August 19, 2025 • 52 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews David Peterson. David is a former Premier of Ontario, who 40 years ago ended a 42-year Tory dynasty. He reflects on his leadership journey, the qualities that define strong leaders, and his commitment to national unity during his tenure. David analyzes how politics has evolved, noting the impact of media changes and shifting public tolerance of leaders’ behavior. He stresses the value of compromise, accommodation, and balancing social liberalism with fiscal responsibility as key principles in Canadian politics. The conversation ends with Peterson reflecting on his marriage and Brian thanking him for his leadership example, timely as the Ontario Liberal Party approaches a convention.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio R.
I've got an incredible privilege tonight to introduce you all
again to David Peterson. David Peterson is the former Premier
of the province Ontario. Forty years ago this year he
became elected as the twentieth Premier of Ontario. It ended
forty two years of Tory dynasty. And I'm not sure
(00:39):
if you know this, David, but the premier before you
was my great uncle, Harry Nixon. And so I feel
like I've got a real connection because my great uncle
was the premier during forty three and forty four, and
then I had the privilege of being David Peterson's youth
chairman during his leadership campaign and was very happy when
he got elected as a Premier of Ontario. And we're
(01:01):
gonna talk a little bit tonight about year.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Before you start into that, Crombie, I just want to
tell you I knew you had royal blood. Bob Nixon
brags all the time about the Crombie relationship, which is
you and number two. I will say now, and I'll
say publicly, this is publicly, I probably would not have
won that leadership without your help. You were this fresh faced, aggressive, fun, loud, noisy, smart,
(01:34):
charismatic young guy who organized all the youth and we
won that leadership convention. So I still oiw you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well. It was an honor working for you, sir, and
I was very happy when you became a leader, and
then ultimately when you became premier. And that was forty
years ago this year, and.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know, we've got to you didn't even shave that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I didn't. You're right, we've got we've got a leadership
review coming up, we've got a convention. I want to
talk about how you're going to vote and what you
think about that, But I did want to talk a
little bit about what you think makes a good leader.
You are an incredibly good leader. Tell me, you know,
in retrospect and history, and you've had the opportunity of
working with you know, prime ministers and other premiers and
(02:19):
lots of business people. What do you think are the
qualities that makes a good leader, Sir.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Brian. It's a very very good question. It's been written
about by the best in the business schools and political
life and what's what's Winston Churchill gotten? What about FDR?
And why this? And why some succeed in some don't.
And because there's very different qualities that people respond to.
(02:50):
I think the most important thing of a leader you
have to have followers. Now the question is how do
you generate followers and how do you work with people?
I could, you know, I could give a long speech
on this brand, and I think the first thing you
have to do. And there's many, many, many different aspects
(03:10):
of leadership and many different kinds of leaders And I
don't think it's one size fits all, because there's leadership
in all walks of life. Political leadership that's one type,
business leadership, intellectual leadership, artistic leadership. But I would say
(03:32):
having a fairly at least in political terms, having a
good center of gravity, and when I say that, being
on top of your own psyche and not being needy,
and understanding that leadership by and large is about service
(03:55):
and you have to think about the people around you
all of the time. These people that present that it's
all about them all of the time don't always And
of course Trump's an exception of that. So it just
shows that there's exceptions to everything I'm going to say.
But I think great leadership is about other people. It's
(04:17):
about listening and being centered. Now after that you need
a lot of skills, and I think you need integrity matters.
But again for Brian, I'm saying all this, and you
look south to the border. Everything I say, the opposite
is there. So I guess I have a traditional view
(04:39):
of leadership. You look at a guy like Mark Kearney
and I would say he fits in my traditional view
of what leaders are and should be. Very bright, man,
highly centered, sensitive. He's not an ego maniac. He knows
what he's doing, and having clear, articulated views and vision
(05:05):
to bring people along is important. So that's where you
start in leadership anyway, And were.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
You always a great leader? Were there were there people
that you looked up to? Were there people you sort
of tried to emulate? How did you gain your leadership skills?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I am My life, Brian is completely serendipitous. I didn't
plan anything. I had stumbled into politics as I ended
up meeting my wife, married her two and a half
months later. I ended up I didn't plan anything. I
didn't plan to run. I ran, run, ran and won,
(05:45):
and then I very quickly after that, ended up in
the first leadership. I lost that. And I don't know.
Somebody came up to me after the first caucus meeting
when Bob Nixon resigned, you'll recall that, and said, are
you going to run for leader? And I said, I
haven't even found a washert at Queens Park, how could
(06:08):
I run for a leader? Anyway? I ended up running
for leader and I didn't win. I lost to Stuart Smith.
So this I didn't plan anything. I think you absorbed
these things along the way. Now. I was always a
big reader. I always was up on the news when
(06:30):
I was a little kid. I was involved in student
politics when I was at Western and again in ways
at the University of Toronto at law school, and I
cared about things. But I didn't deliberately go out and say,
(06:52):
what are the skills of a great leader? How can
I emulate those? But I'll tell you the one thing,
a story I will tell you, though, Brian. My generation
of politics was a long time ago, as you have said,
and the biggest single influence on my life was John Kennedy.
(07:17):
It's interesting. I have sat and talked to a lot
of successful politicians of my generation. I'll use as an example,
Bill Clinton. I knew Bill Clinton when he was governor
of Arkansas before he became president. I ended up at
various events with him, and we'd end up on the
stage together. And he was a brilliant guy where all
(07:40):
of his sin's brilliant and very charismatic. He just radiated
body heat. But sitting him late at night and having
a glass of brand he say, why are you in politics?
What are the things that inspired you? A lot of
that generation referred back to that speech of Kennedy assnot
what your country can do for you, but what you
(08:00):
can do for your country. I grew up in a
very uplifting age, you know, and I was the sort
of the hippies in the sixties. And it was about
love and it wasn't about war. It was about kindness.
It was those were a lot of the dominant forces.
We weren't into the into the forces of pure greed
(08:23):
that sort of prevailed in the marketplace, and and and
and the new conservative movement. It was about service and
helping other people. It was about the people that I
hung out with through the people who went to the
Peace Corps and were giving their lives to trying to
make the world a better place. And so there's a
(08:44):
hefty dose of idealism in this and I think we
could discuss whether idealism has died or not in this
country or in other countries. The idealism of leaving you
can make a difference and wanting to make a difference,
and it's a very powerful fuel in a person's life
(09:07):
if they are have some element of ideas.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Thank you, I appreciate that. We're going to take a
break for some messages and come back and I'm going
to ask a little bit more after the break about
how you think politics has changed, how how have leaders changed,
and is this just a momentary trend or is it
something that is sort of a long term trend. Stay
with us, everyone, We're chatting with David Peterson forty years
after he last got elected as Premier of Ontario. Stay
(09:36):
with everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine to six am,
dot CA.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Welcome back, everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio. I've got
David Peterson, Premier of Ontario, with us tonight. Forty years
ago he was elected as Premier of Ontario. David, you
talked a little bit about, you know, leadership and your
own style of leadership, but then you also addressed how
you think politics and leadership has changed. I ended up
having dinner this weekend with someone who said that they
(10:19):
messed up for like fifty years. They thought that ethics
and doing what was right and all this kind of stuff,
and I hope they were just being sort of provocative,
but he said, no, you know, what I've come to
the realization, given what's happening right now, is that it's
it's greed. It's about about about graft, about you know,
trying to get your advantage for you know, your own
(10:40):
your own family, your own business. That's successful in politics today.
Obviously appointing Seth of the border. What do you think
has politics changed dramatically? You know, are we are we
into this world where it's so partisan and so to
you know, my own benefit and you know, everything you've
talked about guards to service and idealism, that's that's bygone,
(11:03):
that's nice things from nineteen seventy nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You are raising the most profound questions of our age,
because very definitely it has changed, And is it all
about greed? I don't think so. The problem is that
Trump has upset the model of everything everyone of value
or honor believed in. And look, that's accept the fact
(11:32):
that people like Trump come along once in a while.
I can understand that. But the fact that he has
any followers at all is something that I have a
hard time understanding. Is it because people have been tramped
on because he liberates them? Is it because he is
(11:53):
rich or a celebrity. I think he We're in an
age of celebrity, and there's a lot of people who
want to take a shortcut to fame and fortune by
just being famous, famous for doing something, and a lot
of times those things are not very admirable. It's just
(12:14):
craving for attention. Now why is that? Is it the age?
It's the age of what social media. When I grew up,
there were no computers were just starting. I mean, there
were no cell phones. There was a different way of communicating.
Television was in its heyday screens dominated. News was curated.
(12:41):
In other words, we didn't have all this people making
up their own truth and just peddling it on whatever
airwave or media they could find. And now there's just
so much confusion in the air, the breakdown of all
conventional methods of distresbution and curating news, and some people
(13:09):
just find it very hard to know who to believe
and how to believe them. I think Trump, to his credit,
if that's the right word, understands this actually and and
and I think the worst contributor to the modern world
is Rupert Murdoch wrote, Rupert Murdoch disaggregated media, conventional media.
(13:38):
He in a sense took cable news and turned into
partisan selling, sex, violence and right wing extremism. I think
for the without philosophy, without regard to truth or merit
based purely on the on the idea that it was self.
The tragedy is it does so. And the tragedy is
(14:03):
he has been not been totally wrong. And in many ways,
Donald Trump, it's been the beneficiary of that polemical, mean spirited, hard,
untruthful side of the world. And maybe that's maybe everybody
has some of that in them. Maybe there's a little
(14:27):
ying and Yang and all of us. But there's this
dark fascination with some of the worst parts of our character,
and certainly Trump has exploited there.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
But it sounds like you're putting most of the blame
on media. You know, let me give you a couple
of examples if I could. You know, we had a
cabinet minister at one point in time who went to
London and I think ordered a twenty four dollars orange
juice and was almost forced to resign over that. And
yet you know Trump is getting you know, jets given
(14:58):
to him. And and I was in Florida recently talking
to really nice, smart capable people that thought that was
completely okay. You know, we've got a situation where, you know,
I think we've had two or three prime ministers that
haven't been willing to spend the money to fix up
twenty four Sussex. And yet we've got Trump building the
(15:18):
biggest expansion ever of the White House and people support
of that. So what has happened in this world?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I think I don't know the answer to all of
these questions. There's no question he gets away with things
you never could have got away with before. I mean,
you know, it was a scandal with women and as
sogynists that would have destroyed anybody in my generation.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Didn't John Turner get you know, like for patting someone's rear.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I own a campanola. He patted her rear and it
almost cost him his career. And as you said, there's
a glass of Vevoda had a glass fourteen dollars glass
of orange juice in a London, England hotel that almost
cost her baby, did cost her her career, and the
tolerance level for this was almost zero. I mean Bill Davis,
(16:21):
who was one of my predecessors. I don't think he
committed any sins his whole life. And you know he
was a moderate man in all things. Bill used to
say moderation and all things.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I mean my second cousin, Bob Mixing, would disagree with
you on that.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
With them, but he would roll over in his grave
to see what people get away with today. But the
question is why, And I think this explosion I don't
blame the media. The media respect runs where there is
a market, and it's a market, and the market ad
(17:03):
buys this stuff and advised these extreme points of view.
And it has been a diminution of conventional media. What
conventional media media does or did, And I take the
big newspapers or the networks. They curated the news, they
(17:24):
aspired to tell the truth they created common kinds of
truths that we could discuss. They didn't make up things
for the sake of making up things. And there's so
many sources of news today that make up things just
because it will sell. And it's a troubling world to
(17:46):
grow up in, and trebling world to disseminate information. The
hardest thing in the information age is to convey information.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
One of the other things I wanted to ask you
about was charisma. Lots of people said you had tons
of chrisma. I had the privilege of walking door to
door with you in the I think it was the
nineteen eighty one election, and you know, you were just
unbelievable at the door. Where does charisma come from?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Well, charisma, I don't even know charisma. Let me tell
you this, Brian, you have a lot more charisma when
you've got the title. When you win, you've got charisma.
When I was losing, I didn't have that much charisma.
It's just like when I told jokes when I was premium,
(18:37):
I was really funny, and if I told the same
joke when I was leader of the Opposition, I wasn't
nearly as funny. And so you know, power creates charisma
and creates his own force field around it. But a
lot of charisma is energy caring about other people, not
(19:01):
being self possessed or self o good and it is
a generosity about life, and it's making other people feel good.
You know, some people can walk through a room and
make other people feel good. A lot of it you
go through a room is it's the eye contact and
(19:23):
you you learned to give people a little bit of
your time, and it's and it's it's a sincere thing.
It's not an insincere thing. It's and it's rooted in
a genuine like of other people.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You also attract an incredminmental loyalty people that have have
stuck with you over the years, and I think during
your your leadership and premiership and even thereafter, people that
were incredibly connected to you and loyal to you. How
do you how do you create that?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Jeez, you're being very complimentary. I'm not sure I'm very
good at any of these things. But I was blessed
that I had and I will say to the at
this point in time, to this point in history, the
finest cabinet ever assembled in the history of Ontario. I mean,
they were really bright like Uncle Bob, and like Ian
(20:24):
Scott and Sean Conway and a lot of other Not
everybody was perfect, but boy, there was a core of really,
really competent people. And how I was the orchestra conductor.
I had to work with all of them and get
them all functioning at a high level. And part of
(20:45):
doing that is trusting them and working with them and
building making it about let them build their own profile,
not step in their way every time they're doing something.
And I think I learned I learned I think in business,
(21:05):
and I was in business before before I got into politics.
You have to build other people. You have to let
them shine. You have to give them credit, and you
have to encourage them to disagree with you and reward
them when they do disagree with you. If you're too arrogant,
(21:26):
if you think you know all the answers, then people
will shut down and won't help you. And when you say, hey,
you disagree with me, you know what you were right?
I was wrong. People then are comfortable working together. And
I would say to you, without exception, five smart people
(21:47):
are a hell of a lot smarter than one smart person.
And the real genius in leadership is getting them all
working at a very high capacity to for whatever the
results want to achieve.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
One of the other things I've noticed about you, sir,
is that even after politics, you you stayed very connected
to people and you helped them out. You may remember
that you gave me a very strong recommendation to one
job that was very influential in my career. And I've
heard from other people when I've commented about that, that
you did the same thing for them. Why do you
(22:22):
do that and why do you think it's important in life? Right?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I've had my successes in life, and I've had my failures,
and don't forget you have you've been too genuinely to
go there. I presided over quite a spectacular defeat at
the end of all this, and lots of you know,
decisions were made and it was my responsibility. But I
(22:46):
do know that everybody in life goes through ups and downs,
and they go through ups and downs in their lives
and their businesses and their marriages and their emotionals. And
I always try to be sensitive to people that were down,
And if someone is down, I would try to I'd
(23:08):
phone them and take them for lunch. When you're top
of the pile, you have more friends than you need.
When you're at the bottom of the pile, that's when
you need friends. And so that's when I would phone
something and say let's go for lunch or try to
be sensitive to what they're going through in their own life.
And I know lots of people have been very nice
(23:29):
to me various times in my life when it was
important to me, and I try to do the same.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
You know, I think that your comments about idealism, about leadership,
about you know, five smart people is better than one
smart person. I think about charisma, which you modestly I
didn't agree you have, but I think you have it
in space and your networking, building community, building people up,
(23:59):
reaching out to people when they're down. I think are
some incredible traits that I think you're a great example of.
And thank you for the role that you played in
my life in that regard. We're going to take a
break and come back again. Ask David Peterson about national
unity because that's one of the issues that he was
really focused on during his tenure and we're going through
that all over again, and so I'd like to hear
(24:21):
what he's got to say about it. Stay with us,
everyone back in two minutes with the twentieth Premier of Ontario,
David Peterson.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Stay with us, no Radio, No Problem. Stream is live
on SAGA ninety sixty Am DoD C.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Promie Radio. I've
got David Peterson with us tonight. He is the twentieth
Premier of Ontario. He was elected in nineteen eighty five,
forty years ago. And mister Peterson, one of the things
(25:02):
that you were really focused on was national unity and
you worked closely with a Conservative prime minister at the time.
I believe Brian mulroney to work hard and and some
of it succeeded, in frankly, some of it didn't. This
past weekend there was an article in the paper that
said Canada works best when the Ontario Premier and the
(25:22):
Canadian Prime Minister of different parties, but also our good
friends and work well together. You know, up until probably
December or January of this year, it looked like the
Party of Quebec WA would win the next election in
Quebec and the Black Quebec WAH would potentially be the
official opposition in Canada if there was an election in December.
(25:43):
That's changed a little bit given what's happened. But it's
interesting that there was such a you know, a positive
movement prior to Donald Trump and to Mark Kearney, to
Quebec separation, and now there's this big movement in Alberta
about potential separation and the the list of twelve things
that the Premier of Alberta says that need to happen
(26:05):
otherwise you know, there's going to be a problems in
Alberta and actually probably a referendum for separation. Tell me
how you feel about Canada today and about national unity.
And you know, if you sat down with our premiers
or our premier or our prime minister, what advice would
(26:25):
you give them? What would you tell them?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Right? Boy, these are big, big, big questions. But let
me start off by saying that I was preoccupied with
national unity and I'd spent a lot of my time.
You know, when I was a young man, going back
to when I was in law school, I studied in Quebec.
(26:48):
I was very I spent twice I studied in Quebec.
I was a student of the separatist movement that you
were called Robielucion in the late fifties and the sixties,
they're blowing up the separatists food, they're blowing up mailboxes
and leading to the separatist government being elected, when a
(27:14):
very great threat to our confederation. Now, I believed as
the Premier of the Province of Ontario, one of my
greatest responsibilities was to build national unity. This is a
very unique federation that we live in. It's the only federation
in the world. Can is arguably the most decentralized federation
(27:40):
in the world.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Country decentralized, really even more than the United States where
they talk about states.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Way more than the United States, it's almost the same
level as the previews of provinces have way more power
than governors in set with bigger budgets relatively their populations,
and far more power over a lot constitutionally say, it's
really the same as Switzerland, which is highly decentralized. The
(28:12):
other unique piece of Canada is that Ontario is the
It's the only country in the world where one piece
i e. Ontario represents depending on how you measure it,
thirty five to forty percent of everything that goes on
in the country. Now there's the biggest toughest member of
(28:34):
the federation. Don't forget we have another province of Prince
Dam one hundred and twenty thousand people. It's about the
size of Sarnia, you know, you think about and yet
in some ways you're a constitutional equal. This was the
nature of our country. So I did know something about
the history of the country. I worked very hard to
(28:56):
build an axis between Quebec City, like Robert Barrasso was
a great friend of mine, and Brian mulrooney, because that
access really keeps the country together. Now you've got to
keep an eye on the west, and I worked very
hard with Don Getty and Bill Vanerson and others in
(29:19):
the West. And it was at a different stage in
the march towards the Perfect Union than it is today.
But in my day I had to do everything I
had to keep this country. And don't forget we almost
lost the country. Don't forget. And I'm Brian. I could
(29:40):
speak for hours on this because I do lecture in
constitutional history. But in nineteen eighty two, when we Trudeau
patriated the Constitution, Quebec was left out. To that day,
that is a scar in the minds of many many
people in Quebec, and was about trying to put that
(30:01):
altogether and make the confederation hole. So I was. I
spent an awful lot of time building relationships with my peers,
with the guys on the granted vines of the world,
but also the Don Getty who was a premier, and
Peter Loughey who was a great friend of mine in Alberta,
(30:26):
and trying to keep the confederation hole. And I also
knew when you're the biggest richest member of this confederation,
as we were, you had to put up with more,
and you had to let the other guys squawk or
complain or say they were getting a bad deal and
help them get a good deal. So I had very
(30:48):
close relationships with my peers, with Frank McKenna and a
lot of others across the country. And I worked at
that because this is Brian. I get up every morning
and I kiss the ground. I say, we are lucky
to be Canade and Jesse, if you don't believe me,
(31:10):
just looks south for the board and say, how would
you like to be living down there? But we have
a history of compromise and accommodation that we must guard
and protect all of us.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Do we still do we still have that? You know?
I've heard from lots of people that are either current
or former politicians that what you've just described, and maybe
Doug Ford and Mark Karney are the exception to the rule,
but that that it's very difficult to have friends across
the aisle today. That that you know, I've heard from
MPs that they used to go for dinner, they used
(31:45):
to have drinks, they used to be friendly with they
used to work on bills together with people from other
parties and today that's impossible. What's your sense is, is
that kind of camaraderie and friendship and uh and cooperation
possible today.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Look was always a competitive world. And I wasn't a
close friend of Bill. I was a great admirer of
John Robarts, who was the predecessor of and I was
from London like he was, and he was a friend
of mine and almost a mentor to me. And he
and he was He didn't he didn't support me, but
he didn't criticize. He didn't He was very very accommodating
(32:25):
to buy aspirations and told people I should I was
the kind of guy that should be in politics. So
it's competitive with a guy like Davis. But it was
never hateful, you know, we didn't use words like calling
each other liars. We were simbolized. We were the same
way we'd be in a a in a tough tennis
(32:47):
match and you'd shake hands at the end of the tennis.
That's not the case today.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Tell me about what you think the right political policy
positioning of the Liberal Party is. You were thought of
and this may are you there, I'm here, sorry you
you You've you've been described as sort of a fiscal conservative,
as a blue liberal, and then uh, you know you've
(33:17):
got the example of of of Stuart Smith who you mentioned,
who is more perceived as more left wing, certainly Kathleen
Wynn more left wing, Mark Karney maybe more fiscally conservative.
What's the right positioning in your mind for the Liberal Party.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I'll tell you where I am. And there's there's two
sides to govern. There's number one is making sure life
is fair, working to guarantee opportunity and services, being the
for people, being the voice for people that don't have
a voice on their own, that are trampled by the
(33:57):
big interest in life, like big business or labor. And
that is a very important part of building that opportunity,
whether it's pharmacare or whether it's coming out against discrimination
in the base of sexual orientation, or ethoculture background or
anything else. That's a really important part of the liberal agenda.
(34:22):
I am very much a social liberal. No, the other
half of the job is creating wealth and help people
have money and the state have money to do the
things that I talked about in the first instance. You
can't deny or neglect the money making part or the
(34:44):
fiscal part of your responsibilities. So, and this goes back
to the great trade debates we have, which we can
talk about brand but we had a view that Ontario
had to be a knowledge based technology leader and trade
with the globe and be a global player, and we
(35:05):
were an important part of that discussion in our days.
So what I'm saying to me, a liberal is a
social liberal, fiscal fiscally responsible. Now, then you say, well,
what about deficit. We didn't Bill Davis never balance a budget.
We hadn't been a budget balance in Ontario fourteen years
(35:28):
when we came in. We did. Why do I say
that it's a moral thing to me? I don't have
a right to go and spend money and expect my
kids to pay it back anymore than I have a
moral right to go and put make a mess. I
e pollute and expect the next generation to clean up
(35:50):
my mess. It's the morality of politics, the morality that
says we look after it as we invest for our children.
We don't expect our children to invest for us. I
do not believe in intergenerational transfers of wealth. I don't
believe that I have a right to live on the
(36:12):
backs of my children's capacity to produce goods and services
or wealth. That's that's it. It begins with a morality.
But that's where I believe the Liberal Party has to be.
And so I think, and I'm very fond of Justin
in so many ways, but I think he lost control
(36:35):
of that side of the liberal leadership responsibility.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
You mentioned trade. If you had a chance, and you
probably had that chance, But if you had a chance
to talk to Mark Karney or to Doug Ford, our
prime minister, in our premier what would you tell them?
What advice would you provide them?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Sir? Look, I can't imagine a bigger set of problems
than Mark Kearney has right now. When you're dealing with
the most important person on earth who functions on a whim,
you can't take one thing that he says at face value.
(37:13):
You don't get the impression he's ever read a book
or studied any issue and will change his mind. This
is again, you're the media. You explain why you got elected.
That's your problem, right, But let me a podcast like
you are. Let me say, I can't imagine a more
(37:34):
complicated job than Mark's God. And I give Doug for
credit or not for for trying to be helpful Doug.
Doug isn't encumbered by philosophy, particularly, that's not where he
comes from. But he's got good common sense. He's we
have a tremendous amount at stake in the in Ontario,
(37:58):
in these in these commons, and I think he is
trying to be supportive. Whether I would say all the
things that he says or not another story, But I
think they're coming out of the right way. At the
end of the day, you can only have one mastermind
on this. I think I think if Carnie wasn't there,
(38:20):
if Mark wasn't there, and I go back six months, Brian,
and how this world has changed. You talked about this
when Pierre Pouliot was going to be the Prime minister
and Mark Conney wasn't even on the scene. I mean,
there's been so many changes in the last six months.
But this country, given the crisis it was in with Trump,
(38:42):
and they put out a job search for somebody who's
the most qualified person to get us out of this mess,
probably they would hire Mark Kearney. We're lucky the guy
came along. That's not to say he's guaranteed success, because
he isn't. It's enormously complicated what he's doing. I think
(39:04):
he's shown a maturity, a restraint and judgment. Sometimes you give,
sometimes you don't. Sometimes you have to work with what
you've got. You've got to wait some things out, You've
got to be patient, and no matter what you do,
it's not going to be perfect. But I say this
(39:25):
in all sincerity. Can you imagine Pierre Paulia doing this?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
I can't imagine. I just and I'm not being a
part of that now. And I am glad that Doug
Ford is being, I think, really in his own way,
trying very hard to be constructed, you know he I
think he's very much, very much politically played this whole
(39:54):
thing to his advantage. I guess you can't be critical
of that, but you've got to make sure there is
so much bluster you get in you talk yourself into trouble. Well,
I just think we'll be telling him things.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I just think logistically, within the first month or two
months of taking over, if you've got to do a
throne speech, you've got to do an Oval office visit,
you've got to coast the the G seven, you've got
to go to a NATO conference. That's got to be
a pretty challenging agenda for Like, if you like, it
would have been challenging. I think highly of you, but
that would have been challenging for you.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And if it was Brian, it's a huge agenda and
I give them very high marks. And we do know
that the country's been drawn together in a lot of
ways over this thing, and people want the best. I think.
I think we've seen a lot of the best in
(40:52):
this country and we've seen as we've seen the separatism
suicide in Quebec to some extent, it was really quite
rampant six months ago, and then we we've but we've
seen this heavy pressure coming from Alberta. So the center
(41:16):
of gravity is switching in the country a lot. And
I think the number one priority for Prime minister is
national unity. I think he is playing a balancing game
about as well as you can. That's not to say
it's going to turn out for sure tomorrow or the
next day.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
We're going to take a final break and come back
with one last question for David Peterson in just two minutes.
Stay with us, Everyone back with one last question.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crime Radio Hour. It's
a real honor for me to be chatting tonight with
with David Peterson. He's the twentieth Premier of Ontario. I
had the privilege of working closely with him back forty
years ago. Actually no, it was I guess fifty years
ago or forty five years ago. I guess it was
when I had the privilege of working with you. And
(42:23):
you know, I think that a lot of the things
that we've talked about is your ability to connect with people,
your leadership, your charisma, your the ability for you to
help people out. You know, our traits that I admire
and that I've tried to emulate. Sir, I got to
ask you about one other. You've had an incredibly successful marriage.
What's the secret, sir to a successful marriage.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Oh man, you know I met Shelley on the stage.
I saw her on the stage. I go to the theater.
I would arranged to meet her her out for lunch.
I fell in love over soup and fell head over
his and we got married two and a half months later. Now,
(43:10):
if my kids did that brand I think they were nuts,
and I would tell it out to do it. And
so I got enormously lucky. And you know her, and
she's she's magic. There are a few little things that
I would say, apart from her wonderful carriage, she's very lovable,
(43:33):
so it's easy lover. But I would say, talk a lot,
just talk. We talk about every damn thing you can possibly.
Most of it is very serious. But then there's serious
stuff too about whether it's philosophy, politics, or kids or dogs, cats, rats.
(43:54):
But number two, we have summer values. Kids were very
important to us. We have three kids that we adore,
and we have seven grandchildren. A very very important part
of our life. And she's a wonderful, loving mother. The
other the other thing, and and and our kids. Hard
(44:14):
from work. Kids were the center of our life. I mean,
I didn't go and play golf with the boys when
I mean it was when we had young kids. I
was working or we were playing, whether the kids did
ride bikes, play soccer or whatever and the other a h.
(44:35):
I think it's staying in staying grounded, and staying in
touch and supporting the other person. She's she would not
have picked politics, but she would she was Actually I
(44:55):
would have much preferred I hadn't, but when I decided
to do it, she was there one hundred step of
the way. She's a very accomplished person in her own
She's an actress, she's an author, and I supported everything
she did, and she would go and do plays when
we but she would go and do a place, so
(45:15):
I everything she wanted to do to help her be fulfilled.
I encouraged her, and she encouraged me. And I think
encouraging people to do what they need to do is
a very important part of building a constructive marriage.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
David Peterson, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really appreciate it. This has been a one home conversation.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Very proud of you. You're a very important part of
our life, and thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining.
I remind you on every Monday through Friday at six o'clock.
You know, I wanted to chat with David Peterson number one,
because it's the fortieth anniversary of his election as Premier
of Ontario. He's got some great lessons and I think
that you know, emulating him and copying him and following
(45:59):
his his example or something that I've tried to do
and lots of people would be better off if they
tried to do. But also I think that putting into
perspective leadership is critically important as the Ontario Liberal Party
gets together for this upcoming convention and thinking about leadership.
And so David's a great example of an excellent leader.
And so thank you David Peterson for the role you've
(46:20):
played in Ontario, the role you've played in Canada, the
role you've played in the Liberal Party, the role you've
played in my life.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Thank you, sir, Thank you very much, and best wishes
to you.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I want to give you a little sense of why
I wanted to have David Peterson on the show and
put it in perspective of a couple of other shows
that I want to have this week. The Liberal Party
is having a convention in early September and there is
a leadership review. I am not going to take any
position on that leadership review for probably obvious reasons if
(46:49):
people know my last name. But I do want to
talk a little bit about what David said because I wanted,
I think, to connect up with because it's forty years
since he was elected Premier of Ontario and I think
he's one of the best premiers that we've ever had,
and I think for several reasons, and I think those
are the reasons that we should be thinking about when
(47:11):
we think about the Liberal Party, of the Conservative Party,
the NDP, whatever party, when going forward. We talked about
leadership and how critically important it is to have someone
that's got leadership capabilities and qualities. We talked about charisma
and I think that that's pretty important. We talked about experience,
(47:31):
and David had wealth of experience, both in business and
also in the charitable sector and then in politics running
in the second leadership, being a MPP et cetera, unbelievably connected.
He was connected with business, he connected with people, He
connected with workers and helped them and they helped him.
(47:54):
And so I think that connection back and forth ended
up being critically important. He called himself a social progressive,
and I think at that was one of the keys
that Ontario was ready for his social progressivity. But he's
also talked about balancing the budget, and so therefore I
won't call him a fiscal conservative. But I think he
was prudent from a fiscal standpoint, and he talked about
(48:16):
having the best cabinet, and so therefore I think teamwork
ended up being key for David Peterson. He appointed some
really capable people to cabinet. He attracted really capable people
of running he mentioned some of the names. If you've
been in politics for a while, I think you did
recognize that he had a really strong front bench. He
also had accord with the NDP, so he was willing
(48:40):
to cooperate. He was willing to work with others. And
then finally, from my standpoint, he made the most brilliant
decision by getting my second cousin, Bob Nixon involved in
his cabinet as his treasurer, someone who had been leader
previously twice before him. And you know, logically you might
have been jealous of the the elder statesman and wanted
(49:01):
him in cabinet, but David wanted his expertise, and his
expertise in a very senior manner. He talked about how
he was friends with Robart It's a conservative premier. So
I think the teamwork ended up being one of the
keys of David Peterson. I worked hard for David Peterson.
I was his youth chair. I knocked on doors even
when he was just an MPP before he ran for
(49:22):
leader with him in Ottawa, sorry in London, Ontario. I
was a student at University of Westernitaria at the time
and saw him work incredibly hard, which I think is
another thing that is worth mentioning about hard work. David
was willing to work hard, and he worked really hard.
He knocked on an incredible amount of doors, and he
(49:42):
connected with people with doors. I was surprised how many
people knew him when we knocked on doors. I think
he is a great example of the kind of leadership
qualities that we need and I think are lacking. And
I'm not suggesting in Harry Liberal Party, but I think
in politics generally we don't see the kind of leadership
(50:05):
that David Peterson had, and I think that's a shame,
because I think he's emblematic of the kind of leadership.
I think Brian mulroney was that kind of leader, even
though I disagreed with some of the things that he
was all about. I think that John Turner was that
kind of leader, and I think we've had those kinds
of leaders in the past, and I hope that Mark
(50:28):
Karney for sure ends up being that kind of a
leader for our country, given that he's been elected as
Prime Minister. Anyway, I wanted to put this in perspective
with an example of one of the prime leaders from
the past. I'm going to try to interview a couple
of other prime leaders to get their perspective on their
time in politics, their time in leadership, and what they
(50:49):
think makes a good leader. I'm going to have a
couple of other people on this topic. Steven Adler is
going to come on my show tomorrow. He is a
conservative and he's written a really interesting article about what
he thinks about the Liberal Leadership Review, and it's an
interesting point of view. And then on Wednesday, on Thursday,
I'm going to have Wendy culkier Suk here. Sorry apologize.
I'm talking about AI and innovation because I think one
(51:11):
of the big opportunities and risks that we have in
Ontario is how we apply adopt AI and how we
become and maintain an innovative economy, because I think we've
lost some of the productivity, prosperity and innovation agenda that
Dalton McGuinty actually really brought to this province and that
(51:31):
we need to have. And then I'm going to have
on Friday a local activist, Roberta Tevlyn, talking about electoral
reform because she thinks that that's more important than who
the leader is, and that makes it kind of interesting
that she thinks so passionately about the need for electoral
reform and that that should be one of the big
policy positions taken by the Liberal Party in this coming invention.
(51:55):
So a couple of shows this week, all dedicated to
leadership and the upcoming Liberal Convention and the leadership review
that's going on. Thanks check me out.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Bye, No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA
nine six am dot Co
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio R.
I've got an incredible privilege tonight to introduce you all
again to David Peterson. David Peterson is the former Premier
of the province Ontario. Forty years ago this year he
became elected as the twentieth Premier of Ontario. It ended
forty two years of Tory dynasty. And I'm not sure
(00:39):
if you know this, David, but the premier before you
was my great uncle, Harry Nixon. And so I feel
like I've got a real connection because my great uncle
was the premier during forty three and forty four, and
then I had the privilege of being David Peterson's youth
chairman during his leadership campaign and was very happy when
he got elected as a Premier of Ontario. And we're
(01:01):
gonna talk a little bit tonight about year.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Before you start into that, Crombie, I just want to
tell you I knew you had royal blood. Bob Nixon
brags all the time about the Crombie relationship, which is
you and number two. I will say now, and I'll
say publicly, this is publicly, I probably would not have
won that leadership without your help. You were this fresh faced, aggressive, fun, loud, noisy, smart,
(01:34):
charismatic young guy who organized all the youth and we
won that leadership convention. So I still oiw you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well. It was an honor working for you, sir, and
I was very happy when you became a leader, and
then ultimately when you became premier. And that was forty
years ago this year, and.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know, we've got to you didn't even shave that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I didn't. You're right, we've got we've got a leadership
review coming up, we've got a convention. I want to
talk about how you're going to vote and what you
think about that, But I did want to talk a
little bit about what you think makes a good leader.
You are an incredibly good leader. Tell me, you know,
in retrospect and history, and you've had the opportunity of
working with you know, prime ministers and other premiers and
(02:19):
lots of business people. What do you think are the
qualities that makes a good leader, Sir.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Brian. It's a very very good question. It's been written
about by the best in the business schools and political
life and what's what's Winston Churchill gotten? What about FDR?
And why this? And why some succeed in some don't.
And because there's very different qualities that people respond to.
(02:50):
I think the most important thing of a leader you
have to have followers. Now the question is how do
you generate followers and how do you work with people?
I could, you know, I could give a long speech
on this brand, and I think the first thing you
have to do. And there's many, many, many different aspects
(03:10):
of leadership and many different kinds of leaders And I
don't think it's one size fits all, because there's leadership
in all walks of life. Political leadership that's one type,
business leadership, intellectual leadership, artistic leadership. But I would say
(03:32):
having a fairly at least in political terms, having a
good center of gravity, and when I say that, being
on top of your own psyche and not being needy,
and understanding that leadership by and large is about service
(03:55):
and you have to think about the people around you
all of the time. These people that present that it's
all about them all of the time don't always And
of course Trump's an exception of that. So it just
shows that there's exceptions to everything I'm going to say.
But I think great leadership is about other people. It's
(04:17):
about listening and being centered. Now after that you need
a lot of skills, and I think you need integrity matters.
But again for Brian, I'm saying all this, and you
look south to the border. Everything I say, the opposite
is there. So I guess I have a traditional view
(04:39):
of leadership. You look at a guy like Mark Kearney
and I would say he fits in my traditional view
of what leaders are and should be. Very bright, man,
highly centered, sensitive. He's not an ego maniac. He knows
what he's doing, and having clear, articulated views and vision
(05:05):
to bring people along is important. So that's where you
start in leadership anyway, And were.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
You always a great leader? Were there were there people
that you looked up to? Were there people you sort
of tried to emulate? How did you gain your leadership skills?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I am My life, Brian is completely serendipitous. I didn't
plan anything. I had stumbled into politics as I ended
up meeting my wife, married her two and a half
months later. I ended up I didn't plan anything. I
didn't plan to run. I ran, run, ran and won,
(05:45):
and then I very quickly after that, ended up in
the first leadership. I lost that. And I don't know.
Somebody came up to me after the first caucus meeting
when Bob Nixon resigned, you'll recall that, and said, are
you going to run for leader? And I said, I
haven't even found a washert at Queens Park, how could
(06:08):
I run for a leader? Anyway? I ended up running
for leader and I didn't win. I lost to Stuart Smith.
So this I didn't plan anything. I think you absorbed
these things along the way. Now. I was always a
big reader. I always was up on the news when
(06:30):
I was a little kid. I was involved in student
politics when I was at Western and again in ways
at the University of Toronto at law school, and I
cared about things. But I didn't deliberately go out and say,
(06:52):
what are the skills of a great leader? How can
I emulate those? But I'll tell you the one thing,
a story I will tell you, though, Brian. My generation
of politics was a long time ago, as you have said,
and the biggest single influence on my life was John Kennedy.
(07:17):
It's interesting. I have sat and talked to a lot
of successful politicians of my generation. I'll use as an example,
Bill Clinton. I knew Bill Clinton when he was governor
of Arkansas before he became president. I ended up at
various events with him, and we'd end up on the
stage together. And he was a brilliant guy where all
(07:40):
of his sin's brilliant and very charismatic. He just radiated
body heat. But sitting him late at night and having
a glass of brand he say, why are you in politics?
What are the things that inspired you? A lot of
that generation referred back to that speech of Kennedy assnot
what your country can do for you, but what you
(08:00):
can do for your country. I grew up in a
very uplifting age, you know, and I was the sort
of the hippies in the sixties. And it was about
love and it wasn't about war. It was about kindness.
It was those were a lot of the dominant forces.
We weren't into the into the forces of pure greed
(08:23):
that sort of prevailed in the marketplace, and and and
and the new conservative movement. It was about service and
helping other people. It was about the people that I
hung out with through the people who went to the
Peace Corps and were giving their lives to trying to
make the world a better place. And so there's a
(08:44):
hefty dose of idealism in this and I think we
could discuss whether idealism has died or not in this
country or in other countries. The idealism of leaving you
can make a difference and wanting to make a difference,
and it's a very powerful fuel in a person's life
(09:07):
if they are have some element of ideas.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Thank you, I appreciate that. We're going to take a
break for some messages and come back and I'm going
to ask a little bit more after the break about
how you think politics has changed, how how have leaders changed,
and is this just a momentary trend or is it
something that is sort of a long term trend. Stay
with us, everyone, We're chatting with David Peterson forty years
after he last got elected as Premier of Ontario. Stay
(09:36):
with everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine to six am,
dot CA.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Welcome back, everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio. I've got
David Peterson, Premier of Ontario, with us tonight. Forty years
ago he was elected as Premier of Ontario. David, you
talked a little bit about, you know, leadership and your
own style of leadership, but then you also addressed how
you think politics and leadership has changed. I ended up
having dinner this weekend with someone who said that they
(10:19):
messed up for like fifty years. They thought that ethics
and doing what was right and all this kind of stuff,
and I hope they were just being sort of provocative,
but he said, no, you know, what I've come to
the realization, given what's happening right now, is that it's
it's greed. It's about about about graft, about you know,
trying to get your advantage for you know, your own
(10:40):
your own family, your own business. That's successful in politics today.
Obviously appointing Seth of the border. What do you think
has politics changed dramatically? You know, are we are we
into this world where it's so partisan and so to
you know, my own benefit and you know, everything you've
talked about guards to service and idealism, that's that's bygone,
(11:03):
that's nice things from nineteen seventy nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You are raising the most profound questions of our age,
because very definitely it has changed, And is it all
about greed? I don't think so. The problem is that
Trump has upset the model of everything everyone of value
or honor believed in. And look, that's accept the fact
(11:32):
that people like Trump come along once in a while.
I can understand that. But the fact that he has
any followers at all is something that I have a
hard time understanding. Is it because people have been tramped
on because he liberates them? Is it because he is
(11:53):
rich or a celebrity. I think he We're in an
age of celebrity, and there's a lot of people who
want to take a shortcut to fame and fortune by
just being famous, famous for doing something, and a lot
of times those things are not very admirable. It's just
(12:14):
craving for attention. Now why is that? Is it the age?
It's the age of what social media. When I grew up,
there were no computers were just starting. I mean, there
were no cell phones. There was a different way of communicating.
Television was in its heyday screens dominated. News was curated.
(12:41):
In other words, we didn't have all this people making
up their own truth and just peddling it on whatever
airwave or media they could find. And now there's just
so much confusion in the air, the breakdown of all
conventional methods of distresbution and curating news, and some people
(13:09):
just find it very hard to know who to believe
and how to believe them. I think Trump, to his credit,
if that's the right word, understands this actually and and
and I think the worst contributor to the modern world
is Rupert Murdoch wrote, Rupert Murdoch disaggregated media, conventional media.
(13:38):
He in a sense took cable news and turned into
partisan selling, sex, violence and right wing extremism. I think
for the without philosophy, without regard to truth or merit
based purely on the on the idea that it was self.
The tragedy is it does so. And the tragedy is
(14:03):
he has been not been totally wrong. And in many ways,
Donald Trump, it's been the beneficiary of that polemical, mean spirited, hard,
untruthful side of the world. And maybe that's maybe everybody
has some of that in them. Maybe there's a little
(14:27):
ying and Yang and all of us. But there's this
dark fascination with some of the worst parts of our character,
and certainly Trump has exploited there.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
But it sounds like you're putting most of the blame
on media. You know, let me give you a couple
of examples if I could. You know, we had a
cabinet minister at one point in time who went to
London and I think ordered a twenty four dollars orange
juice and was almost forced to resign over that. And
yet you know Trump is getting you know, jets given
(14:58):
to him. And and I was in Florida recently talking
to really nice, smart capable people that thought that was
completely okay. You know, we've got a situation where, you know,
I think we've had two or three prime ministers that
haven't been willing to spend the money to fix up
twenty four Sussex. And yet we've got Trump building the
(15:18):
biggest expansion ever of the White House and people support
of that. So what has happened in this world?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I think I don't know the answer to all of
these questions. There's no question he gets away with things
you never could have got away with before. I mean,
you know, it was a scandal with women and as
sogynists that would have destroyed anybody in my generation.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Didn't John Turner get you know, like for patting someone's rear.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I own a campanola. He patted her rear and it
almost cost him his career. And as you said, there's
a glass of Vevoda had a glass fourteen dollars glass
of orange juice in a London, England hotel that almost
cost her baby, did cost her her career, and the
tolerance level for this was almost zero. I mean Bill Davis,
(16:21):
who was one of my predecessors. I don't think he
committed any sins his whole life. And you know he
was a moderate man in all things. Bill used to
say moderation and all things.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I mean my second cousin, Bob Mixing, would disagree with
you on that.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
With them, but he would roll over in his grave
to see what people get away with today. But the
question is why, And I think this explosion I don't
blame the media. The media respect runs where there is
a market, and it's a market, and the market ad
(17:03):
buys this stuff and advised these extreme points of view.
And it has been a diminution of conventional media. What
conventional media media does or did, And I take the
big newspapers or the networks. They curated the news, they
(17:24):
aspired to tell the truth they created common kinds of
truths that we could discuss. They didn't make up things
for the sake of making up things. And there's so
many sources of news today that make up things just
because it will sell. And it's a troubling world to
(17:46):
grow up in, and trebling world to disseminate information. The
hardest thing in the information age is to convey information.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
One of the other things I wanted to ask you
about was charisma. Lots of people said you had tons
of chrisma. I had the privilege of walking door to
door with you in the I think it was the
nineteen eighty one election, and you know, you were just
unbelievable at the door. Where does charisma come from?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Well, charisma, I don't even know charisma. Let me tell
you this, Brian, you have a lot more charisma when
you've got the title. When you win, you've got charisma.
When I was losing, I didn't have that much charisma.
It's just like when I told jokes when I was premium,
(18:37):
I was really funny, and if I told the same
joke when I was leader of the Opposition, I wasn't
nearly as funny. And so you know, power creates charisma
and creates his own force field around it. But a
lot of charisma is energy caring about other people, not
(19:01):
being self possessed or self o good and it is
a generosity about life, and it's making other people feel good.
You know, some people can walk through a room and
make other people feel good. A lot of it you
go through a room is it's the eye contact and
(19:23):
you you learned to give people a little bit of
your time, and it's and it's it's a sincere thing.
It's not an insincere thing. It's and it's rooted in
a genuine like of other people.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You also attract an incredminmental loyalty people that have have
stuck with you over the years, and I think during
your your leadership and premiership and even thereafter, people that
were incredibly connected to you and loyal to you. How
do you how do you create that?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Jeez, you're being very complimentary. I'm not sure I'm very
good at any of these things. But I was blessed
that I had and I will say to the at
this point in time, to this point in history, the
finest cabinet ever assembled in the history of Ontario. I mean,
they were really bright like Uncle Bob, and like Ian
(20:24):
Scott and Sean Conway and a lot of other Not
everybody was perfect, but boy, there was a core of really,
really competent people. And how I was the orchestra conductor.
I had to work with all of them and get
them all functioning at a high level. And part of
(20:45):
doing that is trusting them and working with them and
building making it about let them build their own profile,
not step in their way every time they're doing something.
And I think I learned I learned I think in business,
(21:05):
and I was in business before before I got into politics.
You have to build other people. You have to let
them shine. You have to give them credit, and you
have to encourage them to disagree with you and reward
them when they do disagree with you. If you're too arrogant,
(21:26):
if you think you know all the answers, then people
will shut down and won't help you. And when you say, hey,
you disagree with me, you know what you were right?
I was wrong. People then are comfortable working together. And
I would say to you, without exception, five smart people
(21:47):
are a hell of a lot smarter than one smart person.
And the real genius in leadership is getting them all
working at a very high capacity to for whatever the
results want to achieve.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
One of the other things I've noticed about you, sir,
is that even after politics, you you stayed very connected
to people and you helped them out. You may remember
that you gave me a very strong recommendation to one
job that was very influential in my career. And I've
heard from other people when I've commented about that, that
you did the same thing for them. Why do you
(22:22):
do that and why do you think it's important in life? Right?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I've had my successes in life, and I've had my failures,
and don't forget you have you've been too genuinely to
go there. I presided over quite a spectacular defeat at
the end of all this, and lots of you know,
decisions were made and it was my responsibility. But I
(22:46):
do know that everybody in life goes through ups and downs,
and they go through ups and downs in their lives
and their businesses and their marriages and their emotionals. And
I always try to be sensitive to people that were down,
And if someone is down, I would try to I'd
(23:08):
phone them and take them for lunch. When you're top
of the pile, you have more friends than you need.
When you're at the bottom of the pile, that's when
you need friends. And so that's when I would phone
something and say let's go for lunch or try to
be sensitive to what they're going through in their own life.
And I know lots of people have been very nice
(23:29):
to me various times in my life when it was
important to me, and I try to do the same.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
You know, I think that your comments about idealism, about leadership,
about you know, five smart people is better than one
smart person. I think about charisma, which you modestly I
didn't agree you have, but I think you have it
in space and your networking, building community, building people up,
(23:59):
reaching out to people when they're down. I think are
some incredible traits that I think you're a great example of.
And thank you for the role that you played in
my life in that regard. We're going to take a
break and come back again. Ask David Peterson about national
unity because that's one of the issues that he was
really focused on during his tenure and we're going through
that all over again, and so I'd like to hear
(24:21):
what he's got to say about it. Stay with us,
everyone back in two minutes with the twentieth Premier of Ontario,
David Peterson.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Stay with us, no Radio, No Problem. Stream is live
on SAGA ninety sixty Am DoD C.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Promie Radio. I've
got David Peterson with us tonight. He is the twentieth
Premier of Ontario. He was elected in nineteen eighty five,
forty years ago. And mister Peterson, one of the things
(25:02):
that you were really focused on was national unity and
you worked closely with a Conservative prime minister at the time.
I believe Brian mulroney to work hard and and some
of it succeeded, in frankly, some of it didn't. This
past weekend there was an article in the paper that
said Canada works best when the Ontario Premier and the
(25:22):
Canadian Prime Minister of different parties, but also our good
friends and work well together. You know, up until probably
December or January of this year, it looked like the
Party of Quebec WA would win the next election in
Quebec and the Black Quebec WAH would potentially be the
official opposition in Canada if there was an election in December.
(25:43):
That's changed a little bit given what's happened. But it's
interesting that there was such a you know, a positive
movement prior to Donald Trump and to Mark Kearney, to
Quebec separation, and now there's this big movement in Alberta
about potential separation and the the list of twelve things
that the Premier of Alberta says that need to happen
(26:05):
otherwise you know, there's going to be a problems in
Alberta and actually probably a referendum for separation. Tell me
how you feel about Canada today and about national unity.
And you know, if you sat down with our premiers
or our premier or our prime minister, what advice would
(26:25):
you give them? What would you tell them?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Right? Boy, these are big, big, big questions. But let
me start off by saying that I was preoccupied with
national unity and I'd spent a lot of my time.
You know, when I was a young man, going back
to when I was in law school, I studied in Quebec.
(26:48):
I was very I spent twice I studied in Quebec.
I was a student of the separatist movement that you
were called Robielucion in the late fifties and the sixties,
they're blowing up the separatists food, they're blowing up mailboxes
and leading to the separatist government being elected, when a
(27:14):
very great threat to our confederation. Now, I believed as
the Premier of the Province of Ontario, one of my
greatest responsibilities was to build national unity. This is a
very unique federation that we live in. It's the only federation
in the world. Can is arguably the most decentralized federation
(27:40):
in the world.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Country decentralized, really even more than the United States where
they talk about states.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Way more than the United States, it's almost the same
level as the previews of provinces have way more power
than governors in set with bigger budgets relatively their populations,
and far more power over a lot constitutionally say, it's
really the same as Switzerland, which is highly decentralized. The
(28:12):
other unique piece of Canada is that Ontario is the
It's the only country in the world where one piece
i e. Ontario represents depending on how you measure it,
thirty five to forty percent of everything that goes on
in the country. Now there's the biggest toughest member of
(28:34):
the federation. Don't forget we have another province of Prince
Dam one hundred and twenty thousand people. It's about the
size of Sarnia, you know, you think about and yet
in some ways you're a constitutional equal. This was the
nature of our country. So I did know something about
the history of the country. I worked very hard to
(28:56):
build an axis between Quebec City, like Robert Barrasso was
a great friend of mine, and Brian mulrooney, because that
access really keeps the country together. Now you've got to
keep an eye on the west, and I worked very
hard with Don Getty and Bill Vanerson and others in
(29:19):
the West. And it was at a different stage in
the march towards the Perfect Union than it is today.
But in my day I had to do everything I
had to keep this country. And don't forget we almost
lost the country. Don't forget. And I'm Brian. I could
(29:40):
speak for hours on this because I do lecture in
constitutional history. But in nineteen eighty two, when we Trudeau
patriated the Constitution, Quebec was left out. To that day,
that is a scar in the minds of many many
people in Quebec, and was about trying to put that
(30:01):
altogether and make the confederation hole. So I was. I
spent an awful lot of time building relationships with my peers,
with the guys on the granted vines of the world,
but also the Don Getty who was a premier, and
Peter Loughey who was a great friend of mine in Alberta,
(30:26):
and trying to keep the confederation hole. And I also
knew when you're the biggest richest member of this confederation,
as we were, you had to put up with more,
and you had to let the other guys squawk or
complain or say they were getting a bad deal and
help them get a good deal. So I had very
(30:48):
close relationships with my peers, with Frank McKenna and a
lot of others across the country. And I worked at
that because this is Brian. I get up every morning
and I kiss the ground. I say, we are lucky
to be Canade and Jesse, if you don't believe me,
(31:10):
just looks south for the board and say, how would
you like to be living down there? But we have
a history of compromise and accommodation that we must guard
and protect all of us.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Do we still do we still have that? You know?
I've heard from lots of people that are either current
or former politicians that what you've just described, and maybe
Doug Ford and Mark Karney are the exception to the rule,
but that that it's very difficult to have friends across
the aisle today. That that you know, I've heard from
MPs that they used to go for dinner, they used
(31:45):
to have drinks, they used to be friendly with they
used to work on bills together with people from other
parties and today that's impossible. What's your sense is, is
that kind of camaraderie and friendship and uh and cooperation
possible today.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Look was always a competitive world. And I wasn't a
close friend of Bill. I was a great admirer of
John Robarts, who was the predecessor of and I was
from London like he was, and he was a friend
of mine and almost a mentor to me. And he
and he was He didn't he didn't support me, but
he didn't criticize. He didn't He was very very accommodating
(32:25):
to buy aspirations and told people I should I was
the kind of guy that should be in politics. So
it's competitive with a guy like Davis. But it was
never hateful, you know, we didn't use words like calling
each other liars. We were simbolized. We were the same
way we'd be in a a in a tough tennis
(32:47):
match and you'd shake hands at the end of the tennis.
That's not the case today.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Tell me about what you think the right political policy
positioning of the Liberal Party is. You were thought of
and this may are you there, I'm here, sorry you
you You've you've been described as sort of a fiscal conservative,
as a blue liberal, and then uh, you know you've
(33:17):
got the example of of of Stuart Smith who you mentioned,
who is more perceived as more left wing, certainly Kathleen
Wynn more left wing, Mark Karney maybe more fiscally conservative.
What's the right positioning in your mind for the Liberal Party.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I'll tell you where I am. And there's there's two
sides to govern. There's number one is making sure life
is fair, working to guarantee opportunity and services, being the
for people, being the voice for people that don't have
a voice on their own, that are trampled by the
(33:57):
big interest in life, like big business or labor. And
that is a very important part of building that opportunity,
whether it's pharmacare or whether it's coming out against discrimination
in the base of sexual orientation, or ethoculture background or
anything else. That's a really important part of the liberal agenda.
(34:22):
I am very much a social liberal. No, the other
half of the job is creating wealth and help people
have money and the state have money to do the
things that I talked about in the first instance. You
can't deny or neglect the money making part or the
(34:44):
fiscal part of your responsibilities. So, and this goes back
to the great trade debates we have, which we can
talk about brand but we had a view that Ontario
had to be a knowledge based technology leader and trade
with the globe and be a global player, and we
(35:05):
were an important part of that discussion in our days.
So what I'm saying to me, a liberal is a
social liberal, fiscal fiscally responsible. Now, then you say, well,
what about deficit. We didn't Bill Davis never balance a budget.
We hadn't been a budget balance in Ontario fourteen years
(35:28):
when we came in. We did. Why do I say
that it's a moral thing to me? I don't have
a right to go and spend money and expect my
kids to pay it back anymore than I have a
moral right to go and put make a mess. I
e pollute and expect the next generation to clean up
(35:50):
my mess. It's the morality of politics, the morality that
says we look after it as we invest for our children.
We don't expect our children to invest for us. I
do not believe in intergenerational transfers of wealth. I don't
believe that I have a right to live on the
(36:12):
backs of my children's capacity to produce goods and services
or wealth. That's that's it. It begins with a morality.
But that's where I believe the Liberal Party has to be.
And so I think, and I'm very fond of Justin
in so many ways, but I think he lost control
(36:35):
of that side of the liberal leadership responsibility.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
You mentioned trade. If you had a chance, and you
probably had that chance, But if you had a chance
to talk to Mark Karney or to Doug Ford, our
prime minister, in our premier what would you tell them?
What advice would you provide them?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Sir? Look, I can't imagine a bigger set of problems
than Mark Kearney has right now. When you're dealing with
the most important person on earth who functions on a whim,
you can't take one thing that he says at face value.
(37:13):
You don't get the impression he's ever read a book
or studied any issue and will change his mind. This
is again, you're the media. You explain why you got elected.
That's your problem, right, But let me a podcast like
you are. Let me say, I can't imagine a more
(37:34):
complicated job than Mark's God. And I give Doug for
credit or not for for trying to be helpful Doug.
Doug isn't encumbered by philosophy, particularly, that's not where he
comes from. But he's got good common sense. He's we
have a tremendous amount at stake in the in Ontario,
(37:58):
in these in these commons, and I think he is
trying to be supportive. Whether I would say all the
things that he says or not another story, But I
think they're coming out of the right way. At the
end of the day, you can only have one mastermind
on this. I think I think if Carnie wasn't there,
(38:20):
if Mark wasn't there, and I go back six months, Brian,
and how this world has changed. You talked about this
when Pierre Pouliot was going to be the Prime minister
and Mark Conney wasn't even on the scene. I mean,
there's been so many changes in the last six months.
But this country, given the crisis it was in with Trump,
(38:42):
and they put out a job search for somebody who's
the most qualified person to get us out of this mess,
probably they would hire Mark Kearney. We're lucky the guy
came along. That's not to say he's guaranteed success, because
he isn't. It's enormously complicated what he's doing. I think
(39:04):
he's shown a maturity, a restraint and judgment. Sometimes you give,
sometimes you don't. Sometimes you have to work with what
you've got. You've got to wait some things out, You've
got to be patient, and no matter what you do,
it's not going to be perfect. But I say this
(39:25):
in all sincerity. Can you imagine Pierre Paulia doing this?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
I can't imagine. I just and I'm not being a
part of that now. And I am glad that Doug
Ford is being, I think, really in his own way,
trying very hard to be constructed, you know he I
think he's very much, very much politically played this whole
(39:54):
thing to his advantage. I guess you can't be critical
of that, but you've got to make sure there is
so much bluster you get in you talk yourself into trouble. Well,
I just think we'll be telling him things.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I just think logistically, within the first month or two
months of taking over, if you've got to do a
throne speech, you've got to do an Oval office visit,
you've got to coast the the G seven, you've got
to go to a NATO conference. That's got to be
a pretty challenging agenda for Like, if you like, it
would have been challenging. I think highly of you, but
that would have been challenging for you.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And if it was Brian, it's a huge agenda and
I give them very high marks. And we do know
that the country's been drawn together in a lot of
ways over this thing, and people want the best. I think.
I think we've seen a lot of the best in
(40:52):
this country and we've seen as we've seen the separatism
suicide in Quebec to some extent, it was really quite
rampant six months ago, and then we we've but we've
seen this heavy pressure coming from Alberta. So the center
(41:16):
of gravity is switching in the country a lot. And
I think the number one priority for Prime minister is
national unity. I think he is playing a balancing game
about as well as you can. That's not to say
it's going to turn out for sure tomorrow or the
next day.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
We're going to take a final break and come back
with one last question for David Peterson in just two minutes.
Stay with us, Everyone back with one last question.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crime Radio Hour. It's
a real honor for me to be chatting tonight with
with David Peterson. He's the twentieth Premier of Ontario. I
had the privilege of working closely with him back forty
years ago. Actually no, it was I guess fifty years
ago or forty five years ago. I guess it was
when I had the privilege of working with you. And
(42:23):
you know, I think that a lot of the things
that we've talked about is your ability to connect with people,
your leadership, your charisma, your the ability for you to
help people out. You know, our traits that I admire
and that I've tried to emulate. Sir, I got to
ask you about one other. You've had an incredibly successful marriage.
What's the secret, sir to a successful marriage.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Oh man, you know I met Shelley on the stage.
I saw her on the stage. I go to the theater.
I would arranged to meet her her out for lunch.
I fell in love over soup and fell head over
his and we got married two and a half months later. Now,
(43:10):
if my kids did that brand I think they were nuts,
and I would tell it out to do it. And
so I got enormously lucky. And you know her, and
she's she's magic. There are a few little things that
I would say, apart from her wonderful carriage, she's very lovable,
(43:33):
so it's easy lover. But I would say, talk a lot,
just talk. We talk about every damn thing you can possibly.
Most of it is very serious. But then there's serious
stuff too about whether it's philosophy, politics, or kids or dogs, cats, rats.
(43:54):
But number two, we have summer values. Kids were very
important to us. We have three kids that we adore,
and we have seven grandchildren. A very very important part
of our life. And she's a wonderful, loving mother. The
other the other thing, and and and our kids. Hard
(44:14):
from work. Kids were the center of our life. I mean,
I didn't go and play golf with the boys when
I mean it was when we had young kids. I
was working or we were playing, whether the kids did
ride bikes, play soccer or whatever and the other a h.
(44:35):
I think it's staying in staying grounded, and staying in
touch and supporting the other person. She's she would not
have picked politics, but she would she was Actually I
(44:55):
would have much preferred I hadn't, but when I decided
to do it, she was there one hundred step of
the way. She's a very accomplished person in her own
She's an actress, she's an author, and I supported everything
she did, and she would go and do plays when
we but she would go and do a place, so
(45:15):
I everything she wanted to do to help her be fulfilled.
I encouraged her, and she encouraged me. And I think
encouraging people to do what they need to do is
a very important part of building a constructive marriage.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
David Peterson, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really appreciate it. This has been a one home conversation.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Very proud of you. You're a very important part of
our life, and thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining.
I remind you on every Monday through Friday at six o'clock.
You know, I wanted to chat with David Peterson number one,
because it's the fortieth anniversary of his election as Premier
of Ontario. He's got some great lessons and I think
that you know, emulating him and copying him and following
(45:59):
his his example or something that I've tried to do
and lots of people would be better off if they
tried to do. But also I think that putting into
perspective leadership is critically important as the Ontario Liberal Party
gets together for this upcoming convention and thinking about leadership.
And so David's a great example of an excellent leader.
And so thank you David Peterson for the role you've
(46:20):
played in Ontario, the role you've played in Canada, the
role you've played in the Liberal Party, the role you've
played in my life.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Thank you, sir, Thank you very much, and best wishes
to you.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I want to give you a little sense of why
I wanted to have David Peterson on the show and
put it in perspective of a couple of other shows
that I want to have this week. The Liberal Party
is having a convention in early September and there is
a leadership review. I am not going to take any
position on that leadership review for probably obvious reasons if
(46:49):
people know my last name. But I do want to
talk a little bit about what David said because I wanted,
I think, to connect up with because it's forty years
since he was elected Premier of Ontario and I think
he's one of the best premiers that we've ever had,
and I think for several reasons, and I think those
are the reasons that we should be thinking about when
(47:11):
we think about the Liberal Party, of the Conservative Party,
the NDP, whatever party, when going forward. We talked about
leadership and how critically important it is to have someone
that's got leadership capabilities and qualities. We talked about charisma
and I think that that's pretty important. We talked about experience,
(47:31):
and David had wealth of experience, both in business and
also in the charitable sector and then in politics running
in the second leadership, being a MPP et cetera, unbelievably connected.
He was connected with business, he connected with people, He
connected with workers and helped them and they helped him.
(47:54):
And so I think that connection back and forth ended
up being critically important. He called himself a social progressive,
and I think at that was one of the keys
that Ontario was ready for his social progressivity. But he's
also talked about balancing the budget, and so therefore I
won't call him a fiscal conservative. But I think he
was prudent from a fiscal standpoint, and he talked about
(48:16):
having the best cabinet, and so therefore I think teamwork
ended up being key for David Peterson. He appointed some
really capable people to cabinet. He attracted really capable people
of running he mentioned some of the names. If you've
been in politics for a while, I think you did
recognize that he had a really strong front bench. He
also had accord with the NDP, so he was willing
(48:40):
to cooperate. He was willing to work with others. And
then finally, from my standpoint, he made the most brilliant
decision by getting my second cousin, Bob Nixon involved in
his cabinet as his treasurer, someone who had been leader
previously twice before him. And you know, logically you might
have been jealous of the the elder statesman and wanted
(49:01):
him in cabinet, but David wanted his expertise, and his
expertise in a very senior manner. He talked about how
he was friends with Robart It's a conservative premier. So
I think the teamwork ended up being one of the
keys of David Peterson. I worked hard for David Peterson.
I was his youth chair. I knocked on doors even
when he was just an MPP before he ran for
(49:22):
leader with him in Ottawa, sorry in London, Ontario. I
was a student at University of Westernitaria at the time
and saw him work incredibly hard, which I think is
another thing that is worth mentioning about hard work. David
was willing to work hard, and he worked really hard.
He knocked on an incredible amount of doors, and he
(49:42):
connected with people with doors. I was surprised how many
people knew him when we knocked on doors. I think
he is a great example of the kind of leadership
qualities that we need and I think are lacking. And
I'm not suggesting in Harry Liberal Party, but I think
in politics generally we don't see the kind of leadership
(50:05):
that David Peterson had, and I think that's a shame,
because I think he's emblematic of the kind of leadership.
I think Brian mulroney was that kind of leader, even
though I disagreed with some of the things that he
was all about. I think that John Turner was that
kind of leader, and I think we've had those kinds
of leaders in the past, and I hope that Mark
(50:28):
Karney for sure ends up being that kind of a
leader for our country, given that he's been elected as
Prime Minister. Anyway, I wanted to put this in perspective
with an example of one of the prime leaders from
the past. I'm going to try to interview a couple
of other prime leaders to get their perspective on their
time in politics, their time in leadership, and what they
(50:49):
think makes a good leader. I'm going to have a
couple of other people on this topic. Steven Adler is
going to come on my show tomorrow. He is a
conservative and he's written a really interesting article about what
he thinks about the Liberal Leadership Review, and it's an
interesting point of view. And then on Wednesday, on Thursday,
I'm going to have Wendy culkier Suk here. Sorry apologize.
I'm talking about AI and innovation because I think one
(51:11):
of the big opportunities and risks that we have in
Ontario is how we apply adopt AI and how we
become and maintain an innovative economy, because I think we've
lost some of the productivity, prosperity and innovation agenda that
Dalton McGuinty actually really brought to this province and that
(51:31):
we need to have. And then I'm going to have
on Friday a local activist, Roberta Tevlyn, talking about electoral
reform because she thinks that that's more important than who
the leader is, and that makes it kind of interesting
that she thinks so passionately about the need for electoral
reform and that that should be one of the big
policy positions taken by the Liberal Party in this coming invention.
(51:55):
So a couple of shows this week, all dedicated to
leadership and the upcoming Liberal Convention and the leadership review
that's going on. Thanks check me out.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Bye, No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA
nine six am dot Co
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