OTTAWA – Separatist leader Lucien Bouchard last week fantasized about what it would be like if John Diefenbaker was alive today to take part in the latest battle for Quebec.
He imagined the former Conservative prime minister as an opponent, but a sympathetic opponent.
“In the upcoming debate, he would not, of course, share the opinion of Quebec sovereigntists,” Bouchard said Sept. 18 as the House of Commons took time out to mark the centennial of Diefenbaker’s birth.
“He would certainly be a fierce adversary but I think he would understand that others, like him, feel the need to protect their identity, their language and the right to exercise their choice as a people.”
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This, said Bouchard, would make Diefenbaker understand “that many Quebecers would fight for Quebec, for what they think Quebec is.”
The separatist version of the Diefenbaker legend was one of the oddest of the tributes as MPs from all parties remembered Canada’s 13th prime minister, who led the country from 1957-63 and turned much of the West into a Tory bastion that held for 35 years.
Preston Manning, whose Reform troops stormed the Conservative electoral bastion in 1993, likened Diefenbaker to Progressives John Bracken and Henry Wise Wood, Socred founder William Aberhart and NDP icons J.S. Woodsworth and T.C. Douglas who “cut across party lines.”
Current prime minister Jean ChrŽtien, who fancies himself something of a populist, said Diefenbaker was the master of the trade. “Nobody ever connected better with the people than John Diefenbaker.”
But Diefenbaker also had his list of enemies.
“He railed against the establishment, against Bay Street, against the Grits, against the socialists, and of course, very often against his own party,” said ChrŽtien. “He never fudged. He never wavered. He took a side on an issue and he stood firm.”
