‘HE WAS A GIANT’
ALBERTA MP SERVED AS DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, FINANCE MINISTER
Don Mazankowski, a former deputy prime minister and longtime Conservative power broker in Alberta, has died at age 85.
His death was announced in the House of Commons, which observed a moment of silence in his memory on Wednesday.
Mazankowski — often known simply as “Maz” — ran a car dealership in Vegreville, Alta., before running for federal office in 1968. That began a 25- year career in Parliament that included serving in several top cabinet roles in the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, including finance minister and deputy prime minister. Mulroney called Mazankowski his “minister of everything.”
After retiring as an MP, Mazankowski stayed deeply involved in public policy, including chairing former Alberta premier Ralph Klein’s Advisory Council on Health, and was a key player in the 2003 “Unite the Right” negotiations that produced the modern Conservative Party of Canada.
“He was a giant,” Mulroney told National Post on Wednesday.
During his time in politics, Mazankowski was a powerful western voice in the Progressive Conservative caucus and a key ally of Mulroney. He’s considered to be among the most influential deputy prime ministers in Canadian history, serving in that role from 1986 to 1993, quarterbacking much of the government’s agenda and advocating the Canada- U. S. free-trade agreement.
“Maz became the chief operating officer of the government,” Mulroney told the Post. Mulroney said he was often away from Ottawa during this period due to free- trade negotiations and the Meech Lake accords, and Mazankowski became his voice in Parliament.
“He spoke for me and chaired many sensitive cabinet committees,” Mulroney said. “Mazankowski was a House of Commons man. He would take on tough partisan issues ... He was a superb leader and politician. He was excellent with cabinet colleagues and MPS.”
Mulroney listed off a long line of government policies that Mazankowski helped shape due to his Western Canadian advocacy, including transferring the National Energy Board headquarters from Ottawa to Calgary and privatizing Petro- Canada and Air Canada.
A Maclean’s profile of Mazankowski in 1986 said that despite his key role in government, “Mulroney’s new deputy is by all appearances without personal enemies.”
“In Ottawa, Mazankowski at first became part of a group of western Tories with a wild and woolly reputation under the unofficial leadership of fellow Albertan Jack Horner,” the profile read. “But Maz maintained a less rambunctious manner. He became known for dark suits, a ready smile and an earnest speaking style — and for developing respect and friendships in the fractious Tory party.”
Mazankowski was born in the tiny Alberta town of Viking, about an hour east of Edmonton, to parents of Polish descent who immigrated from the United States.
“In 1960 he moved to Vegreville and opened an automotive business with his brother, Ray,” says Mazakowski’s biography on the Alberta Order of Excellence website. “His life and career took on a new direction when he met Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who was travelling through Vegreville on a speaking tour. Inspired by Diefenbaker’s insistence that the West play a meaningful role in the nation’s business, Don began working behind the scenes in local politics.”
After his retirement from politics in 1993, Mazankowski went on to serve on a wide array of private and public sector boards. He delivered a report on health care reform for Alberta premier Ralph Klein in 2001 that made wide-ranging recommendations to manage the cost of the health care system.
He also established the Don Mazankowski Scholarship Foundation, served on the board of governors of the University of Alberta, and chaired the Institute of Health Economics and the Canadian Genetics Diseases Network. The Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, opened in 2009, carries his name. Mazankowski would also play an important role during the “Unite The Right” negotiations in the early 2000s, serving as a Progressive Conservative emissary during talks with the Canadian Alliance that eventually created the modern Conservative Party of Canada.
He was given a long list of awards, titles, and honorary degrees over his life. He was inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2003, and in 2013 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest level. He was part of a small group to have been given the title of Right Honourable in 1992, an honorific normally reserved for those who served as prime minister, governor general or chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Mulroney called Mazankowski, “the salt of the Earth from Vegreville, Alberta.”
“To me, he turned out to be indispensable,” Mulroney said. “Few will match him in history.”