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Prime Ministers don’t have to be political animals
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| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur May 28, 2013 02:53pm |
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| Category | Perspective |
| Author | Lawrence Martin |
| Media | Newspaper - Toronto Globe and Mail |
| News Date | Tuesday, May 28, 2013 08:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | If you did a poll of historians and asked who was our most ethical prime minister, Louis St. Laurent would finish high on the list.
Mr. St. Laurent, a distinguished Quebec lawyer who served as PM from 1948 to 1957, didn’t enter politics until he was almost 60. He was the furthest thing from what you would call a political animal. He had not been brought up in that kind of world, as our more recent prime ministers have.
For Mr. St. Laurent, governance was about making decisions based on the country’s needs, more than the party’s needs. Gordon Robertson, a distinguished civil servant who served under every prime minister from Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau, admired Mr. St. Laurent the most: “In modesty and humanity, he had no peer.” Jack Pickergsill, who served with multiple PMs as well, was struck by Mr. St. Laurent’s calm managerial skills and his “complete freedom from meanness or malice of any kind.”
For Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper, the foremost preoccupation was political strategizing. They were about as far from Mr. St. Laurent’s model as could be imagined. This isn’t to say it’s been bad governance – that depends on one’s perspective. But if we’re searching for ways to explain the erosion of democratic ideals and standards, the long run of warriors in the prime minister’s chair is a good place to look. |
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