The building in this case is Canadian political life. Rae has been a habitué since he was a student politician at the University of Toronto some 45 years ago. He has been addicted to politics most of his adult life.
It is a hard addiction to shake.
Which presumably is why, when asked in Ottawa Wednesday if he was leaving electoral politics forever, he left the door ever so slightly open.
“Never say never,” is what my colleague Joanna Smith reports him as saying.
Some politicians retire from the spotlight when their time in office is over. Bill Graham, a former foreign affairs minister who was Rae’s predecessor as Liberal MP for Toronto Centre, is rarely heard from these days. Mike Harris, the Conservative who succeeded Rae as Ontario premier, has devoted most of his time since then to quietly making money.
But that’s never been Rae’s style. “Politics and public life was part of the air I breathed growing up,” he wrote in his first of three memoirs.
And indeed it was. As a U of T student politician in the tumultuous ’60s he made his name as one of the few activists who was moderate. After a stint at Oxford University, he returned to Canada to throw himself into the New Democratic Party.
In 1978, he was elected to the Commons for the NDP. In 1982, he was persuaded to shift his focus to Ontario. In 1990, he became the province’s first NDP premier.
With the economy in full-blown recession, it was a tough time to be in power. As well, Rae and his government made their share of mistakes.
In 1995, Ontario voters soundly thrashed Rae at the polls, reducing his NDP to third-party status. It seemed the end.
But it was not. Over the next decade, Rae successfully reinvented himself — first as the go-to guy for governments inquiring into high-profile issues, finally as a card-carrying Liberal vying for the party’s top job.
During that decade, at a time when Rae was technically out of politics, his name appeared in the Star 1,865 times.
What was he doing during that period? The real question is: What was he not doing?
If there was a high-profile issue, Rae was involved. The federal government asked him to inquire into whether there should be an inquiry into the 1985 terror bombing of an Air India flight (he said yes).
The Ontario government asked him to inquire into whether university and college tuition should increase (he said yes again).
He investigated softwood lumber exports for the lumber industry and Sri Lanka’s civil war for a non-governmental organization he chaired.
When a scandal over tainted blood erupted, Rae led an investigation into what to do with the Canadian Red Cross. When the Toronto Symphony Orchestra found itself in financial trouble, Rae negotiated a government bailout.
Problems with a native fishery in New Brunswick? Call on Bob Rae.
As Rae noted in his third memoir, “It has hardly been a retirement.”
For those who know him, his 2006 decision to re-enter federal politics came as no surprise. Nor was it a surprise that he had switched his affections from the NDP to the Liberals. Rae has long enjoyed good relationships with key federal Liberals, and — as he explained in his various memoirs — was disillusioned with the party he once led.
Rae’s trials and tribulations in the Liberal party are well known: his profound disappointment at losing the leadership, first to Stéphane Dion and then to one-time friend Michael Ignatieff; his decision to try again after Ignatieff was soundly defeated in the 2011 election; his agonizing reappraisal after it became clear that the party was determined to unite behind Justin Trudeau.
Rae says he is now devoted to his new job as chief negotiator for aboriginal bands in Northern Ontario’s so-called ring of fire — a territory rich in as-yet unexploited minerals.
I am sure we will hear more about those negotiations. I am sure we will hear more about whatever else Rae puts his mind to. The spotlight on this extraordinarily versatile political figure has dimmed. If the past is any indication, he will not allow it to be extinguished.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Thomas Walkom
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