Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Mulroney

by Michael Bliss

A history of Canada told through the personalities of its ten most prominent prime ministers

Genres: History, Canada, Politics, Biography, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Michael Bliss was a Canadian historian. He was an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Bliss provides brief-but-bounteous biographies of every Canadian Prime Minister from Sir John to Lyin' Brian, penned from a conservative point-of-view towards this predominantly liberal-governed country. Bliss, one of Canada's trove of underrated writers—his Northern Enterprise , an in-depth history of five centuries worth of business, industry, and entrepreneurialism in the Great White North, is a marvel that inexplicably made little impact when published—tackles each of our parliamentary dicta^H^H^H^leaders* with a sharp eye and barbed tongue, sketching their lives, careers, and accomplishments with wit and probity and fleshing them out by means of telling anecdotes and quotations. Perhaps his best entry is that of our first—and arguably our best—Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, a witty, charming, and eminently adept politician who could manage to turn hungover vomiting in the midst of an election campaign speech into an attack against his opponent. As devoted to the British Empire as he was to his beloved Canadian Dominion—and extremely wary of the United States looming southwards—he remains, to this day, our most popular national political figure. Bliss renders Macdonald's successor, the Québec-born Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in colours nearly as glowing, with Laurier's genteel elegance, combined with his popular touch and mastery of both languages, making him the perfect figure to have guided the young country into the twentieth century—and, regarding the latter, he compellingly makes the case for Sir Robert Borden as being its greatest conservative Prime Minister—though, as a colleague notes in the book's introduction, that may not actually be saying all that much—and induced me to learn more about this fascinating Maritime autodidact. He also manages to arouse a measure of sympathy for former PMs Meighen and Bennett, a not inconsiderable accomplishment.

If you combine Bliss' book with George Bowering's Egoists and Autocrats —and supplement it with the fortifying Tory first minister minerals to be found in Bob Plamondon's right-wing rightening Blue Thunder —you will have gained a broad and entertaining understanding of the lives and characters of our inimitable and oversized country's surprisingly (and regrettably) little-known Big Men (with apologies to Kim Campbell and her four months at the helm). It would be interesting if Bliss updated this primer, expanding it to include his assessments of what was wrought under almost two decades of Chrétien, Martin, and Harper—methinks considerable praise for the first of those three, to be followed more by frowning than glowing at Big Jean's pair of successors: an overly-enthusiastic Mr. Dithers bounding in aimless direction, and a control freak who ofttimes appears to most relish those aspects of the prime ministership that speak to his attack methodology when opposition leader.

*and includes a snippet of F.R. Scott's W.L.M.K., a withering mock elegy for Mackenzie King, our longest-serving Prime Minister and one whose cautious, managerial style of parliamentary governance did much to form the (post)war liberalism that, apart from the Diefenbaker interruption, shaped and molded the country for almost half a century:

How shall we speak of Canada,
Mackenzie King dead?
The Mother's boy in the lonely room
With his dog, his medium and his ruins?

He blunted us.

We had no shape
Because he never took sides,
And no sides
Because he never allowed them to take shape.

He skilfully avoided what was wrong
Without saying what was right,
And never let his on the one hand
Know what his on the other hand was doing.

The height of his ambition
Was to pile a Parliamentary Committee on a Royal Commission,
To have "conscription if necessary
But not necessarily conscription,"
To let Parliament decide--
Later.

Postpone, postpone, abstain.

Only one thread was certain:
After World War I
Business as usual,
After World War II
Oderly decontrol.
Always he led us back to where we were before.

He seemed to be in the centre
Because we had no centre,
No vision
To pierce the smoke-screen of his politics.

Truly he will be remembered
Wherever men honour ingenuity,
Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity.

Let us raise up a temple
To the cult of mediocrity,
Do nothing by halves
Which can be done by quarters.

[K. Edmund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creeping neoliberalism aside, this sweeping Great Person look at Canadian political history is a lovely read. If history books heavy on substance but light on decisive (albeit likely reductivist) takeaways are getting you down, give this book a try.

[Paul Brewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

As best as I could tell (which probably isn't all that great), this book is a favoured text for undergraduates taking a basic Canadian political history survey. It takes ten Canadian prime ministers and summarises their careers in the same manner as the ancient author Plutarch would. Plutarch's lives took a few anecdotes and key events, and threw them together to weight the character strengths and flaws that made up great men in Ancient Greek and Roman history. Bliss omits the duality of Plutarch, but otherwise the only major difference is that he presents these lives in more chronological structure than his ancient counterpart.

Books like this are often breezy reads, and Bliss doesn't disappoint. I imagine unsophisticated undergrads lapping it all up and finding they agree with him on all points. The more sophisticated ones, thought, would note the date of publication (1993) and the author's prejudices (Good guys = Laurier, King, Trudeau). What came after? The Quebec referendum of 1995 came within a whisker of breaking confederation. The federal Progressive Conservative Party imploded, and a new Conservative Party of Canada was born. The Liberals tackled the deficit problem that gnaws at Bliss' subconscious, and opened up their left flank to be exploited by the New Democrats, whom, in Liberal fanatic fashion, he largely ignores. (I mean, fair enough, they haven't had a PM yet, but they have wielded a degree of influence.) So his Liberal enthusiasm would have looked very odd if one came to this book under the party leadership of Stéphane Dion or Michael Ignatieff. Coming to it with Justin Trudeau in their place gives one rather more confidence in his analysis than it perhaps deserves.

Bliss' vision of Canada is of a very tense place. It cannot get close to 'the Mother Country' because that alienates Francophone Canada. Culturally, it is too British to be American, but the economic power of the next-door neighbour is too great to avoid American cultural, as well as economic, influence. The indigenous and New Immigrants are barely mentioned, and the possible effects of the latter on a country already sharply divided between Three Solitudes (Francophone, Anglophone and Indigenous) are ignored. The Crown is tolerated, rather than supported, because it avoids some tricky problems of national unity. (Imagine the consequences of the election of some Prairie Hothead in the 1990s about the time Mike Harris came to power in Ontario.) But hey, the Rangers are playing at the Aud, and the cottage will be open in the summer. The mass of people are rarely plagued by these sorts of musings, even though they feel, unconsciously, their effects. (Flags are prominently displayed everywhere, like in England during a World Cup, or in the US all the time. It's a mark, I'm afraid, of insecurity.) And Bliss most certainly is not.

So Bliss sees Liberal Canada as a place with problems, but nothing that early 1990s nostrums of reigning in the Welfare State and getting out of the way of business won't solve. Let's get busy, and people won't have time to think about the sovereignty question. But want about Conservative Canada? What about Bloc Canada? They are dragged along by Liberal Canada, and will keep being dragged along by Liberal Canada. Bliss is quietly scathing about Diefenbaker, but Dief had a genuine vision of a different direction for Canada. He failed more because he was a little too focused on the Mother Country, and far too premature in seeing the potential of a Commonwealth Market, than might be the case today. Dief would have had more trouble with Bloc Canada at the time, but perhaps less so today.

This book is too rooted in its own time to offer much help in thinking about 2019 Canada, but works well as a summary history of Canada's leaders from Macdonald to Mulroney. Just don't take Bliss's attitudes too seriously.

[Alex Ripley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bliss is just a lovely writer - a beautiful style, eloquent and approachable and funny. You’ll come away from this book glad having read it, and with the sense that the country has never been especially well governed - but that we’ve still turned out OK in spite of ourselves.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this year's ago, but hearing of Professor Bliss's passing spurred me to look it up. If you're interested in a concise look at any of Canada's earlier prime ministers​ this is a great resource.

[Tommy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent character summary of prime ministers but has an obvious neoliberal bias.

[Scott Kovatch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t say enough about this book. As a Canadian interested in history or politics this is a must read.

[The Wanderer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was supposed to read this book for a college class five or so years ago. I didn't, but I held onto it telling myself I would read it eventually. I just got around to it this summer, and I'm glad I did.

It was an enjoyable read. Most of the content was a great surprise, as I didn't remember much from the college class I had taken, and if I ever read it again, it will probably surprise me a second time, since my head is like a sieve when it comes to the details of political history. However, even though I might not be able to recite the prime ministers in order or who belonged to what party or what their primary accomplishments were, even I am walking away with an understanding of how the political landscape has changed over the years and of the primary issues that have shaped that landscape.

Bliss is fairly balanced in his assessments, although I would have appreciated a more explicit rubric, if you will, to help us understand what he means when he says a "good" or "bad" or even "successful" prime minister. And it is too bad that the book goes only as far as Chretien (I have an updated version), although that can hardly be counted against the author.

The hidden gem in this work, though, is the annotated bibliography at the back. Educational, perhaps not, but I laughed myself to sleep over his dry comments on his resource materials. I have to give Bliss kudos for even getting through his research, as it would seem that all the useful books were dense and dull while the interesting books were trashy. I read with rapt attention to learn who would win his "which politician has the most self-important and long-winded memoir" competition. Best bibliography ever.

[Gregory Klages · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bliss presents a selective history of the men he regards as the most noteworthy Canadian Prime Ministers. His commentaries primarily reflect on these men's time as political leaders, exploring their campaigns, the decisions they made, and evaluating their successes and failures.

There are few surprises in the book if you already have a decent grasp of Canada's political history. If not, Bliss writes an eminently readable piece. It is more substantive than the average 'curiosity' reader probably wants, and perhaps a bit light for the academic reader. It would be ideal for a junior undergraduate course text.

[Gary Maunder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and readable. One of Canada's eminent historians evaluates and ranks Canada's Prime Ministers and finds most of them wanting. An intelligent discussion of what the role of a prime minister might be and is.