Lester B. Pearson

Lester Bowles Pearson was born in Newtonbrook, Ontario, in 1897, the son of a Methodist minister. He served in the First World War, taught history at the University of Toronto and then joined the Department of External Affairs. He was ambassador to the United States and entered Parliament in 1948 as external affairs minister. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 and became Liberal leader in 1958. As prime minister from 1963 to 1968 he led two minority governments. He died in 1972.

Pearson is widely credited with building much of modern Canada's social safety net and national identity in only five years: the pension plan, medicare, student loans, the flag and a non-discriminatory immigration system. Internationally he is remembered as a founder of UN peacekeeping and a model of middle-power diplomacy, and the headquarters of Canada's foreign ministry bears his name. Critics point to the instability of his governments, which never held a majority in the House of Commons, and to his reversal in January 1963, when he accepted American nuclear warheads for Canadian forces after having opposed nuclear weapons for Canada. His 1965 call at Temple University for a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam angered President Lyndon Johnson, though the full text largely supported American policy.