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It was characteristic of Smallwood’s empery that it held all politics within its adamantine clasp, not just those in the provincial domain. Federal Liberal politics were his, as well. Anyone looking to put his name on the federal ballot had to first make a pilgrimage to the 8th floor of the Confederation Building, the Vatican chambers of El Supremo himself, to receive the baptismal waters from Smallwood. There, amid the low fogs swirling outside, one got the nod, or the boot. It was a simple liturgy, remarkable for its emphatic clarity.

Vote the wrong way and the road-paving machines would depart to more compliant fiefdoms, never to return

Smallwood regarded federal MPs much like the Sultans and Khans of even older empires regarded their eunuchs and satraps — as mere emissaries and stand-ins of himself, with as much agency as pins on a map and, as occasion demanded, as easily changeable. And there were moments when he entered the fray of municipal politics, as well. It was he who coined the term that municipalities were “creatures of the provincial government.” Vote the wrong way and the road-paving machines would depart to more compliant fiefdoms, never to return.

As with the first Eden, this paradise was fated to fall. The charm of one man bundling up all political expression in his own person would eventually exhaust itself. (And, though but a minor point, when dealing with characters like Smallwood, exhaust the voters, too.) There came a time in Canadian politics when a new man emerged and, among other allurements, offered to renovate the instruments and functioning of our politics. The phrase “participatory democracy,” though sullied by its proximity to redundancy, was a slogan of his, and one of its promises was to break up the “ownership” of the system.