Hon. James S. Cowan (Leader of the Opposition):

Honourable senators, I rise to correct a grievous wrong. Last June, one of our members — indeed the former dean of this chamber — tried to slip quietly from this place, with no opportunity for us to honour his 50 years of public service. I am speaking of course of Senator Lowell Murray who retired from the Senate on September 26, the day before the Senate resumed sitting.

He came to the Senate to represent Pakenham, Ontario, which he did for 30 years. However, he is a Cape Bretoner born and bred. As any Nova Scotian will tell you, our province has a powerful pull on its native children, however long they have been away. It is no surprise that Senator Murray and his wife Colleen chose to return to Cape Breton to live. Our former colleague, Allan J. MacEachen, asked me to note that Senator Murray has taken up residence in the home originally built by Dr. Moses McGarry. He was a former speaker of the Nova Scotia legislature, member of the House of Commons and, most importantly, an ardent Liberal. Senator MacEachen hopes — particularly with Dr. McGarry's portrait displayed prominently in the living room — that Senator Murray's political evolution and development will continue and reach its natural conclusion.

Honourable senators, what is now taking place in Dr. McGarry's former residence is just one illustration of the unusual character of Cape Breton. I suspect that if an enterprising researcher were to investigate, they might find that on a per capita basis that small geographical area has produced more Canadian statesmen and stateswomen than any other part of the country. Even in such august company, Senator Murray stands out. Historian Jack Granatstein has described him as "a master of the political back rooms."

That is certainly true. He is an exceptionally astute political strategist, but — perhaps unusually for political back room operatives — he is driven first and foremost by his belief in the possibilities of government and public policy and his desire to seek out and implement the best possible results for Canadians.

He said that he grew up surrounded by politics. Although his father was a Conservative, other family members were Liberals. Growing up in this environment crystallized for him the vital role government can play raising standards and helping its citizens.

It no doubt helped that he attended St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. In 1955-56, he became the leader of the St. F-X Progressive Conservative party and faced what must have seemed a Herculean task. The students of St. F-X had never elected a Conservative government in a model parliament, but then Lowell Murray became the party's leader and history was made.

That was quite an illustrious parliament, honourable senators. Robert Higgins, who went on to head the New Brunswick Liberal Party, served as the model parliament's governor general, and a 17-year old named Brian Mulroney served as minister of fisheries. In his memoir, former Prime Minister Mulroney wrote that he reluctantly accepted the fisheries portfolio, and did so only after Prime Minister Lowell Murray had assured him that he would not be embarrassed if he did not know the difference between a halibut and a flounder.

Honourable senators, what does a former prime minister do upon graduation from university? In Senator Murray's case, he moved on to provincial politics, which in 1956 was an interesting place for a young Progressive Conservative to be in Nova Scotia. That was the year Robert Stanfield became the premier of our province — and, incidentally, elected my own father to the opposition benches. Locally, Lowell worked to elect Bill MacKinnon in Antigonish, a riding that had not elected a Progressive Conservative in more than 40 years. Once again, Senator Murray helped to break a record and helped elect Bill MacKinnon to the legislature.

Lowell then turned to federal politics, working with Donnie MacInnis and Bob Muir — our former colleague here in the Senate — in Cape Breton in 1957 and 1958 elections.

I mentioned his triumph in electoral politics at St. F-X, but this was not Lowell Murray's only run for public office. Pat MacAdam wrote an article last year in which he revealed that in the 1960 Nova Scotia election, Lowell Murray "offered himself up as a human sacrifice in Cape Breton Centre," running against the popular CCF leader Mickey MacDonald and Liberal Jimmie P. McNeil, who was the mayor of New Waterford. As MacAdam described it, Lowell "lost by a ton"; but in honesty I must say he improved the Conservative vote by almost 700.

Happily for us Liberals, that ended Senator Murray's run for elected office. In 1961, he came to Ottawa, where he served as executive assistant to the Minister of Justice, Davie Fulton. There he worked alongside Marc Lalonde and our former colleague, Michael Pitfield. That must have been quite an office — and the issues they worked on!

The Minister of Justice at that time was responsible for the RCMP, penitentiaries and the Parole Board, as well as the traditional responsibilities of the Attorney General of Canada. The office was involved in extensive correctional reforms that had to pass Parliament and an investigation into the widespread abuse of indentured Chinese labourers.

Following the defeat of the Diefenbaker government, Lowell went to work with Senator Wallace McCutcheon, who, among other things, served on the Special Joint Committee on the Canada Pension Plan. These were heady days indeed for anyone actively engaged in public service. As Senator Murray has said, he had a "ringside seat" for many major, really defining public policy issues for Canadians.

He then served as chief of staff to Robert Stanfield when Mr. Stanfield became Leader of the Opposition in Ottawa in 1967. Honourable senators, this was not a position he applied for. In fact, when Mr. Stanfield tried to telephone him after the leadership convention, he was nowhere to be found. Lowell had gone off to Tokyo to see the world. They spoke. Mr. Stanfield said he would very much like to have Lowell come work for him — a great honour and a great opportunity for a young man so steeped in politics. Lowell's reaction? He suggested they speak when he returned from his travels.

Two weeks later, now in Saigon, he got another call, this one from Davie Fulton, saying, "Stanfield wants to know why you're not here or why you'll not hurry up." Lowell Murray was unmoved; he coolly continued on his way, travelling to Thailand and Lebanon and then finally deciding to come home and see what Mr. Stanfield had in mind. I guess, honourable senators, after that, Mr. Stanfield could be pretty confident that this was a man who would not be cowed, who would see something through no matter what the distractions.

In 1970, Lowell turned his focus once again to provincial politics, but this time in neighbouring New Brunswick. He began by helping out Richard Hatfield, then leader of the opposition and subsequently premier. In 1973, he joined the premier's office as deputy minister. As Senator Murray recently described in an interview he gave to Senator McCoy's office, which is posted on her website:

Those were immensely significant years. Louis Robichaud was the father of modern New Brunswick. He transformed the province in the early '70s, but it was Premier Hatfield who really made the new government model work. We made sure that educational, social assistance and tax reforms were entrenched and helped the people of New Brunswick prosper for the next two decades.

Lowell has been a long-time friend and supporter of Joe Clark, and served as the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada's national campaign director in 1979. Following his election victory, Prime Minister Clark had him summoned to the Senate. Then, in 1986, Prime Minister Mulroney appointed Senator Murray to cabinet as Leader of the Government in the Senate and as Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations.

In the years of the Mulroney government, Senator Murray also served as acting Minister of Communications and the first Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, or ACOA, as it is generally known. Of course, as Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations, Senator Murray was deeply involved in both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords — controversial but highly significant events for all Canadians.

Honourable senators, whether one agreed with or opposed these accords, two things are clear. Senator Murray maintained a consistent position throughout the constitutional debates. He opposed and actually voted against Prime Minister Trudeau's proposed repatriation of the Constitution because the Government of Quebec was not in agreement; and he genuinely believed throughout the often difficult debates over Meech and then Charlottetown that the proposals were in the best interests of the country.

During the years of the Mulroney government, Senator Murray was a member of 12 cabinet committees, chaired 5 and served as vice-chair of 2.

Our former colleague was also very active in this chamber. He served as chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance for years. Indeed, up until his retirement he was certainly a very valued member of that committee. As well, he chaired the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology and the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce.

To mention just one important contribution, in 1999 during his time as chair, and with his fellow Cape Bretoner Sister Peggy Butts as his deputy chair, the Social Affairs Committee prepared a special study on social cohesion. They asked: What is it that holds a society together, especially in the face of profound changes being wrought by globalization and technology?

In the opening paragraphs of the foreword to their report, Senators Murray and Butts wrote:

There are concerns that the drive toward greater economic performance could be undermined if the sacrifices and social costs are seen to fall only on the poorest and weakest segments of society and the benefits accrue to a relative few.

Honourable senators, these are words that could be written today.

Senator Murray also chaired two Joint Committees on Official Languages, and the number of committees that he served as a member of is far too long to list.

Senator Murray has said what should be obvious even from this brief biographical sketch, namely that he believes strongly in political parties and in political partisanship as indispensible elements of our parliamentary democracy. Yet, in December 2003, when his Progressive Conservative Party merged with the Reform/ Alliance Party, he refused to join, and chose instead to sit as an independent senator.

We here know what that means on a day-to-day basis, but as most of us are also deeply committed to our political parties, we also know what such a decision entails. It is not a step that anyone, especially someone as experienced as Senator Murray, takes lightly; but Lowell Murray is a man of great integrity who has never shied away from difficult decisions he believes to be right, whatever the personal consequences.

Honourable senators, I began by describing how Senator Murray is driven first and foremost by his belief in the possibilities of government and public policy. While he has been reluctant to give interviews — and ducked out of the chamber before any of us could rise to honour his longstanding public service, he nevertheless has spoken publicly in recent months about issues that concern him greatly. I would be remiss if I did not speak in this inquiry of several of those questions that he believes demand attention.

As one who has spent a lifetime living and studying Canadian government, from opposition benches, as a political staffer, as a senior public servant and as a cabinet minister, his observations and analyses are deserving of very special attention.

He is concerned about what he sees as the growing concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office and the corresponding diminution of the role of cabinet ministers individually and of the Cabinet as a whole. This has been a long evolving process that has been the subject of criticism for a great many years, particularly by Donald Savoie in his 1999 book, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics. The result, according to Senator Murray, is that, in his words, "Cabinet government is not working as it should."

Our former colleague is also concerned about the diminution of the role of Parliament. As he has said repeatedly, the point is not for executive powers to be passed to parliamentarians, but rather for parliamentarians to reclaim the powers that are traditionally ours. William Gladstone, the great British statesman and former prime minister, said:

You are not here to govern; rather you are here to hold to account those who do.

The essential parliamentary tool that Senator Murray believes we have allowed to atrophy over the decades is the power of the purse — our fundamental responsibilities to Canadians to hold ministers and the government to account through the estimates and supply process. Here, he is speaking as one who has chaired the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance and has sat on a cabinet committee dealing with expenditure review.

Senator Murray was interviewed recently on CBC's "The Current." Anna Maria Tremonti pointed out that some people dismiss these concerns as process matters and asked him why they are so important and why Canadians should care. Senator Murray replied:

Because it is what makes our electoral democracy work, our parliamentary democracy work, our system of governance work. You must respect due process.

Process does matter, honourable senators. Legislation introduced into Parliament goes through a series of steps in both of our chambers. It goes through a process — what we refer to as the legislative process — that is designed to ensure as best as possible that the end result is consistent with the greatest public good.

Without question, the greatest public good has always been Senator Murray's goal. It has been a privilege to serve with him.

Senator Murray, if you take the time to read this, I wish you and your family many happy years of retirement in Cape Breton.

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