The Liberal lions gathered at the University of Toronto this week to swap old war stories, listen to analysts and historians hash out years long gone and bask in a little mutual adulation.
The occasion was the impending 50th anniversary of the swearing-in of the Lester Pearson government, and the old Liberal gang gathered to sing his praises and trade some anecdotes.
But coming during the week when Liberals are again voting for a new leader, almost certain to choose a man who was not born until almost nine years after the anniversary being celebrated here, it was more than just a day of back-slapping.
This was a dissection of history and, as usual, history held lessons for today.
Among those gathered to honour Pearson were Liberal leaders of varying stature, Jean Chrétien, John Turner and Bob Rae.
They had one thing in common — they all presided over the Liberal party at times of despair, some during earlier days of speculation as to whether it could survive.
Turner squandered power but held the party together. Rae inherited a mess not of his own making but did the same. Pearson and Chrétien brought it back.
Beginning Sunday night, it is expected to be Justin Trudeau’s turn.
Trudeau will either bring the Liberals back through the increasingly Liberal middle, or one of the party’s most famous names will preside over the party’s demise.
No one here was prepared to give the new leader any advice. They know their time has passed. The Trudeau team has made it clear it doesn’t want their help.
But that doesn’t mean they have nothing to give.
Tom Axworthy, former principal secretary to Pierre Trudeau, came close, telling the Centre for Contemporary International History that the Liberals had “lost the thinking process.”
Pearson led the greatest political comeback in Canadian history, Axworthy said, because he brought thinkers together, not for a “photo op” but to discuss the great issues of the day, and then brought the caucus together to prioritize the issues put on the table by the thinkers.
If he were alive today, Axworthy said, Pearson would consider the ongoing rupture between Canada’s indigenous peoples and the rest of the country to be the defining issue of the day.
Trudeau has promised to have the membership craft Liberal policy. That has never been described as a move in the Pearsonian mould, but it is.
He will also have to deal with aboriginal injustices that will carry with them an urgent need for fresh thinking under his leadership.
Pearson presided over the unravelling of the Liberals in 1958 after John Diefenbaker’s Conservatives won what was then a historic majority the previous year, taking 208 of 265 seats.
Yet Pearson, after convening the 1960 Kingston conference, reduced Diefenbaker to a minority in 1962 and, with Chrétien in the fold, beat him in 1963.
Diefenbaker had been very controversial. Pearson was a gentleman, and a gentle person, Chrétien recalled, and the contrast was jolting.
Turner, now 83, served 79 days as prime minister before he, too, was wiped out by the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney.
He needs help to get to the stage these days; he uses a walker and he is unmistakably frail.
Turner was left with a rump of 40 seats in 1984. Rae took over after the Michael Ignatieff debacle of 2011 and kept a caucus of 34 afloat. Rae said Pearson’s example has always been first and foremost in his mind when he thought of the current Liberal reconstruction.
Pearson was the leader of a decimated party that retained its faith and its capacity to believe in itself, Rae said.
He said Turner faced similar challenges, but all had to believe in “the resilience of the Liberal ideal.’’
In fact, an air of resilience cut through the air of nostalgia during the day.
This was the gathering of the clan that the new Trudeau team has left behind. They don’t talk to them; there have been suggestions they won’t take their calls.
But that doesn’t bother Axworthy, who says that while you can learn from history, he is happy the Trudeau team has skipped a generation.
“I’m glad he’s got people around him that I have never heard of,’’ he said.
And the new generation doesn’t know its elders.
A couple of Trudeau supporters watched the slow, laboured arrival of Turner at last Saturday’s Liberal showcase, then tried to figure out who the old man was.
That’s the definition of a new party, but it is also the definition of a generation that should better know the history of those who went before.
Tim Harper is syndicated Toronto Star national affairs writer.