Legacy an issue for former N.S. premier Gerald Regan in life and death
ERIC WYNNE / SALTWIRE NETWORK
by “forward-looking measures,” according to Dan Reid, Regan’s minister of fisheries, perhaps because he grew up in rural Nova Scotia during the Great Depression, his children say.
In 1972, his government nationalized the Nova Scotia Light and Power Company in a bid to keep rates down.
Anxious to bring industrial development to Nova Scotia, he championed a new super port at the Strait of Canso, tried to harness the immense Bay of Fundy tides, and one day could be seen on the front page of the Chronicle Herald holding a vial of the offshore oil that he hoped would one day be the economic lifeblood of the province. At different points in time, Regan tried to convince both Aristotle Onassis and Baron Edmond de Rothschild to invest in Nova Scotia.
“He was a big thinker and dreamer,” said his son, David.
Even political opponents from that period, like former Tory cabinet minister Rollie Thornhill remember Regan as “a gentleman in the house,” who took the time to show the former mayor of Dartmouth the ropes when he arrived in the legislature as a rookie MLA.
Regan’s days running the province ended in 1978 when his government was defeated by John Buchanan’s Conservatives.
Two years later, Regan returned to the federal stage, winning a seat in the House of Commons. He held a variety of cabinet positions in the Liberal governments of Pierre Trudeau, among them minister of labour, minister of international trade and minister of energy, mines & resources.
When the Liberals fell in 1984, in the way things can work in closeknit Halifax, Regan lost his seat to Halifax lawyer Stewart McInnes, later a Mulroney cabinet minister, whom he would play weekly pickup hockey with for decades.
Back in Halifax, according to his obituary, Regan served as a director of a number of Canadian companies, and in 1990 became legal counsel to Patterson Palmer, which merged with McInnes Cooper in 2005. He held that position until his retirement in 2014.
Out of public eye, family members say, Regan was the same as he always was: proud and supportive of his six children, a gregarious man who would take forever to walk through a crowded room because, according to daughter Laura, “he would stop and talk to everyone and anyone,” a big spirit who liked to end every party in the Regan house with a game of ring-aroundthe-Rosie.
But his life didn’t stay private for long.
In October of 1993, the RCMP issued a news release announcing that they had been looking into accusations of sexual assault against Regan. Regan eventually went to trial in 1998 on eight charges including rape, attempted rape and forcible confinement for crimes allegedly committed in 1956 and 1969 against victims aged 14 and 18 at the time.
In the end, all eight charges against Regan were dismissed. A year later, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruled that a provincial court judge was wrong when he decided to stay seven earlier indecent assault charges against Regan.
Regan appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the reinstated charges. But, in 2002, Nova Scotia’s Public Prosecution Service decided not to proceed with them.
The ongoing courtroom saga didn’t drive Regan into the shadows.
Into his 80s, he still played hockey several times a week. He also took up skiing late in life.
Until just two years ago, Regan — runner-up in the Nova Scotia Junior Men's tennis at age 19, but also co-winner of the Canadian over-85 men's doubles championship somewhat later — was still playing tennis on the court beside his Bedford home. (His longtime neighbour and tennis partner Slavko Negulic described Regan as a net rusher, with good reflexes for his age, who could get most every opponent’s serve back in play.)
As always, he gauged his energy level by how many innings he felt he could pitch for his beloved Cincinnati Reds.
Friends and family say that the sex-related charges and long court saga took a toll on Regan.
But his children say that his tenacity got him through that, just as it allowed him to hang in for days longer than expected when he went into hospital.
When he died, they chose to remember him for the good he did, the way, according to son David, he “left Nova Scotia a better place” and how, according to his old friend Dan Reid, he “dedicated himself to the service of this province."