Unlikely Insider
A West Coast Advocate in Ottawa
A forward-looking reflection on challenges facing Canada and its citizens, engagingly recounted by one of the country’s longest-serving senators.
McGill-Queen’s University Press, February 2023
“Building a fair and inclusive Canada is the job of every generation.”
Republished with the express permission of Vancouver Sun, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.Reflecting on Canada’s past, present and future
At a time when too many of the world’s political leaders are consolidating power by playing on divisions and stoking fear, Unlikely Insider comes as a welcome reminder of the value of public service as a force for economic progress, social justice, and nation-building.
With both historical perspective and an eye to the future, former federal cabinet minister Jack Austin reflects on events and people whose impacts are still felt, and on the enduring challenges of Canadian life. Moving away from colonial domination of Indigenous Peoples, navigating our pivotal relationship with the United States and engagement with China, the nature and purpose of the Senate: these remain timely concerns, to which he has made significant contributions.
Sharing insights into policy as well as into the personalities of colleagues and friends, Unlikely Insider paints vignettes of figures from Premier Zhou Enlai to Queen Elizabeth and recounts the author’s travels with Pierre Trudeau after the prime minister’s retirement. Unlikely Insider reminds Canadians that inclusion – regional, social, and demographic – makes our nation both stronger and more just.
The authors
Credit: Richard FreemanJack Austin has been involved in politics and public policy at the highest levels for more than fifty years, including as a minister in the Pierre Trudeau and Paul Martin governments, senior civil servant, and chief of staff to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He is currently honorary professor and senior fellow at the Institute of Asian Research of the University of British Columbia.
Edie Austin, with more than forty years of experience in journalism as a writer and editor, is former editorial page editor of the Montreal Gazette. She is Jack’s daughter.
Events
February 28th, 2023
Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival
Vancouver, BC
At the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, in conversation with Ronald Stern.
April 13th, 2023
4:30 - 7:30 p.m. PDT
Simon Fraser University’s Segal Graduate School of Business 500 Granville Street Room 1200-1500 Vancouver, BC V6C 1W6
Jack Austin in conversation with Evaleen Jaager Roy (Chair, SFU Beedie Advisory Board), featuring co-hosts Sarah Kutulakos (Executive Director, Canada China Business Council), Jeff Nankivell (President and CEO, Asia Pacific Foundation Canada), Paul Evans (Professor, University of British Columbia) and Jing Li (Co-Director, Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies, SFU).
Jack Austin will be in conversation with Toronto Metropolitan Leadership Lab and Brookfield Institute's Executive Director, Karim Bardeesy.
April 19th, 2023
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. EDT
Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship, 20 Dundas Street West Suite 921 Toronto, ON M5G2C2
Jack Austin delivers a talk, followed by a Q&A and reception. This event is presented by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in partnership with McGill-Queen's University Press.
April 24th, 2023
4:00 - 6:00 p.m. EDT
McGill Faculty Club and Conference Centre 3450 McTavish Street Montreal, QC H3A 1X9
What people are saying
“Jack Austin has played a unique role in Canada’s public life. His deep friendship with Pierre Trudeau, his unparalleled contacts in China, his leadership in representing British Columbia and western Canada in Ottawa, and his personal exuberance, warmth, and wide-ranging friendships make his a voice we need to hear!”
Bob Rae, Canadian ambassador to the United Nations
Jack and I were active in contesting political parties during more than 30 years of great national and international change. We shared a challenge of representing an “outsider” region at the active centre of a national party and government. While we disagreed on particular issues, I admired his skill as a federalist and a decider and, especially his foresight and focus on Canada’s emerging opportunities in Asia-Pacific. For most of Canada’s history, our nation was shaped from the centre and, consistently and over time, without contesting those existing strengths, Jack Austin worked assiduously to open our eyes to our west. With singular effectiveness he applied a political lens with a BC perspective to Canada’s sense of our future, and we are all beneficiaries.
Rt Honourable Joe Clark, former prime minister of Canada
“Jack Austin is a great Canadian whose contribution to Canada has been both quiet and significant. Over decades in various roles he brought to the national body politic a unique understanding of the intersection of good public policy and the party political process with measurable results. His thinking and action were informed by his Western Canadian roots, understanding and experience – commodities all too lacking in addressing national issues in Canada. His influence and actions on building a foundation for Canada’s emergence as a Pacific nation will serve us well.
Jack’s story is well worth the read, brings life to the evolution of Canada as a nation over the last half century and the ways in which we can and should be finding solutions.”
Don Campbell, former deputy foreign minister
“Given Jack Austin’s intellectual bent and acute insights, Unlikely Insider provides a detailed analysis of many of the most challenging policy issues of the day, several of which, as he himself notes, are ongoing concerns. It also offers a primer in the sociology of Canadian politics and political life, demonstrating conclusively - whether intentional or not - the complex and significant interrelationship between the various political, business, and academic elites, a reality first outlined decades ago by John Porter in ‘The Vertical Mosaic.’”
Brooke Jeffrey, author of Road to Redemption: The Liberal Party of Canada, 2006-2019
Table of contents
Foreword
By the Right Honourable Paul Martin
Introduction
Chapter 1
Becoming a British Columbian
Chapter 2
The Influence of Art Laing
Chapter 3
Ups and Downs in a Resource Economy
Chapter 4
Deputy Minister in the Eye of the Storm: An Oil Crisis, and More
Chapter 5
Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister
Chapter 6
The Evolving Senate
Chapter 7
The Expo 86 Backstory
Chapter 8
One Minister, Many Files
Chapter 9
My Introduction to China
Chapter 10
Building the Canada-China Relationship
Chapter 11
The American Elephant and the Aztec Eagle
Chapter 12
Recognition and Reconciliation
Chapter 13
Travels with Pierre
Conclusion
“Education, curiosity and optimism are absolutely vital to moving forward.”
Jack as an army cadet.A difficult beginning
Jack is a Westerner by birth and by choice. Born in Calgary in 1932, in the midst of the Depression, he faced substantial hardships, his childhood marked by poverty and family tragedies. His difficult early years left him understanding that people can fall on hard times through no fault of their own, and drove home the need for governments to help create economic opportunity and a social safety net.
It became clear that the goal of politics should be to help people, and that education and optimism are vital to moving forward both as an individual and as a country.
As well, growing up in Calgary’s small Jewish community, Jack learned early on that identity is not a zero-sum game, that there are different ways to be Canadian, and that Canada’s success depends on its being a land of opportunity for Canadians of all backgrounds.
“A long-standing West Coast refrain was that while Vancouver is 3,000 miles from Ottawa, Ottawa is 30,000 miles from Vancouver.”
In Jack’s office, Room 201, East Block, 1975A British Columbian in Ottawa
Jack first went to Ottawa in 1963 as executive assistant to Northern Affairs and National Resources Minister Arthur Laing, then later served as deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (1970-74), chief of staff to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1974-75), a member of the Senate (1975-2007), and held cabinet posts in the Pierre Trudeau and Paul Martin governments (1981-84 and 2003-05).
Throughout his career, an abiding priority was to ensure BC’s realities, perspectives and priorities were reflected in national policies.
A key accomplishment was to gain the enhanced federal contribution to Expo 86 that allowed the fair to go ahead, saw the construction of Canada Place on Vancouver’s waterfront and put an end to the provincial government’s long tradition of “fed-bashing” (of stirring up resentment of the federal government).
As a British Columbian well aware that Canada is not only an Atlantic and Arctic nation, but a Pacific one, he worked to enhance the country’s ties with Asia, particularly China and Japan.
“While ideas and policies are essential, ultimately, people are the ones who drive events.”
In Xinjiang province, 1987. Credit: Natalie Veiner Freeman.People and places
Over the course of his long career, Jack has worked with or had the opportunity to meet many influential people, and in the memoir, he shares his observations and insights.
Former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, with whom he worked closely in various capacities and later was a travel companion, figures prominently, and he writes about their travels to Asia, Africa and South America.
He also writes about serving as host minister for the 1983 visit to British Columbia of Queen Elizabeth II; meeting Zhou Enlai in Beijing in 1971 and Nelson Mandela in South Africa in 1992.
Also important parts of the story are former prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien; two premier Bennetts (W.A.C. and his son Bill); Jack’s early mentors Arthur Laing, Paul Martin Sr., Nathan Nemetz and James Sinclair; extraordinary civil servants Michael Pitfield and Gordon Robertson; and early Senate colleagues Eugene Forsey and David Croll.
Photo gallery
Jack in the Canadian Arctic.
(From left) Jim Pattison, Pierre Trudeau, Jack and Keith Mitchell at Expo 86 in Vancouver.
Jack as an instructor at the UBC Faculty of Law 1955-1956.
Jack welcomes Chinese President Hu Jintao to a banquet in his honour in Vancouver in January 2005
Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang speaks at a banquet Jack hosted in his honour in Vancouver in January 1984. Jack’s wife Natalie Veiner Freeman is sitting on the left.
A 1987 trip with Pierre Trudeau included a cruise along the Yangtze River, prior to construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Credit: Natalie Veiner Freeman
Jack and Toyku managing director Isao Ishiyama sign the deal for the purchase of the air rights over part of the Canada Place site in order to build the Pan Pacific Hotel, in Vancouver on 14 October 1983.
Jack at the lectern emceeing as Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and several premiers and territorial leaders participate in a discussion in Beijing during the Team Canada mission in November 1994. Credit: K.K. Wong
Meeting Nelson Mandela was the highlight of a 1992 trip to South Africa. (From left) Canadian ambassador Christopher Westdal, Nelson Mandela, Pierre Trudeau, ANC official Walter Sisulu, Jack, and Natalie. Photo courtesy of Natalie Veiner Freeman.
From left: Graham Rowley, secretary to the Advisory Committee on Northern Development; Jack; then MP John Turner; northern affairs and national resources minister Arthur Laing; a host official; deputy minister E.A. Côté; and a host official in Denmark in 1965, on the way to the Soviet Union.
Jack at his study desk at Harvard 1956-1957.Jack’s book recommendations
Contact
unlikelyinsider@gmail.com
Media enquiries: Jacqueline Davis at McGill-Queen’s University Press
jacqueline.davis@mcgill.ca