John Godfrey could say a lot with very few words. I remember having lunch with him back in the mid-1990s, when he was a Liberal MP. American evangelical Christians were in the news for some reason. Jerry Falwell, the Baptist preacher who founded the Moral Majority to push for conservative political causes, was capturing attention again. Godfrey had some opinions about that.
“The Moral Majority,” he intoned with a smile, “is neither.”
That was John Godfrey. Clever. Smart. And Liberal, without being stupidly partisan.
Godfrey died back on December 18, 2023, one day before his 81st birthday. He was as much of a renaissance man as anyone I’ve ever met in public life. His mix of different careers was astonishing:
- professor of European history at Dalhousie University
- president (at age 34) of the University of King’s College in Halifax
- editor and columnist at the
- vice-president at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
- MP for Don Valley West from 1993 to 2008
- minister for infrastructure and communities from 2004 to 2006
- head of the Toronto French School
- special adviser on climate change for Premier Kathleen Wynne
As Peter Donolo, who was director of communications for former prime minister Jean Chrétien (who turns 90 on Thursday, incidentally) told me: “John crammed four lifetimes into one.”
That was a theme returned to several times during Godfrey’s funeral, which took place Wednesday at a jam-packed Christ Church Deer Park, in midtown Toronto.
“John had nine separate careers, and that was just last year,” joked former Toronto mayor David Miller, one of three people to eulogize Godfrey.
“One would think he led the life of 10 men,” added the Venerable Cheryl C. Palmer, the church’s rector.
Palmer reminded those at the funeral that they were sitting in Godfrey’s spiritual home and that he was no occasional church-goer.
“I watched him singing lustily from his seat right there,” she said, pointing at the front row and urging attendees to follow his example. “And I’m looking at all of you sitting there now, including you Mr. Prime Minister!”
That’s right. Justin Trudeau showed up for the funeral. So did Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and a host of other dignitaries, including former premier Wynne; Godfrey’s successor in Don Valley West, Rob Oliphant; former MP Carolyn Bennett; and former Toronto mayor John Sewell.
For a guy who was born, raised, and lived most of his life in Toronto, Godfrey saw a lot of Canada — yes, as a politician, but also beyond that. He fell in love with the Maritimes and had a summer home there. He, like Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was a member of the so-called Arctic and Rideau Canal Canoe Club, which paddled into 17 remote fly-in rivers in places few non-Indigenous people had ever seen.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (right) speaks with former Toronto mayor David Miller at John Godfrey's funeral. (Steve Paikin)
In the tens of thousands of words that have been written about Godfrey since his death, I have not seen a single mention of one of his jobs, and it was the one that served as a significant bond between the two of us. My first job at TVO, 31 years ago, was to assume the hosting duties of a weekly town-hall current-affairs program called Between the Lines.
One of that show’s previous hosts was John Godfrey.
Godfrey met his wife, Trish Bongard, late in life: he was 47. (She was much younger. Godfrey used to joke about the ideal age for a wife being “your age, divided by two, and add seven.”) Fatherhood also came late. The couple’s one child, Ian, eulogized his father with some truly delightful stories.
“It was not unusual to see the minister of infrastructure come home from work, then be seen hiding in the bushes playing cops and robbers with a bunch of sixth graders,” Ian said.
Godfrey was competitive with his son. The two played squash a lot — for money. And the father collected when he won, which, according to Ian, was all the time.
There was another time when the two were walking home from a visit, and young Ian decided to challenge his father to a running race to see who could get home fastest. In an instant, Godfrey bolted and left his son in the dust. Sometime later, he asked his wife where Ian was, and the couple began to panic. The truth was, Ian was lost. The couple sent friends and family out as a search party and, finally, the boy was found. When Ian asked his father, “Am I in trouble?” his father replied, “No, but I have a feeling I am.”
Competition between the two extended to the golf course as well. Ian described a round when he finally managed to best his father. “Of course, my father had to point out that I didn’t win until he was 80 and dying of cancer, and I only beat him by three strokes.”
Margaret MacMillan, perhaps Canada’s best-known historian, had been a friend of Godfrey’s since their days at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College in 1962.
“He was kind, gregarious, and never stuffy,” she recalled. “He took issues seriously but never solemnly. And he had a great sense of humour.”
MacMillan referenced E.M. Forster’s 1951 collection of essays Two Cheers for Democracy when she talked about an aristocracy she could support: “An aristocracy of the sensitive and the plucky, an aristocracy that can take a joke. That was John.”
“John had the energy and passion of a curious young man and the wisdom of an older man,” said former mayor Miller in his eulogy. “He was an unusual but highly effective MP with no partisan edge.”
The Canadian constitution says cities are creatures of their provinces and, as such, the federal government has no official role in urban development. But after Paul Martin became prime minister, he decided to appoint Godfrey as a minister of state responsible for creating a “New Deal for cities.”
“John knew Canada was becoming increasingly urban,” said Miller, who, as mayor of Toronto, initiated a major lobbying effort to get the feds to fund what the Ontario government wouldn’t. “He knew Canada couldn’t succeed without strong cities.” As a result, he worked to get cities a share of the gas tax so they could afford to offer better child-care and transit services. “And that money still flows today, despite the election of the cost-cutting Conservative government,” Miller added, referring to the 2006 election of Stephen Harper.
Miller concluded by sharing advice he’d received from Godfrey: “Be kind. Be curious. Always find the humour and joy in our world.”
John Godfrey did just that.
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