Remembering Terry Grier
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We are here this morning to grieve the death of Terry Grier. We are here to remember and celebrate Terry’s life, to reflect on his example and on his legacy.
I’d like to begin by honouring the relationships that grounded and inspired Terry:
- His relationship with his parents, wonderful sister Sheila and family;
- With Ruth, his extraordinary partner in all things;
- With his three fantastic sons, their partners, his nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren; and,
- With his neighbourhood and his local Anglican church;
- With this city and this country -- places where he formed lifelong friendships through daily acts of caring and concern for the welfare of everyone.
It is only fitting we should return to Trinity to say goodbye. A sacred place where Terry and Ruth married almost 65 years ago, walking down that aisle, standing and exchanging vows and walking out beaming, hand in hand, to a life of love, adventure and accomplishment.
This college was also the centre of academic excellence and learning where their worldviews took shape and gifts for leadership were cultivated. And it was a community that inspired them to organize even bigger communities to realize their shared dreams.
Terry and I met on the first day of our first undergraduate year. As fate would have it, we were assigned lockers next to each other. We’ve been friends – family really – ever since. Almost seventy years. We've found joy in simply hanging out together, watching our families grow, talking late into the night, the topics now lost in the mists of time, long walks and skiing, playing golf, just hanging out – a gift, I’d like to think, to each other and to others too.
Many of you also met Terry here at Trinity and became friends. We were shaped through conversations and debates in Strachan Hall and the Buttery, the Junior Common Room, classes and committee rooms, and even over an occasional beer in the residences.
There were legendary fights too. The Cake Fight in the archway to Philosophers Walk. Snow fights with Wycliffe across Hoskin Avenue. Model parliament and student government elections.
And who can forget the quarrel that broke out when John F. Kennedy debated a young Stephen Lewis at Hart House in a room occupied only by men? Ruth and many other women protested in the rain while Terry and I took our seats in the front row that night. We know now who was on the winning side of history.
These first lessons in winning and losing have served us well over the years – not only in politics but on the golf course as David, Tim and Patrick can attest.
Terry did not like to lose. He went from congenial to grumpy in the time it took for the ball to take flight. As he stomped down the fairway he could be heard admonishing himself: stupid, stupid bugger, damn, damn, damn, stupid. But at the end of the day, his focus was on how to play better next time.
This was Terry’s approach to political defeats and victories too. He brought an incisive critical analysis and measured enthusiasm to every role he played in Canada’s social democratic project:
- As a canvasser in ridings like Davenport or Lakeshore;
- As an organizer and director of the process that transformed the CCF into the NDP, and in turn has transformed Canada;
- And in his own transformation from backroom strategist into the honourable member for Toronto-Lakeshore in 1972.
In Terry’s first speech in the House of Commons, he described this project as a movement for fairness. He called on parliamentarians on all sides to show the voters that the political process is capable of creating a social and economic system that does not “press upon people” in unfair ways.
Terry believed in taking incremental steps based on careful study, discussion, and the consent of the governed. He valued democratic electoral politics as the best vehicle to materially improve all of our lives. He was not a revolutionary in the sense that he did not believe in tearing down institutions before building them up. He was a realist who never underestimated the obstacles on the path to power nor the hard work involved in making the best public policy choices.
Back in the 70s, Terry said this to a Toronto Star reporter: “It may be good politics to confront complex and difficult problems with a single, simplistic answer, but I don’t think it’s good economics or good government.” He went on to explain: “When your position doesn’t matter you can go into all sorts of wild rhetoric … These days there are a lot of shades of gray and that doesn’t bother me a bit.”
Terry was a realist but he was also a radical. He shared the dream of profound change in who benefits from the economy and how the government works.
And he did more than his share of the labour to make that dream a reality in his lifetime. In the process, Terry helped equip younger generations to continue this work when the time came to step back.
We can be sure that the same progressive values informed his decision to work for the NDP and Toronto Metropolitan University. When the polytechnical institute became a university in the nineties, it was reported that Terry said “This is a place where the student comes first, where graduates have opportunities to find work. This is a downtown, plain-folks, honest and unpretentious institution.”
In a online post last week, Robin Sears had this to say about Terry’s impact:
“Terry Grier was essential to the successful birth, survival, and renaissance of two great institutions: a university and a political party. Terry stepped in to run the NDP shortly after its founding in 1961. Those were very difficult years. Three elections in four years, and constant financial woes, all while trying to build a new political party. He came back to help elect Ed Broadbent and to lead three much more successful elections. Terry was an empathetic but demanding leader of the party apparatus. He taught me and an entire generation of young New Democrats the basics of political campaign management. And as one of his colleagues at TMU said to me, ‘Let me put it simply - without Terry we would not have become a university. Period.’”
I’d like to share a few more recent online posts. They will give you glimpses into who Terry was and how he will be remembered:
“I did not know Terry or Ruth, but I still remember my mother who worked at the Long Branch Public Library and who died in 1979 speaking fondly and with great admiration for them.”
“Terry was my politics prof at Ryerson in 1969, 70 or 71. What he taught me about how Canada worked opened my eyes and has endured. I want Ruth and the family to know that there are people in this world who make a living, some make a life, but then there are those who make a difference and Terry was one of them. By the way, I never met her, but he spoke about her in class.”
“Terry was a strong leader, a person of great integrity, compassion and empathy, a colleague for whom interdependence and collegiality was critical and concern for others’ success was paramount.”
“Terry Grier, a wonderful example of family commitment and active, civil engagement. A friend. We were mischievous old guys at extended family gatherings in Toronto and Elora, productive at St Margaret's. He was a mensch.”
“Terry was a warm, generous and kind person who helped many people in our community over many years.”
“Terry was a great university president and a most supportive colleague. I had a chance to work with Terry on several committees and councils from 1968 to 1990. His sense of social justice, empathy and superb intellect permeated everything he did - an honour to work with him.”
“While I never met Terry, I respected and appreciated the work he did throughout his life for his community and for the Canadian working class. He and Ruth were a special team. Only family members will really understand the work he did over his entire life and the time this required. Thank you, Terry. Thank you Ruth for the support you provided. Thank you to the entire Grier family for sharing your father with us.”
In recent years, Terry lived out his call to “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with his God”. Tending the woodland in Glen Huron, hosting lively conversations at Crowe Lake, singing lustily in the choir and serving meals at St Margaret’s. As Terry grew older, his deeply-held values became even more visible.
I’d like to close by quoting Ruth’s first speech in the Ontario Legislature as the MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore. She paid tribute to those who paved the way for her win in 1985, including her predecessor Pat Lawlor, and repeated the opening sentence of his first speech which he delivered in Latin:
Ecce somniator venit. Behold the dreamer cometh.
Ruth joked that Lawlor was forever known across the riding as the bilingual member from Lakeshore. She also said this:
“Pat saw the fulfilment of some of those dreams, but many of my constituents still hold the same dreams for improvements in their quality of life and in the form of government to which they are subjected in this province. I am here, I hope, to succeed in fulfilling some more of Pat Lawlor's dreams.”
We always have – and we always will – stand on the shoulders of giants. Success in fulfilling more of Terry’s dreams now depends on us. May his example continue to guide us. May our resolve be his legacy.
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