Former Ontario premier Bob Rae was in Antigonish, Nova Scotia on this date in 1997 to honour of one St. Francis Xavier University’s most distinguished graduates, the legendary parliamentarian that was Allan J. MacEachen. With the great man sitting in the front row, Rae, himself one of the great political orators of his own time, delivered the very first Allan J. MacEachen Lecture. He started his remarks by praising Allan J.’s performances in the Commons.
“An opponent of George Bernard Shaw described him as ‘a good man fallen among Fabians,’ and I have always felt that Allan J. was ‘a good man fallen among Liberals,’” Rae, then still a New Democrat, said. "I wanted to come tonight to pay tribute to him because of the great admiration that I have for him. When I first saw Allan J. MacEachen in action, he was the Minister of Labour. I was a student watching the debate from the gallery. I was philosophically and politically inclined to support another political party at that tine, as I still am today. But I must say, watching Allan J. give a political speech in the House of Commons was something that I will never forget.”
Rae then continued: “Some years ago somebody was asking me who I thought were the greatest speakers in the House of Commons that I had listened to? Was it Mr. Trudeau, was it Mr. Diefenbaker, was it others that I had listened to, and I said, no, certainly not. The best speaker I ever heard in the House of Commons, the best analyst, the best person who could give a range of speeches, was Allan MacEachen, without hesitation and without qualification. And to those of you who want to go back and read some of those Hansards, I recommend you do so. It was before these things were televised, so you will get no recollection from them on television.”
But Premier Bob – as he was known to thousands while he held power at Queen’s Park in Toronto – wasn’t finished.
“The key to Allan's success, in my view, is that unlike a great many of his contemporaries, and unlike a great many of his opponents, and unlike a great many people in political life, he always had more than one gear,” he continued. “And that is very important. It may seem a pedestrian comment to make. Allan had a way of presenting an argument starting very slowly, building up the various elements of the argument and then beginning to wind his way through, to work his way to the point where, at the end of the speech, you weren't really sure what other possible position there would be to take. So, we would all, when I was back in Opposition 20 years later (after that time) we would all have to go back to our caucuses and try to figure out how we could construct an argument which could possibly match that of Allan J. So, a good man fallen among Liberals.”
You can read Rae’s lecture in full at this link: https://www.stfx.ca/department/political-science/defence-politics
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.