As is custom on Art's History, we pause to mark the birthdays of all 23 of our Prime Ministers. And today, of course, it is John Diefenbaker's big day. He was larger than life and strode across our politics for decades. Stories about him are legion.
I've turned to my dear friend, Peter O'Malley, an Ottawa legend, to tell us a Dief story for the ages. I first heard the tale of Peter and Dief in the Parliament Hill elevator in the 1990s during a liquid-fueled evening at the National Press Club. Ever since it has become one of my favourite stories involving Dief.
Over to you, Peter!
By Peter O'Malley
It was early in my time as a parliamentary political staffer for the (not-yet Honourable) Edward Broadbent. The story unfolds right after a Friday, 11 am Question Period (in 1977 or 1978 ). Me and a fellow NDP staffer had been tasked with going to the Opposition Lobby and talking to caucus members to explain away some quite bad polling news for our side in that morning's newspapers. After attending to our work in the Opposition Lobby where we watched QP to its end, we left the lobby and jumped into the elevator just outside the Commons Chamber, en route to our Centre Block offices, and (likely) our eventual lunch at the Press Club.
While the elevator door was automatically shutting under the supervision of the elevator operator, a gold-adorned wooden walking stick suddenly appeared in the air, being waved between the closing doors. The operator reopened the doors, and in strutted the Rt. Hon. Mr. Diefenbaker. The door then promptly closed, and upward we went.
Being new to Parliament Hill I was in absolute awe, of course, just to be standing alongside such a famous political icon. Mr. Diefenbaker eventually broke the silence, and asked my colleague “So where are you fellows from?” My colleague told him that we worked for Mr. Broadbent, and joked that we were therefore officially members of “the socialist hordes.”
Mr. Diefenbaker smiled and chuckled, the elevator stopped at his floor, he departed the elevator, but before the door closed, once again, his walking stick was suddenly thrust in our midst. The doors reopened, and there stood Mr. Diefenbaker, smiling brilliantly, eyes alight, fine and tall in all his glory. He said only this to us, using his deep, emphatic, famous Dief voice: “Well” he said “I'd scarcely call them hordes.” With that, he turned around and proceeded to his office.
Art - Thanks for that one, Peter! Readers of Art's History are welcome to post their own encounter with the Dief. It will be my pleasure to use some of them in upcoming posts. Happy birthday Mr. Diefenbaker! Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney's best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen's Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.