A Tribute to the Honourable R. Gordon Robertson, P.C., C.C., LL.D., F.R.S.C., D.C.L
A Tribute to The Honourable R. Gordon Robertson, P.C., C.C., LL.D., F.R.S.C., D.C.L. By Thomas d’Aquino MacKay United Church Ottawa January 21, 2013 Reverend Doctor Montgomery; members of the Robertson family; Joan - Gordon’s dear companion; Your Excellency; Madam Chief Justice; friends, I am honoured – and humbled – to stand before you today, at Gordon’s request, to pay tribute to him and to celebrate with you his remarkable life. He wished this occasion to be one, not of sadness, but of celebration of a long life, well lived, a life marked by devotion to family and to country. Gordon Robertson – a good, fair, principled, and ever so courteous man - was a modest person. But we here today know that he was a giant. Indeed, he has been described as his generation’s most distinguished public servant – and what a generation that was! Gordon was proud of his Saskatchewan roots. Born in 1917 in Davidson – a town of 300 “on the baldest prairie”, in Gordon’s words, he thrived under the affection of his Norwegian-American mother and grandparents. He met his father – of Scottish ancestry - for the first time at the age of two, when he returned home after convalescing from serious wounds suffered at the epic Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge. He was, by Gordon’s account, a stern disciplinarian who demanded much of his son in his studies, in pursuit of manly sports, and in his comportment. Gordon did not disappoint. He worked his way through drought- and depression-torn Saskatchewan, attended Regina College and the University of Saskatchewan, and in 1938 was on his way to Oxford University, a fresh young Rhodes Scholar.
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