Nothing so more became Herb Gray than the manner in which he left the House of Commons, where he was the third-longest serving parliamentarian in our history.
One day in early 2002, he was deputy prime minister of Canada, serving Jean Chrétien, returning from an exhausting mission to the Middle East. He was the redoubtable, unsinkable, unflappable, indestructible and inscrutable Herb Gray. He would serve as long as the sun rose and the rivers flowed. It was written.
The next day, without warning, he was out of the cabinet, and soon, out of his seat, which he had held without interruption since Sept. 27, 1962.
He had won 13 elections and held nine portfolios. He had survived heart problems and cancer.
But he could not survive the brutality of politics. He resigned on Jan. 14, 2002, at 70 years old, having served 39 years, six months and 26 days.
Gray had reason to be bitter. Chrétien had summarily fired him. Nothing he did, really. The prime minister needed some shiny, new faces to renew his government, and well, Herb’s was neither new nor shiny. He had been around forever. Time to go.
So Gray decamped, quickly and quietly. He went — in the way governments do these things — to a hastily arranged appointment as chairman of the International Joint Commission, an obscure body addressing issues concerning lakes and rivers shared by Canada and the U.S. (He refused an appointment to the Senate.) He went to a nice salary and a big office with a great view, but it must have hurt.
It happened so fast there were not even tributes in the House of Commons. That’s how shabby it was. The prime minister and his colleagues said nothing; that was left, a few days later, to the reliably gracious Joe Clark, who called Gray “his companion in charisma.”
Did Gray get angry, stamp his feet, shout and take to Twitter or Facebook or fly to the electronic ramparts? Did he vent? Did he sue for wrongful dismissal? No, he just left, with the forbearance and stoicism you develop in a life in politics. It was Gray’s anatomy.
Gray always played the long game. He was there for the duration; men and women would come and go but he’d go on forever. He said what he thought, embraced the issues that mattered and shrugged if he crossed people. No wonder he was in and out of cabinet. Drop him and you brought him back.
There was no one quite like him in politics. He had his own brand, which was, in a word, dullness. He gave dullness distinction. He gave it singular definition, through his legendary circumlocution in the Commons, where he deftly avoided answering questions, engulfing innocent inquisitors in his bank of fog.
The dimensions of the man were uncomplicated and unsexy: integrity, independence, persistence, decency, empathy, faith.
He was proud to represent Windsor West, where they have raised a statue to him and named a parkway for him. He was dedicated to social justice, minority rights, multiculturalism and activist government. He had a sense of a distinctive country. He was an old-fashioned nationalist.
More than that, he was a man of infinite gentility. There was an old-world kindness about him.
In recent years, leaning on his walker, Gray gamely appeared at events in the capital. He was always accompanied by his remarkable and devoted wife, Sharon Sholzberg-Gray, a leading lawyer and health-care advocate.
In his years in exile, severed rudely from politics, I suspect Gray was discontented, maybe disoriented. It had to have been wrenching to leave the profession he loved, even if his health would have compelled that eventually. He never complained.
A few months after he left Parliament in 2002, he returned for a proper farewell in the Chamber. Chrétien led a series of tributes to him, echoed on all sides of the house. Later, he was made “Right Honourable” by the Governor General.
Gray deserves a state funeral. His life was selflessness and decency. He was without enemies, scandal, embarrassment, guile or cynicism. He gave politics a good name.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University.
