11-07 Father’s Ads Part Two

In the 1960's Dad asked the Globe and Mail to provide him with a desk at one of their offices where he could work on his ads without me trying to edit them. It was all pretty funny at the time.
Of course, by the 1970s, I was running the CFIB and could not in any way try to influence what he was trying to say in his ads. Although I admired my father and his courage, philosophically we were different people. He was a social conservative, and I was a social liberal. He was an economic liberal, and I was a moderate economic conservative. The ad about men being the boss of women was typical ‘evangelical nonsense’ from my perspective.
But did that ad ever stir things up! His store was blockaded by feminists, who just gave him more publicity for free. He had TV cameras taking shots of the women parading in front of the store. The customers loved the excitement. Getting a Bulloch tailored suit was really an experience.
I got a huge bang out of Dad's ad promoting Joe Clarke's campaign promise to move the Canadian embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Every politician going after the Jewish vote plays the same card. I have been to Jerusalem and talked to government officials who said that whether countries move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is not a big deal. It sounds good on the campaign trail. But when they get elected and have to govern, they do not want to face all the hostility from Palestinians and Arabs.
Father's tribute to John Diefenbaker and his wife Olive was a product of genuine mutual respect. Former PM Diefenbaker was one of the few politicians in Ottawa who knew that Dad and I were two different people. Mr. Diefenbaker was on my old TV show, Bullseye Ottawa in 1972, so he knew me personally.
And what conservative member of the public or of parliament does not want to promote support for the police, and Dad was no exception.
Dad's ads over the years were either outrageous or magical. He was his own man and did things his own way. And when he died in January 1980, the business was transferred over to brother Peter, and his ads were classy.