Dalton Camp
Encyclopedia
Dalton Kingsley Camp, PC
, OC
(September 11, 1920 – March 18, 2002) was a Canadian
journalist, politician, political strategist and commentator and supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
. Despite having never been elected to a seat in the House of Commons
, he was a prominent and influential politician and a popular commentator for decades. He is a central figure in Red Tory
ism.
. His father was a Baptist
minister whose work took his family to Connecticut
and later California
. Upon his father's death in 1937, Camp's mother and her children returned to their hometown of Woodstock. Camp soon enrolled in undergraduate studies at Acadia University
; however, his time there was interrupted by enlistment in the Canadian Army during the Second World War. Following the war, Camp finished his undergraduate studies in the liberal arts at the University of New Brunswick
, followed by graduate studies in journalism at Columbia University
and political science at the London School of Economics
.
, Camp worked briefly for the Liberal Party of Canada
and its provincial wing, the New Brunswick Liberal Association
. Camp was heavily influenced by his studies at LSE
and upon his return to Canada, sought to remove his ties to what he felt was the arrogance of "Canada's Ruling Party". Camp had some socialist beliefs but was attracted to the traditions of Canadian conservatism; thus he found a political home within the Red Tory
wing of the party. During the 1950s, Camp worked out of Toronto, Ontario with several advertising
firms and was influential in his speaking, organizational, and political abilities during several provincial elections across Canada which saw Progressive Conservative governments elected for the first time in over a generation. Camp was also instrumental in helping John Diefenbaker
's federal Tories win election in 1957 and 1958, however, he personally mistrusted Diefenbaker. Following the PC defeat to Lester Pearson's Liberals, Camp sought to reorganize the Tories and subsequently became president of the national party in 1964.
Faced with evidence that a majority of Tories were unhappy with the increasingly eccentric and autocratic policies of their leader John Diefenbaker, Camp eventually led a grassroots upsurgence within the party for a leadership review. After the decision was made to have a leadership convention in 1967, Camp left the presidency of the party and briefly considered campaigning for leadership of the party; however, when Robert Stanfield
decided to run, Camp lent his organizational support to Stanfield's campaign. Media savvy and an intellectual, Camp was considered by many Tories to have been a potential match to Pierre Trudeau
, who would lead the Liberals throughout the 1970s.
and 1968 elections
, however after personally failing to be elected, Camp retired as a politician and pursued interests in advertising, political commentary, and journalism. He headed an advertising firm – aptly named Camp Associates. During the 1980s and 1990s, he became a regular political commentator on CBC's
Morningside
(along with Stephen Lewis
and Eric Kierans
) and he was a bi-weekly political writer for the Toronto Star
newspaper. He also wrote regular columns for the Toronto Sun
and the Saint John
Telegraph-Journal
newspapers for many years.
Camp returned briefly to active politics when he was named a senior advisor to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
's staff from 1986–1989, including consulting on the 1988 election which saw Mulroney's government campaign for a free trade agreement with the United States. Camp left politics in 1989 with some disillusionment toward the increasingly Blue Tory
policies of Mulroney's government, as well as several decisions which were leading to western disillusionment in the caucus (this would later become evident when the Reform Party
was established). In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada
.
Camp underwent a heart transplant in 1993 (the oldest person in Canada to do so at the time) and continued to write and give political commentary from his home in Jemseg, New Brunswick
. He experienced a stroke in February 2002, which led to his death a month later at a hospital in Fredericton, New Brunswick
. He was survived by six children and eight grandchildren.
In the bloodless wars of politics, the wounds are to pride and place. In such activity, men easily exaggerate their relevance to it. More than that, once caught up in it, the significance of politics becomes disproportionate to their lives. To many, I suspect, their importance to themselves, as to others, lies in their being politicians. One would wish it to be the other way round-that their importance as politicians lies in men being themselves, true to their best impulse and finest ideals, less concerned with the victory of a party as they are more concerned with the survival of their own personality and nature.
But party politics feeds and flourishes upon the blood of sublimation. Every man must serve another's larger cause, giving or lending himself in whole or in part to another judgement, a further condition, a greater good, a lesser will, a common motive and purpose, and these replace his own criteria, the immediacy of his own conscience, until his own moral nature becomes a mere accessory to the cause, which is no more than his neighbour's, but the product of some ill-defined greater good and lesser evil.
In the trackless waste of politics, men lose their purpose, and the stars by which they once steered vanish in the bottomless sky of other men's aspirations. They wander like nomads, from oasis to oasis, quenching their thirst from the wells of power and warming themselves by the abandoned fires of those who have come and gone before."
- Gentlemen, Players and Politicians.
Queen's Privy Council for Canada
The Queen's Privy Council for Canada ), sometimes called Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council, is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs, though responsible government requires the sovereign or her viceroy,...
, OC
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
(September 11, 1920 – March 18, 2002) was a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
journalist, politician, political strategist and commentator and supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
. Despite having never been elected to a seat in the House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
, he was a prominent and influential politician and a popular commentator for decades. He is a central figure in Red Tory
Red Tory
A red Tory is an adherent of a particular political philosophy, tradition, and disposition in Canada somewhat similar to the High Tory tradition in the United Kingdom; it is contrasted with "blue Tory". In Canada, the phenomenon of "red toryism" has fundamentally, if not exclusively, been found in...
ism.
Background
Camp was born in Woodstock, New BrunswickWoodstock, New Brunswick
Woodstock is a Canadian town in Carleton County, New Brunswick located on the west bank of the Saint John River at the mouth of the Meduxnekeag River, 92 km west of Fredericton and close to the Canada – United States border and Houlton, Maine.- History :Woodstock was settled by Loyalists...
. His father was a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
minister whose work took his family to Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
and later California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Upon his father's death in 1937, Camp's mother and her children returned to their hometown of Woodstock. Camp soon enrolled in undergraduate studies at Acadia University
Acadia University
Acadia University is a predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level...
; however, his time there was interrupted by enlistment in the Canadian Army during the Second World War. Following the war, Camp finished his undergraduate studies in the liberal arts at the University of New Brunswick
University of New Brunswick
The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...
, followed by graduate studies in journalism at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and political science at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
Political involvement
While involved in studies at UNBUniversity of New Brunswick
The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...
, Camp worked briefly for the Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
and its provincial wing, the New Brunswick Liberal Association
New Brunswick Liberal Association
The New Brunswick Liberal Association , more popularly known as the New Brunswick Liberal Party or Liberal Party of New Brunswick, is one of the two major political parties in the Canadian province of New Brunswick...
. Camp was heavily influenced by his studies at LSE
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and upon his return to Canada, sought to remove his ties to what he felt was the arrogance of "Canada's Ruling Party". Camp had some socialist beliefs but was attracted to the traditions of Canadian conservatism; thus he found a political home within the Red Tory
Red Tory
A red Tory is an adherent of a particular political philosophy, tradition, and disposition in Canada somewhat similar to the High Tory tradition in the United Kingdom; it is contrasted with "blue Tory". In Canada, the phenomenon of "red toryism" has fundamentally, if not exclusively, been found in...
wing of the party. During the 1950s, Camp worked out of Toronto, Ontario with several advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
firms and was influential in his speaking, organizational, and political abilities during several provincial elections across Canada which saw Progressive Conservative governments elected for the first time in over a generation. Camp was also instrumental in helping John Diefenbaker
John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker, PC, CH, QC was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 21, 1957, to April 22, 1963...
's federal Tories win election in 1957 and 1958, however, he personally mistrusted Diefenbaker. Following the PC defeat to Lester Pearson's Liberals, Camp sought to reorganize the Tories and subsequently became president of the national party in 1964.
Faced with evidence that a majority of Tories were unhappy with the increasingly eccentric and autocratic policies of their leader John Diefenbaker, Camp eventually led a grassroots upsurgence within the party for a leadership review. After the decision was made to have a leadership convention in 1967, Camp left the presidency of the party and briefly considered campaigning for leadership of the party; however, when Robert Stanfield
Robert Stanfield
Robert Lorne Stanfield, PC, QC was the 17th Premier of Nova Scotia and leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He is sometimes referred to as "the greatest prime minister Canada never had", and earned the nickname "Honest Bob"...
decided to run, Camp lent his organizational support to Stanfield's campaign. Media savvy and an intellectual, Camp was considered by many Tories to have been a potential match to Pierre Trudeau
Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...
, who would lead the Liberals throughout the 1970s.
Post politics and the Mulroney era
Camp ran as a Tory candidate for Parliament in the 1963Canadian federal election, 1963
The Canadian federal election of 1963 was held on April 8 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 26th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of the minority Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.-Overview:During the Tories' last year in...
and 1968 elections
Canadian federal election, 1968
The Canadian federal election of 1968 was held on June 25, 1968, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 28th Parliament of Canada...
, however after personally failing to be elected, Camp retired as a politician and pursued interests in advertising, political commentary, and journalism. He headed an advertising firm – aptly named Camp Associates. During the 1980s and 1990s, he became a regular political commentator on CBC's
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
Morningside
Morningside (radio program)
Morningside was a nationally broadcast Canadian radio program, which aired on CBC Radio from September 20, 1976 to May 30, 1997. It was broadcast from 9AM to 12 Noon, Monday to Friday...
(along with Stephen Lewis
Stephen Lewis
Stephen Henry Lewis, is a Canadian politician, broadcaster and diplomat. He was the leader of the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party for most of the 1970s. During many of the those years as leader, his father David Lewis was simultaneously the leader of the Federal New Democratic Party...
and Eric Kierans
Eric Kierans
Eric William Kierans, PC, OC was a Canadian economist and politician.-Life and career:Born in Montreal on Feb. 2, 1914, Kierans grew up in the working-class Saint-Henri neighbourhood; his father worked at Canadian Car and Foundry and his mother came to Canada as a domestic...
) and he was a bi-weekly political writer for the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
newspaper. He also wrote regular columns for the Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...
and the Saint John
Saint John, New Brunswick
City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...
Telegraph-Journal
Telegraph-Journal
The Telegraph-Journal is a daily newspaper published in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It publishes a hybrid newspaper, serving as a provincial daily while catering to the Saint John audience in its City and Sports sections. The newspaper is published by Brunswick News, owned by J. K. Irving...
newspapers for many years.
Camp returned briefly to active politics when he was named a senior advisor to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...
's staff from 1986–1989, including consulting on the 1988 election which saw Mulroney's government campaign for a free trade agreement with the United States. Camp left politics in 1989 with some disillusionment toward the increasingly Blue Tory
Blue Tory
Blue Tories, also known as small 'c' conservatives, are, in Canadian politics, members of the former federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, current Conservative Party of Canada and provincial Progressive Conservative parties who are more economically right wing...
policies of Mulroney's government, as well as several decisions which were leading to western disillusionment in the caucus (this would later become evident when the Reform Party
Reform Party of Canada
The Reform Party of Canada was a Canadian federal political party that existed from 1987 to 2000. It was originally founded as a Western Canada-based protest party, but attempted to expand eastward in the 1990s. It viewed itself as a populist party....
was established). In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
.
Camp underwent a heart transplant in 1993 (the oldest person in Canada to do so at the time) and continued to write and give political commentary from his home in Jemseg, New Brunswick
Jemseg, New Brunswick
Jemseg is a Canadian rural community in Queens County, New Brunswick. It is located on the east bank of the Jemseg River along its short run from Grand Lake to the Saint John River...
. He experienced a stroke in February 2002, which led to his death a month later at a hospital in Fredericton, New Brunswick
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Fredericton is the capital of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, by virtue of the provincial parliament which sits there. An important cultural, artistic, and educational centre for the province, Fredericton is home to two universities and cultural institutions such as the Beaverbrook Art...
. He was survived by six children and eight grandchildren.
Quotations
- "Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies."
- "Little of signal importance in the global scene of things has ever been at issue, much less determined, as a result of the Canadian political process."
- "One would think that man would run out of wars to make or nations to invade or, that at some epiphanous time, nations would conspire to stop the killing, that war would become not the last resort but simply an unthinkable one. But here we find ourselves at war again, against half the world in general and no one in particular, pulverizing ruins and inflicting "collateral damage" - a euphemism for killing - on people we know nothing of, in a land we have nothing against, hope never to see, in a cause so rhetorical and clothed so much in hyperbole as to be unattainable."
- "He had been walking for exercise on a weekend in the early spring. The ice had just gone from the river, leaving it to swell upon its banks, turbulent, black, and impenetrably cold. He started across the bridge, following two boys-perhaps he went to warn them-but reaching the centre span he heard and saw them in the water. And then he jumped from the bridge to join them in death.
In the bloodless wars of politics, the wounds are to pride and place. In such activity, men easily exaggerate their relevance to it. More than that, once caught up in it, the significance of politics becomes disproportionate to their lives. To many, I suspect, their importance to themselves, as to others, lies in their being politicians. One would wish it to be the other way round-that their importance as politicians lies in men being themselves, true to their best impulse and finest ideals, less concerned with the victory of a party as they are more concerned with the survival of their own personality and nature.
But party politics feeds and flourishes upon the blood of sublimation. Every man must serve another's larger cause, giving or lending himself in whole or in part to another judgement, a further condition, a greater good, a lesser will, a common motive and purpose, and these replace his own criteria, the immediacy of his own conscience, until his own moral nature becomes a mere accessory to the cause, which is no more than his neighbour's, but the product of some ill-defined greater good and lesser evil.
In the trackless waste of politics, men lose their purpose, and the stars by which they once steered vanish in the bottomless sky of other men's aspirations. They wander like nomads, from oasis to oasis, quenching their thirst from the wells of power and warming themselves by the abandoned fires of those who have come and gone before."
- Gentlemen, Players and Politicians.
Publications
- Gentlemen, Players and Politicians, Ottawa: Deneau & Greenberg, 1970
- Points of Departure, Ottawa: Deneau and Greenberg, 1979
- An Eclectic Eel, Ottawa: Deneau, 1981
- Whose Country is this Anyway?, Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1995