Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 11–15. Gary Evans
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Prime Minister’s Office
East Block, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa
December 17, 1939
The lights were still burning in the prime minister’s office, even though the Peace Tower clock was striking midnight. As the last gong faded away, the door to the office opened. Arnold Heeney, Canada’s secretary of the War Committee, rushed in and seized King’s hand. “Let me be the first to congratulate you,” he said cheerily, before the Governor General and the British Commonwealth and Canadians members of the signing party could add their wishes.
King’s “birthday present” was to sign the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. He felt that the long-negotiated document was to be one of Canada’s most important contributions to the war. At Britain’s side, Canada provided the mother country with volunteer soldiers, food, and supplies and helped facilitate communications between Britain and the United States. Significant financial commitment and the building of sixty airfields over the next three years would go a long way to boost the training of Commonwealth pilots.
Volunteer soldiers were sailing to Britain, and Parliament might soon need to enact legislation that would mobilize men to protect Canadian shores. Conscription for overseas, the prime minister predicted, would not be necessary. However, King was aware that there were those who were willing to stake more than their reputations on a different path of action.
Ontario Legislature Building, Toronto
January 18, 1940
“Let me say again,” Premier Hepburn fixed his intense blue-fire gaze on both his fellow Liberals and the Conservatives, “that I stand firm in my statements that Mr. King has not done his duty to his country – never has and never will.” Next, the Ontario premier called for a vote on a resolution “regretting that the Federal Government at Ottawa has made so little effort to prosecute Canada’s duty in the war in the vigorous manner the people of Canada desire to see.”
The surprise was so great that one could have heard a pin drop, despite the new rose-coloured carpet on the floor of the Ontario Legislature. A provincial Liberal leader turning on the leader of his own federal party!
The unpredictable leader of the Ontario Liberals, Mitch Hepburn, had long felt that the federal government was deliberately stunting his provinces growth. He’d already gone on record saying that he was a Liberal, but not a Mackenzie King Liberal. King, he was sure, was personally responsible for blocking the sale of Ontario hydroelectric power to the United States and Canada’s lackadaisical response to the war. This was not a time for fence-sitting on the issue of conscription. It was a time for action.
When the results of the vote were added up, the Ontario War Resolution was passed with forty-four votes to ten! Canada, it seemed, was about to tear herself to bits.
Massey Hall, Toronto
March 14, 1940
King felt his eyes misting. This is the kind of man, he thought, my grandfather must have had around him in the Rebellion days. Men who were prepared to endure all kinds of hardship for the sake of the cause and of personal loyalty.
On stage was Henry Corwin Nixon, the person Hepburn had considered his right-hand man. Not any more. Nixon had arrived at the rally unannounced and told the audience, “My good wife and I just drove down from the farm to be here and to say to you that come what may we are behind Mr. King.” Applause rolled across the room like storm waves breaking. It was the turning point in the evening and, King felt, in the federal election campaign.
King had met the challenge of Hepburn’s War Resolution by calling a federal election. Up to that time the prime minister had refused to enter the boxing ring of provincial politics. Hepburn and Quebec’s premier, Maurice Duplessis, mostly ordered business in their provinces as they saw fit. But the War Resolution was enough to prompt King to order a general election. Winning a strong majority would prove that all across the country the people supported King and the Liberal policies during this time of war.
After a campaign visit to his constituency in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, King travelled to Toronto, the very seat of the provincial government, to attend a rally of Liberal supporters. Many important men and women gave speeches, including Sir William Mulock, King’s longtime friend, who was now aged ninety-six. Ernest Lapointe, the minister of justice and King’s strong ally, drew applause when he described King as a man “who has serenity in his soul; who is free of hatred and jealousy.” But it was Nixon’s declaration of loyalty that brought the house down.
King breathed a sigh of relief. It was an elegant bug-squashing.
On March 26, the Liberals took an overwhelming 184 out of 245 seats. The defeated leader of the federal Conservative Party, Robert Manion, thanked the Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. “Just a word of appreciation,” Manion wrote to Hepburn, “for all you tried to do in our behalf – or at least against the fat little jelly fish out at Kingsmere, but somehow he seems to come out on top.”
Kingsmere, Quebec
July 15, 1941
MacLeod, King’s personal valet, entered his employer’s bedroom. It was time to inject Pat with the stimulant the veterinarian had prescribed. The poor aged animal wasn’t going to live for much longer.
King sat on the edge of the bed in his pyjamas, clutching his best friend in his arms. Pat vomited, whined, and struggled to breathe. The prime minister stroked the rough fur of his “dear little chap” and prayed. As MacLeod retreated down the hall, he could hear Pat’s master singing:
“Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast,
There by his love o’er shaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest.”1
The drama lasted all night. King was sure that Pat would pass on just after 5 a.m. He’d dropped his watch earlier, and the hands stopped at this time, which Willie felt predicted the time of death. But since dawn MacLeod had not been called. At nearly 8 a.m. he rapped on the door.
“Come in,” was the whispered reply.
King lay on his rumpled bed, his hair tousled, dark circles under his eyes. In his arms was the body of Pat. It appeared that he had been holding Pat this way for some time.
“Shall I summon Mrs. Patteson?” MacLeod asked nervously.
King nodded yes. Joan would know what to do. MacLeod withdrew quickly.
“My little best friend I have had – or man ever had – you’re gone now. You’ve bounded in one long leap across the chasm which men call death,” King whispered to the nearly cold form. “You’ve gone to be with your little dog brudder, Joan’s Deny and the other loved ones. You’ll give them messages of love, won’t you Pat? You’ll let Father, Mother, Bella, Max, Sir Wilfrid and Lady Laurier, Mr. and Mrs. Larkin, and the grandparents know. And we’ll all be together one day soon.”
When Patteson arrived, King was weeping. Who would sit with him as he read the war news, sharing biscuits over a cup of Ovaltine? No one else could offer such quiet camaraderie and love. Who would help him be prime minister in these nightmarish times?
Aldershot, Britain
August 23, 1941
Clutching his umbrella tightly, King strode to the microphone. A sea of thousands of Canadian soldiers of the First Division looked at him expectantly. As the rain poured down, King mumbled weakly into the microphone.
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