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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63118 Medium Lester B. Pearson: the Suez Crisis, a flag and two minority governments

Read the following passage.

A. In 1956, during the Suez Crisis, the United Kingdom, France and Israel invaded Egyptian territory. Lester B. Pearson, then Canada's secretary of state for external affairs, proposed and sponsored the United Nations resolution that created a United Nations Emergency Force to police the area. The force made it possible for the invading countries to withdraw with a minimum loss of face. The next year, Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize for his crucial contribution to sending that force.

B. Pearson was born in Toronto on April 23, 1897, the son of a Methodist minister. In 1913, at only sixteen, he enrolled at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. During the First World War he served with a hospital unit and later moved to the Royal Flying Corps, where a flying instructor gave him the nickname Mike. Injuries from two accidents, one of them a plane crash, sent him home. After studying history at Oxford, he taught the subject at the University of Toronto and then joined the Department of External Affairs in 1928.

C. When the Liberals lost the 1957 election, Pearson gave up his cabinet post, became leader of the Opposition and began to rebuild the party. Before the 1963 election, after a careful review of his views on national defence, he said he was willing to accept nuclear warheads from the United States. The Conservative government had lost the confidence of voters, and the Liberals won enough seats to form a government with Pearson as prime minister. Still, his party could not win a majority, and he led two minority parliaments, formed after the elections of 1963 and 1965.

D. In five years as prime minister, before he retired as party leader in 1968, Pearson brought in programs that had long been discussed, including old age pensions, medical care and federal help for higher education. The most bitter debate was over a new national flag. The Conservatives wanted the design to keep symbols of the past, but the red maple leaf flag was raised on February 15, 1965. Not every step went well, even in the eyes of his own team. His senior adviser Tom Kent called the 1963 budget a blunder. Kent also wrote that the government clung too long to a first version of the Canada Pension Plan that had become impracticable.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Diplomats from other countries helped him write the plan he brought to the United Nations.

- 2.
The force he proposed let the countries that had attacked Egypt pull back without too much embarrassment.

- 3.
He picked history as his subject at Oxford because he already planned a teaching career.

- 4.
While he led the government, a fierce argument arose about a new national emblem.

- 5.
Accidents during his wartime flying service forced him to return home.

- 6.
Before his party took office again, he rethought his position on military matters.

- 7.
Someone who worked closely with him later criticized how the government handled a pension plan.

- 8.
An international prize recognized his role in setting up a force to keep the peace.

- 9.
His party won more seats in 1965 than it had two years earlier.

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