The ‘go-to’ politician
People drawn to Windsor MP
Every one of his 13 consecutive winning campaigns he ran like his first in 1962, never taking for granted the constituents of Windsor West.
Which is why you needed a good pair of shoes to keep up with Herb Gray when he was “on the stump,” according to retired RCMP officer Bernie Campbell, a member of the security detail that watched over the then-cabinet minister and deputy prime minister whenever he returned home. “He would go and go and go,” Campbell remembered Tuesday, following the death Monday of Gray at the age of 82.
One day campaigning in Sandwich, Gray was greeted at the door by an elderly woman who declared: “Oh Herb dear, I’m glad you’re finally here, come on in so we can talk.” And in he went. Another time, he encountered a man who angrily called him an old bugger and shouted him off his property. Gray, with his trademark dry humour, remarked as he walked away: “I guess we’ll put him down in the ‘undecided’ category.”
Though certainly not charismatic, people in Windsor were just drawn to him, perhaps because he knew everyone’s name, attended every event and took the time to listen, Campbell said. He recalled waiting every other weekend for Gray at Windsor Airport and seeing him arrive unaccompanied, wearing his cap pulled down over his ears and a big trench coat.
“This is the deputy prime minister of our country!” Campbell said. “He was so unassuming, that if you didn’t know who you were looking at you would go right past him.”
Though it’s been 12 years since Gray left the House of Commons, news of his death brought an outpouring of condolences, from the prime minister and premier to the thousands of regular Canadians he touched. First elected in 1962, he was Canada’s third-longest serving MP at almost 40 years, then went on to lead the International Joint Commission.
“Over more than five decades of public service, Herb served in 11 different cabinet portfolios and ultimately as Deputy Prime Minister,” Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said in a statement. “Unflappable in Question Period, he made an indelible mark on Canadian parliamentary life.”
Responsible for the Government of Canada loans in the early 1980s that saved Chrysler Corp. from bankruptcy, he was a champion of the auto industry, said Ken Lewenza, the recently retired CAW national president, who asked: “How many people have been employed at Chrysler and related companies since the early 1980s?”
He was the local politician who got things done, Lewenza said. When union members had a problem with their employment insurance or CPP, the union sent them to Gray, even if they didn’t live in his riding. “He was more than a Windsor West politician, he was a go-to guy,” said Lewenza, who added that Gray spent unrivalled time in union halls, listening to both labour and business. “He was damn good.”
Gray also was the go-to guy in the Jean Chretien government, becoming government House leader and solicitor general and then deputy prime minister, tamping down potential political powder kegs with his question period replies that were so dull he became known by opposition MPs as the Gray Fog.
But all the titles and the responsibilities in Ottawa “didn’t matter,” compared to his main focus, said Garry Fortune, who served as Gray’s chief assistant for more than two decades. “First and foremost was the fact he represented Windsor and Windsor West.”
He truly believed in Windsor and stood up for it and worked hard on its behalf, said Fortune, who said the comments and Tweets responding to Tuesday’s Windsor Star obituary on Gray show how much he was appreciated here.
People were amazed at the response they got from Gray when they sought his help, he said. He had his hand in everything, always writing questions and comments in the margins of briefing notes that Fortune supplied. “He would read every letter that someone sent, review all the telephone conferences, ask for notes and followups.”
Sandra Pupatello, the former Ontario cabinet minister from Windsor West who (along with former Ontario finance minister Dwight Duncan) started volunteering for Gray as a teen, said when travelling across the country, the view of Gray is completely different than it is in Windsor. People would recount how they met him when he was a federal minister in the 1970s, spearheading such major initiatives as creating the Foreign Investment Review Agency.
“It was very heady stuff, very weighty material that he dealt with, that’s how they knew him and everyone had so much respect for him,” Pupatello said. “I realized, oh my God, I think we take our Herb for granted.”