Peter Lougheed

Edgar Peter Lougheed PC CC AOE QC (/ˈlɑːhiːd/ LAW-heed; July 26, 1928 – September 13, 2012) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the tenth Premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985 as a Progressive Conservative, presiding over a period of reform and economic growth.[1] In 2012 he was selected as one of the best premiers of the previous four decades by a group of “30 historians, political scientists, economists, journalists and policy advisers from across Canada” by Policy Options magazine.[2]

The Honourable Peter Lougheed PC CC AOE QC
Peter Lougheed in 1971
10th Premier of Alberta
In office September 10, 1971 – November 1, 1985
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Lieutenant Governor	Grant MacEwan Ralph Steinhauer Frank C. Lynch-Staunton Helen Hunley
Preceded by	Harry E. Strom
Succeeded by	Don Getty
Leader of the Official Opposition in Alberta
In office February 15, 1968 – April 27, 1971
Preceded by	Michael Maccagno
Succeeded by	Harry Strom
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Calgary West
In office May 23, 1967 – February 28, 1986
Preceded by	Donald S. Fleming
Succeeded by	Elaine McCoy
Personal details
Born	Edgar Peter Lougheed July 26, 1928 Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Died	September 13, 2012 (aged 84) Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Political party	Progressive Conservative
Spouse(s)	Jeanne Lougheed (née Rogers)
Children	4
Alma mater	University of Alberta, Harvard University
Profession	Lawyer
Signature

Peter was the son of Edgar Donald Lougheed and Edna Alexandria Bauld. His grandfather was Senator James Alexander Lougheed, a prominent Alberta businessman.[3] Peter Lougheed played football at the University of Alberta before joining the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League for two seasons in 1949 and 1950.[4] He then entered business and practised law in Calgary.

In 1965, he was elected leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, which at that time had no seats in the legislature. He led the party back into the legislature in the 1967 provincial election, then to power with 49 of 75 seats in the 1971 election, defeating the Social Credit Party which had governed the province since 1935.

Lougheed established a Tory dynasty in the province that lasted until 2015, when the New Democratic Party won a majority government; it was the longest unbroken run in government for a provincial party in Canadian history. Lougheed led the Tories to victory in 1975, 1979 and 1982, winning landslide majorities each time.

As premier, Lougheed furthered the development of the oil and gas resources, and started the Alberta Heritage Fund to ensure that the exploitation of non-renewable resources would be of long-term benefit to Alberta. He introduced the Alberta Bill of Rights. He quarrelled with Pierre Trudeau's federal Liberal government over its 1980 introduction of the National Energy Program.[5] After hard bargaining, Lougheed and Trudeau eventually reached an agreement for energy revenue sharing in 1982. Calgary's bid to host the 1988 Winter Olympics was developed during Lougheed's terms. Alberta also experienced economic success and went through significant social reform under the Lougheed administration.

From 1996 to 2002, Lougheed served as Chancellor of Queen's University. He sat on the boards of a variety of organizations and corporations. In a 2012 edition of Policy Options, the Institute for Research on Public Policy named Lougheed the best Canadian premier of the last forty years.[6]

Early life

Peter Lougheed was born in Calgary on July 26, 1928, the son of Edgar Donald Lougheed (1893–1951)[7] and Edna Alexandria Bauld (1901–1972).[8][9] His paternal grandfather was Sir James Lougheed, a successful lawyer, federal cabinet minister, and senator.[10] James accumulated a sizable fortune before his death in 1925, but the Great Depression wiped out much of it, and the first years of Peter's life were spent moving from one rented accommodation to another.[10] He was educated at the Strathcona School for Boys, Earl Grey School, Rideau Park School, and the Central Collegiate Institute, all in Calgary.[9] At the last of these, he proposed the formation of a students' union and became its first president.[11] He also excelled at sports, particularly football.[10]

Upon graduating from Central Collegiate, Lougheed enrolled at the University of Alberta from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1950 or 1951[9][11] and a Bachelor of Laws in 1952.[9] He played football for the University of Alberta Golden Bears and, in 1949 and 1950, the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League.[9][12] He also served as president of the Students' Union in 1951 and 1952, and was a writer in the sports section for The Gateway, the University of Alberta student newspaper.[13] While studying at the University of Alberta, he lived for a time in Rutherford House as a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.[14]

In 1952, he married Jeanne "Jeannie" Rogers (1928-2020), whom he met during his schooling.[10]

Soon after the wedding, the couple went to Massachusetts, where Lougheed went to Harvard University to pursue a Master of Business Administration, which he earned in 1954.[11] While still a student at Harvard, he worked for a summer with Gulf Oil in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he witnessed an oil boom town after the oil ran out; political scientist Allan Tupper has suggested that Lougheed saw here a possible future of Alberta.[15]

After Harvard, Lougheed had to make decisions about his career. He believed that people should avoid excessive specialization in favour of maximizing their diversity of experience.[16] He anticipated spending time in business, law, and politics.[16] In pursuit of business, he took a management position with Mannix Corporation, a Canadian construction firm.[16] Later, he left the company to establish a law practice.[16] During the early 1960s, he began to turn his attention towards politics.[16]

Early political career

Lougheed came from a Conservative family, and it was with that party that he decided to pursue his political career. At the time, Alberta was represented almost entirely by Progressive Conservatives in the House of Commons of Canada.[16] While that might have made federal politics appealing to Lougheed, he viewed it as a drawback; he considered the field of federal PC politicians from Alberta to be crowded, and the life of a backbencher held little appeal for him.[16] Instead, he turned his attention to the provincial Progressive Conservatives. The party had never formed government since Alberta's founding as a province in 1905 and had captured only 13% of the vote in the 1963 election and no seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.[16] Social Credit had formed every government since 1935, led initially by Premier William Aberhart and from 1943 by Premier Ernest Manning.[16] Manning was popular and had led the Socreds to 60 of 63 seats in the legislature in 1963, but Lougheed felt that the time was ripe for change.[16] He believed that Albertans were beginning to find Social Credit too rural and insufficiently assertive in intergovernmental relations.[16] In Lougheed's view, Alberta should be a senior partner in Confederation, and Social Credit was out of touch with the province's potential.[16] He resolved to capture the leadership of the provincial Progressive Conservative party and to navigate it into government.[17]

At the party's leadership convention in 1965, Lougheed defeated Duncan McKillop, a fellow Calgary lawyer who had been the party's candidate for Calgary Queens Park in 1963, on the first ballot.[18] Another candidate, Edson town councillor John Scott, had withdrawn on the convention's first day.[18] Lougheed was nominated from the floor by Lou Hyndman and Charles Arthur Clark, father of future Prime Minister Joe Clark.[18] Vote totals were not released.[18]

Lougheed's first challenge as leader was a 1966 by-election in Pincher Creek-Crowsnest. The riding had been represented for eighteen years by Socred William Kovach, who had died.[19] While the Tories finished third, Lougheed viewed it as only a minor setback; his real focus was building up momentum for the next general election. In the 1967 election, Lougheed was elected to the legislature in Calgary-West along with five other PCs, and he became Leader of the Opposition. All but one of the new PC MLAs were from Calgary and Edmonton.

Leader of the Opposition

Manning retired as premier a year later, and Harry Strom succeeded him. However, after three decades in power, Social Credit had become tired and complacent. The first sign of a momentum shift came soon after Manning's retirement, when the PCs won his former seat in a by-election. Over the next three years, the Tories built their tiny caucus up to ten members with one other by-election win and defections by two MLAs from other parties.

During the 1970 spring session, Lougheed moved to position the PCs as a credible alternative to the Socreds. His party introduced 21 bills, an unusual number for an opposition party in a Westminster system.

Premier

Strom called a snap election for August 1971. For the campaign, Lougheed crafted a simple slogan, "NOW!", symbolizing his goal of increasing Alberta's clout in Canada. His platform combined fiscally conservative economic policies with a modern, urban outlook. Lougheed's urbane image also struck a responsive chord with the electorate, making a marked contrast with the dour Strom. Over the last three years, Lougheed had consistently gotten the better of Strom, helping establish his Tories as the main alternative to the Socreds.

In the election, Lougheed and the Tories swept the Socreds from power, ending one of the longest unbroken runs in government at the provincial level in Canada. While the PCs finished only five percentage points ahead of the Socreds, 46 percent to 41 percent, they reaped a major windfall in the cities. They took every seat in Edmonton, and all but five in Calgary. The nature of the first past the post system, which awards power solely on the basis of seats won, gave Lougheed a strong majority government, with 49 seats to the Socreds' 25 and the NDP's one. As it turned out, this would be the most opposition Lougheed would face during his 14 years in office.

Lougheed spent most of his tenure as premier in a bitter fight with the federal government over control of Alberta's resources. His first term also saw the start of a decade-long development boom, and he later established the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, which used oil revenues to invest for the long term in such areas as health care and research. He won an even stronger mandate in 1975, reducing the opposition to only six MLAs in total (four Socreds, one New Democrat and one independent) on a record 62.7 percent of the popular vote, more than Manning had drawn during the height of Social Credit's power in the 1950s. He would lead the party to two more landslide victories in 1979 and 1982. His last victory netted the PCs a staggering 75 seats out of 79: in terms of percentage of seats won, the second-largest majority government in the province's history. As a result, he governed with very large majorities for virtually his entire tenure and was in a position to enact practically any program he wanted. Indeed, the six MLAs he faced in 1975 would be the most opposition he would face during his last decade in office. That served him well, since he was a Red Tory leading a party whose base was dominated by social conservatives in rural parts of the province.

Lougheed retired in 1985. Don Getty, a member of the original PC caucus from 1967 and later a longtime member of the Lougheed cabinet, came out of retirement to succeed him.

Pacific Western Airlines

In 1974, the Government of Alberta assumed ownership of Pacific Western Airlines in part to assure the development of the North and Western Canada. The province purchased the airline for $37.5 million (equivalent to $190,935,115 in 2018) during a secret takeover bid. The Alberta government moved quickly out of worries British Columbia NDP Premier Dave Barrett had a similar plan to purchase the airline. Following the acquisition, the headquarters for the airline were moved to Calgary, and Calgary International Airport became the new hub. In 1983 the Peter Lougheed government sold the airline for $37.7 million (equivalent to $86,560,757 in 2018) after promising to do so during the 1982 Alberta general election.[20]

Illness and death

Lougheed had long been suffering from a heart condition and high blood pressure. In early September 2012, his health severely deteriorated and he was taken to hospital, where he died of natural causes at the hospital named after him in Calgary.[21] His body lay in state from September 17 to 18 inside the main rotunda of the Alberta Legislature Building.[22][23] The national and provincial flags were flown at half-mast throughout the province.[24] After lying in state, Lougheed's body travelled back to Calgary in a motorcade from Edmonton that followed a procession through the city, passing places of significance to Lougheed.[25] A state memorial was held on September 21, 2012, at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary.

In response to his death, Prime Minister Stephen Harper described Lougheed as "one of the most remarkable Canadians of his generation."[26] Alberta Premier Alison Redford cut short her trip to Asia in order to attend his funeral. Alberta's opposition leader Danielle Smith, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (who was the Minister of Justice during negotiations to patriate the Canadian constitution), federal opposition leader Thomas Mulcair and Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi issued statements condoling his death.[26] Former Prime Minister Joe Clark wrote a special commentary in The Globe and Mail praising Lougheed.[27]

Legacy

In Alberta's Camelot: Culture and the Arts in the Lougheed Years, Fil Fraser explores how Lougheed government programs created a period of unprecedented growth for provincial arts sector, from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s.[28]

The Tories were in office without interruption from 1971 until 2015, usually with large majorities but nowhere near as large as the ones Lougheed enjoyed.

Honours

Lougheed was styled "The Honourable" for the duration of his membership in the Executive Council of Alberta from 1971 to 1986. When he was appointed a privy councillor (postnominal: "PC") on April 17, 1982, the style "The Honourable" was extended for life. In 1986, he was named a Companion of the Order of Canada (postnominal: "CC"), and in 1989 he was named to the Alberta Order of Excellence (postnominal: "AOE"). In 2001 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

The Peter Lougheed Provincial Park was named after him in Kananaskis, Alberta. In Calgary an acute care hospital was named the Peter Lougheed Centre, where he would spend his last days. After his death proposals were made to rename Calgary International Airport in his honour.[29] At the University of Alberta in Edmonton, a residence hall was named after him.

Electoral record

As party leader

1982 Alberta provincial election
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1979	1982	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	79	74	75	+1.4%	588,485	62.28%	+4.88%
	New Democrats	Grant Notley	79	1	2	+100%	177,166	18.75%	+3.00%
	Independent		34	-	2		36,590	3.87%	+3.10%
	Western Canada Concept	Gordon Kesler	78	-	-	-	111,131	11.76%	-
	Liberal	Nicholas Taylor	29	-	-	-	17,074	1.81%	−4.35%
	Social Credit		23	4	-	−100%	7,843	0.83%	−19.04%
	Alberta Reform Movement	Tom Sindlinger	14	-	-	-	6,258	0.66%	*
	Communist		8	-	-	-	389	0.04%	−0.01%
Total			344	79	79	-	944,936	100%
1979 Alberta provincial election
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1975	1979	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	79	69	74	+7.2%	408,097	57.40%	−5.25%
	Social Credit	Robert Curtis Clark	79	4	4	-	141,284	19.87%	+1.70%
	New Democrats	Grant Notley	79	1	1	-	111,984	15.75%	+2.81%
	Liberal	Nicholas Taylor	78	-	-	-	43,792	6.16%	+1.18%
	Independent		8	-	-	-	3,430	0.48%	+0.37%
	Independent Conservative		3	-	-	-	1,613	0.23%	+0.05%
	Independent Christian		1	-	-	-	403	0.06%	-
	Communist		7	-	-	-	357	0.05%	−0.08%
Total			334	75	79	+5.3%	710,963	100%
1975 Alberta provincial election
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1971	1975	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	75	49	69	+40.8%	369,764	62.65%	+16.25%
	Social Credit	Werner Schmidt	70	25	4	−84.0%	107,211	18.17%	−22.93%
	New Democrats	Grant Notley	75	1	1	0%	76,360	12.94%	+1.52%
	Independent Social Credit		1	*	1	100%	4,428	0.75%	*
	Liberal	Nicholas Taylor	46	-	-	-	29,424	4.98%	+3.97%
	Independent Progressive Conservative		3	-	-	-	1,059	0.18%	-
	Communist		14	-	-	-	768	0.13%	-
	Independent		4	-	-		625	0.11%	+1.06%
	Independent Liberal		2	-	-	-	416	0.07%	-
	Constitutional Socialist	Mike Uhryn	3	-	-	-	115	0.02%	-
Total			293	75	75	-	590,200	100%
1971 Alberta provincial election
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1967	1971	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	75	6	49	+717%	296,934	46.40%	+20.40%
	Social Credit	Harry Strom	75	55	25	−54.5%	262,953	41.10%	−3.5%
	New Democrats	Grant Notley	70	-	1		73,038	11.42%	−4.56%
	Liberal	Bob Russell	20	3	-	−100%	6,475	1.01%	−9.80%
	Independent		3	1	-	−100%	462	0.07%	−1.31%
Total			243	65	75	+15.4%	639,862	100%
1967 Alberta provincial election
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1963	1967	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Social Credit	Ernest C. Manning	65	60	55	−8.3%	222,270	44.60%	−10.21%
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	47	-	6		129,544	26.00%	+13.29%
	Liberal	Michael Maccagno	45	2	3	+50.0%	53,847	10.81%	−8.95%
	Independent		7	-	1		6,916	1.38%	+0.40%
	New Democrats	Neil Reimer	65	-	-	-	79,610	15.98%	+6.53%
	Coalition		2	1	-	−100%	3,654	0.73%	+0.19%
	Independent Progressive Conservative		2	-	-	-	1,118	0.22%	-
	Liberal/Progressive Conservative		1	-	-	-	699	0.14%	−0.14%
	Independent Social Credit		2	-	-	-	693	0.14%	−0.65%
Total			236	63	65	+3.2%	498,351	100%

As MLA

1982 Alberta general election results (Calgary West)
Affiliation		Candidate	Votes	%
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	11,668	78.8%
	NDP	Ed Smith	1,175	7.9%
	WCC	Bruce Roper	1,106	7.5%
	Liberal	Barb Scott	598	4.0%
	Social Credit	Leonard Petterson	251	1.7%
1979 Alberta general election results (Calgary West)
Affiliation		Candidate	Votes	%
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	7,825	72.9%
	Social Credit	Frank Cottingham	930	8.7%
	Liberal	Barb Scott	874	8.1%
	NDP	Ed Smith	699	6.5%
	Independent Christian	Jacob Binnema	406	3.8%
1975 Alberta general election results (Calgary West)
Affiliation		Candidate	Votes	%
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	8,983	78.6%
	Social Credit	Charles Grey	1,213	10.6%
	NDP	Neil Ellison	674	5.9%
	Liberal	Steve Shaw	564	4.9%
1971 Alberta general election results (Calgary West)
Affiliation		Candidate	Votes	%
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	7,049	55.2%
	Social Credit	Charles Grey	4,319	33.8%
	NDP	Joe Yanchula	1,066	8.3%
	Liberal	Brian Stevenson	333	2.6%
1967 Alberta general election results (Calgary West)
Affiliation		Candidate	Votes	%
	Progressive Conservative	Peter Lougheed	8,548	61.7%
	Social Credit	Donald S. Fleming	4,028	29.1%
	NDP	Allan Early	868	6.3%
	Liberal	Natalie Chapman	402	2.9%

References

1. Fernandez, Pablo (September 14, 2012). "Peter Lougheed's Many Accomplishments Over The Years". The Huffington Post Canada.
2. "Peter Lougheed named best premier of last 40 years". CBC News. The Canadian Press. May 3, 2012.
3. Barkwell, Lawrence (June 13, 2012). "Peter Lougheed, PC, CC, AOE, QC. (1928-2012)" (PDF). Virtual Museum of Metis History and Culture. Gabriel Dumont Institute.
4. "Peter Lougheed". CFLapedia.com.
5. Gerson, Jen (September 14, 2012). "A legacy rich as oil: Ex-Alberta premier Peter Lougheed's ideas imprinted on party still in power 41 years later". National Post. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
6. Pratt, Sheila (May 3, 2012). "Alberta's Peter Lougheed easily tops list of Canada's best premiers". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
7. Perry, Craig 2006, pg. 520
8. Perry, Craig 2006, pg. 521
9. "Peter Lougheed". Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Archived from the original on 2008-11-01. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
10. Tupper, Allan (2004). "Peter Lougheed". In Bradford J. Rennie (ed.). Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century. Regina, Saskatchewan: Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina. p. 205. ISBN 0-88977-151-0.
11. "Peter Lougheed". Queen's University. Archived from the original on 2008-06-02. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
12. "Peter Lougheed". CFLapedia. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
13. "List of Students' Union presidents". University of Alberta calendar. University of Alberta. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
14. "Delta Upsilon". University of Alberta centennial celebration. Retrieved 2008-09-22.
15. Tupper 205–206
16. Tupper 206
17. Tupper 207
18. Hustak, Allan (1979). Peter Lougheed: A Biography. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart. pp. 68–69.
19. "Summary of Results for Past By-Elections". Elections Alberta. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved 2008-09-23.
20. Steward, Gillian (December 19, 1983). "Alberta gives up an airline". Maclean's. Calgary. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
21. CBC News (September 13, 2012). "Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed dies in hospital". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
22. Kleiss, Karen (September 15, 2012). "Former premier will lie in state at legislature". The Edmonton Journal. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
23. "Peter Lougheed will lie in state at Alberta legislature". CTV News. September 15, 2012. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
24. Bennett, Dean (September 14, 2012). "Flags at half-mast, white roses at legislature for former premier Lougheed". The Winnipeg Free Press. The Canadian Press. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
25. Kleiss, Karen. "Lougheed motorcade to wend its way through Edmonton before heading to Calgary". The Edmonton Journal. Edmonton, Alberta. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
26. "Peter Lougheed's death stirs emotions of Canadians". CBC News. September 13, 2012. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
27. Clark, Joe (September 14, 2012). "Joe Clark: Lougheed built Canada by looking to Alberta's future". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
28. Gill, Alexandra (17 March 2009). "Alberta arts on the cusp". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
29. Schneider, Katie (September 14, 2012). "MLAs on board with renaming Calgary International Airport after Lougheed". The Calgary Sun. Retrieved September 16, 2012.

Bibliography

• Perry, Sandra E.; Craig, Jessica J. (2006). The Mantle of Leadership : Premiers of the Northwest Territories and Alberta. Edmonton, Alberta: Legislative Assembly of Alberta. ISBN 0-9689217-2-8.
• Fraser, Fil (2003). Alberta's Camelot: Culture and the Arts in the Lougheed Years. Lone Pine Publishing. ISBN 1-55105-393-4.
• Wood, David G. (1985). The Lougheed legacy. Toronto: Key Porter Books. ISBN 0-919493-48-3. OCLC 910363674.