Taylor Hollander, Power, Politics, and Principle

Reviewed by: Power, Politics, and Principle: Mackenzie King and Labour, 1935–1948 by Taylor Hollander Christo Aivalis Taylor Hollander, Power, Politics, and Principle: Mackenzie King and Labour, 1935–1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2018) We've always needed this book. While much has been written on William Lyon Mackenzie King, and while scholars like Paul Craven have examined the earlier days of King's philosophy regarding unions and labour relations, Taylor Hollander's monograph is a timely examination of King's relationship with labour during his final run as prime minister, and when organized labour was coming to a prominence theretofore unseen. Hollander seeks to, without wholesale abandoning the tenets of social history, recognize that no one person in this critical period did more to shape the evolution of Canadian labour relations than King. He also seeks to reinterpret King, arguing that he was neither a "weirdo PM" (15) nor a man without conviction, but rather a figure operating under a strict system of principles and vision. Rather than being the man of nebulous triangulation many see him as, King for Hollander is perceived as a man of consistent values, which were a concern for the poor, a drive to keep Canada unified, and a belief in moderate liberalism as the best ideological path forward. This did not imply political rigidity, but rather a mooring that kept King centred as he moved around in tumultuous political times, which empowered him to "demonstrate commitment and courage in the face of adversity." (17) But this is less a history of King's relationship with labour in a general sense – although these elements are found in the book. Rather, as Hollander notes in both his introduction and conclusion, his original goal was never to write a history about King directly: his real aim was to produce a history of pc 1003: the wartime order that forever shaped the very [End Page 347] structure of Canadian labour relations. Here, Hollander draws on both personal and scholarly experience – including his years as an Canadian autoworker and his study of industrial relations in the United States – to contrast the labour relations terrain in Canada and the United States, arguing as King did that pc 1003, and the cautious philosophy which underpinned it, is the key reason why Canadian unions and workers have fared better than their American cousins covered under the more strident Wagner Act and its rights-based discourse which legitimized a right-to-work counter assault on trade unionism across the Republic. As Hollander notes: "Power, Politics, and Principles helps to explain why in relative terms the Canadian labour movement has fared better over time; it does not make an argument for the superiority of Canada's collective bargaining regime." (12) In some ways, I find these arguments persuasive, especially in regard to King having a consistent small-l liberal ideology which defined his life's work, both before and during his time as prime minister. This mirrors some of my own understanding of King's eventual successor Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who I have argued had, throughout his adult life, a consistent liberalism which made him an ally of the labour-left in the 1950s, but a steadfast foe of those same forces while at 24 Sussex. While part of King's ideological consistency was rooted in a desire to dilute the organizational capacity of the working class, Hollander shows how King sometimes resisted reactionary voices within his own cabinet when they sought to put the screws to labour. I am less convinced, however, by the claim that the differences between pc 1003 and the Wagner Act remain the key difference maker in "the cross-national divergence in union density rates fifty years later." (20) Again, Hollander's view was that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's approach, which was seen as more unabashedly pro-labour, sowed the seeds of reaction, whereas King's slow and ostensibly neutral approach made such a backlash less tenable: "Left relatively unscathed, pc 1003 and subsequent provincial laws proved more advantageous to workers and unions in the long run than the continually worked over, if not besieged labour law of the United States." (18) I feel that this

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