Learning About Lester Pearson

I just finished another book in the Extraordinary Canadian series about former Prime Minister Lester Pearson. I have to confess, and this is very embarrassing, but I had never heard of Lester Pearson before. In fact, the only reason I looked him up was that Michael Ignatieff mentioned that he was his political inspiration. So I looked him up and got very excited. Pearson was of course a man of his time. He was born at the end of the reign of Queen Victoria. He was raised in the Edwardian period and fought like so many during WWI. He found nothing romantic about the war; he just saw the horror of it. When someone talked about his distinguished record later in life, he said that there was nothing distinguished about it. He just got lucky and was injured before he was able to be killed! His real gift was in the diplomatic field. He was there at both the beginnings of NATO and the UN and some credit the beginning of NATO to him. Although he had really hoped that NATO would have become a political community rather than just the military alliance that it had become. He seemed to have a magical career in that posts just sort of opened up for him, and twice he was elected to the top position of the UN, however both times his candidacy was vetoed by the Soviets. Eventually he became opposition leader and prime minister. As prime minister he was not perfect and had many difficulties, but what he did do was define what modern Canada is for many people. Pearson's vision was rooted in gently affirming Canadian independence from Imperial Great Britain which is symbolized most forcefully in the creation of the Canadian Flag. No longer was it to be a symbol of a former colony; after Pearson it would be the symbol of a confident, independent country. His vision of Canada was also infectious; it was a vision of a "compassionate, progressive, bilingual country. A modern Canada. Pearson's Canada." He was also the one behind the respect so many abroad have had in Canada's reputation for diplomacy and peacemaking. It is a reputation that has withered, but is still there to a degree. My embarrassment is that these were the characteristics of Canada that I had always thought of, but had never realized they had only been achieved with great struggle, and much of the struggle came from one man: Lester Pearson.