The Pearson Centre for Progressive Policy

Progressive Dialogue and Policy for a Better Canada

Memories of the Pearson Government

By

April 22, 2013

Memories of the Pearson Government

By Rt. Hon. Herb Gray and Sharon Sholzberg-Gray

Herb Gray:
April 8, 1963 – that’s the day that Lester B. Pearson was elected Prime Minister of Canada and that’s the day I won my second election as M.P. for Essex West, now Windsor West – the 2nd of my 13 consecutive election victories. I won a majority of the votes cast in my riding (56%), but that was not the kind of result achieved across the country, and so, on April 22nd, Mike Pearson formed the first of his 2 minority governments – and his lack of a majority certainly did not prevent his 2 governments from being amazingly productive, activist and progressive. Their achievements included the Canada Pension Plan, medicare, Canada Student loans, the Maple Leaf Flag, the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact, the Royal Commissions on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and the Status of Women, and so on.

Yes, this event is called the relevance of the Pearson Legacy for today and tomorrow, but these measures are so ingrained in the everyday fabric of being Canadian, I say there’s no need to argue their relevance. They are more than a legacy. Each of us uses them every day whether we realize it or not. They are what it means to be Canadian now and into the future.

The issues, the needs they address, like health care and Canada’s place in world, will continue on into the future – they are not brief one time projects in the past to be looked at by historians. So we thank Jim Cowan for organizing this event, but I hope he will not object if I say as someone who was part of Pearson’s caucus but not his cabinet – we are not dealing with a legacy – instead we are living the Pearson measures and will continue to do so every day. And if I may say so myself, the caucus of young, energetic, and committed young MPs (of which I was a part) played a huge role in the development and timing of the great policy initiatives that were the hallmark of the Pearson era. And we did this with virtually no staff and without constituency offices.

Par consequent, je dis, vive le legs de Mike Pearson et ses deux governements. Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much.

Sharon Sholzberg-Gray:
When I was asked to speak this evening and to share part of Herb’s five allotted minutes, I asked myself why this request was made. After all, when the new Pearson Government came to office 50 years ago today, I was a 20 year old student at McGill University and the newly-elected President of the McGill Liberal Club. So what were my links to the Pearson Government? (I hadn’t even met Herb at that time although I did know that he was one of the new Members of Parliament elected in 1962.) I had worked in the elections of 1962 and 1963 in the successful John Turner campaigns – his riding of St. Lawrence-St. George took in McGill University. And I do believe that it was the hard work and enthusiastic participation of young Liberals like myself across the country that helped bring the Liberals to power. I did meet Herb at a student Liberal convention in Ottawa in 1964, the year I was the Liberal Prime Minister of the McGill Model Parliament. And when I was in my last year of law school, I was elected as the first women President of the McGill Student Government – and by then I was going out with Herb. We got married in the summer of 1967, and six months later Mike Pearson announced his intention to resign as leader. So we were not really partners during most of the Pearson years.

So where was I during the Pearson years? Fast forward to 1966 and I have a story to tell. I was a delegate to the Liberal Policy Convention in Ottawa in the fall of 1966. Allan J. MacEachen, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, had introduced the Medical Care Act on July 12, 1966. This piece of legislation, which we called medicare, provided for federal funding to the provinces, provided that they established publicly funded insurance programs for universal access to physician services – a companion to the hospital insurance program introduced by Paul Martin Sr. some 10 years earlier – and a major commitment of the Pearson Government. Sometime in the summer, Mitchell Sharp, then the Minister of Finance, announced that medicare would be delayed or even abandoned due to the state of the economy and the need for fiscal restraint. I understand that this led to substantial caucus concern and debate, and it was an issue much discussed at the 1966 convention.

Was the Liberal Government going to renege on its commitment to bring in medicare? There was a question and answer session with Mitchell Sharp and I stood up and asked a somewhat critical question about his commitment to medicare. Suddenly there was a scrum around me and I was on the National News. I was somewhat nervous about the whole situation although I was used to the press because of my student government leadership role. I was also a little concerned about my public criticism given that Herb and I were about to become engaged and I wasn’t sure that this was a good move. What the Liberals ended up doing was to come together in a workable compromise. The implementation of the medicare legislation was delayed from July 1, 1967 to July 1, 1968 – and by then Pearson was no longer the leader, but medicare was certainly one of his crowning achievements. By the way, the Conservatives and Social Credit voted against the medicare bill. At that time, I had no idea that I would make a career as the CEO of various pan-Canadian health and social organizations, and eventually become for 10 years the CEO of the Canadian Healthcare Association (formerly the Canadian Hospital Association), and the spokesperson in Ottawa for the publicly funded health system in our country. (And in that role I often had to criticize governments, including Liberal Governments that Herb was part of.) I am not sure how many people remember the possible “threat” to medicare by the need for fiscal restraint, but I certainly do. And I have noted how proud Liberals who served in Parliament during the Pearson years were of their participation in the introduction of medicare. Medicare was mentioned in the official obituaries of both Ben Benson and Gene Whelan.

In 1967 when I married Herb, I was aware that there was somewhat of a gulf between the cabinet and back bench MP’s. Relations were friendly but there was not the informal collegiality that there later was when Herb was a Minister. In September 1967, Mitchell Sharp invited Herb and me to accompany him to Rio de Janeiro for the World Bank Meeting – Herb was then the Chair of the House of Commons Finance Committee. I don’t think Mitchell remembered me as the critical questioner of the year earlier, and I found him to be a wonderful and warm person, and a particularly caring spouse to his first wife who was then suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and who was on the trip to Rio.

One more story. In December 1967, John Turner became the first Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, and he introduced the bill to establish the new department. (He had entered the cabinet in 1965 as a Minister without Portfolio.) The original title of the department was the Department of Corporate and Consumer Affairs, since competition policy and other corporate regulatory items were within the new department’s purview. Herb thought the word “consumer” should come first – John agreed – and suggested that Herb stand up in the House to present amendments at the appropriate time and he would accept them. I was watching in the Gallery as a proud new spouse. There are many other stories to tell, but no time tonight to do so.

I would like to end with one thought. During debate on the medicare bill, Tommy Douglas asked why home care and pharmacare weren’t included. An agenda for future pan-Canadian programs? I certainly hope so. We have been talking about this for years.

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