Eugene Forsey – Canada's Maverick Sage, A review

Jeff Green | May 10, 2012

When Eugene Forsey died in 1991, it created an intellectual void in the Canadian political scene.

For 60 years Forsey had been at the centre of labour and constitutional politics in Canada, from the formative years of the trade union movement in the country and the founding of the CCF party, through to the patriation of the constitution in the 1980s, right up until the debate over the Meech Lake accord. His interventions, through speeches, policy papers, books, and letters to the editor of major newspapers, always expressed clearly his considered, well-researched opinion on a variety of subjects.

Helen Forsey's new book is intended to provide some of the collected wisdom that was embodied in her father's political writings and activities for people who are living through the modern Canadian political reality.

Although the book is written from the perspective of a daughter who loved and respected her father, it is not meant as a collection of reminiscences, but rather as a political resource.

The first, relatively short chapter of the book is called the Forsey saga, and it is a chronology of Eugene Forsey's life and career, but the real meat of the 430-page text is divided by theme, ranging from constitutional politics, faith, trade unionism and national unity.

Parallels between some of the issues Eugene Forsey dealt with and current political debates in Canada abound, and Helen Forsey's own political analysis is present on more than one occasion.

Eugene Forsey's PhD dissertation, written in the 1940s, is an exposé of what was known as the King-Byng affair, a case that had slipped into obscurity until a couple of years ago when the Harper government decided to prorogue parliament just weeks after being elected rather than face potential defeat by a momentarily unified opposition.

The most salient precedent for the Harper government's political manoeuvre was the machinations of Prime Minister Mackenzie King in the late 1920s. Eugene Forsey's analysis of that event was widely discussed at the time, and became instructive once again, some 60 years after being written.

One current that runs through the Maverick Sage, one that is partly responsible for the book's title, is finally given a full airing in chapter 15, which is called Partisanship and Independence. It deals with Eugene Forsey's decades-long non-career as a politician.

Although every major political figure in the country knew him and took more than a passing interest in the positions he took on issues of the day, he ran for office on numerous occasions but never came close to being elected.

In 1951, Forsey described his unique location as a Canadian political figure in a letter to former Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Meighen – a passage that starts the chapter: “My tragedy, if it is not too strong a word, is that I'm too radical to be a good Conservative and too conservative to be a good radical. I am also too academic to be a good trade unionist and too good a trade unionist to be a good academic man; too partisan to be independent, and too independent to be a good party man.”

Forsey came from a small and large C conservative family, and while he kept to the small c conservative values throughout his life – a strong work ethic, no drinking or womanizing, and adherence to his Christian roots and practice, he eventually left the Conservative Party. After a brief infatuation with communism in the late 1920s, he became one of the founding members of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932 and became their first research director in 1943. He later became research director for the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). He was thus expected to play a key role when the CLC and the CCF banded together in 1961 to form the modern NDP, but he never joined the party.

The NDP, in an attempt to promote itself in Quebec, took on the position that Quebec be deemed as “un nation” within “the nation” of Canada, with the French meaning of 'nation' in the social context being differentiated from the English meaning of 'nation' as a political union.

This distinction held no sway with Forsey, a staunch supporter of a single nation of Canada, which led him to spend the next 10 years as a happily independent political thinker for the first time in his career.

(Interestingly enough, the current Canadian government took on a similar “nation – nation” position a couple of years ago in an attempt to curry favour in Quebec. It didn't work any better for them than it did for the NDP in the early 1960s.)

The biggest surprise for Eugene Forsey's circle of family and friends was still to come, however.

Under the spell of his friend, Pierre Trudeau, a fellow traveler on constitutional matters, he was named to the Senate and joined the Liberal Party in 1970.

Long known for his disdain for the Liberal Party and for its most successful leader, Mackenzie King, the fact that he not only accepted the Senate appointment but sat as a Liberal senator was certainly a shock.

Helen Forsey talks about that decision in the book: “In retrospect, Dad often said he should have sat in the Senate as an independent ... at the time however, he felt that joining the Liberal caucus was the most powerful way for him to show his support for Trudeau's position on national unity.”

Ultimately, Eugene Forsey left the Liberal Party in 1982 because of changes that were being made to the party’s position as the constitution was being completed.

Among its other attributes, “Canada's Maverick Sage” delineates how these changes in party loyalty sprang not from any fickleness or desire for personal gain for Forsey, but from a consistent application of his own political and moral acumen.

Eugene Forsey liked to quote his friend R.L. Calder - “I change my party as I change my shirt, and for the same reason.”

“Canada's Maverick Sage” is extensively footnoted and indexed, so it can be used as a resource for political science students or anyone who actively follows Canadian politics, since the political intrigues and debates that fuelled Eugene Forsey's working life are still with us today.

The book does not, however, get bogged down in policy detail, and even though it is written with a serious purpose in mind, it flows from topic to topic in a seamless fashion, slowly revealing more and more of the kind of human being that its protagonist was.

It makes for an enjoyable, often compelling read, as well as a source of insight into the often frustrating world of Canadian politics.