Link Byfield’s legacy improved Canada
If you want to understand where Canada is today, then you had better understand what happened here during the ’80s, and there is no better way to do this than review a selection of Alberta Report covers and lead stories from that decade.” FORMER ALBERTA TORY CABINET MINISTER TED MORTON
One of the great ironies about funerals is the person who would enjoy it most can’t be there. On Wednesday, however, former magazine publisher and cofounder of the Wildrose Party, Link Byfield, got to see a glimpse of what might be said at his funeral hopefully many, many years in the future.
Alas, on Wednesday, Preston Manning hosted a lovely tribute to Byfield at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy in Calgary, which was a veritable who’s who of Prairie conservatives — some of whom flew in from Montreal and Ottawa for the event.
Like most things Manning does, it was a classy, warm, fun and moving evening — with much laughter and good wine to honour Link, the former editor and publisher of the iconic and now defunct Alberta Report magazine and one of the key players in the Reform party and the founding of the Wildrose Party.
Why hold a tribute to a man in the prime of his life at age 62? On June 5, Link was diagnosed with incurable stage IV cancer of the esophagus and liver. Doctors have given him less than two years to live, something he intends to defy, much in the way he has defied societal trends and mores for all of his life — which in turn has helped change the disastrous fiscal diagnosis that lay ahead for Canada a few decades ago into one of promise and prosperity instead.
Link’s cancer diagnosis came a little less than two months before his mother — Virginia Byfield — passed away at the age of 85 on July 21 from stomach cancer.
With his wife Joanne — who also worked at Alberta Report — their four children — and his dad Ted Byfield, who founded the magazine and much else besides, Link heard and saw the regard in which he is held by so very many people and the positive impact he’s had on Alberta and Canadian politics.
Former Alberta Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Ted Morton said the Alberta Report magazine acted like a “catalyst” for the birth of the modern conservative movement in this country and has helped “Canada emerge as the most financially sound democracy in the world.”
“The ’80s were a pivotal decade for conservatives in the Englishspeaking democracies,” said Morton, a former professor of political science at the University of Calgary.
“The U.K. was led — rescued — by Margaret Thatcher. The U.S. was led — and revived — by Ronald Reagan. With Brian Mulroney, we had a start ... he ended the National Energy Program, brought in the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. ...
“But more and more, Canadians were tired of the political status quo ... We were tired of Ottawa using Alberta and the West as a chequebook to buy votes in Ontario and Quebec. We were tired of federal contracts going not to the most competitive bid, but to politically connected firms in Quebec. We were tired of deficits and the mounting federal debt, which grew five times under Trudeau. We were tired of seeing the loonie sink to 60 cents. We were tired of seeing western farmers sent to jail for selling their own wheat.
“We wanted change. We wanted Reform,” said Morton, of the political party and movement founded by Manning.
But how were the many thousands of people who craved more regional fairness and fiscal prudence to find each other in the days before social media and the Internet?
“Alberta Report was our Internet. It was our website, Facebook and Twitter,” said Morton, who added that Link was the “workhorse” of the Alberta Report newsroom. “In those early years, almost all roads passed through Alberta Report.”
Morton pointed out that this week, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., opened an exhibition featuring more than 100 Time magazine covers from the 1960s, as a way for Americans to better understand how that decade shaped and changed American society. “I believe that the same can be said of Alberta Report and the 1980s,” added Morton.
“If you want to understand where Canada is today, then you had better understand what happened here during the ’80s, and there is no better way to do this than review a selection of Alberta Report covers and lead stories from that decade,” said Morton as front pages of the magazine flashed on a screen behind him, spanning many decades and showing Peter Lougheed, Ralph Klein, Ron Southern and lead stories about Senate reform and western alienation.
There were other speeches too about the great journalism that was produced and the many dozens of respected journalists who got their start at Alberta Report, but it was the words of Link’s older brother, Mike, another journalist, that summed up the man best.
After telling some hilarious stories, which included Link’s love of the wilderness and mystical experiences with trees, Mike Byfield spoke of his brother’s character.
“I’ve never heard my brother lie. I’ve never heard my brother in any vicious way criticize anybody. I have never heard my brother be greedy, not once. I’ve never seen my brother cheat anyone and I’ve rarely heard him complain or get angry. It is quite remarkable how good he is compared to his older brother,” said Mike.
“I’m immensely proud of how well Link faces what he’s facing.”
And he’s doing that with much good humour and wit and plenty of perspective and positivity.
As for his words, Link spent most of his time thanking the more than 100 people in the room for their contribution to the battles waged through their ad- vocacy journalism and political involvement.
“Like all of you, Joanne and I have been part of these big struggles for freedom and truth and life and democracy, and now Joanne and I face a new struggle, an even tougher one ... I see that we are no more alone in this struggle than we were in any of the other struggles,” said Link.
“We cannot know, of course, if God will give me a reprieve from this early death, but if not, it isn’t for want of people asking.”
That the Alberta PC Party is finally starting to face some real opposition, and therefore moving towards better transparency and accountability, can also be traced to Link.
Morton pointed out that Canada is now the most financially healthy democracy in the world, and the pressure put on by Reform, which became the Canadian Alliance and then morphed into the Conservative Party, wouldn’t have happened without the vision of “a better Canada that animated Link and the Byfield family.”
That’s a grand legacy. Here’s hoping that Link will be able to watch it continue to grow over the coming decades.