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On March 31, 1958, Lester Pearson and his wife, Maryon, watched John Diefenbaker and the Conservatives sweep back into office with 208 seats, the largest parliamentary majority in the country's history.
The Liberals fell to 49 seats, the worst defeat in the party's history. As Maryon contemplated a long, cold season in opposition, she delivered her memorable blow upon a bruise: You've lost everything, Mike. You've even won your seat (the wording varies in different tellings).
It is unlikely that Janine Kreiber uttered that kind of stinging lament to her husband, Stéphane Dion, as they watched the returns a week ago. Politics has changed.
First, she would have known that Dion could not remain as leader now, as Pearson had then; the party would simply not allow it. Second, she would have known that 2008 isn't 1958; Stephen Harper's Conservatives have a minority, which means they can be toppled.
The change of leadership and the vulnerability of the government give hope to the Liberals, who are divided and diminished today but not dead, the obituaries notwithstanding. History suggests they will recover. They always do.
After their electoral calamity a half century ago, the Liberals unseated the Conservatives in two back-to-back elections. Against an unprecedented majority, they returned to power within half a decade, reclaiming their mantle as "Canada's natural governing party."
They came back because Pearson was able to restore the brand that had kept the Liberals in power between 1935 and 1957, and for much of the 90 years since Confederation. Although administration was never his strength, he showed discipline and vision. Indeed, in his long, dazzling career, the renewal of the Liberal party is his least-recognized achievement.
What can contemporary Liberals learn from Pearson and the party's debacle 50 years ago?
In 1958, the outlook was bleaker for the Liberals than today. While their popular vote was higher, they had less than a fifth of the seats in Parliament; they were a rump in central Canada.
In 2008, the Liberals have almost a quarter of the seats, more representative of the country. Not a national party, to be sure, but with a base in Quebec, Ontario, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia.
Leadership was as critical then as now. In 1958, that meant that a reluctant Lester Pearson had to stay on. The titans of Louis St. Laurent's cabinet (C.D. Howe, Brooke Claxton, Douglas Abbott, Walter Harris) were gone.
The professorial, bow-tied, lisping Mike Pearson was not a natural politician but he was likeable, conciliatory, smart and adroit. He was still a star – Nobel Laureate and the best known Canadian in the world.
It didn't matter that he had inherited a party in 1957 with just seven fewer seats than the Conservatives in a hung Parliament. Or that he foolishly moved a motion of non-confidence four days after becoming leader in January 1958 and promptly marched his party into the abyss.
Leaders ran and ran in those days. (Pearson led the Liberals in four elections, two of which he lost; Diefenbaker led the Tories in five elections, also losing two).
Not so today. In the disposable age, there are no second chances. Stéphane Dion knew that he would have been pushed had he not jumped.
Unlike in Pearson's time, today's Liberals have a cornucopia of successors; in a sense, the field is deeper than two years ago. Michael Ignatieff, the deputy leader, now has experience in Parliament. Bob Rae, his anticipated rival, has shown his bona fides to his adopted party by sitting as a Liberal. At or around 60 years old, they are the same age as Pearson was when he became leader.
They are joined in caucus by Justin Trudeau and Marc Garneau, two new faces (though unlikely leadership contenders) from Quebec. Outside Parliament, the Liberals may look to John Manley and Frank McKenna, who can raise money.
But as Pearson well knew, leadership isn't enough. It takes ideas, people, organization, resources and innovation.
Ideas? In 1960, the Liberals held the Kingston Conference, a seedbed of new ideas, followed by a policy convention in 1961. From there came a commitment to social assistance, universal health care, pension reform and a distinctive new flag. Significantly, the party veered left; today, it will probably have to straddle the centre.
People? Pearson recruited the superb Keith Davey, who borrowed the polling techniques developed by John Kennedy's Democrats. His dog-eared electioneering manual was Theodore White's brilliant account of JFK's ascent, The Making of the President, 1960. With Davey came a corps of mechanics, publicists, and thinkers: Jim Coutts, Tom Kent, Richard O'Hagan, Walter Gordon. All helped modernize the party.
At the same time, the Liberals recruited a new generation of leaders, including Mitchell Sharp, Donald Macdonald, John Turner, Jean Chrétien, Pierre Trudeau, Jean Marchand, Gérard Pelletier.
Money? Walter Gordon knew where to get it, and he reorganized the party's fundraising. The party, now broke, will need someone of his ingenuity today.
Innovation? Pearson saw the unrest in Quebec and proposed official bilingualism. He saw the contradiction of refusing to arm Canadian missiles with nuclear warheads and reversed his party's position, which alienated Trudeau but split the Tory government and precipitated its collapse.
Both issues showed a diplomat becoming a politician, capable of forming new ideas and jettisoning dated ones.
Ironically, Pearson never wanted to be leader. Duty made him stay. But with shrewdness and persistence, he found his way out of the political wilderness, where many thought his party would wander for a decade.
On April 8, 1963, he led the Liberals back to power. He governed for the next five years, never with a majority. Yet it was the most productive Parliament before or since, and the making of modern Canada.
Andrew Cohen, a journalist and professor, is the author of the newly published Extraordinary Canadians: Lester B. Pearson.
