He has a national spirit that he is projecting today in this bill. He has stated he is proud of Lester Bowles Pearson.
I compliment the hon. member for Laval Centre for some of her remarks. Some of them I would not agree with. Everyone has their own perspective. As I speak I am not going to be partisan in this debate either. Lester B. Pearson was Prime Minister sitting just down here when I was first elected. He was my first Prime Minister. He did not have a mean bone in his body. One could fully understand sitting in this House with the Right Hon. Lester B. Pearson that he was a diplomat from day one.
Indeed, that caused him some of his heartaches during the time he was Prime Minister. He was too kind to some people who were not very kind to him.
Having known Mr. Pearson on a very personal first name basis, I had great respect for him. I was one of those first elected in 1965, that great election that Walter Gordon persuaded Lester B. Pearson to call. The only benefit the Liberal Party received from that election was the 53 of us who were new to the House of Commons. When the election was called at the advice of Walter Gordon to the Prime Minister, the Liberal government in this House had 129 seats and when the final count was in on election night the Liberal Party had 131 seats. Walter Gordon had promised Pearson a majority government. He resigned from the cabinet because he had given the Prime Minister bad advice.
When we look at the background of Mr. Pearson's life he had a very happy childhood. One thing that really strikes me, as the hon. member for Cambridge mentioned, was Mr. Pearson's experience in World War I. Can you imagine what the Royal Flying Corps in Europe looked like in World War I? Mr. Pearson was a member of that flying corps for three years.
This undoubtedly was a great experience for Prime Minister Pearson. It prepared him for the great flag debate of the 1960s which to him at times must have reminded him of World War I but he persevered through that battle.
It is rather interesting that the hon. member for Cambridge suggests that Lester B. Pearson day should be the second Monday in February because it was in the month of February that the Canadian flag was first unfurled, I believe, on Parliament Hill. It is very fitting that Lester B. Pearson who led the debate for a new Canadian flag should be honoured in the same month as the Canadian flag is honoured today.
This rather timid man had many accomplishments. When you first met him he was very pleasant and accommodating. He would always talk to you about things in your riding. It gave you that feeling that this man really knows his country and his local geography.
I remember the last time I had a chance to have a chat with Mike Pearson. It was one day after he retired. He was ill at the time. He was out for a walk. I met him at the flame on Parliament Hill. His first words to me were: "Well, Len, how are things in Pembroke today?". We had a nice chat there. Then he went into hospital. It was not long after that that he passed away. Here is a Canadian who gave Canada its flag. Today our Canadian forces honour his name in the way they carry the Canadian flag around the world and when they take part in peacekeeping duties which as has already been stated he originated in settling the Suez crisis and the peacekeeping mission of 1956.
Here was a man with immense ideas. This man when he was in external affairs had a national, indeed an international vision. He looked at the Soviet Union and saw the threat sitting in the east. He saw the threat when the Warsaw pact was formed. He saw the need for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization. To a large extent he was a formative builder of that great peace organization that saw the western world through the cold war crisis. It was the match for the Warsaw pact. It held the enemy at bay. It was a matter of which side went broke first. It turned out to be the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact.
He was president of the United Nations in 1962-63. I was looking up the date of Mr. Pearson's first formal election to this House. He was appointed Minister for External Affairs in 1948. Is it not ironic that on October 25, 1948, Lester B. Pearson became the member of Parliament for Algoma East and came to Ottawa and carried on his duties as Minister for External Affairs. He won that election by 1,200 and some votes.
The hon. member for Cambridge mentioned the lack of Canadians' enthusiasm and desire to recognize their own national figures. Here was a national figure, a man who had played a major role in the founding of the United Nations. This was a man who had played a role in the founding of the NATO alliance. He came back home and ran for election and won the election by 1,200 and some votes.
Then we go on to the election campaign of 1958. I particularly like to look back on that election for one reason alone. That is that the last political meeting Mr. Pearson had in that famous campaign of 1958 when he was slaughtered politically by the Diefenbaker forces was held in the town of Deep River in my initial riding of Renfrew North. It was before an audience in the high school auditorium. He sat on a table in the middle of a platform dangling his feet and answering questions like they were rolling off a log. He knew he was going to lose the election, but he was so candid and at ease. He came back to Ottawa and ended up with 48 seats in this House for the Liberal Party of Canada.
In 1963 he finally won the election as Prime Minister. There were all kinds of issues to be faced during the 1960s. It is much like today when every time we turn around there is a new issue facing members of Parliament. Lester B. Pearson took on many of those challenges.
He realized that Quebec no longer wanted to live under British symbols. That was very clear in his mind. That was the reason he put forward such a fight for the Canadian flag. The Quebec caucus strongly supported him on that issue all the way through even when the going got very difficult. Today Canada is known around the world by that great Canadian symbol that first flew over Parliament Hill in February 1965. That was one of his ideas of Canadian unity, but he reached out to all regions of Canada to try to bring them together.
Mr. Speaker, I wish I could continue. You are giving me the signal that my time is up.
I would like to talk about being with Mr. Pearson in caucus without giving away any major caucus secrets. I remember one morning I was delivering a speech in caucus. I came into-