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"Grey, Quiet Failure." After more than 90 working days this year, Parliament has passed only five relatively minor bills. Completely neglected in the leaderless confusion were such ma jor items as a new pension plan for Canada, armed forces unification, a federal student aid program, and a twelve-mile fishing limit. In Ottawa's press gallery, newsmen long endeared to Pearson are starting to make the same acid wisecracks they once leveled at Diefenbaker ("Well, fellows, we've got a government to overthrow"). Wrote Diefenbaker Biographer Peter Newman (Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years) in the current issue of Maclean's magazine: "Although there have been almost none of the brass-band disasters of the Diefenbaker years, the domestic policies of the Liberals have been a grey, quiet failure."
One way for Pearson to cut the parliamentary Gordian knot and reassert his flagging leadership would be to call an election, in hopes of producing a clear Liberal majority. But the polls are discouraging; the Liberals would probably win, yet only enough to form another fragile minority government. "Canadians do not want another election," said Pearson. "I do not want an election. The Cabinet and caucus do not want an election. Though it is getting harder and harder, we remain determined to carry on as if we had a clear majority."