefenbaker that voting rights were first granted to our aboriginal peoples.
Diefenbaker named: Canada's first aboriginal Senator, James Gladstone; Canada's first woman cabinet minister, Ellen Fairclough; Canada's first Ukrainian cabinet minister, Michael Starr; and Canada's first French Canadian Governor General, Georges Vanier.
When the current Prime Minister reflects on his admiration for China, he would do well to remind himself that it was Diefenbaker and another Saskatchewan minister, Alvin Hamilton, who laid the groundwork for diplomatic relations with Communist China when they opened up the market and sold Canadian wheat to China.
Canada officially recognized Communist China under then-prime minister Lester B. Pearson and foreign affairs minister Mitchell Sharp. Prime Minister Diefenbaker, as he did in so many areas, paved the way.
In 1958, Diefenbaker said: "I am the first prime minister of this country of neither altogether English nor French origin. So I determined to bring about a Canadian citizenship that knew no hyphenated consideration....I'm very happy to be able to say that in the House of Commons today in my party we have members of Italian, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, Chinese and Ukrainian origin -- and they are all Canadians."
You can hear the echo of those words in the current Prime Minister’s insistence that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
In this the 150th anniversary of our country’s founding, a year when the government saw fit to contribute $750,000 to commemorate former Quebec separatist premier Rene Levesque, who spent his entire political career seeking to ensure this anniversary never came to pass, it might want to think a little before abandoning an award that honours a prime minister, a man who contributed so much to making this country what it is today, and what we will celebrate on July 1.
Note to readers: The Honourable David Tkachuk retired from the Senate of Canada in February 2020. Learn more about his work in Parliament.
This article first appeared in the March 12, 2017 edition of the Toronto Sun.
On this day, 59 years ago, the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker won his first majority government as Prime Minister.
There is disturbing news that the John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award, established under Stephen Harper, is quietly being shelved by the Trudeau government.
The CBC speculates that this is part of the Liberals’ effort to erase the legacy of the previous Conservative government.
This government seems to have made it its mission to erase any trace of the Harper government. Its slogan, “Canada is back”, coined shortly after winning the 2015 election, and after nine years of Conservative government, was as much a celebration of themselves as it was a rebuke of Stephen Harper.
But more than that, it is a repudiation of the many and valued contributions that Conservatives have made to the 150-year history – in domestic and foreign policy - of this country.
John George Diefenbaker stands squarely at the centre of those Conservative contributions. He was years ahead of his time and his many accomplishments are enough to make even a Trudeau Liberal proud. At least one who is sincere in his or her beliefs.
Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights was a seminal document, without which we would never have had Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Even Trudeau’s former principal secretary, Tom Axworthy, wrote that there would have been no Charter without the Bill of Rights.
And while the modern day Trudeau Liberals salivate over a possible seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, they might remember that Diefenbaker participated in the 1945 San Francisco founding meeting of the United Nations.
He nearly alone took a principled stand against apartheid in South Africa some two decades before that issue was again championed to a conclusion by another Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney.
While this government loudly pronounces its intention to forge a new relationship with Canada’s Indigenous people, they might recall that it was under Diefenbaker that voting rights were first granted to our aboriginal peoples.
Diefenbaker named: Canada's first aboriginal Senator, James Gladstone; Canada's first woman cabinet minister, Ellen Fairclough; Canada's first Ukrainian cabinet minister, Michael Starr; and Canada's first French Canadian Governor General, Georges Vanier.
When the current Prime Minister reflects on his admiration for China, he would do well to remind himself that it was Diefenbaker and another Saskatchewan minister, Alvin Hamilton, who laid the groundwork for diplomatic relations with Communist China when they opened up the market and sold Canadian wheat to China.
Canada officially recognized Communist China under then-prime minister Lester B. Pearson and foreign affairs minister Mitchell Sharp. Prime Minister Diefenbaker, as he did in so many areas, paved the way.
In 1958, Diefenbaker said: "I am the first prime minister of this country of neither altogether English nor French origin. So I determined to bring about a Canadian citizenship that knew no hyphenated consideration....I'm very happy to be able to say that in the House of Commons today in my party we have members of Italian, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, Chinese and Ukrainian origin -- and they are all Canadians."
You can hear the echo of those words in the current Prime Minister’s insistence that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
In this the 150th anniversary of our country’s founding, a year when the government saw fit to contribute $750,000 to commemorate former Quebec separatist premier Rene Levesque, who spent his entire political career seeking to ensure this anniversary never came to pass, it might want to think a little before abandoning an award that honours a prime minister, a man who contributed so much to making this country what it is today, and what we will celebrate on July 1.
Note to readers: The Honourable David Tkachuk retired from the Senate of Canada in February 2020. Learn more about his work in Parliament.
This article first appeared in the March 12, 2017 edition of the Toronto Sun.