Robert Stanfield
For the U.S. Senator from Oregon, see Robert N. StanfieldRobert Lorne Stanfield,
PC,
QC (
April 11,
1914–
December 16,
2003) was
Premier of
Nova Scotia and leader of the federal
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He is sometimes referred to as "the greatest prime minister Canada never had", and earned the nickname "Honest Bob". As one of Canada's most distinguished and respected statesmen, he was one of several people granted the style "
Right Honourable" who were not so entitled by virtue of an office held.
Stanfield was born to wealthy parents in
Truro, Nova Scotia, of
Stanfield's underwear fame. Throughout his life, he had enough money not to have to work for a living. He studied law at
Dalhousie University and at
Harvard Law School, where he was an honours student near the top of his class. During his student days, he became a strong
socialist. Although this affiliation faded, he remained very much a
Red Tory.
Stanfield married Joyce Frazee in
1940, but she died in a car accident in
1954. During his term as premier, Stanfield remarried, exchanging vows with Mary Hall in
1957. Mary Stanfield died of cancer in
1977, and the following year, Stanfield married his third wife, Anne Austin.
After playing a role managing victory bonds during the
Second World War, Stanfield entered Nova Scotia politics. The
Conservative Party of Nova Scotia was in poor shape. The
Liberals dominated the province, and the
Tories did not have a single seat in the legislature. In
1948, Stanfield was elected leader of the party, and began the long process to revive the party, culminating in a majority victory in 1956, their first in decades.
Stanfield served as Premier of Nova Scotia, ruling as a moderate with a demonstrable social conscience. He won re-election numerous times with the help of the so-called "Nova Scotia Mafia", a group of political advisors led by
Dalton Camp and
Flora MacDonald.
In
1967, the
federal Progressive Conservative Party was racked by disunity between supporters and opponents of the leadership of
John Diefenbaker. Stanfield entered the campaign for the party leadership. With the help of his Nova Scotian advisors and PC Party President Dalton Camp, he won a hard-fought battle on the fifth ballot of the
1967 leadership convention.
Stanfield brought the Conservatives high in the polls, prompting many to expect him to defeat the
Liberal government of the aging
Lester B. Pearson. Pearson would soon retire, prompting the Liberals to chose a new leader,
Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau became a media darling, bring on "
Trudeaumania" and dramatically raising the profile of his party. Stanfield's laconic speaking style and older appearance constrasted poorly with the new Liberal leader, and he would lose the
1968 election.
Stanfield faced a variety of problems within the Federal PC caucus, most controversially his support of
Official Bilingualism, which threatened a caucus revolt. In the
election of 1972, Stanfield's Tories came within two seats of defeating the Liberal government, which survived two years in a minority situation with support from
David Lewis and the
New Democratic Party.
In the
federal election of 1974, Stanfield ran on a policy of wage and Price controls to help inhibit the rapid
inflation of the era. Trudeau mocked the idea, saying that one couldn't say, "Zap! You're frozen!" to the economy. During the election, a photo of Stanfield fumbling a football at a stopover became one of the defining images of his career. To this day, Canadian political commentators still point to this incident as one of Canada's foremost examples of "image politics", because the photo was chosen for the front pages of newspapers across Canada even though many other photos of Stanfield (in fact, a fairly athletic man for his age) catching the same football were also available. Stanfield would lose the election. Trudeau would later implement the controls.
Stanfield served as leader of the PCs and of leader of the Loyal Opposition until
1976. He became renowned as a gentlemanly and civil man, but after three election defeats, he faced much criticism from inside the party, from members that felt he had continually failed to provide strong leadership against the Liberals. He resigned and was succeeded by
Joe Clark in
1976. He retired from Parliament in 1979.
After his retirement, Stanfield stayed out of politics until the constitutional debates during
Brian Mulroney's term as prime minister, when he endorsed and campaigned for the
Meech Lake Accord and the
Charlottetown Accord.
In
1996, Stanfield suffered a debilitating stroke that left him severely disabled. He died on December 16, 2003, only eight days after the Progressive Conservative Party merged with the
Canadian Alliance to form the new
Conservative Party of Canada. Fellow Nova Scotian and final PC Party Leader
Peter MacKay suggested in an interview on
CBC Newsworld on December 16, 2003, that he had not personally spoken to Stanfield in regard to his opinions on the merger. It is unknown what Stanfield thought of the creation of the new Conservatives.
He was buried in Camp Hill Cemetery,
Halifax,
Nova Scotia, next to his first wife Joyce Frazee, the love of his life and mother of his four children: Sarah, Max, Judith and Miriam.
The
Halifax International Airport terminal was recently renamed after him.
