1967 Progressive Conservative leadership convention Stanfield did not express interest in entering federal politics during the early and mid-1960s. He turned down the
federal Progressive Conservative Party (PC Party) leader and then-prime minister
John Diefenbaker's proposal that he should enter federal politics in the
1962 federal election, and did not express interest in becoming party leader (when the idea was suggested by former PC minister
Alvin Hamilton) following the Diefenbaker-led PCs' second defeat in the
1965 federal election. In the mid-1960s, the federal Progressive Conservative Party was racked by disunity between supporters and opponents of Diefenbaker. A vocal opponent of Diefenbaker was party president
Dalton Camp, who forced
a leadership convention for 1967. Camp was a strong proponent of a potential Stanfield leadership bid. After months of hesitating, Stanfield finally bowed to Camp's pressure and on July 17, 1967, announced his intention to run for leader, on the condition that his finance minister
George Isaac Smith agrees to succeed him as premier. Stanfield had strong delegate support in the
Atlantic provinces but struggled in the
Prairies and
Quebec. Nonetheless, on the convention that was held on September 9, he led on the first four ballots, and won on the fifth ballot, taking 54.3 percent of the delegate vote. Stanfield resigned as premier on September 13.
Early months Stanfield was elected to the
House of Commons in a
by-election for the riding of
Colchester—Hants on November 6, 1967. He brought the Progressive Conservatives high in the polls, prompting many to expect him to defeat the
Liberal government of the aging
Lester B. Pearson. In February 1968, Stanfield almost forced an election after defeating Pearson's government on a tax bill, leading to several days of confusion over whether or not this counted as a
de facto motion of no confidence in the government. Ultimately, it was ruled by the
Governor General,
Roland Michener that it did not, and while Stanfield immediately called an explicit motion of no confidence in Pearson's government, it failed to pass after the
New Democratic Party and
Ralliement créditiste declined to support it.
1968 federal election Pearson would soon retire, prompting the Liberals to choose
Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau as its new leader in April 1968. Trudeau subsequently called
an election for June 25. Trudeau was a charismatic intellectual and perfectly bilingual. Stanfield's unilingualism and uninspiring speaking style (according to Stanfield biographer
Geoffrey Stevens) contrasted poorly with the new Liberal leader. The PCs started the election campaign with an internal poll showing them trailing the Liberals by 22 points. Stanfield proposed introducing guaranteed annual income, though failed to explain the number of citizens that would be covered, the minimum income level, and the cost to implement it. Due to concerns that the term "guaranteed annual income" sounded
socialist, he eventually switched to using the term "
negative income tax". These mistakes made the policy impossible for voters to understand and harmed the PCs. What also damaged the PCs was the idea of
deux nations (meaning that Canada was one country housing two nations -
French Canadians and
English-speaking Canadians).
Marcel Faribault, the PCs'
Quebec lieutenant and
MP candidate, was unclear on whether he supported or opposed
deux nations and Stanfield did not drop him as a candidate. This led to the Liberals positioning themselves as the party that supported one Canada. In mid-June, they ran a full-page newspaper advertisement that implied that Stanfield supported
deux nations; Stanfield called the ad "a deliberate lie" and insisted he supported one Canada. On election night, the Liberals increased their support to form a strong majority government. Though the PCs' popular vote share slightly dropped from 32.4 percent in 1965 to 31.4 percent, their seat count considerably reduced from 94 to 72. The PCs dominated Atlantic Canada but saw a significant decline in popularity in Ontario (as the party's performance in that province was the worst in their history), Quebec, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
1968–1972 After losing the 1968 election, Stanfield vacationed in Quebec where he participated in
French immersion classes. He vigorously backed
official bilingualism and the Liberals' 1969
Official Languages Act which made French an official language in Canada, arguing the act would strengthen Canadian unity. To his disappointment, 17 out of 72 PC MPs (including his predecessor as leader, John Diefenbaker), voted against the bill. In 1969, Stanfield was one of 12 out of 72 PC MPs to vote in favour of the Trudeau government's
Bill C-150, which decriminalized homosexuality and allowed
abortion under certain conditions. Stanfield initially supported the Trudeau government's October 1970 invocation of the
War Measures Act to deal with the
October Crisis but later regretted doing so.
1972 federal election at a community breakfast in
Acton, Ontario in August 1972 In the
election of 1972, Stanfield's Tories campaigned on the public's perception that the Liberals were mismanaging the economy as a result of rising unemployment. Though the Liberals started with a 10-point lead over the Progressive Conservatives, the election, held on October 30, saw the PCs win 107 seats and come two seats behind the Liberals who won 109 seats; this was one of the closest elections in Canadian history. The Liberals were able to form a
minority government due to them getting support from the
New Democratic Party led by
David Lewis. In the election, Stanfield refused to sign the nomination papers of former
Moncton mayor
Leonard Jones; Jones had won the party nomination but he refused to support official bilingualism which was part of PC policy.
1974 federal election In May 1974, the House of Commons passed a
motion of no confidence in the Trudeau government, defeating
its budget bill after Trudeau intentionally antagonized Stanfield and Lewis. This triggered
an election for July 8. The election focused mainly on the
current economic recession, and Stanfield proposed to immediately introduce 90-day
wage and price controls to help reduce the increasing inflation of the era. Trudeau mocked the proposal, saying to a newspaper reporter that it was the equivalent of a magician saying "Zap! You're frozen", and instead promoted a variety of small tax cuts to curb inflation. According to Trudeau’s biographer
John English, NDP supporters scared of wage controls moved toward the Liberals during the campaign. Trudeau, in an abrupt reversal, would implement wage and price controls in December 1975 through the passing of the
Anti-Inflation Act. During the campaign, on May 30, 1974, a photo by photojournalist
Doug Ball showing Stanfield fumbling a football thrown by
Geoffrey Stevens at a stopover in
North Bay, Ontario, 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 catching the same football were also available. The election result showed the Liberals had boosted their support from a minority to a majority government, while the Progressive Conservatives' seat count dropped from 106 to 95. The Progressive Conservatives did well in the
Atlantic provinces, and in the
West, but strong Liberal support in Ontario and Quebec ensured a Liberal majority government.
Political ideology Political science professor
Ron Dart described Stanfield's political philosophy in the 1968 election as a "sort of
Pink Toryism". Historian
J. Murray Beck wrote about Stanfield, "Eschewing highly doctrinaire politics, his conservatism, which caused him to be called a "pink" if not a
Red Tory, was above all a compassionate conservatism with a genuine concern for the disadvantaged." In a 1976 interview with ''
Maclean's'', Stanfield stated, "Increasing the size of the
GNP is important, but it is not in itself a sufficient goal for a civilized society." ==Later years (1976–2003)==