“Cool Cat" May Succeed Pearson

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31595, 5 February 1968, Page 8

“Cool Cat" May Succeed Pearson

(from MELVIN SUFRIN, Special Correipondent N.Z.P’.A.)

TORONTO, Jan. 31. With two months to go before Canadian Liberals meet in Ottawa to choose a ■successor to Mr Lester Pearson as Prime Minister, they are assured of the most wide-open race since their party was formed a century ago.

Nine candidates, seven of them serious contenders, have declared themselves and are criss-crossing the country, trying to drum up support among the 2400 delegates who will choose the new Liberal Party leader on April 6. But although the avowed candidates include many of the big names of Federal politics, public interest at the moment is focused on a man who has not yet committed himself to running. He is Mr Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the 46-year-old Minister of Justice, a former Socialist who, in less than a year in the Pearson Cabinet, has won a reputation as a swinging, progressive-minded intellectual.

Mr Trudeau, a lawyer and a former professor at the University of Montreal, says he will not decide whether to become a candidate until after the Federal Provincial Constitutional conference in Ottawa from February 5 to 7.

One reason is that the success or failure of the conference, to which Mr Trudeau has committed himself to a major role, could make or break him.

The meeting will bring together. the 10 provincial Premiers and representatives of the Federal Government in search of some sort of accommodation between the Frenchspeaking and English-speak-ing peoples of Canada.

Mr Trudeau has been travelling across Canada, talkingto provincial leaders and trying

to find common ground for a plan that would satisfy Quebec’s demand for greater recognition of French language and make FrenchCanadians feel less like foreigners when they venture outside their Own province. Wherever he has gone he* has impressed politicians and the public as an urbane, stylish, witty, intelligent man, with some of the charisma of the late Mr John F. Kennedy. He first attracted attention in the House of Commons last summer, when he turned up in a yellow-and-red dotted Ascot, a sporty jacket and sandals. Some opposition M.P.s twitted him for his unorthodox dress, and he became known as “a cool cat.” But any suggestion that he was more concerned with fashion than public affairs was dispelled by his speeches, delivered in fluent English or French. And he quickly won acclaim for the major social reforms he placed before Parliament, including liberalised divorce, abortion and homosexuality laws—an act of political courage for a Roman Catholic from French Canada.

But what propelled him to the fore among potential successors to the 70-year-old Mr Pearson was his performance at a Montreal meeting of the Quebec Liberal Confederation a few days ago. Mr Trudeau had already rejected the idea that Quebec should secede from Canada, or that it should be given associate statehood or special status. Members were waiting to hear whether he had anything positive to offer. He won them over by declaring thathe and other Federal Liberals would fight for more .'rights for French-Can-adjans, and might even consent to giving the Quebec Provincial Government more power, but only if that would benefit the people and give Canada better government. One thing Mr Trudeau has in his favour is an 80-year tradition In the Liberal Party of alternating between leaders

from British and French Canada. In this century it has been led, in turn, by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, W. L. Mackenzie King, Louis St Laurent, and Lester Pearson.

This unwritten rule has earned the Liberals an important core of support in the province, which elects more than one-ouarter of the country’s M.P.S. And with only one exception, the Liberals have usually won the majority of Quebec’s 75 Federal seats in national elections, a major reason why they have been in power at Ottawa for 36 of the last 50 years.

If Mr Trudeau should decide not to run for the leadership, Quebec Liberals might prevail on the Minister of Manpower (Mr Jean Marchand), aged 49, to represent French Canada at the convention. But Mr Marchand, another former Socialist, would prefer not to enter the race. He supports Mr Trudeau, a man he describes as “rich, relatively young, intelligent. healthy, a very good lawyer, perfectly bilingual, and a bachelor."

Either way, the main opposition will come from a battery of Federal Cabinet Ministers who are campaigning energetically while trying to obey an order from Mr Pearson not to break Cabinet solidarity. They are: the External Affairs Minister (Mr Paul Martin), aged 64, and regarded by many as the front-runner among the declared candidates: the Transport Minister (Mr Paul Hellyer), aged 44, architect of military unification; the Finance Minister (Mr Mitchell Sharp), aged 56, running well, despite, some recent tax increases: the Health Minister (Mr Allan MacEachen), aged 46, leader of. the campaign to persuade the Government to go ahead with the introduction of national medical insurance on July 1, as scheduled;- the Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister (Mr John Turner), aged 38, the Cabinet’s “bright young man”: and the Agricultural

Minister (Mr J. J. Greene), aged 47. The only other serious candidate is Mr Erie Kierans, a 53-year-old former Liberal Minister of Health in Quebec, who has won considerable attention with a book outlining a programme for economic reform.