In October 1961, Harry Nixon, who in 1943 had been the 13th premier of Ontario but was by then just the opposition Liberal MPP for Brant, was driving along a dirt road back to his home in St. George, near Hamilton, when tragedy struck.
Nixon suffered a heart attack, drove off the road, and died. He was only 70 years old. He was — and still remains — the longest-serving member of the Ontario legislature ever, at more than 42 years.
Nixon’s death was an unexpectedly awful development for his family. But, of course, the political calendar stops for no one, and once the shock had worn off, Liberals realized there would have to be a byelection for Nixon’s seat.
Almost immediately, all eyes turned to Nixon’s son, Robert, who was just 33 years old but had political experience well beyond his age. The younger Nixon had been exposed to politics his whole life, meeting prime ministers and premiers over the years at his home.
Harry Nixon was premier of Ontario from May 18, 1943, to August 17, 1943 (Unknown author /Library and Archives Canada); Last surviving members of the UFO-Labour coalition government (1919–1923) in 1955. From left to right: Harry Mills, E.C. Drury, Harry Nixon and Walter Rollo (Hamilton Spectator staff photographer/Hamilton Public Library )
The only difficulty? The president of Harry Nixon’s riding association also wanted the nomination. And it looked as if there’d be an uncomfortable showdown between Harry’s protégé and Harry’s son.
“It was contested pretty much right up to the nomination meeting itself,” recalls Robert Nixon. “I actually felt quite guilty since he worked for my dad, and my dad suddenly wasn't there. And he thought, well, this is a good chance for me. At the same time, I was thinking, it's a good chance for me, too.”
The two men met a few times before the nomination meeting in hopes of resolving things. And, happily for the party, the riding-association president withdrew, leaving an uncontested nomination for the late MPP’s son.
“I think, in the end, he didn’t want to embarrass his mentor’s little boy,” Nixon now says, smiling.
Robert Fletcher Nixon was born on July 17, 1928, which makes him, at age 97 years and six months, one of the oldest MPPs ever. (The very helpful Alexi Fox, research librarian extraordinaire at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, says she has been able to find only four MPPs since Confederation who lived longer than Nixon has, but he will pass two of them in a couple of months.)
Nixon’s political career started 64 years ago this Sunday, when he kept the riding of Brant in the Nixon and Liberal families, winning the byelection to replace his dad.
Speaker William Murdoch welcomes three new MPPs, including Nixon, to the legislature in 1962. (Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library)
Nixon now lives in a seniors’ residence in Paris, Ontario. I visited him recently to see what he remembered about that first election win. Turns out, quite a bit. The very first door he knocked on, he got far more than he bargained for. A woman opened the door, and Nixon tried to hand her some campaign literature.
“She had a little dog in there, and he came out like a cannonball and bit my leg!” Nixon recalls.
“I jumped back, and my pants ripped right up to my hip. And I said, ‘Don’t forget to vote!’ And that was absolutely the first door I went to.”
In the craziest of coincidences, many years later, at another seniors’ residence where Nixon previously lived, he met an elderly gentleman whose first words to him were: “You know, I met you once before.” Nixon couldn’t recall, until the man said, “My dog bit you.” And the two shared a great laugh over that incident, half a century later.
Nixon won that byelection on a very snowy January 18 in 1962, but he confesses today that his father’s death advanced his political agenda by a couple of years.
“He never said this publicly, but he did tell me that he wouldn’t be running again,” Nixon says. “So I was mentally getting ready for it a bit anyway. But his death was still quite a shocker.”
Robert Nixon, ca. 1971 (Themightyquill/wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0); Nixon, then Ontario's treasurer, in 1985 with Barbara Sullivan. At the time, she was his executive assistant; she later became an MPP. (Courtesy of Steve Paikin)
Harry Nixon’s funeral took place just a few days after he died, on October 25, 1961 — coincidentally, the same day Ontario Tories were gathering at Varsity Arena in Toronto to choose a new leader. They were seeking a successor to Premier Leslie Frost, who was stepping down after more than 12 years on the job, retiring as Ontario’s third-longest-serving premier ever. Frost made an appearance at the PC convention but didn’t stick around to congratulate the winner, John Robarts, who would become Ontario’s 17th premier.
Instead, he went to Harry Nixon’s funeral.
“My mother knew Mrs. Frost quite well and was very pleased that Mr. Frost was representing the Tories,” Nixon says. “And he was quite a guy.” In fact, Nixon remembers that, in the midst of her grief, his mother personally inspected the hymn book that would be given to the outgoing premier to ensure it was in pristine condition.
Nixon recalls meeting Frost numerous times — for example, at the lieutenant-governor’s receptions after the opening of the legislature. Frost would often tease him with, “You know, your family was always Conservative. Don’t feel you have to waste yourself as a Liberal.”
Robert Nixon visits his father Harry's grave at the St. George cemetery. (Steve Paikin)
Harry Nixon had entered politics in 1919 as an MPP for the United Farmers of Ontario, a right-wing, populist party elected to deal with the farming crisis in the province. The government lasted only one term, so Nixon led the surviving MPPs into a new group called the Progressive Party. When Mitch Hepburn’s populist Liberalism took Ontario by storm in the 1930s, Nixon’s Progressives joined them, which is why Harry Nixon became Liberal premier of Ontario in 1943 and Robert Nixon ran as a Liberal, remaining MPP for Brant County and environs until 1991.
Today, MPPs are sworn in with great fanfare, a roomful of guests, and official photographers; back in the day, there was none of that. So there is no photo of Nixon’s first swearing-in as an MPP in 1962. Not only that, but he found himself in the back row of the opposition benches, looking across the floor at a massive PC majority government that had 71 seats. The Liberals had just 22 and the NDP, five. However, Nixon does remember his beautifully furnished desk with a holder for a quill pen and two nibs for dipping into an inkwell. When he opened the lid of his desk, he found stationery with a beautifully embossed Ontario emblem and envelopes, so he could write correspondence during official proceedings, then drop the letters under the clerk’s table for mailing. These, along with free haircuts in the basement, were the big perks of the job six-plus decades ago. MPPs had no staff, not even a receptionist.
Nixon would go on to have one of the all-time great careers at Queen’s Park. Five years after
Robert Nixon with then-Ontario Liberal leadership candidateYasir Naqvi. (Courtesy of Yasir Naqvi)
winning his byelection, he became Ontario Liberal leader, but his timing wasn’t great. The Tories were in the throes of a 42-year-long dynasty that continued through the Robarts years, then for 14 more years under Bill Davis. Nixon led his troops to three election defeats in 1967, 1971, and 1975. But he stayed on as an MPP and became interim leader of the party after defeats in 1981 and 1990.
His best moments were the five years he spent as Premier David Peterson’s treasurer (now called finance minister) from 1985 to 1990. Nixon presented balanced budgets for the first time since the Robarts years, calling himself “a parsimonious old farmer” (or sometimes, “a parsimonious old fart”) in his approach to the province’s finances. He was a classic tax-and-spend Liberal. He believed in activist government but insisted taxes be raised to pay for programs to avoid passing the bill on to future generations.
When the Liberals suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of the NDP in 1990, Nixon went back over to the opposition benches, but only for a while. He quit politics when the new premier, Bob Rae, offered him the chance to become Ontario’s agent-general in the United Kingdom, and Nixon leapt at it. After that, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed him chair of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. All told, Nixon served 29 and a half years in the legislature. That’s 10,787 days. Harry and Robert Nixon between them represented Brant County at Queen’s Park from 1919 to 1991 — a father-son record that will surely never be broken.
For age 97, Nixon’s in pretty good health. His eyesight and hearing are fading, and he needs a walker to get around, but he’s in remarkable shape for a guy who boasts about never having exercised a day in his life. His mind is sharp, and, I confess, I love my occasional visits to Paris to hear his war stories about the old days.
The author (left) with Robert Nixon. (Steve Paikin)
Over the past several Ontario Liberal leadership contests, invariably some candidate makes a pilgrimage to Paris to have their picture taken with the most senior statesman Ontario politics has to offer.
(As an aside, one of the best campaign buttons I ever saw appeared when MPP Gerard Kennedy was running against eventual winner Dalton McGuinty for the leadership in 1996. Nixon backed Kennedy, prompting the creation of a button that read “Kennedy and Nixon: Together at Last.”)
With the Liberals about to embark on a leadership election to replace Bonnie Crombie, you can expect to see Nixon’s face in someone’s campaign leaflets before long.
The former treasurer is a treasure. Keep on keepin’ on, Bob Nixon.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Robert Nixon left politics when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asked him to study and review Pearson Airport renovation plans. In fact, he did so when then-premier Bob Rae offered him the chance to become Ontario’s agent-general in the United Kingdom. TVO Today regrets the error.