Former Ontario Premier Bill Davis, who passed away Sunday at 92, with author Bob Rae at Davis’s birthday party in July, 2020

by Bob Rae

August 8, 2021

When I heard the news about Bill Davis’s death on Sunday morning, many memories and thoughts came to mind.

Despite the two-decade gap in our ages, our friendship grew and strengthened over many years. When I was a student at the University of Toronto, I would head across Queen’s Park to sit in the gallery and watch debates in the Ontario legislature. John Robarts was premier and Bill Davis was “all things education” — he would later shepherd into law the University of Toronto Act, which was based on a report on university government that I had helped draft as a member of the Students’ Administrative Council. He claimed later to have remembered my sitting in the gallery of the legislature, which I have always thought unlikely. But I realized in those early days he was a consummate professional, and someone interested in change. “Reforming in order to preserve”.

When I became leader of the Ontario NDP and won a seat at Queen’s Park, Conservative Premier Bill Davis sent me a note saying he could not be there for my first day as he had a dentist appointment. I sent him back a note saying I knew from other sources he was having his teeth sharpened.  It didn’t take long for those teeth to be bared —  he could be a sharp antagonist when he needed to be, but the culture at Queen’s Park in those days was a combination of tough, barracking combat in “the Leg” and much greater interpersonal camaraderie when the debating was done. At our first private meeting, he went out of his way to talk about “the interests of the province”, and asked about my family. He once asked for help “across the aisle” with a tricky piece of legislation and once satisfied that it was in everyone’s interest to get it done, I gave him my word it would happen, as did David Peterson, my Liberal colleague in opposition at the time.

That exchange, early on in my time at Queen’s Park, built on a mutual trust founded during back-channel conversations about the Charter and patriation when I was an NDP backbencher in Ottawa. When speculation mounted about a provincial election, he surprised everyone, including his caucus and cabinet, by announcing his retirement. After Frank Miller’s election as Conservative leader and what we all knew would be an election call, I made a point of going up to Bill’s MPP office and spending time with him — I knew he would have mixed feelings and, as I came to know myself, the phone suddenly stops ringing when the power has left the room. In Bill’s case, the phone calls never stopped — at so many points in our lives we just enjoyed chatting about the ups and downs of political life and the cavalcade of events passing before us. When he called me directly he would just start talking without introduction, “Robert … a word with you, if I may”…then would ensue a dialogue on all topics personal and political.

When my own surprise victory came in 1990, Bill Davis made a point of reaching out in the earliest days, and he was a constant advisor and mentor to me in what would prove to be a challenging time. We faced an economic crisis, a national unity crisis, and a new caucus and Cabinet with no governmental experience. He made it clear that he wished nothing but success for me and for the province. “If you do well, we shall all do well.” By that time he was serving on a number of corporate boards and made a point of insisting that excessive partisanship was not in anyone’s interest.

There were things we did that, he made clear, he disagreed with, but there were a number of measures of which he thoroughly approved. “Just don’t quote me, Robert”, he would chuckle on the phone, using that name more often than any other. With his own relationship with both Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien, and his own experiences on the national unity file, he proved an invaluable counsellor on constitutional issues, and we spent many moments reflecting on what Ontario had to be prepared to do in order to bridge the many national divides that were becoming deeper and less easy to resolve.

There were things we did that, he made clear, he disagreed with, but there were a number of measures of which he thoroughly approved. “Just don’t quote me, Robert”, he would chuckle on the phone, using that name more often than any other.

One call stands out in my memory.  I knew that Bill had refused to allow any buildings or projects to bear his name. I also knew that his father, Albert, had been the Crown Attorney for Peel County.  The province had approved the construction of a new courthouse in Brampton, and so I suggested that we name it “the Davis Courthouse”.  I phoned Bill to let him know that we had decided on the name and he couldn’t say no because we were honouring his dad. There was a pause on the line, and he broke up a bit as he just said “thank you”.  He called me back in ten minutes and said that it required ingenuity to make it impossible for him to say no. We laughed together many times about that.

When the government I led was unsuccessful at the polls in 1995, he was again among the first to call. He even recalled our earlier conversations in his office on the eve of the 1985 election. Once I had made my decision to leave political life in 1996 he offered some advice. “Your most challenging day in private life will be less exciting than your dullest day as Premier.” All of us who have known the joys of politics will understand what he meant. He also said that “Whatever else happens, you will always be a Canada manpower office”. I came to know the truth of that as well.  He was intensely loyal to “his team”, but he had the broadest definition of whom that included — Bill Davis was a brilliant and natural networker long before the term was invented.

Bill’s personal life was marked by the early tragedy of losing his first wife, the mother of four of his children, to cancer at a young age. His second marriage to Kathleen was a truly remarkable partnership, bringing much love and perspective to what mattered and what did not. Kathy Davis’s humour and openness is rightly legendary — an American by birth, she always joked with me that she was a Democrat and tried to keep the “progressive” alive in “Progressive Conservative”. The Davis family life has been extraordinarily rich, and it is what gave Bill — known as “Dutch” to his family — such a strong grounding in a profession that is bruising at the best of times.

Devoted husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he doted on them all, as they came to dote on him. They put up with his corny jokes, his foibles, his asides, and his love of sports, because they knew none of these were as defining as his deep love of family, friends, decency, and country. He has touched us all with his kindness and example, and we can only repay that gift with living and loving as he did.

Bob Rae, who served as 21^st premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, is Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations.