Other Canadian PMs have had rougher rides
Canada’s prime minister has to go see the US president, and he’s not especially thrilled. The president is deeply unpopular in Canada — and elsewhere, since campaigning on protectionism and tariffs.
The prime minister wants to lay low. His plan: get in and out of Washington with the least possible fuss. He even pleads with photographers while entering the White House: Don’t snap my picture. He’d rather not be seen with this president.
What a stark difference from his other Washington visit — when he basked in the wellwishes of hundreds in a pompfilled festival on the White House lawn as he visited a different president, adored by Canadians. Of course, the year was 1931. When Justin Trudeau meets US President Donald Trump he might feel like he’s experiencing the life of R.B. Bennett. The 11th prime minister had to deal with Herbert Hoover.
That single Depression-era term illustrates extreme examples of how the White House occupant can shape a prime minister’s career: some presidents are locomotives pulling your popularity, others the wagon that drags.
Hoover was a human-sized heap of dead political weight. One book, Lawrence Martin’s, The Presidents and the Prime Ministers, chronicles various ways Bennett avoided being seen during his 1931 trip.
“The ultimate snub occurred on the White House lawn,” Martin wrote. “Twenty-five photographers prepared to take the standard picture of the president and the visiting dignitary … But Prime Minister Bennett stopped them … (He said that) since the visit is ‘unofficial’ pictures should wait for another occasion. The problem, as most top officials there realised, was that Bennett did not want to be seen on the front page of Canadian newspapers with Herbert Hoover.
How different with FDR. Two years later, Bennett arrived at the White House to reverse the protectionist devastation of Hoover. Eleanor Roosevelt served tea and there was a state dinner. The president’s first words to his guest: “I am glad to see you. Welcome to the White House.”