Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal

Joe Cherwinski is a professor of History at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland.

Scholars interested in the history of Saskatchewan and Canada between
the wars have looked forward to the appearance of this biography for a
long time. The wait—more than two decades—was worth it. Ward, the
late Saskatoon political scientist and award-winning humorist, and
Smith, the undisputed authority on Prairie liberalism, have breathed
life into a subject that could be deadly dull. The book is finely
crafted; the junction between the authors’ respective contributions is
virtually seamless. It offers another perspective on the pre-Diefenbaker
Liberals, through the career of one of the party’s most devoted
secondary players.

This biography makes clear that the liberals of the period were so
successful precisely because of politicians like Gardiner—strong,
independent men who were able to deliver the regional vote (in this case
the West) to King and St. Laurent because they believed in the
importance of the central government. Gardiner so firmly believed in
liberalism that he created a finely tuned machine fuelled by patronage
to achieve his objectives—a machine the existence of which the authors
deny, despite the implication in the book’s subtitle.

In tracing Gardiner’s career Ward and Smith tell us more than we
might want to know about the inner workings of agricultural politics,
without adequately explaining the extent to which Gardiner’s style led
to the long Liberal drought in the region after 1957. But such
assessments are not the responsibility of official biographers. Other
scholars may yet cast additional light on this second-string politician
with first-string ambitions.