THE BEST PREMIER OF THE LAST 40 YEARS: LOUGHEED IN A LANDSLIDE L. Ian MacDonald To mark the occasion of the IRPP’s 40th anniversary, Policy Options asked a panel of 30 prominent Canadians to select the Best Premier of the Last 40 Years. Our Editor explains the survey and the results. The answer that came back was loud and clear: Peter Lougheed. Pour souligner les 40 ans de l’IRPP, Options politiques a demandé à 30 éminents Canadiens de désigner le meilleur premier ministre provincial des 40 dernières années. Le rédacteur en chef explique pourquoi Peter Lougheed s’est facilement imposé en tête du classement. elebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the Not only did he defend the interests of Alberta on the own- Institute for Research on Public Policy was co- ership of its resources, he created the Heritage Savings Trust Fund C endowed by Ottawa and the provinces. to save for a rainy day. And there would have been no agreement In recognition of the vital role of the provinces and on patriating the Constitution with an entrenched Charter of their importance in the Canadian federation, Policy Options Rights in 1981 had Ottawa not accepted Lougheed’s general assembled a jury of 30 prominent Canadians to select the “7/50” amending formula requiring the consent of Ottawa and Best Premier of the Last 40 Years. seven provinces representing 50 percent of the population, as Working with Tom Axworthy of the Munk School for well as the notwithstanding clause providing a legislative over- Global Affairs and Arthur Milnes, 2011 Fellow in Political ride clause to Parliament and the legislatures. Though never History at Queen’s University, we designed a questionnaire invoked by Ottawa, it was a deal maker at the federal-provincial comprising nine leadership attributes: winnability, communica- constitutional table in November 1981. tor, vision, fiscal frameworks, the economy, infrastructure, inter- Finally, he founded a Progressive Conservative political provincial relations, federal-provincial relations and legacy. dynasty that remains in office to this day. Forty-one years We asked the jury to rank each of the nominated former and counting. The Alberta PCs, under their new leader premiers — premiers still in office were excluded from con- Alison Redford, have just won their 12th consecutive elec- sideration — on each of the nine leadership attributes on a tion. Lougheed’s emphatic endorsement of Redford, with scale of 1 to 10. Finally, we asked them to pick a list of their only 10 days to go in an election in which her campaign had top 5 premiers from the long list of 18 nominees. been struggling against the surging Wildrose Party and its leader, Danielle Smith, may well have been a game-changer. he answer that came back was resounding: Peter With 100 percent coverage in the top 5, and his sweep T Lougheed, by a landslide. of the nine leadership questions, Lougheed finished way out Lougheed was chosen as the Best Premier of the Last 40 in front in the scoring, which was tabulated by IRPP Years by 21 out of the 30 members of the jury, and he was Research Director Jeremy Leonard. picked in the top 5 by all 30 members of the panel. As the results came in, his lead only lengthened, and there Moreover, he swept the leadership categories, winning was never any doubt that he was going to win. all nine attributes. But the Man from Brampton, William G. Davis, was a As Lougheed himself said when he sat for our Q&A in very respectable second, with 86.7 percent of the jurors vot- Calgary: “I’m delighted and honoured.” ing for him and 84 points overall. Though he received no Lougheed was quite simply the builder of modern votes as Best Premier, Davis was the consensus choice for Alberta, from better roads to higher education. During the second place. Coincidentally, he was in office during the four terms and 14 years of his premiership, Alberta played same period as Lougheed, from 1971 to 1985. a leadership role in the Canadian federation as it has at no Allan Blakeney, the prairie socialist who never ran a deficit time since. as Saskatchewan premier from 1971 to 1982, was a strong third, POLICY OPTIONS 13 JUNE-JULY 2012 L. Ian MacDonald with coverage in the top 5 from 50 per- cent of the jurors and 44 points overall. Frank McKenna, who modernized the economy and infrastructure of New Brunswick, was in fourth place with top 5 coverage by 46.7 percent of the jury and 37 points. Finally, Robert Bourassa edged out René Lévesque for fifth place, based partly on his remarkable return from the political wilderness, reclaiming the Quebec Liberal leadership in 1983, and the premiership itself in 1985. He was also the father of the James Bay hydro- electric projects and played a promi- nent role in support of the Free Trade Agreement in 1987 and the Meech Lake Accord from 1987 to 1990. n selecting the jury, we were very I conscious of the need for balance on two “Gs” — geography and generations. We also wanted both official language communities, as well as minority lan- guage communities, represented. We believe the jury list reflects that. Every province was represented according to its weight in the federation. Official lan- guage and minority language communi- ties were well represented. The full list of the jury members can be seen at the end of this article. It’s a remarkable and very diverse group — including three former clerks of the Privy Council and two former senior federal cabinet ministers from the West — and we thank them all for taking the time to participate by responding to our questionnaire on the Best Premier of the Last 40 Years. It is also worth noting that the jurors worked inde- pendently and weren’t informed who their colleagues on the panel were until the results were fully tabulated. In sending us their short bios, CP Photo each jury member was asked to tell us The Best Premier of the Last 40 Years, Peter Lougheed. He swept all nine leadership where he or she was born or grew up. categories, was chosen as the best premier by 21 out of 30 jurors, and was in the top 5 What was quite striking about what of every member of the panel. Lougheed by a landslide. came back was that only 7 of the 30 members still lived in the city of their We weren’t sure what the results L. Ian MacDonald, Editor of Policy birth. The rest have all moved from would be, and whether the answers Options, is the author or editor of five one part of Canada to another. to our questionnaire would be illu- books, including Mulroney: The Making When we started out to do the Best minating. of the Prime Minister, and From Bourassa Premier of the Last 40 Years, we thought The results speak for themselves. to Bourassa: Wilderness to Restoration. it would be a lot of fun. And it was. And the answer is Peter Lougheed. [email protected] 14 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN-JUILLET 2012 OUR JURY Thomas S. Axworthy: Tom is a native of Winnipeg. Early in and journalist for the Societé Radio-Canada (SRC) and the his career, he served as senior policy adviser and principal CBC, in which capacity she covered numerous provincial Secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He left politics to and federal elections. She later became news director of SRC teach, and in 1984 he went to Harvard University as a fel- and director of RDI (Réseau de l’information). She is now low of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of managing partner of the Toronto office for National Public Government. He was subsequently appointed Visiting Relations. Mackenzie King Chair of Canadian Studies. He helped to create the Historica Foundation in 1999 to improve the Mel Cappe: A native of Toronto, Mel is a professor in the teaching and learning of Canadian history, and he became School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto. Historica’s executive director, a position he held until 2005. He was president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy In 2009, he became president and CEO of the Walter & from 2006 to 2011. He served in the Public Service of Canada Duncan Gordon Foundation. He is a distinguished senior fel- as high commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom low at the Munk School of Global Affairs and a senior fellow from 2002 to 2006. Before that he was Clerk of the Privy at Massey College. Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada. Daniel Béland: A native of Montreal who spent the last decade on the Prairies, Daniel holds the Canada Research Thomas J. Courchene: Tom was born in Wakaw, Chair in Public Policy at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate Saskatchewan, and was educated at the universities of School of Public Policy (University of Saskatchewan campus). Saskatchewan (honours BA), Princeton (PhD economics) He was a visiting scholar at the Kennedy School of and Chicago (post-doctoral). He is currently the Government (Harvard University) and a public policy scholar Jarislowsky-Deutsch Professor at Queen’s University (eco- at the Woodrow Wilson Center (Washington, DC). An expert nomics and policy studies) and is senior scholar at the in comparative public policy, he has published eight books Institute for Research on Public Policy. He is the editor or and more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He regu- author of some 60 books and has written widely on broad larly engages with elected officials, civil servants, and the range of Canadian public policy issues.