Lester Pearson.

« a vacant seat.

The by-election followed a major Liberal victory in September, and as a Liberal Party candidate, Pearson won by a comfortable margin in Algoma East,Ontario.

He was reelected to the House of Commons in elections between 1949 and 1965.

He was immediately made secretary of state for external affairs in the cabinetof Prime Minister Louis St.

Laurent.

In this post, Pearson set a new standard of frank exchange and cooperation that brought him respect and esteem.

However, manyCanadians with strong loyalties toward Britain or France resented his efforts to prevent the two countries from asserting their power over Egypt in the Suez crisis.

Thisresentment was a minor factor in the defeat of the Liberal government in the election of 1957, an event that brought the Conservative Party, under John G.Diefenbaker, to power. After the Liberals' setback, Pearson was tempted to retire from politics and return to academic life.

However, the ailing Liberal leader, St.

Laurent, gave notice that hewas retiring.

Major figures in the party convinced Pearson in January 1958 to head the Liberal opposition and to prepare the way for the party's return to power.

Forthe next few years, Pearson studied Canada's financial and economic problems and the long-standing conflict between its French-speaking and English-speakingcitizens.

Having devoted many years to world problems, Pearson found it necessary to immerse himself in facts and statistics related to the local problems of eachprovince.

Gradually, Pearson rebuilt the strength of the Liberal Party. Pearson revived the concern for social welfare shown by King in the earlier successful days of the Liberals, and he rallied to the defense of the individual, calling for areturn to human values. In the 1963 election campaign, Pearson proposed a royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism to inquire into minority rights in Canada, a suggestion thatincreased his popularity among the French Canadians.

He also attacked Prime Minister Diefenbaker's opposition to nuclear weapons for Canada, one of the main issuesin the election.

Pearson called for the addition of nuclear weapons to the Canadian arsenal, with the provision to forgo such weapons if a world conference agreed onnuclear disarmament.

The Liberal Party was returned to power in the April election, and on April 22, Pearson became head of a new government.

His position wasprecarious, for his party controlled 129 seats, 4 seats short of a majority in the 265-seat House of Commons, In 1965 Pearson attempted to obtain a parliamentarymajority by calling a new election.

The move failed as the Liberals won only 131 seats. IV PRIME MINISTER Almost immediately the new Liberal government was in trouble.

Its budget put a high tax on foreign securities and raised tariffs, taxes on imports, to protect Canadianfarmers and manufacturers; these tariffs discouraged trade.

The budget had been inspired and planned by Walter Gordon, the new finance minister and one ofPearson's close associates.

It was presented in June, before Pearson had the opportunity to evaluate it, and during the ensuing political uproar he was forced torepudiate the unpopular measure.

A later trade deficit crisis was averted by the successful sale to the USSR and other countries of Canada's 1963 large wheat crop.

Theimportant grain sales helped the Liberals make some inroads in the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, which were strongholds of Diefenbakersupport. Just after becoming prime minister in 1963, Pearson went to the United States for talks with President John F.

Kennedy.

Pearson meant the meeting to be conciliatoryand to make up for the anti-U.S.

feeling that had been expressed in the Canadian elections.

In their discussions the two statesmen repaired much of the breachbetween Canada and the United States.

By this time the U.S.

business boom had spread to Canada and U.S.

investments again flowed into the iron, oil, and base-metalenterprises that were opening up in Canada's northland. One of the major problems Pearson had to face was the desire of the French Canadians for greater political independence and economic opportunity.

Separatists inQuébec were vigorously advocating the withdrawal of the predominantly French-speaking province from the rest of Canada.

Extremist groups, such as the QuébecLiberation Front (FLQ), were carrying out bombings and other terrorist activities.

Pearson warned that a divided Canada, with a French-speaking wedge on the St.Lawrence River separating the two English-speaking sections of the country, would eventually fall under complete U.S.

domination.

He chose Guy Favreau, a FrenchCanadian, as government leader in the House of Commons, brought several able French Canadian ministers into the Cabinet, and gave Québec more federal funds tohelp carry out its legislative program.

Pearson kept his campaign promise and established the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. In January 1964, Pearson met with French President Charles de Gaulle in an effort to improve economic and cultural relations with France.

Pearson also made severalvisits to U.S.

President Lyndon B.

Johnson, who vetoed a restriction on Canadian lumber imports into the United States.

Pearson offered Canadian troops to the UnitedNations during the crisis in Cyprus that threatened war between Greece and Turkey.

The Canadian economy continued to prosper, and in 1964, unemployment reachedits lowest level in eight years.

Pearson declared that his government would try to achieve basic long-term objectives.

These included the promotion of peace andcollective security abroad, the unity of all the Canadian people, improvement in the national economy, a fairer distribution of its wealth, and an expansion of welfarelegislation. In the second year of the Pearson minority government there was a further decentralization of federal power, with more administrative authority being transferred tothe provinces.

During 1964 parliament debated the issue of a distinctive national flag for Canada, while more important problems were ignored.

A compromise proposalsubstituting one maple leaf for the three originally proposed and changing the blue edge panels to red was adopted after a debate lasting from June to October.Canada's colors thus changed from the traditional British red, white, and blue, to red and white.

The separatist movement persisted in Québec, and there weredisturbances and threats by extremists in Québec City during the October 1964 visit of Queen Elizabeth II. A Canadian-U.S.

Relations Much of Pearson's time as prime minister was spent ensuring good relations with the United States.

He expressed himself frankly and frequently on the “overwhelminginfluence of the American way of life” upon Canada.

In 1965 he said in a speech before the Canadian Society of New York, “Indeed [regarding cultural matters], thepressures against our own thoughts, our own ideas, and our own diversions are a greater danger to our national identity, to our cherished separateness than anythingthat could arise from financial control and economic imperialism.” Although Pearson appreciated the important part U.S.

enterprise and U.S.

capital had played in thedevelopment of Canada, he worried about the high proportion of Canada's resources and industrial production coming under U.S.

ownership and control.

Yet while hewas in office no restrictions were placed on the extension of U.S.

control, which passed 70 percent in manufacturing, and was even higher in petroleum and otherbranches of mining.

Over a ten-year period, imports from the United States had exceeded U.S.

purchases of Canadian goods by more than one billion dollars.

Pearsonwas eager to reduce the huge annual deficit, and his greatest hope lay with the development of Canada's great quantities of natural resources in iron ore, oil, lead, andzinc deposits and vast waterpower. On the international level, Pearson was apprehensive about U.S.

action in the Vietnam War (1959-1975).

He preferred a stronger role for the United Nations to avoidthe escalation of local incidents into a general war.

In summing up Canada's obligations under a firm policy of interdependence and friendly cooperation with the UnitedStates, he qualified Canada's support of U.S.

foreign policy.

“Our policy does not permit either automatic support or captious criticism.

We must protect and advanceour own national interests; but we must never forget that the greatest of these is peace and security.

The achievement of this aim—it is chastening to realize—does notdepend on our policies so much as it does on those of our American neighbor.” B Retirement from Politics. »