Bill Davis, who, as Ontario’s premier from 1971 to 1985, expanded the province’s education system, established an environment ministry, imposed rent restrictions, and played a key role in negotiating a compromise that established Canada’s sovereignty over Britain, died on August 8. at his home in Brampton, a suburb of Toronto. He was 92.
His family announced the death in a statement.
Mr. Davis entered politics as a teenager. He was a progressive conservative, but given his centrist views – more progressive than conservative – he was categorized as a ‘red tory’.
Because he rarely took a public stance on controversial issues until the last minute, he was widely regarded as slack and even dull. But he attributed his electoral success to those same characteristics, and to a political pragmatism that left his rivals at the margins.
“Wrong works,” he always said.
Clare Wescott, one of his longtime assistants, however, once suggested that Mr. Davis was anything but. She once described him as a “decisive and tough bastard disguised as a pussy.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Mr. Davis for his role in the negotiations on the so-called patriation of the Constitution in 1982, which ultimately gave the provinces a greater role in constitutional affairs and stripped Britain of the right to legislate for Canada. Mr. Davis persuaded Pierre Trudeau, Mr. Trudeau’s father and then Prime Minister, to give the provinces a greater role, leading them to agree to the power-sharing pact that redefined Canada’s identity.
“He was an able statesman who set aside partiality and worked with my father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, to bring about concrete change and uphold our shared values, such as diversity and human rights,” the prime minister said.
In his 2016 book, “Bill Davis: Nation Builder, and Not So Bland After All,” journalist Steve Paikin wrote, “Davis’s most lasting legacy to the nation was undoubtedly his role in securing the successful conclusion of the constitutional discussions in 1981.”
William Grenville Davis was born on July 30, 1929 in Toronto to Vera (Hewetson) Davis and Albert Davis, a lawyer. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1951 and received a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 1954.
In 1955 he married Helen McPhee; they had four children, Neil, Nancy, Catherine and Ian, before she died of cancer in 1962. In 1964, Mr. Davis married Kathleen Mackay; they had a daughter, Meg. In addition to his wife and children, among his survivors are his sister, Molly; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Described as the first delegate under the age of 17 to attend a progressive conservative national party congress, Mr. Davis elected to the Ontario Legislative Assembly from the Peel Region at age 29.
Ontario, Canada’s largest and wealthiest province, is home to Ottawa, Canada’s seat of government, and Toronto, the nation’s business and media capital. “In Ontario, you control 40 percent of the country’s GDP,” said Brian Mulroney, a former Canadian Prime Minister.
Mr. Davis was distinguished by his ubiquitous pipe and ankle-high “Beatle boots.” As secretary of education, beginning in 1962, and later as the first secretary of university affairs, he increased school budgets and founded the community college system and the universities of Trent and Brock, as well as the education network now known as TVOntario.
Later, as Prime Minister, he agreed to allocate full public funding to Ontario’s Roman Catholic high schools. He also expanded health care and bilingual services, although he stopped making French the official second language of the province.
During his tenure, the government also halted plans to build a highway through Toronto and lowered the legal drinking age from 21 to 18.
Mr. Davis’s decision to opt out in 1985 virtually ended his party’s 42-year rule in the Ontario provincial government.
In 1985 and 1986, he served on a joint task force formed with the United States to address the challenges faced by acid rain in the Great Lakes. In 2003, he helped negotiate the merger of the federal Progressive Conservatives with the Conservative Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada.
In a television interview in 2009, Mr. Davis was optimistic about how, in addition to being Ontario’s second-longest serving Prime Minister, he would be remembered.
“Historians will do what they want to do,” he said. “But I feel comfortable that I did my best, I made the decisions I thought were right. And sometimes I made a mistake.”
But, he added, “I can’t think of any.”
