Thanks Jon. I really enjoyed this. I recall the euphoria I felt when John Diefenbaker won the 1958 election with a landslide.. But as a budding Mechanical Engineer I didn't much like his killing of the Avro fighter plane
Dief was no saint. He killed both the Avro Arrow which gutted the Canadian aerospace industry, and the Trans Canada Pipeline, which forced eastern Canada to purchase Venezuelan crude. Both decisions were in response to bending to American power. We are living with the consequences of his poor decisions to this day. A small town lawyer with a quick pithy phrase to turn complex weighty problems into slogans, he was the Doug Ford of his times, and equally destructive.
I just spent a few minutes looking for an online copy of the song Dief Will Be the Chief Again by the Stringband circa early 1970s and cannot find it. Alas,my copy on vinyl is long gone.
If I recall it was the Dief the Chif's government that was very much opposed to the Public Service Alliance (Federal Union) and their demands for a public pension plan. My late father-in-law fougnt for years to achieve that pension and finally it came to fruition. I believe that was after Dief had gone and it may have been the Liberals that finally agreed to the union and its pension. My father-in-law never votedd for a Conservative after that time.
I grew up in the States, and the first thing I heard in the news about Canada was Diefenbaker's refusal to allow JFK to place American nuclear weapons in Canada. Though I was a firm supporter of JFK and was and still am anything but a conservative, I admired his refusal to make Canadians targets of Russian weapons to protect the US. I think that was where my love and respect for Canada started and part of why I am a proud Canadian today (and have been since 1971).
Thanks Jon. I really enjoyed this. I recall the euphoria I felt when John Diefenbaker won the 1958 election with a landslide.. But as a budding Mechanical Engineer I didn't much like his killing of the Avro fighter plane
A good entertaining read!
Reta
Dief was no saint. He killed both the Avro Arrow which gutted the Canadian aerospace industry, and the Trans Canada Pipeline, which forced eastern Canada to purchase Venezuelan crude. Both decisions were in response to bending to American power. We are living with the consequences of his poor decisions to this day. A small town lawyer with a quick pithy phrase to turn complex weighty problems into slogans, he was the Doug Ford of his times, and equally destructive.
I just spent a few minutes looking for an online copy of the song Dief Will Be the Chief Again by the Stringband circa early 1970s and cannot find it. Alas,my copy on vinyl is long gone.
If I recall it was the Dief the Chif's government that was very much opposed to the Public Service Alliance (Federal Union) and their demands for a public pension plan. My late father-in-law fougnt for years to achieve that pension and finally it came to fruition. I believe that was after Dief had gone and it may have been the Liberals that finally agreed to the union and its pension. My father-in-law never votedd for a Conservative after that time.
I grew up in the States, and the first thing I heard in the news about Canada was Diefenbaker's refusal to allow JFK to place American nuclear weapons in Canada. Though I was a firm supporter of JFK and was and still am anything but a conservative, I admired his refusal to make Canadians targets of Russian weapons to protect the US. I think that was where my love and respect for Canada started and part of why I am a proud Canadian today (and have been since 1971).