Date in June

Few suitors had ever waited so long to name the date. Last week, having flirted with an election since last June, Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, 66, finally declared his intentions. On June 18, Canada's 9,800,000 voters will go to the polls to decide whether to renew Diefenbaker's mandate or return to office what the opposition calls the "Liberal Team" led by onetime External Affairs Secretary Lester B. ("Mike") Pearson, 65 -- or possibly give neither a clear majority in what is starting off as the tightest Canadian election race this century.

Everyone in Ottawa's House of Com mons knew roughly what to expect when the Prime Minister rose for his announcement. Elected in 1958 with the largest parliamentary majority in Canadian his tory, Diefenbaker still had eleven months to go in his five-year term, though it is never prudent to go to the country at the last moment. He would really have preferred to delay the election until September, he said, but the Liberals' "delaying tactics and obstruction" had made it "al most impossible to proceed with the busi ness of the House." Thus, Diefenbaker explained blandly, "the only course" open to him was to seek dissolution of Parliament and call an immediate election.

Better June than Later. The P.M.'s complaint that Pearson's 51 Liberals man aged to block the Tories' massive majority of 203 M.P.s fell rather lamely, the more so since Tory strategists had every reason to prefer June to September. The Tories recently boosted old-age pensions by $10 a month, and this gift was likely to be fresher in mind. Western farmers, grateful to the Tories for selling of $228 million in surplus grain to Red China, are in a better mood now than they are apt to be after the summer's expected drought. And by fall, if Britain joins the European Common Market, Canada may lose its low Commonwealth tariffs on its $900 mil lion exports to Britain, bringing trouble to Canadian export industries.

More important catchcries than a dust-dry wrangle over the Liberals' parliamentary tactics should provide the stuff of the campaign. Probably not since Canada rejected reciprocity with the U.S. in the election of 1911 ("No truck nor trade with the Yankees!") have more fundamental uncertainties clouded Canada's future--including the vital questions raised by Britain's move to throw in its lot with Europe, a thorny debate over whether Canada should accept U.S. nuclear arms, and the continuing Canadian quandary over the pervasive commercial and cultural influence of the U.S. At home, a basic economic imbalance has slowed Canada's growth rate to less than 1%. while chronic unemployment has averaged 6.8% of the labor force since 1957.

Time for Better Men. The Liberals' Pearson pronounced himself "delighted" with the June date and got off the first blows in a last Commons blast. Pearson judged Canada's affairs to be "in a morass from which the government is unable to retreat with grace or emerge with credit," went on to strum the two themes that the Liberals intend to stress on the hustings: that the Tories have shown themselves unable to cope with "economic stagnation" at home, and are answerable for a decline in Canada's prestige abroad. Recalling that the Tories once thundered against the pre-1957 Liberal regime for putting too many of Canada's trading eggs in one basket, Pearson snapped: "The only new baskets of any significance which have been developed are Red China and Cuba." At the Gallup poll's last precampaign sounding, the Liberals (who ruled Canada for 22 years from 1935 to 1957) narrowly lead the Tories by 41% to 38% among voters who have made up their minds. A more important figure is the 31% undecided. In such a circumstance, two minority parties, the farm-labor New Democratic (11%) and Social Credit (8%), may pull enough votes to deny either Tories or Liberals a clear majority of the Commons' 265 seats. Either way the Tory majority will probably be substantially cut. Diefenbaker and Pearson are both in good health for the campaign; both talk as if they expect to win. Pearson, a Nobel prizewinner, is much respected, but Diefenbaker, though his popularity has fallen off. is considered a better down-to-earth campaigner. The closeness of the race means that the give-and-take of campaigning will have a lot to do with the final judgment.

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