The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Mackenzie King at 150

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

The longest-serving prime minister in the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth is Canada's very own, William Lyon Mackenzie King. This year, to celebrate 150 years of King and his legacy, The Agenda invites experts and historians to dive into his past.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Matt Nethersole. And I'm Tiff Lam. From TVO Podcasts, this is Queries. This season, we're asking, when it comes to defending your beliefs, how far is too far? We follow one story from the boardroom to the courtroom. And seek to understand what happens when beliefs collide. Where does freedom of religion end and freedom from discrimination begin? That's this season on Queries, In Good Faith, a TVO original podcast.

Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. helps provide learning resources, in-depth journalism, award-winning documentaries, and fun educational kids programming. Make a gift of $100 or more to receive a TVO tote bag. And please consider donating online to avoid mail delays and ensure you receive your charitable tax receipt for this year. Visit tvo.me slash end of year to make a difference today. Quick now, who's the longest-serving Prime Minister in the history of the British Empire or Commonwealth? Here's a hint. He's not British.

He's actually Canadian. The answer is William Lyon Mackenzie King, who was prime minister of Canada for more than 21 years. King was born 150 years ago today. As good a reason as any to consider his legacy. We start our coverage where King is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, about two kilometers from this studio. We chat with historian Arthur Milnes about King's early life in Ontario's provincial capital.

It's 70 years to the day that he collapsed right here as he was posing for his portrait. This is the history nerd in both of us, right? When you find yourself standing on a spot of historical importance on an important anniversary, I mean, what about you? Something kind of goes through me. Oh, it's hard to explain. Yeah, it is. Arthur, you're exactly the guy to talk to right now

because William Lyon Mackenzie King's history in Ottawa is fairly well known. What is not well known is that he spent a considerable amount of time in Ontario's capital city and that's the story you know. Well I would argue he had a crash course in Toronto that no other prime minister has ever had which is a general assignment reporter for probably close to about 15 months to 2 years and he knew these streets of Toronto better than anybody. Where did he live when he lived in Toronto?

He was on Beverly Street. And I remember I'd walk by sometimes when I was a journalism student at Ryerson. It was really exciting knowing that that's where the future prime minister lived. One of the jobs he had was to cover the murder trial of a 16-year-old kid. Tell us that story. Well, it's a reminder just how brutal life was. You know, this is the 1890s, and this is a 16-year-old in a robbery gone bad and, you know, all that. And Mr. King's, the future PM, young reporter, he's in the courtroom as they pass. You know, you shall be hanged by your neck until dead.

And the mother of the teenagers in the courtroom, and it's just, it's drama. And like I said, just a reminder how brutal life was. Here's a 16-year-old who gets a sentence to hang. And if you follow the story, he actually eventually was commuted, but then died in Kingston penitentiary of tuberculosis or something. Does King say in any of his coverage what he thought of the verdict?

Oh, he just said, law is inhumane and I don't want any career. Because remember, he graduated law school and no, he didn't want a career in law. He just thought it was brutality at the worst. Do we know or do we have a sense about whether he was a good investigative journalist? He was excellent. He blew apart, revealed to the public, the abuses in what was called the sweating system of labor,

peace labor, where these workers, mostly women, mostly immigrant, were paid a pittance for pieces of, in this case, uniforms they were making that King revealed it was for the National Post Office. And pretty gutsy young guy used a connection of his father knew the Postmaster General a little bit. And off King went and told the minister, you know these innocent workers are being abused by your government you got to do something about it so probably to shut him up but basically the postmaster general hired

him on the spot to write a report to the federal government on it and the report came out they printed 10,000 copies of it and they had to do another printing. Unions were giving them out, they were public subscriptions through newspapers so you could buy it and pick it up and in many ways that begins his rise to politics. The Albany Club is known as a place in downtown Toronto where a lot of conservatives hang out and there was apparently a member of the club who was lost to suicide and Mr. King covered that story what happened? The poor guy, a despondent, jumped off jumped off a bridge and died and back

then you covered suicides extensively. There's other cases there's another time he covered a suicide on Toronto Island, where, you know, think of today, was a young student who they increased tuition fees and he couldn't afford them and the poor young guy killed himself. It was a terrible case of a young man and a 14-year-old or so in a meat packing plant in Toronto who that's where they threw the pigs in to you know do whatever they do in a meat packing plant and a kid a pig knocked him and into the vat the boiling vat went to kid and the poor kid lived and Mackenzie King went to the hospital and interviewed this kid while

he was dying in his hospital bed so it it's just, I keep using the same phrase, but life was hard and brutal during that period. And Mackenzie King, this young idealistic reporter in many ways, he saw it all. Anybody who thinks that gun crime and drugs are a new phenomenon in the streets of Toronto, go read Mr. King's journalism back then. Well, one thing I don't know that we've experienced in downtown Toronto that they did back in Mr. King's day was a rampaging bull through the streets of the city. I'm so glad you asked me about that,

because it's my favorite of all the stories that he wrote. And a bull, they're going on there on Wellington Street, and the bull breaks free, goes mad mad and he starts running up the street gore-ing people and King chases after and the bull goes into Backyards in Rosedale and starts gore-ing kids and it's horrible But it makes for great reading and two Kings the credit of his editors. They let him go along reading and two kings the credit of his editors they let him go along writing that was very sensational. You obviously as a historian are fascinated with this guy's story how did that start? Yeah well with the journalism was I was a young

journalism student at Ryerson and I just found it fascinating that this future prime minister was a journalist walking on the same streets that I was as a student. It's always fascinated me. It's a part of his career that most biographers have skipped past. You know they've mentioned it and stuff, but I don't know, the rest of his life Mr. King self-identified as a journalist. When he was testifying before the U.S US Congress, he called himself a journalist at present. And later in life, as Prime Minister, towards the end of his

time, the parliamentary press gallery awarded him life membership. And he turned to that trustee diary of his and wrote that he felt he had no greater honor than to be honored by reporters. Boy, have things changed. Yeah, just a bit. Let me ask you one final question, and that is, knowing you as I do, and knowing that you care a lot about the historical figures of our country,

you're standing at Mackenzie King's gravesite, 150 years almost to the day that he was born. What's in your head right now? Just how important these 22 men and one woman have been to our development as a nation and how little we honor them. In fact, today we tear them down. And this man was 22 years, almost 22 years. He's the longest-serving prime minister in the British Empire. Exactly. It's a remarkable, remarkable record. And just how I wish there were school kids here learning about Mr. King

and other prime ministers, good and bad. I remember I brought my now wife here on a date to Mr. King's grave and she still married me. You took your wife on a date to this spot? Well, we started in St. Mary's, Ontario, where we paid our respects to Mackenzie King's great rival and fellow U of T grad Arthur Meehan and then I brought her here and you know it was romantic she married me she married you anyway so thanks Alison and thank you Mr King for playing a part in that. Let's continue our look at Mackenzie King's legacy with Patrice Ducille he is professor

in the department of politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. He's currently writing a book on King, which will come out next spring. Patricia McMahon, a director at the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and an assistant professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School. And Christopher Dummett, professor of Canadian Studies at Trent University and the author of Unbuttoned, a history of Mackenzie King's secret life, which we will surely talk about in this program here. Good to see all three of you. Thanks for coming into TVO tonight.

For I suspect that many of our viewers and listeners who don't know a darn thing about Mackenzie King, Sheldon, would you put up this fact file? We're going to do just some of the 411 here on our longest serving prime minister. He was born, as we suggest, on this date, 150 years ago in what was then called Berlin, Ontario, now Kitchener. He succeeded Wilfrid Laurier as the Liberal Party leader in 1919 and then became prime minister of Canada on three different occasions, 1921 to 26. Then he lost, but he came back in 26 and stayed till 30.

And then he lost, but then he came back in 1935 and stayed till 48. He was part of the Allies' senior leadership during World War II. However, he was also responsible for the internment of Japanese Canadians at that time. He created the precursor to what today is Air Canada, the National Film Board,

brought Newfoundland into confederation, and got past the first unemployment insurance program. He died on July 22nd, 1950, as the longest serving PM in the Commonwealth. He never married, had no children, but, apropos of Mr. Dumbit's book over there, deeply interested in spiritualism and the occult.

Okay, the fact that you have a job for a very, very long time doesn't necessarily mean that you were great at it. So can we start with that? Patrice, was he a great prime minister? I don't count him as a great, but he was a very, very good prime minister, especially during the years of the Second World War. I don't find his record in the 1920s or 1930s to be compelling in any way, but he certainly

led the country through war, and he brought the country out of the war united. And for that, certainly, he comes close to great. Close to great. Patricia, what say you? I would call him a great prime minister, in part because of what Patrice said, in that he kept the country together, despite some really challenging times

during the Second World War. French and English, you mean? French and English. He also appointed the first woman to the Senate of Canada. I think he was a great prime minister. Was he perfect? No.

No one is. Christopher. Despite my wish to say he wasn't great, because I really want to say he's not, I think he is. I think Despite my wish to say he wasn't great, because I really want to say he's not, I think he is. I think politics is the art of the possible. And the greatest act you can do as a prime minister is to keep your party in power.

And despite, you know, you have to, in order to do any things that your supporters want to do, you have to be empowered to do it. And he did that better than anyone else. There would be not very many people watching this program right now who ever saw or heard him speak live. So let's do that. Let's go into the archives of TVO

and here is William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1944. Sheldon, roll it if you would. I bring to all who are here, heartfelt greetings, good wishes of the people of Canada. We are solidly behind this great fight for freedom. We will be in this fight to the finish. We're looking forward with the deepest interest for those of us, my little party,

to sharing in the coming conference of Premiers of the Commonwealth, and meeting the Prime Minister of Britain again with his colleagues and was spending a short time in this island. I bring to you again, may I say, the heartfelt, warmest greetings of the Canadian people. I think you're all anticipating my next question. Patricia, today the kids call it Riz. How did he do on the charisma slash strong speaking style scale? Poorly.

He was almost certainly very lucky that people didn't hear him speak very often and that he didn't live in the same kind of media environment that we have today that is 24-7 news coverage. Perhaps in answer to your earlier question about was he great, he was also really lucky. Better to be lucky than great sometimes. I think sometimes it is. Yeah. Patrice.

He also was very clever in cultivating the media. I mean, he made a point of, I mean, he saw himself as a journalist. But he cultivated the media through the 20s and 30s. He always made sure that he was accessible, that the journalists understood his point of view. And that earned him a great deal of riz. I mean, I think that they made an effort

to portray him as fairly and as positively as possible. And that certainly contributed to his longevity. He had the style of what the photographer said. He had the style of a Victorian banker. But I think in fairness, that's kind of what a lot of Canadians wanted. We've lost that sense of the stiff back. He was born in 1874.

He was born in the Victorian era. He lived for his whole childhood in the Victorian era. I think we forget how long those values lived into the 20th century. And King, although by the time he dies in 1958, the kids have gone elsewhere. But there were still a lot of people who respected that, even though it looks kind of bizarre today.

To the extent that we learn anything about King in high school, it tends to be the King-Bing affair. We know who the King was in the King-Bing affair. Bing was the governor general of the day. And Patrice, I'll ask you to get us started here. This is back in the King-Bing affair. Bing was the governor general of the day. And Patrice, I'll ask you to get us started here. This is back in the 1920s. It is probably to date still the biggest

constitutional crisis in the history of our country. What happened? In 1925, Mackenzie King was, the Liberal Party was elected to a minority. And he wanted to, he stood in parliament. It lasted for a few weeks. He was defeated in 1925. He was defeated.

The party suffered a non-confidence vote. And he thought it was time to go for a new election. Even though we just had one. Even though we just had one. And Bing, the governor general, said, well, wait a minute. No, there are other rules here. There are other precedents. And Bing, the governor general, said, well, wait a minute. No, there are other rules here. There are other precedents. And I should go to the Conservative Party, Arthur

Meehan, to see if Mr. Meehan would be able to form a government. And of course, Meehan said, yes, I'll try. And through the summer of 1926, he tries to put together a government. And Arthur Meehan, being Arthur Meehan, talk about being lucky. Arthur Meehan being Arthur Meehan, he failed miserably. And King said, I told you so.

And Bing, at that point, called for, dissolved the House and called for an election. So the big problem was that Bing wouldn't give King the election he sought right away, but which he eventually got. And that was considered a constitutional crisis of the day. But let's ask the question all these years later. Was King justified in asking for a new election so soon on the heels of the previous one?

Well, I mean... The word you're looking for is no. No, because Mackenzie King actually didn't even have the most number of seats in the House. He managed to govern with a coalition. But in fact, Mackenzie King was not right. The government shouldn't have been dissolved. But he was very, very shrewd in how he used it to his political advantage.

And then he campaigned on it. He campaigned on it, and he campaigned on it the importance of independence from Great Britain, not having the interference of the British. He actually claimed that the British were interfering in the Canadian election, and then he won a majority. That was pretty smart politics, eh? It was underhanded, let's be clear.

Yeah. So you make it sound so nice that he just watched and stepped in. He worked assiduously to undermine the Mian government. That was the last time. There used to be this policy whereby ministers had to go and get re-elected. They want to be in a government, they have to get re-elected.

That's the last time that happened. So while Mian's ministers are away trying and get re-elected. They want to be in a government, you have to get re-elected. That's the last time that happened. So while Mian's ministers are away trying to get re-elected, there's no one in the house, King has just left the government up in the air. He didn't do the responsible thing, which is finish the bits of the house. And then, so with the ministers gone, with McKenzie King having abandoned the job,

Mian thinks, I've got to finish this up. And then the Mian government falls, and McKenzie thinks, oh, well, let's pick things up. It was a brilliantly strategic move, but it was decidedly underhanded. And to show you what a hard edge Mackenzie King could have, he apparently had the governor general's entrance to the East Block bricked up afterwards,

so that no governor general could ever walk into the East Block with impunity. So that's the King being affair, everybody. Now, you mentioned he appointed the first female senator. He did. Don't know that he actually loved or wanted to do that right away, because he was involved in something called the person's case. That was a big deal.

What's the story? So when Mackenzie King was approached about appointing a woman to the Senate, it was Emily Murphy who had been campaigning for a position in the Senate for years. She'd gone through three prime ministers. And none of them would appoint her. And the Department of Justice even had an opinion written that said there

had to be a constitutional amendment before women could be appointed. And so Mackenzie King met with Emily Murphy and managed to persuade her that maybe they should challenge this in court. And so that is the origins of the person's case. There is a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada about whether women are considered

to be qualified people for the purposes of appointment to the Senate. And he didn't necessarily want women around. Some women were fine. And he didn't object to Emily Murphy, but he found her to be overly aggressive. And that wasn't his taste in women. But originally, he wasn't going to oppose the reference.

And he allowed the women to hire Newton Rowell, who had been the liberal leader in Ontario. And he was an excellent, excellent counsel and argued it before the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada said, no, women actually aren't qualified people for the purposes of the Senate provision of the Constitution. It was then appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, which was at the time the highest court in the land. And it was only because there had been a snap change of government and a new Lord Chancellor, a new Lord Chancellor who was quite progressive and very sympathetic and said that women could be appointed to the Senate. That women in fact were persons. That they were qualified persons. They were in fact persons but that they were qualified persons for the purposes of appointment to the Senate. And they are immortalized on Parliament Hill. Sheldon, show the picture if you would. There they are. The famous five. Now you

can go to Parliament Hill right now, see those sculptures and learn all about this situation. And it was Mackenzie King who therefore put the first woman in the Senate. All right, let's move on to the 1930s here. He famously, Patrice, come in on this. He famously goes to Germany and has a meeting with Hitler in Germany two years before World War II started.

And he comes home to say, I'm deeply impressed with Hitler. Essentially, I think we can do business with him. Boy, did he get that one wrong. How did he screw that up so bad? It's become a controversial story. I tend to see this with a little bit more kindness. McKenzie King was not planning to go to Berlin.

He was in London. He was invited. He was curious. From the very beginning, McKenzie King is deeply worried about Hitler. In 1933, when Hitler comes to power, he has a meeting with R.B. Bennett, the prime minister, to talk about this.

He writes in his diary. We'll talk about the diary, I hope. But he confides to his diary, this is worrisome. McKenzie King is of the generation that went through the First World War. Canada lost 60,000 people, 60,000 men mostly. Another 6,000 or 7,000 badly injured who will die from their injuries.

For a guy like Mackenzie King, it is utterly inconceivable that Germany would again tempt war. It is inconceivable. And so he needs to meet. When the opportunity comes up, he wants to see Hitler, to look into his eyes and try to guess whether this is indeed possible. Does this man have the motivation?

It's a personal meeting. Hitler had some personal charm, apparently. And it exuded itself. And King comes away somewhat comforted. That being said, he doubles. He doesn't double. He increases the military budget by 50%. He knows war is coming.

So I tend to see this in a more realistic perspective. I think McKenzie King knew what he was doing. He did it out of precaution. He did it out of curiosity. Of course, the Nazis were really flattering him and calling him all sorts of beautiful names, and they made him feel comfortable. I don't think King was at all misled.

He's trying to put a nice spin on it, trying to reassure himself in his diary that no, war is not happening. This is not possible. But there's the other side of him, the realistic side of him, that says, yeah, war is coming. And that's why I'm increasing the military budget yet again. And Christopher, when war does come,

September 1st, 1939, when Germany invades Poland, it used to be that whenever Britain declared war on somebody, we were in whether we liked it or not. King plants the flag for an independent Canadian foreign policy a week and a half later. What happens? Yeah, I mean, he'd started this in the 1920s and he'd promised earlier in the year that parliament would decide, you know, because obviously war had almost broken out the year before.

It's really, you know, after, appeasement had sort of seemed to work but didn't really work. And he decides that, oh, Canada's going to decide, so it's not until the 7th of September parliament meets and parliament is going to decide to do this. And a couple of days later, they officially declare war. It's fascinating how much King wanted appeasement almost right up until in 1940. He does come around.

And if he's reading his diary from 1939, all of a sudden, he starts reading all the books he can about Germany. You can tell he's chastising himself for not taking it seriously enough. And so he's beginning toastising himself for not taking it seriously enough. And so he's beginning to read more of what's out there on Hitler. You talked about the fact that you considered him a great prime minister because of the way he balanced French-English interests, particularly during this time. You've got English Canadians who are very much anxious to be there with Great Britain.

You've got French Canadians who are wondering why are we going into this war when our interests are not really affected in the way that Great Britons are? How did he do that? Well, I think he learned from the First World War. He saw how divisive the First World War had been in terms of French-English relations. And what he does is he originally promises that there will be no conscription.

He doesn't want to see a repeat of the First World War. Then he realizes that that might be necessary. So he decides to go to the people, and he holds a plebiscite, right? Not even a referendum, a plebiscite. And it's a very convoluted question, where it would be released from the promise of not having conscription.

And even then, even when he wins a majority of the vote to be released from this promise to not hold conscription, where the English support him and Quebec does not support it. Even then he still delays. He delays until 1944. That's when it starts to become apparent. And so one of the things about Mackenzie King is that he has the ability to, some people would say delay or dither, but the fact is he was willing to wait as long as he had to to make a decision.

He wouldn't have his hand forced. And I think the fact that he took as long as he did, it's not unlike waiting to go to war in 1939. I think waiting as long as he did, he brought the country with him. And what was the famous line? Conscription if necessary? Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription. Right. That's just a perfect ambivalence, isn't it? It is. And he lost a defense necessarily conscription. Right. That's just a perfect ambivalence, isn't it? It is.

And he lost a defense minister over it. Right. His minister of defense resigned. Well, not... Had submitted his resignation two years earlier, and Mackenzie King had held on to it. And it wasn't until the minister of defense, Ralston, had pushed for conscription that Mackenzie King magically retrieved his letter of resignation and finally accepted it.

And at that point, he had a new minister of defense. And within a couple of months, conscription had been introduced anyway. We need to talk about the fact that there are many Italian Canadians, there are many Japanese Canadians, there are many Jewish Canadians who regard this time as a terrible stain on the King record, Patrice, because he set up internment camps

for Japanese Canadians, Italian Canadians. And of course, when that ship with refugees escaping the Holocaust came out of Europe, the St. Louis, King turned it back. Steve, there's no tiptoeing around it. Mackenzie King, a Victorian, child of Victorian values, was very much a racist. He didn't like Catholics very much. He didn't like Asians very much. In fact, one of the first things he does when he comes into power in the early 1920s is pass the Chinese Exclusionary Act, which completely denies Chinese immigration to Canada.

The Japanese thing, well, it's right after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Americans are doing it. Mackenzie King does it too, as there's a concern for continental defense. The Italians, it's a selection of people who were favorable to Mussolini. And I think the historical profession is divided on that. A lot of people think that the king government was in fact

justified in jailing some of those guys. In terms of the Jewish issue, there's no doubt that he was told time and again by the Jewish Congress, by Jewish opinion leaders, that Hitler is a threat, that what Hitler is doing to the Jews in Germany was wrong and that Canada should not be in any way seen to support it. There's a lobby against the participation in the Olympic Games in 1936, both winter and summer.

King says, no, we're going anyway. There was a lot of outrage when he met Hitler. Again, King has his own reasons to go. There's no doubt that McKenzie King was a racist. Is there any excusing his position of, how many Jews can we admit to Canada? None is too many. Can we accept that?

Because he was representative of the kind of conventional anti-Semitism of the time that most Canadians probably felt? I think it's a time before the Charter. I think that, I think, if you look at the reason he does it, especially with British Columbia, it's really quite clear. I don't think he's keen to impose the measures on British Columbia, but he looks at how many people can vote and he's pressured by his ministers from British Columbia and he does it. And similarly with the Jewish refugee policy, it's clear he's got one, two ears out to Ernest LaPointe, his Quebec minister, the second most important person in the government. And he's, probably because of his political opinions, he's more, you know, his attitudes towards people before the Charter, he's open to these ideas in a way that people, many people would have been.

But I think the political pragmatics of it is that there are so many seats in British Columbia, there's so many seats in Quebec that this action depends on and that is what mattered to him. And that's a time about how politics worked before the Charter. Social policy, legislation, what are you giving them credit for? Old age pensions, unemployment insurance. Baby bonus. Baby bonus, family allowance.

I will say, to get back to the point about the Japanese Canadians, if I may, one of the things he did that he didn't have to do that was a little bit different from what the Americans were doing is they also sold all their property. They sold their property. Confiscated and sold. Confiscated and sold and dragged their heels to the courts. And so where McKenzie King was willing to refer other matters to the courts,

really the way they dealt with Japanese Canadians was really beyond the pale. Right? You cut him a bit of a pass because he had a good record on social policy legislation? I think it's more mixed. I think that I have a lot of sympathy for the work he did on unemployment insurance. I have a lot of sympathy for the work that he did with old age pensions. I said he was a great prime minister earlier and I meant it.

You did. I did. And he was very much concerned about what was within provincial jurisdiction and what was within provincial jurisdiction and what was within federal jurisdiction and he recognized in many respects that his hands were tied with what the federal government was able to do, given the way the courts had ruled against the federal government. Now we get to the fun stuff.

Okay, dumb it, you get in here now. His nickname throughout history has been Weird Willy because he had a great interest in the supernatural and I think this is my entree to you to tell us what in particular fascinated him about it and how did it manifest itself? I think just about everything and since I published that book, I found out even more. Like I think, two things can be true at the same time.

He was obsessed with ghosts, with the mediums. He absolutely believed this and he did this on a regular basis. He was obsessed with ghosts, with mediums. He absolutely believed this. And he did this on a regular basis. This was a huge part of his adult life. It was a bachelor, he was unmarried, he had his dog. And I think this took him up a place in his life that I get it. Three dogs named Pat.

Three dogs named Pat. All three dogs named Pat. Yeah. That's a bit weird too. Pats are very adorable. Yeah. But he has such a, although interestingly, so I don't love McKinsey King, but I'll give him this. I've read the transcripts of some of these mediums, and I've seen a bunch of times where

it's incredibly clear that these mediums from beyond are trying to give him policy advice. And to King's credit, he just lets it pass. He doesn't follow this. He doesn't get sucked in. He could both incredibly canny at sussing that out, and yet, on the other hand, thinks he's speaking to his grandfather from the grave. He deeply loved his late mother and tried

to commune with her on the other side. Was that ever successful, to our knowledge? Yeah, I think so. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, there were so many people who spoke to Mackenzie King. It's kind of amazing that they all lined up. In in fact sometimes one time he was in London after the war and I'm trying to think was it Roosevelt showed up in the morning and the afternoon session with different mediums Somehow the Roosevelt the afternoon didn't remember that he's spoken to in the morning though. What do you make of all this?

It was his comfort Steve. I mean I I the more I read the diaries are available. They're online and every now and then I'll dip in because I read the diaries, they're available. They're online. And every now and then, I'll dip in because I'm looking for some particular insight. And he talks in his diaries about his encounters. And the way I read it, it's a comfort to him. He's looking for validation. It's lonely at the top.

He's living alone. He really wanted to get married, but he never found the woman of his life. There are a few adventures here and there, but never more than a firm handshake. He's alone. And he really is convinced that he is a man chosen for a particular mission.

And he's looking for validation, whether it's Gladstone or Wilfrid L'Oreal, the beloved Wilfrid L'Oreal, Johnny McDonald shows up every now and then. His grandfather, William Lyon Mackenzie, his mother regularly giving him again that comfort that he needs. Yes, my boy, you're doing the right thing. You're doing the right thing. Hang on. Things will be better. And he does this for the rest of his life. There's going to be an encounter just a few days before his death.

He needs this. We should say parenthetically, these diaries were supposed to have been destroyed on his orders and they were not. Not all of them anyway. Yeah, so I think that in the will, the diaries that were destroyed, except those portions which I've indicated

are to be preserved. And there's all these literary executors after he dies and they don't want them destroyed because they want to use them for the biography. And this one guy, Frederick McGregor, he said, well he told me and then his other assistant, Edward Handy, he said he told us he wanted to use them. We know which parts. And so they keep them and they keep them and they keep them and then, you know. But they do burn. They do burn the volume. They do burn, yeah, that's right, a couple of binders. A binders where his most intimate reports of his encounters with the other world were recorded.

Because again, he wrote everything down. Does his record on the occult and all of this other stuff, in your view, should it dramatically affect the way we think about him all these years later? You know, if anything, maybe it's one of the reasons why we still talk about him. It makes him more interesting, because you can see from the clip that you played earlier, he was a pretty colorless guy. And very often when I think of Prime Minister's wealth longevity,

who were pretty steady hand, I think of someone like Louis Saint Laurent. People don't remember Louis Saint Laurent, but people remember Mackenzie King. Despite the fact this guy wrote a book on it. We're making it better. We're doing better. We're making progress here. They should remember Louis Saint Laurent more. But I think one of the reasons why people do remember Mackenzie King is because of his very double life and the fact that it was salacious. Okay. We've got two. Let's also put on the record here. I think he was one of three prime

ministers to have won a seat in three different provinces. That's a hard thing to do. John Turner was another, I guess Wofford Laurier was another, and Mackenzie King did it. OK. He also, as we pointed out at the beginning, he won, then he lost, then he won, then he lost, and then he won and hung around for quite a chunk of time. I need to better understand what it was about this guy that allowed him to have such longevity in so many different parts of the country, despite the fact that he was as milk-toasted a character as we found in the history of this country. Okay, Christopher, start us off.

So I, too, wonder how this happens. How does he not lose in the 1920s? How does he lose not in 1930? Any political figure today will be gone. And I think it's this incredible ability to read people and to play them. There's one guy, Leonard Brockington, who got brought into King's office

to do speeches in the 1940s. He said, being brought into a private meeting with Mackenzie King was like being slathered in whipped cream and bullshit. Sorry, can I just say that? I can't say it. Just do it. So he had this amazing ability to flatter you,

to make you feel special, but then to have his own way. He knew what he wanted. He had a very firm idea of what he wanted. And he could play a room. He could play his cabinet. He gave them tons of freedom to do what they wanted. But on the things he cared about, he would listen to the things he cared about.

He was incredibly firm. Trisha? Well, I think that. But on the things he cared about, he would listen. The things he cared about, he was incredibly firm. Trisha? Well, I think that's one of the things that always strikes me about McKenzie King. If it had been anybody else, he would have been gone. We're never going to see, never say never, but I have a hard time imagining anybody with that kind of political longevity just

because the electorate, political parties, they don't have that kind of patience anymore. Oh, it's impossible. I mean, look at the guy who's got the job today. He's been in there nine years, and already, you know, the daggers are out for him. This guy was 21 years as prime minister. And he survived minority governments. He survived losing in opposition.

He comes back in 1935 having lost to R.B. Bennett. That would never happen. But this is the hard edge of McKinsey King. And this is one of the reasons, I think, why he really needs to communicate with the other world. He wins in 1921 with literally half the seats. He could be defeated at any moment. Why does he stay in power? Because he shows love to the progressive party. He's constantly talking to them. He's constantly talking to their leaders.

He's defeated in 1925. Well, he doesn't get the government. He's aggressive with me. And he's re-elected in 26. Again, it's a minority. It's not a majority. How does he do it? He cultivates relationships with the opposition. He convinces people to support him.

He's defeated in 1930. Good for him, because he can come back in 35 with a big majority. And that's really the thing. He comes back with a big majority. But what does he do with it? Nothing. Nothing.

He does nothing. Because he's still very much a Victorian. He's a Victorian liberal. He can't imagine spending money on social programs. That's not the thing. He's re-elected, luckily. Again, he's re-elected in 1940 because of this promise on conscription.

While the conservatives are saying, we're all in, it's conscription now, let's do it now. And he's saying he has an understanding of the country. He's sensitive to that. But he's always under threat. That's the thing about Mackenzie King. He's always under threat. He knows he's not personally popular.

He'll be defeated in Berlin, in Waterloo North. I can't remember the name of the riding. He's defeated in York North, again in Toronto in 1925. He winds up in... PEI? No, he's in Saskatchewan, North Saskatchewan. Prince Albert, Prince Albert. And then in 1945, in 1945, when Churchill is defeated,

Churchill who was born just two weeks before King, when Churchill is defeated, Mackenzie King also loses his seat in Prince Albert, but he wins government. And again, he wins government by a very narrow margin. He needs to rely on those independent liberals to support him. So he's doing that because he's a really fine political calculator. We got a few minutes to go here and you're all historians, and I wanna talk about his place in history, and to do that, Sheldon, what camera you want me to show this to?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a $50 bill, and that's William Lyon McKenzie King on the $50 bill. Okay, that's it. A nice close-up shot, please. You're not gonna see this bill very much longer, and the reason is, just yesterday, the country in its wisdom decided, I think marvelously, to put Terry Fox on the five, which means Wilfrid Laurier

got bumped off the five. And he will now show up on the 50, which means King is SOL, if we know what that stands for. And I'd like to know, the day before William Lyon Mackenzie King's 150th birthday, what you think about taking him off our currency, considering he's the longest serving prime minister in the history of the British Empire, Commonwealth, and our country. Tricia. Maybe it's time to think about who's on the 100.

That's Borden on the 100. Borden is on the 100. Maybe Mackenzie King gets bumped up on the 100. Borden is on the 100. Maybe, maybe Mackenzie King gets bumped up to the 100. You're being awfully optimistic right now, aren't you? Well, we can always dream. We can always dream. Patrice? You know, I always say there is no zero sum in remembrance. And I think we could, I'm sure that people at the Mint can come up with a really nice

denomination that would have a number of prime ministers. You know, we can have the conservative ones. We can have the liberal ones. I think that it would be a sad thing if we lost our contact with those prime ministers of our past, those men who, because they were men, who shaped our country, who were, for all their warts, were representative of our country,

more than any other person. They were representative of a time in the past. And so to see them on the dollar bill, I think, is something that should be done. Why not bring back Mackenzie Boal? Bring back McDonald's, certainly. There'll be others. McDonald's been exiled now, hasn't he? Well, but I think I'm hoping that it's time for him to come back.

They need to be remembered. And I think we can be clever. They don't often have to be taken off. Last half minute to you, please, Professor. Last half minute. Well, I love nothing about Terry Fox. Let's put Terry Fox on all kinds of things. Right on.

I would trust this more if I thought the current government actually liked Canadian history and was proud of Canadian history. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. It shouldn't be a zero-sum game. But too often, national Canadian history is made to be a zero-sum game. It shouldn't be a zero-sum game. But too often, national Canadian history is made to be a zero-sum game. And so I'm looking forward to,

hopefully a new federal government that might actually believe in supporting Canadian history. Gotcha. Well, on a day when everybody is talking about the finance minister resigning and the crisis of confidence in the current government of Canada, they zig, we zag.

We're doing a story on a guy who hasn't been around for a long, long time. But happy 150th anniversary of his birth today to William Lyon Mackenzie King, and we thank Patricia McMahon from the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and the Osgoode Hall Law School, and Christopher Dummett from Trent University, and Patrice Duteal from TMU.

Really good of all of you for coming in and being on our program today, particularly you. You had a long schlep to get here, so thanks so much, Christopher. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for doing this.