Popular MP was kind, personable

‘Welcome to Windsor,” the late Herb Gray told a startled young reporter in January 1983, after the federal cabinet minister had crossed a crowded room to introduce himself.

And that was the secret to the remarkable political success of Herb Gray, the Gray Fog, the Right Honourable, but ultimately, just plain Herb: an entire city knew him by first name alone, because that’s how he introduced himself.

Gray went out of his way to be kind, personable and attentive to everyone he met, regardless of rank. It was hard work, but smart politics. And what Gray was, above all else, was a smart, extremely hardworking politician.

How hard? He was known to put in 18-hour days, week after week, month after month, even while in opposition. A staffer once suffered a heart attack during one of his letterwriting marathons, an incident he wrongly blamed on himself.

Gray was a relentless taskmaster at work, churning out an endless chain of letters that must fill a warehouse somewhere: letters of thanks, letters admonishing the government (when it was Conservative), letters of solidarity to those who asked for his intervention or support.

Gray was the best thing the Liberal party had going for it in Southwestern Ontario for more than 40 years, although the party didn’t always treat him with the respect he deserved for devoting his life to its success.

Naming a highway after him last year — the Right Hon. Herb Gray Parkway is the $1.4-billion Highway 401 link to Michigan — was small recompense for the shabby way Prime Minister Jean Chretien treated him at the end of his parliamentary career.

Gray was unceremoniously dumped before his time by Chretien when it suited the prime minister. That cheated Gray out of becoming the second-longest serving MP in Canadian history.

Ever the party loyalist, Gray didn’t complain publicly about what Chretien did to him and probably not even privately, either. But it hurt him, friends said.

Gray was the reason the Liberals owned the riding of Windsor West unchallenged for 40 years, not the other way around. Gray’s personal popularity and the link he forged one by one with voters made him so invincible he probably could have won for any party he represented.

Because of the extensive constituency work he did between elections, especially while in opposition, Gray never had to campaign too hard for re-election. But he did anyway. He was always campaigning, really.

As many of his former Conservative, Reform and Alliance party foes noted Tuesday, Gray was also a fearsome Liberal partisan — but not a mean one. He didn’t gossip to the media. He didn’t hit below the belt.

Gray never sneered, condescended or spread falsehoods of his political opponents that I ever heard. Which other politician alive today can that be written of ?

That said, a lot of the Herb Gray myth was, well, myth.

His alleged love of rock ‘n’ roll was a pure media invention as far as I could tell. But it was a myth that he carefully cultivated once he saw how it connected him to young voters. He was more than willing to play along.

The other major myth about Gray was how much he managed to bring home to Windsor in terms of visible pork barrel benefits. Liberals will dispute this, naturally. But during Gray’s time in office, most of the financial spoils of Liberal political victory flowed elsewhere — namely, Quebec, Toronto and the Atlantic provinces.

Windsor never got much political loot from Gray because Ottawa knew this city would always vote Liberal anyway. Except, as the Liberal party eventually discovered, Windsor voters were actually loyal to Herb Gray, not the party. Once he was forced into retirement, the safest seat in the country went with him.

In later life, Gray himself felt that his most important accomplishment was speaking up for Chrysler Canada when the U.S. parent corporation had its brush with bankruptcy in 1979. He was rightly proud of that.

There is little doubt that Gray’s voice was pivotal in saving Chrysler. He must have had to pledge all his markers to convince cabinet to guarantee the company’s loans on the Canadian side of the border. But once they agreed to, a reluctant U.S. federal government was forced to follow suit.

Finally, there is his nickname, the Gray Fog, a label attached to him late in life for his gift of deflecting tough questions by admitting absolutely nothing of consequence, for hours on end.

No matter how embarrassing or numerous the scandals of the day were — and under Chretien there were plenty — the Liberal government was able to deploy Gray as a one-man neutralizing fog machine, to politely, doggedly protect cabinet and the party from the relentless attacks of the opposition.

Gray was a party man, through and through. And if we were lucky enough to have a lot more like him, politics would be a kinder and more honest sphere of life.