Late politician set high standard

Crosbie never shirked from his duties and responsibilities

The informed political analyst and individual familiar with the inner workings of the political system can offer more in-depth opinions than can I concerning the late John C. Crosbie.

For me the former federal and provincial politician from Newfoundland and Labrador was one of those larger than life figures up there on the public stage. Yet, there was always something about Crosbie that made him, for want of a better description, appear more human, more real and more the type of person who understood the person out there whose voice is seldom if ever heard or, one might say, who invariably is at the back of the hall, far removed from where the big shots sit.

This came home to me in a personal way more than 30 years ago on the one and only occasion I ever spoke with Crosbie personally.

I was at a gathering where Crosbie was the featured guest. It was more a social type thing than a political one. At it with me were my parents.

Neither of them, nor I, were accustomed to such get togethers. At it were an array of what today my friends and I consider the muckety mucks.

My mother, in particular, was a fan of Crosbie’s. Not because she was familiar with his policies or even with partisan politics. She just liked him.

The gathering was crowded and Crosbie was surrounded by, well, the mucky muck types. Clearly, they wanted to bask in his celebrity status and maybe even let him know all of their great ideas and just how talented each of them was and what they could do for him.

I thought how great it would be if I could arrange for my mother to meet him. After all, when would she, or I for that matter, get this chance again?

So I began ploughing my way past the would-be judges, self-described important business figures and their ilk, trying to get through to him.

After a few minutes I got there and once I made eye contact (with Crosbie) said, “hey, John, you don’t know me and there’s nothing I can offer you but my mother is over there and she thinks the world of you. Any chance you …” and without another word he raised his big right arm, pushing aside two guys and started across the floor, hollering out her name as he did. He made it over to her, picked her up, kissed her on the cheek and said, “good to see you again.”

Across hundreds of halls stretching from St. John’s to Victoria there are no doubt similar accounts of John Crosbie but that is mine and to me it says it all about the man.

Operating as he did in a political world where pretention, self-righteousness and title-seeking were (and remain) commonplace, Crosbie abhorred such practices and the snobs who delight in practicing them.

Crosbie, a man of high intelligence and dedicated public service, never shirked from his duties and responsibilities. He fulfilled both honourably and effectively, managing to do so with humour and humility. He discriminated only on the basis of merit.

He had the ability to make certain that the unemployed residents of his constituency were, as he would say, “stamped up for the winter” while at the same time successfully negotiating complicated trade agreements against some of the smartest minds in the world. He could exchange barbs with Sheila Copps, enduring false accusations of misogyny in the meantime, while appointing more women to judgeships than any Justice Minister before him. He defended the rights of gays and lesbians long before it became popular or acceptable to do so.

Shortly after he lost the 1983 Progressive Conservative federal leadership race, Crosbie was home in St. John’s in order to attend, with other invitees, an audience with Queen Elizabeth, aboard her yacht, the Britannia. Understandably the large wharf-side audience stood in respectful silence to the nearby monarch.

Then, emerging from a car and walking up the gangplank were John and, his wife and partner, Jane Crosbie. Seeing the two, the crowd of Newfoundlanders cheered long and loud. He may have been beaten, he may have made mistakes, but they knew that he was still their champion and they wanted him to know they knew, Queen or no Queen standing nearby.

John Crosbie has made his last trip home and we should all cheer loud and long him and his legacy, doing our best to live up to the very high standards set by both.