Sean Conway speaks to 40th anniversary celebration

Notes for remarks by Sean Conway at the 40th anniversary celebration of the election of the Peterson government

Let me begin my remarks by thanking our hosts for this afternoon’s event, Deb Matthews and Charles Beer and all their many helpers who have organized this splendid gathering.

And how great it is to see so many of you – hundreds of you – gathered here on this warm, sunny Monday afternoon – so many of you still so young and so vibrant – to celebrate the important events of forty years ago this month – events still so hard to believe and yet so impossible to forget – and how that event and what was to follow changed the arc of so many of our young lives.

Lets’ all take a moment to remember one who is not here in person but certainly is here in spirit and that is our dear friend and former leader – and a vital actor in the events of May-June1985 – Robert Fletcher Nixon – who is but weeks away from celebrating his 97th birthday.

June 26th 1985 – that too was a warm and sunny day – as thousands gathered on the front lawn of the Legislative Building @ Queen’s Park to witness something that had not happened in 42 years – Then swearing-in of the first ONTARIO LIBERAL GOVERNMENT since the middle of World War II.

Remember that setting if you can – the very large and happy crowd – the elevated stage awaiting the arrival of the Lt. Governor and the premier-elect and his wife – and a gentle summer breeze caressing the scene in anxious anticipation that something rare and long overdue in old Upper Canada was about to occur.

Moments later, there stood the ever-youthful, Premier David R. Peterson flanked on one side-side by his wife and principal advisor Shelley and on the other, by the sage of St. George, the newly-minted Deputy-Premier and Treasurer of Ontario, the Hon. Robt. F. Nixon who were soon surrounded by the group of just-sworn-in cabinet minsters, 23 in all as I recall.

Welcome to the swearing-in

In his brief remarks, the new Premier welcomed all to the first-ever outdoor swearing-in of an Ontario cabinet, thanked all who came – and many from quite a distance as if they needed physical proof that ‘ the change that was happening before their very eyes’ was real and not some sort of mirage ! Premier Peterson assured those in attendance that he planned to provide liberal and progressive government in the manner that the OLP’s recent electoral manifesto had promised, that his would be an ‘ open government without walls or barriers ‘ and he couldn’t wait to begin his new job.

With those brief remarks, the premier then invited the large crowd, now near sweltering under a hot midday sun, to retire to the legislative building for fresh Ontario strawberries and cool apple juice – and if they wished, to take a tour of their parliament building where they would find most doors open and awaiting their arrival.

Here, let me digress to recall a very interesting occurrence that happed that day about two hours after the premier completed his remarks and had invited everyone present inside for refreshment; after that refreshment had been enjoyed and digested, our first cabinet meeting had just begun in the Cabinet room on the east side of the 2nd floor of the legislature – a room none of had ever seen or been in with the likely exception of a teenage Bob Nixon who almost surely would have been there during the war with his father Harry C. Nixon, then serving wartime Ontario as its deputy-premier and in 1943, its last Liberal premier.

Well, that first Liberal cabinet meeting in 42 years was about 5-to-7 minutes old when the cabinet secretary Dr. Edward. E. Stewart who was seated right behind the premier leaned over to my seat and asked anxiously ‘That woman seated quietly and properly in the far corner of the cabinet room – does she belong to the new government ?’ to which I think I said nervously, No, I don’t believe so’ at which point, near panic broke out while the cabinet secretary then interrupted the premier to settle the question – who was this ‘that woman’?

Well, all’s well that ends well because when the question was put the ‘that woman ‘, she nicely said that she was simply a citizen who had come to Queen’s Park that day to watch the ceremony, that when she heard the new premier tell all that since this was their place, their legislative building, why don’t you as citizens come in, take a look around and while your doing that, enjoy some refreshments. What seems to have happened – and it could only have happened on this one day – was that the woman had walked by the cabinet office door which was open at the time and then she proceeded to find out what went on in that particular space and apparently shortly thereafter – after she took a seat in the back corner of that important-looking room to finish her apple juice , a cabinet meeting broke out without anyone checking the woman’s credentials which, once found wanting, caused her to be politely ‘shown the door’ as probably the only regular citizen to have ever attended a provincial cabinet meeting while it was in progress.

Remembering our accomplishments

Let us recall on this happy occasion what the Peterson government was elected to do, among other things.

• Run an activist government to modernize Ontario’s public services and, quite frankly, to re-orient the largest province in Canada to the quickly changing world in which we all now lived.
  To protect medicare by (i) banning extra-billing and (ii) by eliminating OHIP premiums as a method of financing the largest single program run by the Ontario government of that day and today.
• To protect the environment by, among other things, proclaiming The Spills Bill which had been on the books for some time but not yet proclaimed which would have made it effective; By developing a significant jobs program for young people facing unacceptable levels of unemployment at that time time.
• By completing funding for the Roman Catholic school system by (i) legislating in this area on a priority basis, (ii) by beginning the first-year phase-in of extension in September 1985; (iii) by providing in our government’s legislation – as it happened Bill 30, – very strong job protection for any teacher or other person adversely affected by the implementation of this extension policy; (iv) by giving the public unfettered opportunity to discuss the government’s separate school policy in the legislative committee which would be holding public hearings all across Ontario; and (v), by an early referral of the legislation Bill 30 to the highest court in the province, the Ontario Court of Appeal, for an adjudication of its constitutionality.
• By focussing Ontario’s economic outlook more on Europe and Asia by strengthening our presence, e.g. by establishing provincial trade offices in places like New Delhi ; by supporting Ontario-based auto plants in their wish to expand their operations in Ontario; by re-focussing our educational system to better understand and support the skilled trades and the importance of that relationship to our economic growth and prospects; by establishing a Premier’s Council on Economic Development; by creating Ontario Centres of Excellence whose mandate would be to better connect new technologies that were quickly emerging and link new-age companies developing in Ontario with the tremendous research capacity of Ontario’s universities to assist with the commercialization of research occurring in Ontario.
• To promote equal opportunity so that all citizens in the rapidly changing Ontario of the late 20th-century would feel at home and fairly treated by, (i) legislating equal pay for work of equal value, (ii) legislating first contract arbitration, long a major irritant in Ontario’s labour market, (iii) modernizing the Ontario Human Rights Code, (iv) establishing a Race Relations Secretariat within the Ontario Public Service, (v) by reforming the way in which the Ontario government as a very large employer actually behaved in its own market place by (i) making sure that all those under-represented groups in our society from women to visible minorities to disabled persons ( to name but three groups) would seem themselves fairly treated and given every opportunity, with the requisite qualifications, to assume leadership positions not only in our public services but also in our wider economy and society.

An important note here to stress. How many of you will remember the first time you met Robert F. Nixon, our treasurer, on his way to an important meeting with business leaders with his new deputy- minister – the very youthful Ms. Mary Mogford walking along with him !!! remember that … and remind yourself of the words of that old song, ‘times … they are a changin’.

Thanks to all

As I conclude my remarks this afternoon, I want to make some quick and summary comments: (i) none of the above would have/could have happened without all of you and many more like you who worked tirelessly as we prepared for that 1985 election that brought us to office; (ii) as I think about the preparation for that ’85 election, I am very cognizant of what an outstanding research office we had up a Queen’s Park preparing an outstanding policy program for that election, a policy program that once we faced ‘the hung parliament’ produced by the May 2nd election, made, as far as I was concerned, “ The Accord” both a very natural and almost an easy undertaking given the common areas to which both parties had committed themselves to during that campaign; (iii) about that ’85 campaign, how will we ever be able to fully thank people like Hershel Ezrin, Vince Borg, Geroge Hutchison, Deb Matthews, Ross McGregor, Jack Heath, Jan Innes, Jan Whitelaw, Kathy Robinson, Moira McIntyre, Pat Sorbara, Tom Zizys and his outstanding research team – and so many, many more of you that time does not allow me to enumerate.

Finally, to David R. Peterson, for more than anything else – and I can assure you there is so much more than I could enumerate – for his faith in our cause at that crucial time – late in the very bad year of 1984 when the only news we Ontario Liberals often got up at Queen’s Park was bad news – MPPs leaving to run for federal office in September, then losing two of four seats we had held for years in by-elections on December 13th, one bad opinion poll after another in the year leading up to the call of the May 2nd ’85 election, more MPPs leaving our front bench for apparently greener pastures … and on the dark skies rolled.

Through it all, the hard work, the ability to pivot after Bill Davis left the scene, his outstanding energy, enthusiasm and just plain pluck from the first to the last day of that ’85 campaign – David Peterson was the source of so much encouragement to all of us in the field; and most of all, David Peterson’s faith that if the Tories give us, as an opponent in the upcoming campaign – Frank S. Miller – that will be, David said , for us – you and me – the political opportunity of a lifetime … and Conway, he’d say, I don’t know about you but I sure as hell don’t plan to miss that door of opportunity when it opens as it did one cold winter night in late January 1985 when Frank Miller won the Tory leadership race.

A final word

A final word and it won’t surprise those of you who know of my interest in things historical. On my way here earlier this sunny June afternoon, I stopped to a walk about my former workplace over at Queen’s Park and to get myself  ‘spiritually’ ready for making these remarks this afternoon, I paid a visit to my favourite place on the grounds at QP, the beautiful piece of sculpture done by the famous Canadian artist Walter Allward who, you may know was responsible for the towering and very moving Vimy memorial to the Canadian soldiers who died in France during The Great War.

Well, you probably don’t know or have ever visited or even heard of a much smaller but in some ways, an even more exquisite piece of public art that Walter Allward was commissioned to produce to honour those yeoman farmers of Upper Canada who, led by the rebel William Lyon Mackenzie, marched down Yonge Street to contest the never-ending undemocratic rule by what was known as The Family Compact – a nice phrase for the Tory establishment of the day.

The beautiful Allward sculpture which has been desecrated since its installation in the 1940s – by desecration I mean that a reflecting pool essential to an appreciation of the whole piece has long ago been filled in apparently on dubious safety grounds which destroys the aesthetic of whole piece. However, what remains is to be found on the most westerly piece of QP ground and features (i) a head and shoulder bronze bust of Wm. Lyon Mackenzie looking westward to the great agricultural hinterland of western Ontario – the Mackenzie bust is mounted on a 7 ft. granite column, (ii) a most impressive and somewhat larger than life allegorical representation of a yeoman farmer with plough in one hand and a book in the other representing the beleaguered and abused yeoman farmers of the time – the 1820s 1830s trying to get ahead but unable to do so because they are captive of a government that does not understand nor represent their interests.

The importance of the book in the farmer’s hand is to represent the farmer’s effort to understand how to bring about necessary change by peaceful means if possible and what the reflecting pool did when it was in operation, was reflect the sunlight of a sunsetting over the good lands of places like Brant, Oxford, Norfolk and so many other places across the western peninsula out of which region came the Clear Grits and later from which the Reform/Ontario Liberal movement developed. Most importantly for my purposes on this, the 16th day of June, 1985 is the inscription on the Allward Monument which reads:

This monument to commemorate the struggle for responsible government in Upper Canada and the pioneers of a politcial system which unites in free association the nations of the British Commonwealth.

Read those words, my dear Liberal friends, and on this special day of remembrance, let us recall with pride and thanks the political tradition that gave us purpose and strength.