Robert Stanfield: 1914 - 2003
CBC News Online | December 17, 2003
Robert Stanfield will be remembered by many as "the best prime minister Canada never had." Two seats kept the Conservative leader from becoming Canada's 15th prime minister in the 1972 election, when the Tories took 107 seats versus the Liberals' 109. Although widely admired for his intelligence and sense of decency, Stanfield's moment slipped away and the voters never again put him so close to power.
He was born into a wealthy Nova Scotia textile family with strong conservative traditions. His career began in the province and it was there he grew to become a revered political figure. In 1956, he led Nova Scotia's Tories to power and became the country's youngest premier at the age of 41. He rode a wave of support and continued as the province's unbeatable premier into the 1960s.
As a successful Conservative with a track record as a winner, he seemed the ideal man to pull the federal Tories together and end the party's civil war under John Diefenbaker. When elected party leader in 1967, the lean Nova Scotian seemed to be a good bet to be the next PM. But the man who was unbeatable on home turf couldn't translate his appeal to the federal arena.
Early on in his bid, Stanfield learned that timing and luck are indispensable ingredients for success. In 1968, his election bid was swamped by a new phenomenon that came to be called Trudeaumania. In 1974, he was again beaten, despite his initial high hopes. He had called for wage and price controls – an unpopular proposition. The victorious Liberals soon implemented some of his ideas.
In 1975, Stanfield announced he would give up the leadership, clearing the way for Joe Clark to lead the party. Stanfield said he had no regrets, no secret anguish and he kept his priorities in order. "I think it's partly that I, initially, didn't think of myself as destined to be prime minister of Canada," he told CBC Television at the time. "Winning more wasn't all that essential to me in the sense that it would cause me to retire to my closet and weep privately when I lost."
In his later years, Stanfield enjoyed retirement at his home near Ottawa. He left active involvement in politics, but weighed in occasionally to offer his opinion on some major issues. In 1988, he spoke in favour of Free Trade, stating that nothing in the deal jeopardized social programs.
Then he spoke out in favour of the Meech Lake constitutional accord, which he said was a second chance to save Canada from disaster. "I'm not at all sure that I would want to live in a country that rejected Meech Lake," he said at the time. "It wouldn't be the Canada I grew up in. It wouldn't be the country with the values that I've loved during my life."
Robert Stanfield died Dec. 16, 2003. He was 89.
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 CBC's Dan Bjarnasson on the life of Robert Stanfield (Runs 3:58)
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