Lester Bowles Pearson PC OM CC OBE (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968.

However, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis, which earned him attention worldwide.

Pearson suffered two consecutive defeats by Progressive Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1958 and 1962, only to successfully challenge him for a third time in the 1963 federal election.

Pearson ran two back-to-back minority governments during his tenure, and the Liberals not having a majority in the House of Commons meant he needed support from the opposition parties.

Pearson also introduced the Order of Canada and the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, and oversaw the creation of the Maple Leaf flag that was implemented in 1965.

Later that same year, he entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto,[3] where he lived in residence in Gate House and shared a room with his brother Duke.

He was later elected to the Pi Gamma Mu social sciences honour society's chapter at the University of Toronto for his outstanding scholastic performance in history and psychology.

Just as Norman Jewison, E. J. Pratt, Northrop Frye and his student Margaret Atwood would, Pearson participated in the sophomore theatrical tradition of The Bob Comedy Revue.

After he joined the University of Toronto's History Department as an instructor, he helped to coach the U of T's football and ice hockey teams.

In 1915, he entered overseas service with the Canadian Army Medical Corps as a stretcher-bearer with the rank of private, and was subsequently promoted to corporal.

[17] In 1927, after scoring top marks on the Canadian foreign service entry exam, he then embarked on a career in the Department of External Affairs.

Bennett saw that Pearson was recognized with an OBE after he shone in that work, arranged a bonus of CA$1,800, and invited him to a London conference.

In 1948, before his retirement, Prime Minister King appointed Pearson Secretary of State for External Affairs in the Liberal government.

Shortly afterward, Pearson won a seat in the House of Commons, for the federal riding of Algoma East in Northern Ontario.

[25][26] In 1957, for his role in resolving the Suez Crisis through the United Nations one year earlier, Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

[27] The selection committee argued that Pearson had "saved the world", but critics accused him of betraying the motherland and Canada's ties with the UK.

Pearson was elected leader of the Liberal Party at its leadership convention of 1958, defeating his chief rival, former cabinet minister Paul Martin Sr. At his first parliamentary session as opposition leader, Pearson asked Diefenbaker to give power back to the Liberals without an election, because of a recent economic downturn.

Not long after the election, Pearson capitalized on the Conservatives' indecision on accepting American nuclear warheads on Canadian BOMARC missiles.

Additionally, when the United States Department of Defense leaked documents detailing the proposed missile defences, the Tories claimed a Liberal government would let Canada be a decoy in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviets.

However, their gains were heavily concentrated in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic; they only won three seats on the Prairies, leaving them five short of a majority.

After six Social Credit MPs from Quebec announced their support for the Liberals,[30] Pearson was able to guarantee stable government to the Governor-General.

In 1967, Pearson's government introduced a discrimination-free points-based system which encouraged immigration to Canada, making it the first country in the world to do so.

A staunch advocate of Quebec separatism, de Gaulle went so far as to say that his procession in Montreal reminded him of his return to Paris after it was freed from the Nazis during the Second World War.

Pearson signed the Canada–United States Automotive Agreement (or Auto Pact) in January 1965, and unemployment fell to its lowest rate in over a decade.

Pearson spoke at Temple University in Philadelphia on 2 April 1965 and voiced his support for a pause in the American bombing of North Vietnam, so that a diplomatic solution to the crisis might unfold.

Johnson, who was notorious for his personal touch in politics, reportedly grabbed Pearson by the lapels and shouted, "You pissed on my rug!

[40] Pearson's government endured significant controversy in Canada's military services throughout the mid-1960s, following the tabling of the White Paper on Defence in March 1964.

Pearson chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General: After his 14 December 1967 announcement that he was retiring from politics, a leadership convention was held.

He tried to write at this juncture the story of his prime ministerial career, but his condition, which was already precarious, deteriorated rapidly by Christmas Eve.

[46] Pearson is buried at Maclaren Cemetery in Wakefield, Quebec[47] (just north of Gatineau), next to his close External Affairs colleagues H. H. Wrong and Norman Robertson.