Canada’s 36th Parliament reassembles next Monday for a winter of argument, debate, exaggerations and the occasional outright lie – politics, in other words.
Along the way, there’ll be a budget, conflicting views about whether Canada is on the road to heaven or hell, and perhaps even a piece of legislation or two that will affect the lives of prairie Canadians. There will be plenty of occasion over the next eight or nine months to report on politics and policy, claims and counter-claims and the impact of Liberal decisions.
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Those debates will quickly become part of our historical record.
But the story of federal politics is much more than the history of great debates and history-making legislation.
It also is the individual stories of the men and women who pass through the Centre Block and the parliamentary precincts, some who leave a legacy and many who do not.
Behind the day-to-day headlines, this new session of Parliament will mark milestones for two of this generation’s most prominent Liberals who indeed have left a mark.
For Sen. Eugene Whelan, it will be the last session in Parliament after a career that stretches back to his first election in 1962.
Next July, when he turns 75, Whelan will have to give up the Senate seat he has held for more than two years now. He served in the House of Commons for 22 years before that.
As deputy chair of the Senate agriculture committee, Whelan can be expected to continue his career of poking a stick into the eye of forces he thinks are out to do farmers no good.
Monsanto, and its proposal to introduce a dairy growth hormone to Canadian herds, likely will be a prime target for his last months of campaigning.
For Jean ChrŽtien, it will be a winter to rise in the ranks of prime ministerial staying power.
When Parliament opens Sept. 21, he will rank as 12th-longest serving of Canada’s 20 prime ministers.
If he remains on the job, as expected, through fall of 1999, ChrŽtien will slip past John Diefenbaker into eighth spot.
But perhaps his most delicious moment in this historic winter will come in early November when he nudges past one of his political heroes – Lester Pearson, 1963-68. ChrŽtien was first elected during the Pearson years and had his first taste of cabinet power under Pearson.
He has talked fondly of the accomplishments of Pearson’s two minority governments (national medicare, Canada Pension Plan, student loan programs and the Canadian flag, among others).
But he also apparently learned a thing or two about political management and the advantages of keeping a tight rein on caucus members, something Pearson never managed during his two chaotic governments.
So on Nov. 2 or thereabouts, imagine ChrŽtien at a small Liberal gathering, being toasted as the pupil who surpassed the teacher, at least in days served.
It will be for historians to decide if ChrŽtien used his time in power as creatively and productively as did Pearson.
