#84 - ICS Canada News and Views Winter 2024

Dear Fellow Canadian Churchillians:

Your Board of Directors would like to send Seasons Greetings to All and Best Wishes for the New Year – Randy Barber, Myra Dodick, Sheryl Mercer, Terry Reardon, Barrie Montague, David Brady, Cliff Goldfarb, Peter Campbell, Hartley Nathan, Colin Brown, Clayton Conlan and Harry Marmer.

A Very Warm Welcome to new Friends of Winston Churchill –Richard Shekter and Adam Thompson.

Finest Hour Magazine: As a result of the nation-wide postal strike, we don’t anticipate receiving this special double edition of the Finest Hour until early 2025.

Annual Dinner 2025: We are working on the details and hopefully we will be in a position to provide details early in the New Year.

Winston Churchill’s Visits to Canada

The Great Man’s Eighth Visit

To Ottawa

January 11 to 15, 1952

Much had happened in the seven + years since the Octagon Conference in September 1944. The most significant being the end of the Second World War on September 2, 1945, after the detonation of two atomic bombs on Japan in the previous month.

In Britain the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the July 1945 general election. Many thought that the seventy your old Winston Churchill would resign as leader of the Conservative party and enjoy the laurels bestowed on him by grateful nations; however, as he said, “ I refuse to be exhibited like a prize bull, whose chief attraction is his past prowess.”

Britain was essentially bankrupt after the War and the Labour Government appealed to the New World countries for financial assistance.

The request was granted, with loans of US$3.75 billion from the United States and the equivalent of US$1.9 billion from Canada both at a nominal interest rate of 2%. On a per capita basis the Canadian loan was four times grater that the United States loan.

The timing of the loan coincided with the arrival of a new governor general in Ottawa on April 12th.

Former Field Marshal, and now Lord Alexander of Tunis had been appointed by Churchill the previous summer during the Potsdam Conference. Churchill had stated to Alexander, “I know that Brooke (Lord Alanbrooke) wants you to succeed him as CIGS, but Canada is a much more important post, and I hope you will accept it.”

A general election was held on February 23rd, 1950, and the Labour Party’s majority shrunk to a mere five seats. Just twenty months later, the Labour Party Leader Clement Attlee called a snap election in the hope of increasing his majority; however his plan backfired and on October 25th , 1951, the Conservative Party led by Winston Churchill was victorious with a majority of seventeen seats – although Labour won the popular vote.

A major priority of the Prime Minister was to re-establish a close relationship with the United States administration. This was arranged and Churchill arrived in New York on January 4, 1952 – from there he flew on the President’s plane to Washington where he was greeted at the airport by President Truman.

Talks were held over the next ten days on matters such as the continuing Korean War, the necessity of having a strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the continuing need for assistance from the US to Britain, which was still recovering from the enormous wartime expenditures.

Then Churchill travelled by train to Ottawa. This visit nearly didn’t occur as his Private Secretary, John Colville, recounted in his book Footprints in Time – “He had read that the Canadian Government of Monsieur St. Laurent had decreed that the Canadian Navy should no longer play Rule Britannia. Churchill loved it passionately and new it by heart…A stern reproving telegram was sent from Downing Street but Monsieur St. Laurent was unmoved…Churchill was furious …He tried once again…and received a second polite but uncompromising refusal. Very well, after his forthcoming visit to the United States he would cancel the plans for the visit to Ottawa…Wiser counsels prevailed. Lady Churchill said that if he insisted on behaving as a spoilt child, she would not go to America with him…it was an ill humoured, uncooperative Churchill who eventually boarded a special train sleeper at Washington bound for Ottawa. In the morning St. Laurent and his whole cabinet were assembled at the railway station to greet him. Behind were the massed bands of the Canadian army, navy and air force. As the old man stepped down on to the platform the massed bands struck up Rule Britannia. He stood there, hat in hand, with tears pouring down his cheeks; and henceforward nobody ever dared to utter even the mildest criticism of Monsieur St. Laurent or Canada.

Churchill spoke to the Parliamentary Press Gallery of the fact that he had been a journalist when he had been out of office and that he had earned his living by selling words and hopefully thoughts as well. Then he went on “The Canadian Press holds a high and distinguished place amongst the press of what was once called the Empire. If that word slips out (laughter) I won’t ask your pardon.”

Churchill was accompanied by Anthony Eden and other senior officials and talks were held on a range of issues such as atomic weapons, policy toward the Soviet Union and the Korean War.

John Colville recorded that Churchill had to deliver a speech at a banquet to be given by the Canadian Government on January 14 and he told Colville that after gruelling days in Washington he had neither the time nor the energy to prepare it. Colville wrote “so in despair I drafted an entire speech and took it to him in bed at Rideau Hall. He read it sadly and paid me the compliment of saying it was too good: he would have to use it. Then suddenly, with his eyes flashing he sat up and said that nothing would induce him to play such a deceitful trick on the Canadians. He never had done such a thing, and he never would. So, casting my draft and his lethargy aside, he summoned ‘a young lady’ and launched himself into the dictation of a speech which was entirely his own.

Churchill spoke in the ballroom of the Chateau Laurier, and this was broadcast throughout Canada and the United States.

**Dignitaries attending a dinner at the Chateau Laurier.(L-R at centre):Viscount Alexander of Tunis, Rt.Hons. Winston Churchill, Louis St. Laurent**

The Toronto Telegram reported that Mr. Churchill in his whimsical manner, quipped that “the almighty moves in mysterious way at times, His wonders to perform. He has caused Stalin to bring about, through the NATO organization, the most effective union of the west.”

Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran wrote in his diary of November 14, “All day the P.M. has been working on his speech…Anyway, tonight when he rose to speak, I was so worked up I might myself have been making the speech. We had no need to be jittery. The fervour of his reception was a tribute, not to anything he had to say, but to his own corner in the hearts of the Canadian people. Afterwards he sat all crumpled up, but happily, receiving, like a Pope, the homage of the faithful. They were brought up to him one by one, and he gave his hand, beaming upon them.”

A former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen remarked as he left the Chateau that night, “I bow in humility before the majesty of his life’s performance.”

The next issue will include details Churchill’s 9th and Final visit to Canada - June 29 – 30, 1954.

We welcome your suggestions/comments - please e-mail, Terry Reardon, Editor at reardont@rogers.com

2024 International Churchill Conference,

Celebrating Legendary Leadership

London, England

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJB364HGgk&t=16s

The conference starts at the 16-minute mark of the video

Churchill & the Gathering Storms

Katherine Carter at the :26-minute mark

Churchill & His Political Rivals

Starts at 1:18

Churchill as a Wartime Prime Minister

Starts at 2:42

Lord (Andrew) Roberts Of Belgravia

Starts approximately at 6:36 7

Andrew Robert’s response to Churchill revisionist Darryl Cooper’s appearance on the Tucker Carlson show, September 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM6b-zogMvs

Netflix trailer: Churchill at War. 4-part series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Ot8acAbsg

Uncancelled History with Douglas Murray EP. 05 Winston Churchill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-W6lqwIG2Y

With the Finest Hour somewhere in the abeyance of undistributed mail, we asked a few of our supporters to suggest recent books they have read and /or books on their holiday wish list to recommend to our Canadian Churchillian family.

Note: 4 are Canadian authors!