Editor’s Note: Fifty years ago, on June 21, 1957, a Prince Edward Island (PEI) farm boy named Angus MacLean took an oath of office and became Canada’s fisheries minister. Cairns Media Magazine recalls MacLean’s distinguished career by re-examining his memoirs.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, Canada -- War hero, politician and blueberry farmer Angus MacLean (1914-2000) achieved something special in retirement with the publication of Making It Home, Memoirs of J. Angus MacLean (with assistance from Marian Bruce, 1998, Ragweed Press, Charlottetown, 288 pages).

Always interesting, MacLean’s life story benefits from the input of Bruce, an established author. His memories of childhood in Lewis, PEI, give valuable history lessons about a very different rural Canada nearly a century ago.

“When I was a child my world extended only about five miles in any direction – the distance you could comfortably travel in a horse and wagon. There were no telephones in our community. Nobody had a car or a radio. Our news of the outside world came from the newspaper, which arrived every evening on the train from Charlottetown.”

Gradually, changes came. “A few people acquired radios; cars became a more common sight on the red clay roads. By the time I was about 10, my brother and sisters and I used to amuse ourselves by counting the cars in the churchyard during the Sunday evening service. Sometimes there would be as many as nine or 10 parked beside the horse-drawn wagons.”

The Great Depression took its toll. “Farm prices were so low it was impossible to make a profit on anything. All we could do was to try to keep our family farm going in hopes of better days to come.”

The tale turns fascinating when MacLean recalls his Second World War military experiences. “The train station had a distinctly military air, with all kinds of young Prince Edward Islanders in uniform waiting for the train. My father and I said our farewells and I boarded the train for Halifax, my first and only stop on my way to Europe. In Halifax, we were issued with two tags, each bearing our name, rank and military number. Both went on a cord around our necks. One was to remain there; the other, which had two holes, would be nailed to our grave-markers if that’s where we ended up.”

In 1942, MacLean, a pilot, crashed, shot down into occupied territory. Then his memoirs rival the most riveting fiction. “When I dived out the escape hatch, I knew I was very low, so I pulled the ripcord immediately. The opening of the parachute had barely registered in my mind when I crashed to the ground on my back. I was in a field, in the middle of a herd of Holstein cows. Strangely enough, they were not at all spooked by my sudden arrival. Instead, they were overcome with curiosity about what had fallen out of the heavens, and they all crowded around sniffing me.”

Despite close calls, German soldiers never captured MacLean. Instead, he reached safety, sheltered and guided by courageous people in Europe’s covert resistance movement. Many military veterans hesitate to discuss their wartime experiences, which makes MacLean’s account extra intriguing.

Seldom known to ooze charisma or deliver spellbinding speeches, MacLean later built a long and successful political career by applying his usual common sense, upholding tradition and aiming for the common good. From 1951 to 1976, he represented the Progressive Conservative party in Canada’s House of Commons and survived 10 federal elections. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker relied on him as a cabinet ally and fisheries minister (1957-63).

A man who helped MacLean to escape from wartime Europe later joked: “I didn’t realize what I started when I supplied a fishing pole for Angus MacLean to carry on his way to a railway station to help disguise him as a local. The next I heard of him, he was the minister of fisheries for Canada.”

MacLean expresses admiration for Diefenbaker, but calls him paranoid and dangerously indecisive. The memoirs bluntly assess other politicians too.

“Most of the prime ministers I knew were, at the very least, eccentric,” he wrote. “Louis St. Laurent was the most stable and rational…. In our modern system of selecting national leaders, image often triumphs over substance. Candidates are not promoted on the basis of experience, but thrust into a job for which they may have few qualifications.”

Liberal party leader Pierre Trudeau, who became the prime minister in 1968, stood tall on the world stage, but failed to impress MacLean. “Trudeau, in terms of suitability as a prime minister, languished at the bottom of my list. To me, he represented a disagreeable trend, promoted by some members of the media, in which it was considered fashionable to scorn traditional values such as patriotism, the obligations of good citizenship and the concept of individual restraint for the common good.”

Brian Mulroney, who took the national helm in 1984, came from MacLean’s own party, but earned similar criticism. “Like Trudeau, he appeared obsessed with the Constitution. And like Trudeau, he succeeded in plunging the country deper and deeper in debt.”

Such shortcomings inspire a theory. “Perhaps the leaders that Canada so sorely lacked in the 1970s and ‘80s are all buried in foreign lands as a result of the Second World War,” MacLean wrote.

Returning to PEI, MacLean led the provincial Conservatives for five years (1976-81) and became the premier in 1979, a position he held for two years. In 1991, he received the Order of Canada.

Despite the adventures and duties that took MacLean to distant places, he seemed the happiest when discussing his constituents and family, plus the blueberry crop and sheep herd at home on his farm.

Late in his life story, MacLean expresses a worthy philosophy: “When Horace Carver and I were in the middle of my first provincial election campaign, we were driving in the country one day when he remarked, ‘Angus, you always seem to be so much at peace with yourself. You’re never in a rush.’ I told him that my wartime experiences had marked me forever. ‘My attitude is that every day is a wonderful day,’ I said, ‘and I’m not going to fritter it away’.”

The memoirs, like their subject, exude sincerity. MacLean wins respect and appreciation from readers, just as he did in election campaigns.

ARCHIVES

Angus MacLean: rarely
charismatic, always interesting.


John Diefenbaker 'too indecisive'.


Pierre Trudeau 'bottom of the list'.


Brian Mulroney piled debt deeper.