Flaherty devoted himself to public life
Euromoney magazine named him the world’s best finance minister in 2009
OTTAWA — “It has been an honour to serve Canada. Thank you for the opportunity.”
As well as anything, the pithy 55- character farewell Tweet Jim Flaherty posted moments before he walked out the door of his office for the last time sums up the man’s political ideals and commitment to public service. Flaherty, one of Canada’s longest- serving finance ministers, resigned on March 18, after eight years on the job. He died Thursday of a heart attack. He was 64.
Judging by the reaction of friends and colleagues to the sudden death, it will be those ideals and that commitment for which Flaherty will be remembered.
“Jim will be sorely missed, not only by his many friends on both sides of the House,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. “But he will also be missed by the countless thousands of Canadians that he devoted himself to and whom he helped during his long and successful career in public life.”
“As minister of finance, Mr. Flaherty served his country with dedication and conviction even as he faced mounting health challenges,” Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair said. “As both a man and a politician, I will remember him for his pleasant demeanour and strength of character.”
Similar sentiments poured in to social media sites. “Deeply saddened to hear that Jim Flaherty has died,” former Liberal MP Bob Rae said in a Twitter posting. “He was a tenacious, effective and dedicated politician who reached across the aisle.”
Indeed, Flaherty was a singular politician, who stood out both for his abilities and his affability. Until his unexpected departure last month, he was the Conservative government’s first and only finance minister — and the third- longest- serving finance minister in Canadian history.
He took over the post in 2006 when the Tories were
He was just instrumental in helping to build and sustain one of the world’s best economies for a long time.
CHUCK JEANNES CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF GOLDCORP INC.
first elected to power, and held it through eight years of economic upheaval, both domestic and international. In his March resignation statement he said he was leaving politics for more family time and to pursue a private sector career.
As finance minister, Flaherty generally acted with pragmatic intent, not letting ideology overshadow economic sense. During his first years in office, with the economy doing well, he cut taxes, reducing the GST to fulfil a campaign promise. He also instituted the popular Tax- Free Savings Account, and a Registered Disability Savings Plan to help those with disabilities.
After the market crash in 2008 and the recession that followed in 2009, he showed little hesitation in running deficits to stimulate the economy and provide state guarantees to maintain the stability of the banking system. “We are all Keynesians now,” he ruefully joked.
Indeed, Flaherty wracked up nearly $ 160 billion of new debt, which has prompted drastic spending cuts in more recent years. He vowed to balance the country’s books by 2015. His last budget, delivered five weeks before his resignation, came within a whisker of delivering on that commitment.
During his tenure in office, the Canadian economy consistently outperformed those of the other G- 7 countries, boosting Flaherty’s international profile. In 2009, Euromoney magazine called him the world’s best finance minister.
“He was just instrumental in helping to build and sustain one of the world’s best economies for a long time,” Chuck Jeannes, chief executive officer of Goldcorp Inc., said Thursday. “As an American and watching for the last 10 years what’s gone on in Canada, I was just terribly impressed with Minister Flaherty and the success he had in managing through the financial crisis.”
Flaherty entered politics with his 1995 election to the Ontario legislature as a Progressive Conservative, representing Whitby- Oshawa. It was in some ways a long way from the Montreal suburb of Lachine, where he was born in 1949, one of eight children in a family of modest means.
He graduated from high school in Montreal. A hockey scholarship took him to Princeton University. He eventually received a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. And then he settled in Whitby, Ont., married, raised three children, and practised law for 20 years.
Provincially, Flaherty held various cabinet posts, including finance minister, in the Mike Harris government. He tried twice to win the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. Then in 2006, he ran successfully for the Harper’s Conservatives. Harper recognized the value of Flaherty’s Queen’s Park experience and quickly made him finance minister.
Through all of this, according to those who knew him, Flaherty never lost the common touch, or his sense of self- deprecating humour.
“That was the thing about Jim — he was a happy warrior, a man without malice,” said longtime friend L. Ian MacDonald, the editor of the Canadian magazine Policy. “That is why he was loved on all sides of the House.”
Politics is a hard business, of course, and it’s easy for politicians to become cynical. Flaherty, it seems, was an exception. He never lost his high regard for or devotion to public life even after two decades on the stage.
“Public service is good for you,” he told a group of students at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario in 2011. He recalled as an undergraduate hearing Robert Kennedy give a speech at Princeton extolling the public life. “Today, about 40 years after I heard Kennedy speak, my message is the same: Canada needs you — your skills, talents, idealism, energy and enthusiasm.
“If money was all that mattered to me, I would still be working as a lawyer in downtown Toronto. Because, I can tell you, I would be making a lot more money than I am now. … But I would have missed out on so many opportunities to shape and implement public policies that, in my opinion, have enriched others’ lives and made our communities stronger.
“In order for this to happen, however, you have to answer the call — the call like the one I heard Bobby Kennedy make so many years ago.”
Flaherty was one who answered the call, and thereby left his country — and maybe the world — a little better.
Flaherty is survived by his wife, Christine Elliott, an Ontario MPP, and three triplet sons, John, Galen and Quinn.