I’m often asked, “Steve, of the tens of thousands of guests you’ve interviewed over the years — presidents, prime ministers, premiers — which one made you the most nervous?” I’ve never had to think for more than a second before coming up with the answer.
Peter Russell.
Now, some of you reading this won’t know who Peter Russell is. But I’m writing this because you should know who Peter Russell is or rather was.
I am one of the many thousands of University of Toronto students who took Russell’s political-science class sometime between 1958 and 1997, when he was one of the foremost poli-sci profs in the country. He was brilliant, engaging, enthusiastic, and terrifying. So when he showed up one day as a guest on The Agenda to discuss a political issue bedevilling the country, you can imagine this former student of his did not want to come across as a dithering fool. Yes, I still found him terrifying.
Of course, all of that was in my head. And while I was waiting for Russell to say something like, “That question really shows you don’t understand this issue at all,” he couldn’t have been a more generous guest.
I shared these concerns with one of Russell’s four children, his son, Alex, a Toronto child psychologist who’s also been a guest on The Agenda. He well understood my fears.
“He commanded so much respect,” Alex says. “You just didn’t want to disappoint him.”
Russell was a legend not just at the University of Toronto, but also at the highest levels of politics in Canada. He died earlier this week of a debilitating lung condition at age 91 but left perhaps an unparalleled legacy of advice to politicians and a love of politics and history to his students, who included Canada’s current ambassador to the United Nations.
“Peter Russell was both a teacher and a mentor and played a key role as adviser to many governments and Royal Commissions,” said Bob Rae, also Ontario’s 21st premier, in an email. “I owe him a lot for his guidance and friendship over many years.”
Another of Russell’s students, in 1984-85, was David Lametti, who would go on to become attorney general and minister of justice in Justin Trudeau’s government from 2019 to 2023. “He gave me great advice,” Lametti told me today. “He said get your first law degree in Canada. Then you can go anywhere you want after that. That’s exactly what I did, and it changed my life. He even wrote me a reference letter.” Lametti followed up his time at U of T at McGill Law, then at Yale and Oxford. He became an MP in 2015.
Rae is not the only former Ontario premier who relied on Russell’s advice. During the Meech Lake Accord negotiations in the late 1980s, Russell was part of Premier David Peterson’s advisory team.
“We were kind of on the same page in life and politics,” Peterson told me yesterday. “And we saw Quebec in the same way.”
(The Meech Lake Accord was designed to complete the job left unfinished during the 1981 constitutional negotiations under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when every province signed the agreement except Quebec).
Peterson also spent time with Russell between 2006 and 2012, when the former premier was chancellor at U of T. “We’d talk politics and commiserate,” Peterson joked.
Former York East MPP and Toronto city councillor John Parker knew another side of Russell.
“Peter was respected — and deservedly so — in the highest circles of academia,” Parker emailed. “But his head was by no means in the clouds. In his heart of hearts, he never ceased to be the Leaside kid who was as much at home on the hockey rink as he was in [U of T’s] Convocation Hall. He could walk with kings, but he never lost the common touch.”
One of Russell’s most important moments in Canadian political history came in 2008, when Governor General Michaëlle Jean received a request from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to prorogue the minority parliament just six weeks after an election. It was clearly an attempt by the prime minister to avoid the hangman’s noose — a vote of non-confidence in his minority government, would have ended Harper’s tenure after just two years. Normally, a prime minister’s request for prorogation is immediately agreed to by the governor general. But Jean left Harper to cool his heels in Rideau Hall for two hours while she put out the call for advice on how to handle this highly unusual situation.
Her call went to Peter Russell.
Before offering his advice, Russell wanted to brush up on precedents that might be useful in these circumstances. He asked the parliamentary librarians to scour the Commonwealth for scholarly writings on prorogation. Parker says that, after an exhaustive search, the librarians handed Russell a file on everything they could find.
“He opens the file and finds six pages,” Parker recalls. “Then, as Peter tells the story, ‘Six pages is all they could find. And four of them were written by me!’”
(Jean eventually granted Harper his prorogation. Harper thus avoided a defeat in the House; he would serve for another seven years as PM, the last four heading a majority government.)
During what turned out to be the last years of his life, Russell worked on two books. One was a memoir, Out of the Blue, on which Russell’s wife of 65 years, Sue, was the copy editor. The book will be published later this year.
But the other emerged from that prorogation controversy. Back in 2008, Russell wrote Two Cheersfor Minority Government. The book contains advice from Russell and many colleagues from around the world on how to navigate the choppy waters that can be minority parliaments. “That book now stands as the standard authority on the subject of prorogation throughout the Commonwealth,” Parker says.
But, Alex Russell points out, with many more minority governments worldwide (including in Canada), his father wanted to update Two Cheers. So Russell published a second edition with additional chapters late last year.
Agenda segment, October 19, 2012: Peter Russell — Prorogation condemnation
Russell also spent part of his last years devoted to improving Indigenous-settler issues.
“He was a huge supporter of the Crown because of the role he felt it could play, through treaty obligations, in reconciliation,” recalls John Fraser, former head of Massey College at U of T. “At Massey, he also mentored me time and time again. I owe him hugely and will miss him a lot.”
But it wasn’t just at home that Russell’s know-how was put to use. After the apartheid system in South Africa was overthrown, he helped that nascent democracy establish a court system that could garner the respect of all its citizens.
Alex Russell says he and his three older sisters grew up in a home “with a lively dinner table, where discourse and opinions were encouraged and listened to. He was excited by people’s thinking. It’s part of the reason why he was such a great scholar.”
On one occasion, when Alex was in first year at U of T, he began tangling at the dinner table with Ted Morton, who’d eventually gain fame as one of the most conservative members of the government of Alberta.
“As far as I was concerned, he was from the evil empire in Star Wars,” Alex recalled. “I tore into him. But a bottle of wine and several hours later, we were still at the table. And I realized you can disagree with people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t respect or like them. That was a lesson I learned from my dad. He had an innate disposition to be respectful to all humans, including children.”
“His imprimatur was very important to me,” Peterson added. “To have his respect and approval was important. He was a first rate academic but also active in nation-building.”
Russell’s funeral will take place at 1 p.m on January 20 at St. Thomas's Anglican Church (383 Huron Street). It will be followed by a 2:30 p.m. reception at, appropriately enough, U of T's Faculty Club (41 Wilcox Street) — his home away from home.
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