Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (41 page)

On another occasion the Honourable Don Jamieson, federal minister of External
Affairs, later to be my opponent in my first provincial election as premier,
invited me to Ottawa to attend an evening dinner for Elliot Richardson, the then
American Secretary of Commerce. Mr. Jamieson thought that I would enjoy such an
evening. And so I went on the appointed evening to the Lester Pearson Building
for the event. I was greeted by Mr. Jamieson and some of his officials and
mingled with some of the other guests. I was informed that it was possible that
the prime minister, Mr. Trudeau, might attend and some extra time would be
allowed before dinner actually began to accommodate a possible late arrival. I
was enjoying myself in conversation with people about national and international
matters, and the time slipped by quickly. While in the midst of one of these
conversations, the prime minister arrived without my notice and suddenly
inserted himself in the semicircle of guests of which I was a part.

Seeming to want to capture attention and looking surprised at my attendance, he
exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Peckford, you are here, what a surprise! I was thinking the
other day that I should visit Newfoundland soon. Would I need a passport?”

This sudden verbal thrust caught me off guard momentarily. There was a silence
in the group (since it was clear to all that this wasn’t just some humorous
verbal action) and a sudden unease permeated the group.

“Well, Mr. Prime Minister,” I said, recuperating, “you know, now that you have
informed me of your intentions, I will later this evening contact our
immigration people and inform them of your intentions. I am sure that a speedy
approval process will ensure that your visit will be a smooth one.”

Abruptly as he had entered the group, the prime minister took a
speedy exit to another part of the room.

Most are familiar with the more public encounter at the nationally televised
First Ministers Conference on the Constitution when the prime minister tried to
associate me with the Quebec Separatists movement as a result of my support for
a general social policy/ measure that the Quebec government had introduced. This
was the unseemly aspect of the man. So quick to try to make an association of
his adversary on erroneous information. Effective repartee is more elevated than
this! Of course, the press and some apologists lapped up this supposed brilliant
wit!

The prime minister later pursued this in his book
Memoirs
in which he
says on page 248: “I recall Premier Brian Peckford saying that his view of
Canada was closer to Lévesque’s than it was to Trudeau’s.”

And later on page 325 he says: “I suggested out of a sense of irony—lost, I
think, on the Newfoundland Premier—that Brian Peckford should read out the terms
of the agreement because he was the one who had said he was closest to
Lévesque’s view of Canada.”

Of course, he forgot to mention that the reason for him asking me to read the
terms was the fact that he was aware that I had a proposal to present that was
endorsed by most of the provinces, who had also supported my presenting it to
the conference, and which later formed the basis for the agreement which he,
himself, later acknowledged to the press.

Blinded by anyone suggesting that they agreed with parts of someone else’s
vision of Canada, especially views of his arch-enemy (it was Quebec’s insistence
like Alberta and Saskatchewan’s insistence on the importance of the division of
powers versus Trudeau’s unilateralism that I was supporting, as well as a
non-constitutional Quebec program), one can almost understand why he would
continue to remember that part of my comments and why they were what stayed in
his mind later when he was writing. He could not be wrong.

Allan Gotlieb, who worked for Trudeau in Washington as our ambassador, says
this about Trudeau in his book
The Washington Diaries
on page 13: “. . .
he holds to all his opinions with absolute
conviction. He can
never be wrong, so he defends them all to the considerable limit of his
intellectual powers.”

Gordon Robertson, a colleague of Trudeau’s in his early years in Ottawa, later
a clerk of the Cabinet in Trudeau’s time, says tellingly in his book
Memories
of a Very Civil Servant
on page 378: “Trudeau was philosophically and
temperamentally less suited than Pearson, or King, or St. Laurent to the Federal
system of Government with its constant need for agreement and compromise.”
Later, Robertson muses: “It is amazing really that a man of rigidity could carry
on as PM of a country built on flexibility and compromise.”

Perhaps the most galling of all the few encounters I had with the man concerned
the fishery. Like economics, this was an area with which the prime minister had
little understanding. I had been trying for years to sit down with the man and
have a one-on-one talk about the Atlantic ground fishery: how the Europeans were
over-fishing and that the toothless North Atlantic Fishery Organization (NAFO)
was doing a disservice to fishery science and how the federal government was not
doing its part to defend this fishery. I was convinced that if I had an hour or
so I could show him through maps and facts how reasonable our position really
was.

Finally a meeting was arranged. There were four people in attendance: the prime
minister and his adviser, Michael Kirby, later to be appointed to the Senate,
and myself and my adviser, Cyril Abery, now deceased, my deputy minister of
Intergovernmental Affairs. Unfortunately, the meeting came on the heels of one
of the prime minister’s international trips. After the pleasantries were over, I
was eager to provide an overview of the North Atlantic ground fishery and the
present crucial issues. The prime minister was really not with us that day. He
proceeded to describe his recent tour and seemed eager to talk of his meetings
with the presidents of France and Germany. He seemed pleased at having walked
with the high priests of Europe. Obviously, I was unimpressed as I could see the
precious minutes roll by, subtracting from the allotted sixty minutes that were
available and still no fishery issues bring discussed. So, characteristically
and not without some risk, I interrupted the prime minister and told him that
while I appreciated the importance of his trip and its many
interesting dimensions, I was really eager to discuss the purpose of the
meeting, the fishery. With his reluctant co-operation I proceeded to explain the
complexities of the North Atlantic ground fishery in less than thirty minutes.
Mr. Kirby was trying to be helpful and understanding of my dilemma and
interjected profitably on a number of occasions to elucidate a particular point
that I had made. But with such a time frame and the obvious disinterest of the
prime minister, little was accomplished. I uttered a few inoffensive platitudes
to the press afterwards and that was that.

It is sad that a prime minister who had the support of so many Newfoundlanders
was so disengaged in the province’s most important industry of the time. It is
ironic that in his early years he could talk so eloquently of foreign domination
and forgot it now on the Atlantic fishery. In a speech to l’Institut Canadien
des Affaires Publiques in the early 1950s, he said, “The meaning to these
figures is obvious: in key sectors of the Canadian economy, non-residents are in
a position to take decisions quite foreign to the welfare of Canadians.”

The disinterest of the prime minister and the federal government to take
meaningful action during these years led over time, with other factors, to the
almost complete shutdown of the province’s ground fishery, putting tens of
thousands out of work and causing the federal government to spend hundreds of
millions on financial support to families and retraining and dislocating whole
communities.

Lévesque was a different quintal of fish. Although hopelessly misguided on the
Constitutional issue as it related to Quebec’s place in the federal family, he
was an engaging individual, worldly wise, amusing, and possessed of a lively
mind. He bridged the world of ideas and the practical political waters with
ease. It was this singular characteristic that kept Trudeau uneasy in his
presence. I remember a number of dinners of first ministers where Trudeau and
Lévesque would spar, a sort of ping-pong dialogue. The striking thing I remember
is how
upset Trudeau would become with Lévesque as a result of
some very pertinent point Lévesque had just made that Trudeau found difficult to
handle, all the while Lévesque seemed very much at ease, with that impish grin
in full view.

I had an interesting encounter with Lévesque at one of the Eastern Premiers New
England Governors’ conferences. This was in Vermont. Of course, Quebec and
Newfoundland were in that on again–off again mode of tackling the Churchill
Falls issues: Quebec eager to become involved with Newfoundland in the Lower
Churchill project and Newfoundland insisting that changes to the Upper Churchill
contract must precede, or be a part of, any new arrangement with Quebec
regarding Churchill River developments. We had both been involved before so we
were not new to the issues, and we both got along personally notwithstanding our
views on the nature of Canada and our past differences on the Churchill issue.
Unlike many politicians, Lévesque could agree to disagree and you could still
have a relationship.

Almost inevitably at these gatherings, the Churchill Falls issue arose,
especially with the press, which needed fodder for their papers unlikely to be
found from the mundane subjects of such meetings and to justify their presence.
This being a much smaller stage where interaction with the press was closer and
contact with the first ministers was easier than at the larger gatherings, this
subject was a natural target for them.

Both Lévesque and I were eager to see if we could break the impasse and so we
agreed to stay over an extra day after the formal part of the conference was
completed. Lévesque invited me to spend an afternoon with him and his female
partner aboard a yacht on Lake Champlain, which was adjacent to where the
conference was being held. He thought that a pleasant casual afternoon away from
the confines of a room would be more conducive to our talks.

And so I joined Lévesque for the afternoon, meandering around the lake under
the watchful eye of two security boats. Lévesque liked to swim. No sooner were
we out in the middle of the lake when he donned his bathing suit, insisted I do
the same, and before I knew it, we were both overboard in the cool waters of
Lake Champlain. A
succession of on the boat–in the water
episodes ensued, and then a relaxing time musing, interspersed with some fine
scotch. It was then that we got to the subject of Churchill Falls and we both
expressed the view that there must be some way to solve this disagreement
between the provinces and move ahead. We undertook to revisit our files when we
returned home and try to creatively find ways to a solution. Several weeks later
I wrote Lévesque, and although some talks occurred, little had really changed.
Like the Constitution, Lévesque (although musing about flexibility) seemed
incapable of seeing it through. One could argue that the ideologues of Morin and
Parizeau blocked any Constitutional flexibility, and a similar hard-line bent at
Hydro Quebec prevented anything on that front from being realized. A more
sinister view is that the crafty Lévesque was just trying to see if he could
lure me into another negotiating exercise in the hopes of wearing me down and,
with a few concessions on the margins, get substantially the deal he
wanted.

One other incident I remember involved the eight provinces (the Gang of Eight)
during the tumultuous Constitutional struggles of the early eighties. We were
meeting at a hotel in Montreal and of course we were deeply engaged in debating
various elements of Constitutional change and what our common position would be.
Premier Lougheed and Premier Lévesque became involved in a heated exchange over
some specific issue; Lougheed, in responding to a particular point Lévesque had
made, used language that upset Lévesque. He became very agitated, as did
Lougheed, and the incident almost came to blows but was quickly diffused by a
number of us and civility was restored. It was the only time I saw either of
them really lose their cool.

Mr. Mulroney became president of the Iron Ore Company of Canada in 1977 when I
was minister of Mines and Energy. One of the company’s main assets was the large
iron ore mine and pellet plant in Labrador City, Labrador. It was inevitable,
then, that we would have involvement one with the other.

It should be noted that I had recently supported his rival, Joe
Clark, for the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Party, which
Mr. Clark won. However, this seemed to be firmly behind him in his relationship
with me as minister; at no time could I detect, either directly or indirectly,
any action that would have led me to believe that my opposition to his
leadership bid in any way impaired our dealings. In this regard, he was one of
the very few I had met who could act so magnanimously in such
circumstances.

My first contact was when Mr. Mulroney, as president of IOC, requested a
meeting to review the status of the company’s operation in the province. He
wanted to brief Cabinet, the premier, and the minister on present operations and
future plans. I arranged for this presentation and we were all very impressed by
his performance; his grasp of the issues and understanding of the operation was
exceptional, especially since we were all well aware that he was not a geologist
and had little mining or mine processing experience.