Remembering
See editorial on MacEachen, A10.
Any impact made by most politicians is usually lost in the mists of time. No so much when it comes to Allan J. MacEachen, the pride of Inverness (or at least to those voters of a Liberal persuasion).
Not when he represented Cape Breton voters in Ottawa for nearly 40 years, often as one of the most powerful cabinet ministers in the nation and for a short period of time as interim leader of the opposition.
MacEachen, who died Tuesday evening at the age of 96, was first elected to office in 1953 when Louis St. Laurent was prime minister and except for a four-year absence beginning in 1958 would remain a Liberal MP until the close of the Pierre Trudeau era in 1984.
In between, the lifelong bachelor won 10 elections, was named a cabinet minister on 11 occasions, once ran for party leader, served as minister of national health and welfare during the creation of welfare, reformed the labour code and established a new standard for the minimum wage as labour minister, offered sage advice as Trudeau’s righthand man in cabinet, became Canada’s first ever deputy prime minister, helped bring down the Joe Clark government in 1980 and much, much more.
After leaving the House of Commons, MacEachen would spend 12 more years in the spotlight as a Senator, seven of them as leader of the opposition in the Senate and a thorn in the side to then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
He finally retired when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 1996.
Tributes to the Gaelic-speaking son of a coal-miner crossed the political spectrum yesterday.
“I remember him saying how important it was to respect and to listen to your political opponents for what it will teach you,” Inverness MLA Allan MacMaster told the Post.
“He was a Canadian icon,’’ said former Cape Breton MP David Dingwall.
“One of the greatest political figures I’ve met in my long political career,” former prime minister Jean Chretien told The Canadian Press
Of course, it was not all smooth sailing in Ottawa for MacEachen. It never is for any politician.
One rough patch was an attempt to bring about tax reform as finance minister in the early 1980s which resulted in such an opposition outcry that many of his measures had to be withdrawn.
Another controversy occurred in 1998 when it was discovered he was still using a full Senate office two years after he had retired.
MacEachen was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2008 and he spent a portion of his final years in beautiful Lake Ainslie, in Inverness County, near those who had elected him to office so many times over the years. According to John Young, his assistant in the early 1970s, MacEachen would say: “Government has a purpose in society and that is to serve the public good.”
For nearly a half-century, Allan J. strove to live up to that motto and in doing so it’s reasonable to argue that he impacted federal politics more than any politician in Nova Scotia’s modern history.
A Cape Breton giant is gone. He will be missed.