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Brave Attitude. To all this, Favreau lamely replied that it was a matter of opinion—a mere statement by Justice Dorion that, "had he been in my place, he would have exercised his discretion in a different fashion." Favreau said he was resigning "not out of a feeling that I have done anything wrong, but because my usefulness as a Minister of Justice has been impaired." Pearson backed him all the way. "My honorable friend," Pearson told the House of Commons, "remains a man and a minister of unimpeachable integrity and unsullied honor." Furthermore, Favreau would remain head of the Quebec Liberals and had been invited to consider "another post in the administration."
Despite this brave tempest-in-a-tea-pot attitude, Pearson's government has been sorely tried by more or less the same sort of affair throughout its two-year administration. In December 1963 Pearson's Postmaster General resigned amid a parliamentary uproar over the appointment of defeated Liberal candidates as "consultants." The next to go was a Minister Without Portfolio who resigned after two Montreal dailies reported that he took a $10,000 payoff to help some Quebec race-track promoters pick up a franchise. A Quebec royal commission last September accused a Liberal member of the Commons' Banking and Commerce Committee of making an "unlawful and unconscionable profit" of $62,605 on a school land purchase in Montreal. He was acquitted in court, but only on legalistic grounds.
All this is priceless ammunition for the opposition Conservatives—and obscures the fact that Pearson's government is doing a good job of managing Canada's thriving economy, has improved federal-provincial relations, and tried to ease the dangerous split between English-and French-speaking Canadians. Favreau's resignation could well impair these relations by creating doubt about Quebec's Liberal leadership among provincial voters. The Conservatives would love to topple Pearson's government and force new elections. But the party is in the midst of an intramural fight over the leadership of former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who at 69 is growing waspish and curmudgeonly, but refuses to step down. Until that battle is decided, no one wants elections.