N.B. lawyer, politician `best friend' to Mulroney

Sam Wakim, a New Brunswicker who became a prominent Toronto lawyer and politician and a key counsellor to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, died this week. Wakim was 85.

“Sam was my best friend in life,” Mulroney said, recalling his classmate from the pair's days at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., in the 1950s.

“He was the best friend any man could ever hope to have.

“He was friendly, he was intelligent, he was entertaining, he was funny, hardworking, loyal. Most of all, Sam was a fascinating guy. He really was a renaissance man.”

In a personal journal entry contained in Mulroney's memoir, he wrote that the two spent their time at St. F.X. eating the Lebanese food Sam's mother and eight sisters regularly sent, going out to see movies, and “drinking beer while discussing our futures well into the night.”

Wakim married Martin Robertson, a St. F.X. graduate also from Saint John. They had six children.

He went on to become counsel to the Ontario Securities Commission, a member of Parliament and a successful attorney in Toronto with his own law firm.

He also played a crucial role in every one of Mulroney's campaigns, according to the former prime minister.

“He was indispensable in my success,” Mulroney said, recalling how he put together the youth organization that pumped strength and innovation into his campaign. “That brought in hundreds of delegates that in the end made the difference between winning and losing in 1983,” he said of his successful bid for the federal Progressive Conservative leadership.

“Few people played a more important role in our victory in 1983 than Sam.”

Mulroney called Wakim an accomplished lawyer who had a keen interest in public policy and politics. He added that Wakim was a “very valued counsellor” to him throughout his life.

“He provided a completely unvarnished opinion to me,” he said. “When I was wrong, he told me point blank.

“From say 1980 on, over 40 years, we probably spoke on the phone at least once a day.”

That didn't stop until the end.

Wakim had a stroke roughly a year and a half ago and was confined to a wheelchair with paralysis gripping his right side. With his friend's health declining, Mulroney said he made three trips to Toronto in the last two and a half months.

“We had long lunches together, just the two of us, over at the National Club in Toronto,” Mulroney said. “It was just like old times, happy times.

“That was anytime I was with Sam.

“I think of this as one of the great prizes of my lifetime to have enjoyed the unbroken friendship of Sam for 62 years.”