C.D. Howe

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Image:Cdhowe.JPG The Right Honourable Clarence Decatur "C.D." Howe, PC (January 15, 1886 - December 31, 1960) was a leading Canadian politician. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was known as the "Minister of Everything".

Howe was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received an engineering degree. He emigrated to Canada in 1903 to teach at Dalhousie University. Howe was successful as a professor, but found it dreary and left to design grain elevators on the Canadian prairies. In 1916, he formed his own firm at Port Arthur, Ontario, that specialized in elevator design. His business prospered and he was soon very wealthy. The Great Depression hit his business hard, however, and it folded in 1935.

Howe was asked to enter politics by William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party, and was elected in October 1935 in the constituency of Port Arthur, Ontario. Although he lacked prior political experience, he entered the cabinet, becoming the last Minister of Railways and Canals and the first Minister of Transport. During the Second World War, Howe played a pivotal role as Minister of Munitions and Supply. Howe wielded extraordinary powers, and soon used many government powers to build an efficient war machine. His role in the war effort was recognized by his appointment, in 1946, to the Imperial Privy Council, enabling him to use the honorific of Right Honourable.

After the war, Howe came to symbolize the Liberal government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, first as Minister of Reconstruction, and then as Minister of Trade and Commerce. Howe maintained close relations with Canadian business leaders, and guaranteed their support of the Liberals, despite their conservative tendencies. Howe ran much of the government, and was the second most powerful man in the country, dubbed "Minister of Everything" by opponents. He became well-known for arrogance, however. He described Question Period in the Canadian House of Commons as "children's hour", and was frequently quoted as having said "What's a million?", a phrase he never used in Commons. In the debate on the Trans-Canada Pipeline, Howe tried to force the public-private Pipeline partnership through Parliament by using closure at every stage of the debate.

Howe also personally selected Crawford Gordon to take over the presidency of A.V. Roe Canada, better known as Avro, developers and builders of aircraft, in 1952 when the Royal Canadian Air Force was looking for a new interceptor aircraft that could counter a Soviet bomber threat. Avro won the contract to design, a project that cost hundreds of millions of dollars until cancellation of the engine and airplane contracts in March 1959. During the program, the Avro Arrow involved development of an advanced jet fighter with Mach 2.5 capability. The Iroquois engine program was a late start after a Rolls Royce engine became unavailable. A third related project, the Sparrow missile, was cancelled in 1958. Howe supported funding of the projects until the defeat of the St. Laurent government in 1957, although warning Gordon not to spend like it was wartime.

In part because of the pipeline and Howe's behaviour, two decades of Liberal rule came to an end in a surprise defeat to John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives in 1957. Many observers were shocked when Howe himself lost his northern Ontario seat to Port Arthur Collegiate Institute high school teacher Douglas Fisher, later a national newspaper columnist.

Despite these failures, Howe is still today viewed as one of the men who made Canada into a modern industrial power. Howe played an important role in setting up many of the pillars of the Canadian economy such as Air Canada, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and Canadian National Railway. The C.D. Howe Building, the home of Industry Canada in Ottawa, and the C.D. Howe Institute, an economic policy think tank, are named after him.

On his passing in 1960, C. D. Howe was interred in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal, Quebec.

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