Who was John Diefenbaker?

John George Diefenbaker (September 18, 1895 to August 16, 1979) was Canada's 13th Prime Minister, serving from June 21, 1957 to April 22, 1963. Diefenbaker was a Progressive Conservative and led the party from 1956 to 1967. He won three consecutive elections (1957, 1958, 1962), with the 1958 federal election producing the largest majority in Canadian history at that time (208 of 265 seats, or 78.5 per cent of the House of Commons).

Diefenbaker was born in Neustadt, Ontario but raised in Saskatchewan, the first Prime Minister born in western Canada and the first not from Ontario, Quebec, or the Maritime provinces. He was a criminal-defence lawyer in Wakaw and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan before entering politics. His populist appeal and Prairie roots brought Western Canadian voters to the Progressive Conservative Party for the first time since the Bennett government of the 1930s.

Diefenbaker's most enduring legacy is the Canadian Bill of Rights of 1960 (passed August 10, 1960), the first federal statutory bill of rights in Canadian history. Although limited to federal law and federal government action (and superseded by the constitutional Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982), the Bill of Rights established a foundation for Canadian rights discourse and was the basis of R. v. Drybones (1969), the only major Supreme Court of Canada decision to strike down a federal law under the Bill. In 1960, Diefenbaker's government also extended the federal vote to status Indians (registered Indians under the Indian Act) without requiring loss of status.

Diefenbaker's government also commissioned the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission) of 1963, though it reported under Lester B. Pearson. The 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway opening, the 1960 Trans-Canada Highway completion (the first cross-Canada paved highway), and the 1962 Saskatchewan medicare programme (which Tommy Douglas's CCF provincial government introduced) all occurred during Diefenbaker's tenure. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1963 Bomarc missile controversy (a dispute with the United States over nuclear weapons for Canadian missiles) split his Cabinet and contributed to his 1963 election defeat. He continued as Opposition leader until 1967 and remained an MP until his death in 1979.