Writer and journalist Rex Murphy dead at 77

Rex Murphy, the controver‐ sial Newfoundland-born pundit and wordsmith whose writing and oftenblistering commentaries were the focus of a decades-long career in Canadian media, has died at the age of 77, according to the National Post.

"You might not agree with what Rex had to say, but oh, boy, could he ever say it," said comedian and fellow Newfoundlander Mark Critch, who performed an impres‐ sion of Murphy on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

In a report published on the Post's website on Thurs‐ day, the newspaper said Mur‐ phy died after a battle with cancer, and he had last cor‐ responded with an editor there on Tuesday, inquiring about his most-recent col‐ umn.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey posted a statement on the social platform X Thurs‐ day saying that people there "are mourning one of our own tonight, and sending condolences to his family and friends."

Murphy's "quick wit and mastery of words were un‐ matched, and his presence was significant - whether or not everyone always agreed," Furey said, echoing a theme that Critch touched upon in his own remembrances.

Critch told CBC News that he'd "only known a world with Rex in it," explaining that he grew up next to a radio station where his father worked, along with Murphy.

WATCH | Critch remem‐ bers Murphy:

"As a little boy, I remem‐ ber seeing this man with wild hair in a golden turtleneck, listening to music with dad at the house and he was larger than life," Critch said Thurs‐ day.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper, in a tribute posted on social media, re‐ membered Murphy as "one of the most intelligent and fiercely free-thinking journal‐ ists this country has ever known."

In another social media tribute, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called Mur‐ phy "an icon, a pioneer of in‐ dependent, eloquent and fearless thought, and always a captivating orator who never lost his touch."

Newspapers, radio and TV

Murphy graduated from Newfoundland's Memorial University before attending Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1968.

He got his start lending a hand at the private radio sta‐ tion VOCM in St. John's, back‐ filling a talk show while its host went on vacation.

Murphy would go on to spend many years working with CBC, including work on both radio and television. He was a National Post colum‐ nist at the time of his death and had previously written columns for The Globe and Mail.

"When Rex had some‐ thing to say, he knew exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it," Ke‐ vin Libin, a longtime editor of Murphy's work at Postmedia, told CBC News on Thursday evening.

Murphy hosted Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio for more than two decades and was a familiar face to longtime viewers of CBC's The National. His ap‐ pearances on CBC-TV date as far back as the 1970s.

Controversies and criti‐ cism

Murphy's work drew criti‐ cism, at times, including for accepting paid speaking en‐ gagements for the oil indus‐ try.

In 2014, while still hosting Cross Country Checkup and regularly contributing TV es‐ says to The National, mem‐ bers of the public com‐ plained to CBC's ombudsman that Murphy was in a conflict of interest for doing paid speeches at oil industry gath‐ erings.

Murphy had long defend‐ ed the sector, including on CBC, saying the oil boom saved many of his friends and fellow Newfoundlanders from economic ruin when the East Coast fisheries col‐ lapsed.

As for the speeches, he said nobody controlled what he said - not the oil industry, and not the CBC.

Later in life, Murphy be‐ came a loud detractor of the federal Liberal Party - despite having twice run as a provin‐ cial Liberal candidate in the mid-1980s - and Prime Minis‐ ter Justin Trudeau's govern‐ ment.

But he still had Liberals who admired him, such as longtime politician Bob Rae who posted on X that while they disagreed on many things he never lost "affec‐ tion and admiration for him. He loved Newfoundland and Canada and was fearless."

He was also an outspoken opponent of "wokeism," pro‐ gressive ideology sensitive to systemic inequities, and ar‐ gued in his column that con‐ servative voices like his were being pushed to the margins.

In a 2022 column, he de‐ cried "the frenzy of woke politics and the cancel cul‐ ture it has bred and nour‐ ished, the prescriptions on what may or may not be de‐ bated or talked about."

Two years earlier, he'd been at the centre of one such frenzy for another piece of writing in the National Post.

A week after Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, a Black man, Murphy accused liberals - both in general and in the party - of trumping up racism in Cana‐ da.

"Most Canadians, the vast majority in fact, are horrified by racism and would never participate in it," he wrote. "We are in fact not a racist country, though to say so may shock some."

The column was widely decried, prompting an editor‐ ial review at the Post, which eventually added a note at the top of the piece saying it fell short of the newspaper's standards.

WATCH | A look back at the early days: