Private Power, Public Purpose: Adventures in Business, Politics, and the Arts

INTRODUCTION

Private Power, Public Purpose is based on the underlying premise that humans are invested with power: the power to think and to act, and, in the best of all possible worlds, to act for the benefit of others and society as a whole. The more power one has, the more consequential becomes its exercise. History teaches us that power often corrupts and, wielded with malice, can do great harm. Those who possess great power face a formidable test of character. Abraham Lincoln summed it up with the words Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. Leadership, then, must be judged by how power is exercised and for what purpose. This is a book about power and purpose. It is also about responsibility, with leadership being a common theme throughout.

As fortune would have it, for a good part of my life considerable power was invested in my role as a business leader—power that to the best of my abilities I sought to exercise with great care, sometimes with success, sometimes not. In the main, this memoir tells that business story with perspectives as well on political power and the power of philanthropy in the arts.

Issues, people, and events form the backbone of this memoir. It covers a transformative period in Canadian economic and political history beginning in the 1960s and leading up to the present day. Significantly, it chronicles a fundamental transition in the culture of business in Canada—a transition in which I was privileged to play a central part.

This memoir speaks to the origins of the greatly enhanced role for Canadian business in the shaping of national public policy, beginning with the creation of the Business Council on National Issues (bcni) in the late 1970s. I led the bcni—subsequently known as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (ccce) and today as the Business Council of Canada (bcc)—from 1981 to 2009. During my years at the Council’s helm, I worked with over one thousand chief executives and entrepreneurs as well other leaders in Canada and internationally. Their engagement, support and our collaboration form a crucially important part of the story I tell.

Public policy figures prominently throughout this book, and the policy domains covered are many. They include competitiveness, fiscal policy, trade, taxation, employment, labour relations, inflation, energy, the environment, corporate governance, and foreign policy and defence. Intimate insights are offered on the great policy debates of the day, including free trade, national unity, defence policy, and the environment. I describe in considerable detail my activities as a business ambassador and my work on five continents.

While hugely stimulating, my job as the ceo of the ceos was not always an easy one. Being an activist surrounded by powerful people led inevitably to charges of excessive influence. I took no comfort in being decried as Canada’s de facto prime minister and write candidly of how I countered this perception by employing every diplomatic tool at my disposal and partaking eagerly in respectful public debate. That did not stop death threats, an invasion of my office by masked intruders, ugly attacks in print and in person, and a burning in effigy on the streets of Ottawa. But I soldiered on, convinced that the responsible exercise of power aimed ultimately at promoting the public good would lead to a more prosperous, inclusive, and compassionate country.

The overarching theme of this book is leadership and what it means to me. I write about leaders from the worlds of business, politics, public policy, and the arts who have inspired me. No one has inspired me more than my wife, Susan, who for more than a half century has travelled my journey with me while pursuing her own remarkable career in the public service of Canada. My book is dedicated to her.

It begins with my happy childhood growing up as the son of Italian immigrant parents in the beautiful Kootenay region of British Columbia and traces my formal and informal educational journey, concluding with studies at the University of London. My return from England and work in Montreal leads to my years on Parliament Hill serving cabinet minister James Richardson and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. My early entrepreneurial years are chronicled in London, Paris, and Ottawa, followed by my three decades as the founding ceo of the Business Council of Canada and my work as a corporate director with several global enterprises. I turn to the arts and philanthropy in the latter part of this memoir with a prominent mention of the National Arts Centre and detailed insights on the National Gallery of Canada, where I served as a founding director of its foundation and chair for eighteen years.

Part memoir, part history, and part political and economic commentary, this memoir concludes with an epilogue titled Reaching for Gold—a challenge to Canadians to marshal our collective talent and resources to make Canada the best country in the world in which to live, work, invest, and grow.

ROCKCLIFFE PARK

OTTAWA

1

BEGINNINGS

This would be a very different story if a young man standing on the ramparts of a town in eastern Sicily had not exclaimed "basta! (enough!). My father, Cateno, born in 1901, was on leave in picturesque Taormina from his Carabiniere troop. It was the early twenties and Sicily was immersed in conflict. Communists and fascists were in violent confrontation in the streets, and civil order was severely threatened. My father was proud of being a Carabiniere. Created by King Victor Emmanuel of Savoy in 1814, the Royal Carabinieri Corps played an important role in the evolution of Italy. More than a national gendarmerie, it was organized as a military force and to this day is considered part of Italy’s armed forces. My father’s hope that Italy, emerging from the bloody conflict of World War I, would see positive and real change sweep across the land had been shattered. He once told me of an incident on the outskirts of the ancient city of Syracuse where his commanding officer issued an order: In the face of a mortal threat, shoot first; ask questions later. My father had sworn allegiance to the king of Italy and saw communists, fascists, and other radicals as dangerous. With the formation of the National Fascist Party in 1921 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, and with fascist gangs increasingly asserting themselves in the streets with calls for a takeover of power in the country, he made what he often referred to as the most painful decision of his life"—to leave his family, friends, and the camaraderie of the Carabinieri behind and reach out for a life in the New World.

In early 1924, he sailed for Canada and upon arrival immediately headed west, where he had heard that fortunes were to be made in mining for silver and gold. He settled in Trail, a small industrial city in the Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia, no doubt attracted by its significant Italian community. The core of the city’s economy was the giant Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company (today’s Cominco), where workers enjoyed one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country. An enterprising and independently minded person, my father was soon involved in several businesses, including real estate. Later, he would own a hotel in the city, and eventually he built what would become the Trail headquarters of Eaton’s department store, which he leased to the company.

Back in Italy, a beautiful widow with two young children had returned to her birthplace near Lucca, in the heart of Tuscany. Born in 1906, née Anni Mandoli, she had spent a few heartbreaking years in Trail, lost her husband to liver failure, and returned to Italy to live with her family. With Europe moving ever closer to war, she responded to a proposal from my father to come back to Canada and marry him. By her own admission, it was not love at first sight. But life with him offered the promise of stability for her and the children. With mixed emotions, she returned to Trail and they were married. Not long after, my mother, known as Annie to her friends, brought me into the world. It was November 3, 1940. Canada was at war and Europe was engulfed in conflict.

Our character is often deeply influenced by our parents and I am no exception. My father was an assertive and driven man who at times could unleash a terrible temper. Although he was capable of compassion, and indeed I can recall many instances where he generously reached out to others in need of help, he was, in the general parlance, tough. When it came to me, his only child, he was stern and unbending, and I was required to live by a code of his making. Despite the discipline he demanded of me, I never doubted his love. My mother, on the other hand, was warm, immensely kind and loving, and deeply sensitive. She always saw the good in people. A devout Roman Catholic, she attended daily early-morning services for a good part of her life and, in her later years, would visit the local hospital every day to give comfort to the sick. My father respected our local priests and gave money to the church but rarely attended services. As a young man, he had bravely railed against what he called the suffocating oppression of the church and remained unrepentant of it all his life. Our family life was enlivened by the goings-on of my half-brother and -sister who, being teenagers when I was born, brought both joy and trials into the home. They were always loving and protective of me and we remained close all our lives.

When Italy, in alliance with Nazi Germany, entered the war in June 1940, my father was distraught. It was the most catastrophic blunder imaginable, I recall him telling me in later years. It should be said that a large photograph of King George vi and Queen Elizabeth taken on their 1939 visit to Canada hung prominently in our living room. On occasion, when I was very young, my father would ask me to stand beneath the picture and sing God Save the King and O Canada for our friends. There was never any question about the loyalties of the d’Aquinos. But love of the ancestral motherland, its history and culture, never faded in those early years. Italian was the language spoken in our household, and my parents saw to it that it was proper Italian and not a dialect. Most Italian immigrants I knew spoke a regional dialect, and few of their children attempted to converse in Italian at all. My mother was especially proud of my facility in the language, claiming, with some justification, that our Italian was the purest—the language of Dante and the Renaissance. In Tuscany, there remains fervent debate among the Florentines, the Sienese, the Pisans, and the Lucchesi as to who commands the most perfect of Italian accents. My mother never gave ground on the matter, saying that the finest Italian was definitely spoken in Lucca.

My father would always remind me of the significance of our family name. You carry the name of Christendom’s most important philosopher and jurist, he would say. Always honour your name. He was speaking of the Dominican friar Saint Thomas Aquinas, of course, whose name was Tommaso d’Aquino. Born in 1225 in Roccasecca, Italy, near the town of Aquino (Aquinum in the ancient Roman period), Aquinas came from a noble Longobard family going back to the eighth century. To make his point, my father gave me a book when I was in my early teens by English writer and theologian G.K. Chesterton. Of Thomas Aquinas, Chesterton wrote he was born in the purple, almost literally on the hem of the imperial purple; for his own cousin was the Holy Roman Emperor…. He was Italian, and French and German and in every way European. The historical weight and significance of my name has never been lost on me. From time to time, when travelling in Europe, and especially Italy, mention of it would provoke disbelief. On one such occasion, when I was crossing the border from France into Italy, a customs officer asked my name. When I responded, he bellowed, And I’m Napoleon Bonaparte!

Shortly after the end of the war, my family moved to the nearby community of Nelson, where I began my schooling and quickly made friends, some of whom remain close to this day. Nestled in the mountains and bordered by an arm of beautiful Kootenay Lake, Nelson was a prosperous community with forestry, mining, and railway transportation forming the heart of its economy. It boasted fine heritage buildings, excellent schools, and a community ethos where culture and learning were highly prized. The mountains, rivers, and streams offered excellent hiking and fly-fishing, and there was rarely a weekend in the non-winter months when I would not go off into the mountains in search of the perfect trout pool. In winter, excellent downhill and cross-country skiing was readily accessible. Nearby, the majestic Kokanee Glacier was a big draw for those of us who liked to hike.

Nelson was settled primarily by British immigrants and its population consisted mainly of people of European stock. When I was growing up there, Indigenous people and visible minorities were few and far between. There were churches aplenty, with faithful Protestant and Roman Catholic congregants. At school, I had one Jewish classmate, his faith something I was unaware of for many years. The community was free of ethnic tensions, and I never sensed any form of discrimination linked to my Italian heritage.

The academic training I received at the local schools—Hume, Trafalgar, and L.V. Rogers—was excellent. Nelson scholars each year placed high in the provincial rankings. Sports, including hockey, lacrosse, soccer, baseball, and basketball, were important parts of our lives, as were plenty of cultural activities. While at Trafalgar, I was elected president of the student council and I remained active in extracurricular activities throughout my years in Nelson. When I delivered the valedictory address at my high school graduation in 1958, I remember speaking of the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. I spoke of the Soviet Union’s recently launched Sputnik satellite, the opening salvo in the space race, and warned that the future of the democratic world hinged on our ability to harness science to maximum advantage.

If communing with nature, fly-fishing, cultural activities, and sport remain at the centre of my most enduring memories of my early years, there is one other pursuit that has made a lasting impression: gardens and gardening. Passionate about his flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees, my father expected me to pitch in and to do the work to a high standard. When I protested that I would rather play baseball, he would remind me of one of my mother’s favourite quotations: One is nearer to God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth. For the past four decades, gardens and gardening have occupied an important place in my life and Susan’s. In my case, it all began in my father’s garden, and now, when I am pruning our hedge, fertilizing our perennials, or edging our flower beds, I often think of him watching over me and insisting on what he would call "un lavoro perfetto (a perfect job").

I was excited about entering first year at the University of British Columbia (ubc) in Vancouver in the autumn of 1958. The university’s enormous campus, set by the ocean and backdropped by mountains, is one of extraordinary beauty. This is what I drank in every day there. I lived in one of the men’s residences, conveniently located next to the women’s residences, and eagerly embraced my new-found freedom. While I was given a generous allowance by my father, it was conditional on following a strict budget and accounting for all my expenditures on a monthly basis. The most enduring memories I have of my undergraduate years are the endless hours of argument and counter-argument with my fellow students, often going late into the night, helped on by generous lashings of malt whisky. Largely oblivious to life’s dangers, we thought of ourselves as young lions. And for good reason. We were living in the best of times, awash in economic opportunities. Jobs were sure things then. Only the spectre of nuclear annihilation gave us pause.

Fraternity life attracted me. I joined the Zeta Zeta chapter of Psi Upsilon, a non-sectarian fraternity with a literary bent founded at Union College, Schenectady, New York, in 1833. Like many young people, I found myself searching for role models and was very much taken by the fraternity alumni who had excelled in their military, academic, and business careers. While fraternities still exist on campuses today, they smack of elitism to many, but at the time they were much more common. In its defence, fraternity life taught me the importance of comradeship, trust, and loyalty—essentials in the shaping of lifelong friendships. It also introduced me to a degree of diversity I had not known. Among my contemporaries were individuals of Chinese and East Indian descent and different faiths. Today, the fraternities have in fact gone much further in embracing diversity, reflecting a Canada very different from the one of a half century ago.

In September 1959, my father died suddenly. That such a powerful force in my life should be taken away in the blink of an eye was a terrible blow. We had our clashes and were fundamentally different people, but losing him felt like the ground falling away. It was not something I was even slightly prepared to deal with. My grieving mother and family insisted that I return to ubc soon after the funeral, and in mid-September I did so. It was perhaps too soon, all things considered, and a difficult year followed. I found it hard to concentrate and my social life took a frenetic turn. I spent far more time partying than I should have, mostly because I needed an escape. And my father’s passing demonstrated how quickly and without reason one’s days on earth can end. I did, however, manage to keep up with my classes and passed all my subjects. Still, there was an emptiness where my father had been, and I decided that wherever he was, he would want me to push forward.

My remaining years as an undergraduate at ubc were enormously satisfying and, I would say, productive. Campus life was endlessly energizing. Impressive professors immersed me in fields that I came to love and helped shape and deepen my thinking. I took up debating and sharpened my skills by presenting arguments both on serious subjects and outlandish ones to boisterous student audiences. It was possible then if not now to have great fun debating either side of Be It Resolved That Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Frailty Thy Name Is Woman, and Chastity Is Outmoded. It became increasingly clear to me over this time that the study of law was in the cards for me and I was ready for it.

Something momentous happened early in my final undergraduate year at ubc: a chance meeting with a smart, enchanting, beautiful young woman named Susan Peterson. A Montrealer in her first year at ubc, she brought an air of quiet sophistication to the campus, I thought. I was beguiled.

The following September, I attended my first year of law school at Queen’s University. As I was about to leave Vancouver for Kingston, Ontario, Susan decided at the eleventh hour to switch from ubc and continue her undergraduate work at Queen’s—a serious step in our deepening relationship. I had found a place to stay in Kingston; Susan, to her mother’s relief, was safely tucked away in the women’s residence. As I sat through my early lectures on constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, torts, and property law, I knew I had made the right decision. While I was by no means certain I would ultimately practise law in the conventional sense, I was convinced that training in the law would prepare me for any number of professional pursuits. Academic achievement was taken seriously at Queen’s, and there I met a number of inspiring thinkers in the disciplines of economics, law, business, political science, and history. One of these was David Dodge, who would go on to become a highly respected deputy minister of finance in Ottawa and governor of the Bank of Canada. Dodge and I would collaborate closely in the years to come on key fiscal policy issues. Thoughtful and measured, he was someone I would count among the most influential economic thinkers of his time. Our friendship endures to this day.

While our time at Queen’s was enjoyable, Susan and I both agreed that ubc and Vancouver had more to offer. So following a summer in Montreal, back to Vancouver we went to resume our studies. Upon arrival in Vancouver, I met, by chance, a fellow law student by the name Joe Clark and we decided to share an apartment. Little did I know that one day he would serve as Canada’s sixteenth prime minister and that our paths would cross often in the decades to come. As for Susan and me, it became increasingly clear over the ensuing year that we were bound for marriage. We set the date for August 25. The venue was to be Montreal.

On a sunny day in the spring of 1965, we both graduated from ubc. I bid farewell to my fellow graduates with my address as class historian. I saluted the revolutionary Report of the President’s Committee on Academic Goals, which said the criteria by which ubc’s achievements would be judged were the fostering in the student of a permanent spirit of enquiry and creativity, engendering in him or her powers of sound judgment, and developing the cultural resources of society. These were worthy goals then and, in my view, remain so today for all institutions of learning. In my address, I went on to bemoan that the Canadian flag, adopted by Parliament in 1965 after a period of acrimonious debate, was raised at this university unceremoniously. To me, the raising of the new Canadian flag merited national jubilation. There was far too little of that. This critical observation spoke to my deep love of country, which has stayed with me all my life. I also took the opportunity to salute one of my heroes, Winston Churchill, giant of the twentieth century, whose death earlier that year was widely mourned. My admiration of Churchill remained a constant in my life, his speeches and writings commanding more of my time than those of any other leader of the twentieth century. Of his many qualities, it was his courage and pluck that attracted me most.

—

When Susan and I got married, the wedding was composed of many moving parts that somehow, but not without effort, magically fell into place. Susan was of English and Scottish extraction on her mother’s side, Swedish and Danish on her father’s. They were second-generation Canadians hailing from Winnipeg. I, of course, was of Italian extraction. My parents were deeply conservative and old school, and I was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. Susan’s parents were Protestants. My widowed mother represented our family at the wedding, and while she carried it all off with her usual positive view of things, I know what a shock it was to learn I was getting married in an Anglican church. This was somewhat tempered when she came to understand, several years earlier, why I had decided to leave the Roman Catholic Church and, with Susan, opt for confirmation as an Anglican. My quarrel with the church was intellectual: I could not accept the doctrine of papal infallibility and Vatican conservatism on matters such as mixed marriage or the celibacy of the priesthood. Our wedding was a beautiful ecumenical affair with all the ceremonial ritual of the Anglican high church. The Roman Catholic choir that sang the wedding mass was one of Montreal’s finest. My dear mother captured the moment when she told me she felt very much at home.

Following our wedding, we headed back to Vancouver and the next phase of my law studies. Admission to the British Columbia bar required a year of articling with a law firm, which I was very lucky to do at Davis, Hossie, Campbell, Brazier and McLorg (later known simply as Davis & Company), one of Vancouver’s most respected firms. The work was demanding and competitive—but I enjoyed every moment. That said, I was also an outspoken advocate for better working conditions and higher pay for us lowly clerks. We were paid $75 per month! That aside, the partners were remarkably supportive, although I’m sure I tested their patience more than once. When I was called to the bar, in October 1966, I was startled to see more than half a dozen partners show up at my calling ceremony. When I expressed my surprise and gratitude, one of them, Boyd Ferris, said tongue-in-cheek, You’ve done well, young Tom, but you’ve also been a bit of a rabble-rouser. We just want to be sure you are leaving town!

I did leave town. The world awaited, and Susan and I chose to go to London, where I had decided to pursue a master of laws degree. London at the time, in my mind, was pretty much the centre of the world, a place where everything seemed to be happening at once.

I found a modest furnished flat—always cold in the winter months. Susan and I survived thanks to an electric blanket that came with it. We could only afford to heat the flat for a short time each day, and in winter, the water in the toilet sometimes had a thin layer of ice in the mornings. Susan found a job with the hotel division of the Rank Organization and assumed the role of principal breadwinner. She kept us going, along with some help from her family and mine.

My year studying at the University of London was hugely rewarding. With classes at University College and the London School of Economics, and with the library at the British Museum close by, the intellectual stimulation was non-stop. My studies were also of practical relevance. Courses on comparative constitutional law, undoubtedly dry to some, prepared me for the great constitutional debates Canada would soon face. The course on administrative law sharpened my understanding of government accountability and due process. The lectures on international law and company law honed my thinking on the issues I would eventually tackle in the business world. One of my close friends and classmates in London was a fellow Canadian, Phil Elder. He and I shared a deep concern about the growing cracks in the Canadian federation, and in 1967 we organized and co-chaired a conference in London focusing on our country’s constitutional future. Attended by Canadians and British colleagues, its tone left no doubt that serious unity challenges lay ahead.

That year in London was a voyage of discovery for Susan and me and launched us on our way to becoming enthusiastic anglophiles. British history, British architecture, the enchanting towns, villages, gardens and landscapes, British literature, British museums, and so much more came to be woven into our very beings. Our discovery of brass-rubbing led us on weekends to out-of-the way churches dotted here and there in the countryside to take imprints on our hands and knees of ancient brasses memorializing men and women who had made their mark over the centuries in many different ways in their communities and country. This practice is no longer permitted, and we still treasure the rubbings we have and the beautiful churches and villages they led us to. Among the most celebrated of the military brass rubbings in our collection are from the effigies of Sir John d’Abernon, England’s earliest surviving memorial brass (1277), Sir Roger de Trumpington (1289), and Sir Robert de Bures (1331).

It is, of course, always fascinating how one can meet others by chance in a new place and they become part of one’s life. On a late-night pub crawl with friends from university, I met a Scotsman who, it turned out, lived just down the road. David Durie, a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, had joined the civil service and was living, as we were, on a modest salary. Our lasting friendship with David and his wife, Susie, began with an invitation to a haggis dinner on Robbie Burns day. With his fine sense of humour, David tried to convince us that the haggis was an elusive animal—with two legs shorter on one side than on the other—that his father had trapped on a Scottish moor. David went on to a distinguished civil service career and ultimately was appointed governor of Gibraltar.

When our year in London was coming to an end, we vowed to come back to live and to work. But for the moment, we prepared for our return to Canada.

When Susan and I arrived in Montreal in the late autumn of 1967, the mood in the country was wonderfully upbeat. The centennial year, crowned by Expo 67, was accompanied by a burst of pride and shared patriotism. Pleased to be returning there, and surrounded by friends and family, we quickly settled in and started new jobs—I as a legal adviser to the Canadian Air Line Pilots Association, and Susan with the National Film Board. At the same time, I could see that Canada was entering a period of significant change, although I did not know the direction it would take. But I had a strong feeling that the 1960s-spawned upheaval playing out in the United States would inevitably reach across the border. The early months of 1968 were indeed to become a harbinger of change. A political revolution was in the making.

2

SERVING THE PRIME MINISTER

On February 16, 1968, Minister of Justice Pierre Elliott Trudeau announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. While I had met Trudeau and some of his early key supporters, such as fellow British Columbian Gordon Gibson, Quebec lawyer Marc Lalonde, and Quebec organizer Pierre Levasseur, I was still surprised when the telephone rang asking if I would join the leadership campaign team. I agreed, subject to my employer in Montreal, the Canadian Air Line Pilots Association, offering me a leave of absence. My boss thought it was an excellent idea, and Susan was all for it. So off to Ottawa I went, taking my first step directly into the world of federal politics.

My interest in politics began at an early age. Growing up in Nelson, I had occasion to meet a succession of mayors and local representatives sitting in the British Columbia Legislature. This was not as surprising as it may sound, for Nelson was a small community of some seven thousand people. I remember how impressed I was when I met the formidable Bert Herridge, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and later New Democratic Party member of Parliament for Kootenay West. English born, erudite, and a fine speaker, he became known as the Squire of Kootenay West and served in Parliament for close to twenty-three years. Despite all that, to the best of my knowledge, my parents voted either Conservative or Liberal. Socialism was not looked upon with affection in my household.

Local and provincial politics interested me less than national politics. I remember going to listen to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker when he visited nearby Trail and sitting just below his speaking platform. Seeing Dief the Chief in full rhetorical fury made a strong impression, but something else that happened on that occasion left perhaps an even more lasting impression, especially for a young boy. Seated in the audience was a group of Doukhobor protesters, local folk of Russian origin who were self-proclaimed pacifists. At a certain point in the speech, the all-woman group rose in unison and shed their clothes. The audience gasped, but Diefenbaker was quick to respond. I will not be intimidated, he exclaimed. I have seen those things before.

I was already fascinated by the history and politics of both the ancient and modern world, and in particular the struggle among great powers in peace and war. With a deep appetite for historical texts, and encouraged by my father, I would read aloud to him on Sunday afternoons. My only foray into student politics was my successful run for the presidency of the Trafalgar Junior High School student council, but by the time I entered first year at ubc, I had some knowledge of thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Lenin.

At university, as a keen debater and president of the debating union, politics was never far from my mind. Following Oxford Union rules, I relished the thrust and parry around resolutions such as Canada deserves its own flag; No truck or trade with the Yankees; Quebec separatism must be opposed; Better peacekeepers than warriors; The Canadian West is being exploited by the East; and Canada must renounce nuclear weapons. My political views were maturing, but I had no partisan affiliations.

—

So here I was in 1968, with no shiny Liberal Party credentials, off to support a man who had captured my imagination with his invocations of the just society. While some considered Trudeau a parvenu, the fact that Prime Minister Lester Pearson had given him a supportive nod said something to me. The leadership campaign itself was intense and exciting. I was thrown into policy analysis, some wordsmithing, and lots of organizational work. Trudeau performed with a style that tantalized and provoked. The signs of Trudeaumania—the teeming crowds, flashing cameras, screaming young women—were everywhere. The array of competitors for the Liberal crown was formidable: experienced and respected figures such as Paul Martin Sr., Robert Winters, John Turner, Allan MacEachen, Paul Hellyer, Eric Kierans, and Joe Greene. In the end, at the leadership convention on April 6, following seven and half hours of voting, Trudeau prevailed on the fourth ballot. As I stood in the brightly lit convention hall in Ottawa, I could feel the electricity. The earth as we knew it had moved. An advocate of the so-called new politics had triumphed and the era of Trudeau, the philosopher king, was about to begin.

Following the convention and a round of enthusiastic celebrations, I returned to my job in Montreal as I had promised I would do. Driving back, with the first signs of spring along the highway, I was elated. I felt that in some small way I had contributed to a political transformation. I also weighed my options. Should I continue with my legal career? Teach at law school? Seek my fortune in business? I had even toyed with the idea of running for office myself one day, and my close-up look at the Trudeau leadership campaign made me think it might be worth a try.

In the wake of the April 6 triumph, and then Trudeau’s swearing in as Canada’s fifteenth prime minister, I knew that a federal election was not far off. When I heard that the date had been set for June 26, I felt I was missing being part of a history-making event and longed to become involved. But my professional commitments in Montreal kept me focused on my job. After all, I could not possibly ask for a second leave of absence. So I sat out the election in Montreal.

As I expected, Trudeau won a convincing majority; the country appeared to be in his thrall. What I was not expecting was a call from James Richardson, who had recently been appointed to the Trudeau cabinet and would go on to become minister of supply and services. He was a scion of an old Winnipeg-based family that had built its fortune in the grain trade. He had left the post of chief executive in the family company in order to run for Parliament in 1968. Now he was looking for an executive assistant to take charge of his office, and he invited me to meet with him in Ottawa.

At first I was skeptical, clinging to the notion that I had to get on with building some solid private-sector credentials. Furthermore, I had no connections to Richardson’s home base of Winnipeg. When we met, though, I was taken by his idealism. He was a true believer in the maxim that serving in public office was the noblest of pursuits. He had given up the reins of corporate power for what he felt was the common good, not an easy decision for a man of privilege charged with perpetuating a family dynasty. I was also struck by his ambition to bring to the Trudeau team a business perspective, emulating the tradition of the highly influential wartime economic czar C.D. Howe. Richardson made no secret of his affection for Western Canada and the need for the West to have greater influence in national policy. At the conclusion of our conversations, I was offered the job, and told him I would accept.

Susan greeted me upon my return to Montreal and agreed to all that this would entail, beginning with a move to Ottawa. This was easier said than done. I had to explain my decision to my employers, who were disappointed but understanding. In turn, Susan would have to cut her ties with her employer, the National Film Board of Canada. Susan and I were happy in cosmopolitan Montreal, where she was born, and we worried we would miss the company and support of her parents. But they reminded us that Ottawa was not far off, and, being Winnipeggers themselves, they liked the idea that I would be working for Jim Richardson.

With little delay, we took up our new residence in the Island Park Towers, overlooking the Ottawa River and a short distance from Parliament Hill. Susan enrolled in a master of arts program in philosophy at Carleton University, and I took on my new duties working from the minister’s office in the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings. Having a keen interest in both history and architecture, I was thrilled to be situated at the House of Commons, with the Senate and the magnificent Library of Parliament only steps away.

The work was arduous but invigorating. Part of it required me to stay on top of Jim’s needs as a minister, including his preparations for cabinet and cabinet committees and the daily question period in Parliament. Part of it related to his departmental responsibilities as minister of supply and services; the remainder involved his constituency commitments as the member of Parliament for Winnipeg South. This meant multitasking: running an efficient office, providing political intelligence, offering policy advice, writing speeches, and overseeing the minister’s relations with his constituents. It also required close contact with other ministers’ offices and the Prime Minister’s Office (pmo). Here, the relationships I had developed during Trudeau’s leadership campaign proved helpful and opened doors that otherwise may not have been so accessible.

I often travelled to Winnipeg with Jim, and in addition to meeting many of his constituents, I was privileged to connect with a number of prominent Winnipeggers whom I would later come to know well—among them Izzy Asper, Sandy Riley, Arni Thorsteinson, Jack Fraser, Albert Cohen, Arthur Mauro, and the young Gerry Schwartz and Jim Carr. Schwartz would go on to become one of Canada’s most influential entrepreneurs, and Carr a senior minister of the Justin Trudeau cabinet.

In those early days I also met two members of Jim Richardson’s family with whom I would work in later years: his daughter, Carolyn Hursh, with whom I served as a fellow director of the Calgary-based Max Bell Foundation and who would later serve as chair of the board of the family enterprise; and Jim’s nephew, Hartley Richardson, who eventually served as the company’s chief executive officer. Hartley and I would become friends and colleagues with close associations through what today is the Business Council of Canada and the National Gallery of Canada.

Jim Richardson was always a supportive boss. With his family in Winnipeg, he and I would often dine together on weekdays in the Parliamentary Restaurant and return to the office and chat well into the night. He was learning the ropes and so was I—and there was much to learn. Because his home in Ottawa was the Château Laurier, only a few steps from Parliament, he dispensed with the use of the chauffeured car provided as a matter of course to cabinet ministers. To my surprise, he insisted I take charge of the car, along with its driver, the affable Sgt. Stubinski. I attempted to return the car to the Crown, only to be told it was not possible. So, for the better part of a year, I endeavoured to keep Stubinski fully tasked, including driving me to and from work. I must admit, I enjoyed the perk immensely but tried not to get too used to it.

—

In June 1969, less than a year into my job with Jim, I was asked by a member of the prime minister’s staff if I might be interested in joining the team. Considering how little time I had spent in my present position, my first reaction was to hesitate. Yet I had always made it clear to Jim that my principal interest was national policy, and now here was my chance. We had a heart-to-heart chat about it, and in the end Jim generously supported my decision to take the job. With his blessing, I moved into the pmo as a special assistant with primary responsibilities for policy analysis and speechwriting. Jim Richardson was a gentleman, and I was indeed fortunate to have had him as my first boss in Ottawa, despite it not lasting that long. In addition to introducing me to the regional politics of Manitoba, he deepened my appreciation of the West’s importance in the federation. A bonus of working with Jim was to hear his views on business and family enterprise, subjects that would be at the centre of my life for decades to come.

I was to begin my new responsibilities on September 2, but first I needed to brush up on my French. I was assigned to a deep immersion course where my one and only classmate was the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the Honourable Robert Stanfield. I was quickly impressed by Stanfield’s intelligence and quiet sense of humour, if not his facility for French. A couple of weeks in close quarters with him, and I was struck as well by his deep integrity. He spoke of politics and the country in a way that hit home. That initial bonding led to a lifelong friendship spurred on by the fact that my former UBC roommate Joe Clark was Stanfield’s executive assistant at the time.

One of the first things I did in my new job was send a note to the prime minister and his senior staff that I rather cheekily titled The Tortoise and the Hare. In it, I outlined Stanfield’s major strengths and warned that Trudeau, the hare, should not take the Tory tortoise for granted. While I received a couple of polite acknowledgements, no one took my cautionary note seriously—until the election of October 1972, when Stanfield came within a few votes of unseating Trudeau.

Most of the prime minister’s senior staff were original Trudeau loyalists who had already been battle-tested for more than a year. Among the senior players were Marc Lalonde as principal secretary, Ivan Head as foreign policy adviser, Jim Davey as program secretary, Pierre Levasseur, in charge of the recently created regional desks, Roméo LeBlanc as press secretary, Timothy Porteous as chief speech writer, and Gordon Gibson as the prime minister’s first executive