John George Diefenbaker was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative leader to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times. He appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his Cabinet, as well as the first aboriginal member of the Senate. During his six years as Prime Minister, his government obtained passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights and granted the vote to the First Nations and Inuit peoples.
About John Diefenbaker in brief
John George Diefenbaker was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only federal Progressive Conservative leader to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times. He appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his Cabinet, as well as the first aboriginal member of the Senate. During his six years as Prime Minister, his government obtained passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights and granted the vote to the First Nations and Inuit peoples. In foreign policy, his stance against apartheid helped secure the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth of Nations, but his indecision on whether to accept Bomarc nuclear missiles from the United States led to his government’s downfall. He remained an MP until his death in 1979, two months after Joe Clark became the first Tory Prime Minister since Diefanbaker. He died in a nursing home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on December 17, 1979. He is buried in the Diefbaker family grave in the University of Saskatchewan’s Saskatoon campus. He had a son, Elmer, and a daughter, Mary, who both served as Conservative MPs in the 19th Canadian Parliament beginning in 1940. His son Elmer was a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Air Force and served in the First World War. He also served as a judge advocate in the Supreme Court of Canada and was a judge at the Canadian Court of Appeal. He served in World War I as a criminal defence lawyer and was awarded the Order of Canada for his services in the Battle of the Alaskan Peninsula.
He went on to become a lawyer and a judge in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Queen’s Bench. He won the Ontario House of Assembly in the 1920s and 1930s and was elected to the House of Commons in the 1940s. He became the only Progressive Conservative to lead his party to a majority of seats in the Commons in three consecutive elections. He stood for re-election as party leader at the last moment in 1967, but only attracted minimal support and withdrew. He never regained the party’s leadership. He left office in 1979 and was succeeded by Joe Clark, who was elected as Tory leader in 1979. His family moved from Ontario to the North-West Territories in 1903. His father was the son of German immigrants from Adersbach in Baden; his mother was of Scottish descent. He grew up in the province and was interested in politics from a young age. He told his mother at the age of eight or nine that he would some day be Prime Minister. She told him that it was an impossible ambition, especially for a boy living on the prairies. In 1910, he sold a newspaper to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, and when giving a speech that afternoon, SirWilfrid commented on the newsboyboy who had ended their conversation by saying, “I can’t waste any more time on you, I must get about my work” The authenticity of the meeting was questioned in the 21st century.
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