This week on the podcast I’m delighted to bring you a discussion with the editor of a new book on Canada’s prime ministers. Its title, or rather its subtitle, suggests its specific angle. The book is Statesmen, Strategies & Diplomats: Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Making of Foreign Policy. It’s the first systematic look at how Canada’s heads of government have conducted the country’s external relations. It’s edited by Patrice Dutil, a political science professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Turns out he’s a great talker. We had a lot to discuss.
We happened to speak on the day after Brian Mulroney passed away. As it turns out, one of the book’s contributions is to attempt a ranking of the prime ministers — or at least, the slightly smaller set of PMs who lasted any length of time in office — by their foreign-policy performance. Mulroney comes out quite well, finishing just behind Louis St. Laurent and William Lyon Mackenzie King in the rankings. Dutil and I spend a chunk of our time discussing the reasons for Mulroney’s good showing.
As for St. Laurent, he had some advantages. Before becoming PM he was, in fact, the first foreign minister who wasn’t also the prime minister. That is, from Sir John A. Macdonald right through the first part of Mackenzie King’s long tenure as PM, Canada’s prime minister was always also personally responsible for acting as its foreign minister. King was slowing down just as the postwar world was speeding up, so he designated St. Laurent, a superbly educated Quebec City lawyer, as his government’s interface with the world.
After King retired — as Robert Bothwell points out in his chapter on St. Laurent in Statesmen, Strategists & Diplomats — St. Laurent ran a government of rare stability: He didn’t just have a single foreign minister, Lester Pearson; he also had one health minister, one agriculture minister, one justice minister, and only two finance ministers and two defence ministers. He trusted them and they kept their jobs long enough to become superbly confident. Nines hire tens, as I’ve heard it said.
