Mark Twain is supposed to have said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. It’s one of his best lines — if he said it.
It has been in my head ever since Chrystia Freeland resigned Monday morning as Canada’s finance minister. That’s because I wrote a book two years ago about another former Liberal finance minister named John Turner (who also served a short stint as prime minister 40 years ago).
Whenever I gave speeches about the Turner book, I tried to convey to audiences the seriousness of the move Turner made on September 10, 1975, nearly half a century ago.
Turner, then the finance minister, and Pierre Trudeau, his prime minister, were becoming increasingly at odds with each other on economic policy. Trudeau saw inflation and interest rates moving to scary heights. He publicly mocked those who advised him to bring in wage and price controls, but he was privately mulling doing just that.
When Progressive Conservative opposition leader Robert Stanfield urged Trudeau to bring in those controls, Trudeau got great laughs in Parliament by responding that yes, he was sure all he had to do was look at inflation, point, and say: “Zap, you’re frozen.” All would be well.
Turner knew those controls wouldn’t work — that they’d only delay the inevitable reckoning when the controls were removed — and so he resisted implementing them as finance minister.
Nevertheless, the relationship between the two Liberals worsened to the point where they had a one-on-one meeting at 24 Sussex Drive. Turner needed to hear more support from his prime minister. He didn’t get it. Instead, Trudeau suggested if Turner were unhappy with his position, he’d be happy to offer him a seat on the Supreme Court or in the Senate. In other words, an invitation to leave politics.
Turner was insulted. He left the meeting, held a scrum on the steps of 24 Sussex, and announced he was quitting politics altogether. The resignation was considered so devastating to Liberal fortunes it probably cost the Ontario Liberals a chance to defeat Premier Bill Davis only a week later. (Davis held on with a slim minority government).
And, of course, Trudeau applied the very same wage and price controls he mocked the opposition for demanding.
When I told present-day audiences to consider how apocalyptic Turner’s resignation felt, I often urged them: “Imagine how Liberals would react if Chrystia Freeland resigned as Justin Trudeau’s finance minister. Imagine how that would shake the current Liberal government to its core.”
Well, we don’t have to imagine that scenario anymore. It has come to pass.
No two historic parallels are perfectly matched, and the Turner and Freeland resignations aren’t either. Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals had been re-elected with a majority government only 14 months before Turner’s departure; polls suggest Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are on the verge of registering the party’s worst showing ever.
Nevertheless, to those who say the events of the past 24 hours are unprecedented in national politics, I’ll simply say this: not only have we seen a Liberal finance minister’s high-profile resignation, but we’ve seen it happen to a prime minister named Trudeau. Today, the MP from University-Rosedale is gone as finance minister. Forty-nine years ago, the MP from Rosedale, Donald Macdonald, took over from Turner and served for two years as finance minister.
History rhyming? Yes, indeed.
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