Iggy Pop. Not the other Iggy.

Ian Davey and I didn’t become friends, you see, because of politics. We became friends because of music.

His sister, Catherine, had told me about her brother, and how I needed to meet him. We’d get along like a house on fire, she’d said.

I was unconvinced. Ian, I knew, was one of a small group of guys trying to persuade Michael Ignatieff to come back to Canada and save the Liberal Party. I wasn’t so sure about Ignatieff, or that the Liberal Party needed saving. I’d had my fill of the federal Liberal Party, by then.

But I adored Catherine, and I had been close to his dad, the truly legendary Liberal political guru Sen. Keith Davey. So I agreed to meet with Ian Davey.

He came to see me. It was 2008 or so. He was a tall guy, good-looking, and he had an engaging, affable manner. Easy to like.

And we talked about music.

Sure, we talked about politics, too. He made his pitch, saying I needed to come back to the Liberal Party, which I had left in disgust during the Paul Martin era. He said Ignatieff would become Liberal leader, and they needed me to run his war room, as I had done for Jean Chretien’s campaigns. I demurred.

But, mostly, we talked about music.

Ian knew all about the punk scene I had grown up in because he had grown up in it, too. At clubs along Queen Street West, he had seen many of the bands I’d loved, back in the day. I told him Iggy Pop was God, not the Iggy he was recruiting, and he had laughed and agreed.

And so, over many talks and many days, Ian Davey slowly but surely brought me back to the Liberal Party. It wasn’t Michael Ignatieff who did that: When Ian finally convinced me to meet with Ignatieff, the once and future Harvard professor struck me as an academic who thought politics would be easy, like a sabbatical in France.

Politics wasn’t easy, but Ian Davey was. He led the effort to bring the Liberals back to the political centre, and to install Michael Ignatieff as the party’s leader. He attracted dozens of amazing people along the way — Mark Sakamoto, Sachin Aggarwal, Alexis Levine, Jill Fairbrother (who would later marry Ian).

As Ian had predicted, I did become Ignatieff’s war room chief, for a while. But when Ignatieff fired Ian and scores of others in 2009 — stupidly, callously — I had no interest in remaining.

“That’s not how you treat the people who got you the job,” one former prime minister said to me, when I called for advice. So I quit, telling Ian that if he wasn’t there, I didn’t want to be, either.

So, Ian and I remained friends, and we both watched — with a mixture of schadenfreude and bemusement — as Ignatieff and his new gang of super-smart advisors led the Liberal Party of Canada to its worst showing in history. Third place, behind Jack Layton’s NDP.

The last time I saw Ian was at my birthday party. I can’t believe I’m so old, I told him.

“Iggy Pop is a lot older, and he’s still kicking ass,” Ian said, and we laughed.

He got the cancer diagnosis not long after that, and we couldn’t see each other during the pandemic. I told him he and Jill needed to come see me at my new home in Prince Edward County, and we’d go hunting for old vinyl. He said he’d come.

He never got the chance. My great friend Ian Davey died just before Canada Day, too soon, still a young man. A dad, a husband, a friend. I cannot believe he is gone.

I will play some Iggy Pop stuff today, and remember Ian Davey.

Comments (9)

Comments (28)

Want a friend in politics? Get a dog.

Well, that’s not exactly the quote. President Harry S. Truman said that, except he substituted the word “Washington” for “politics.”

And, with the greatest of respect to the 33rd U.S. president, he’s not entirely right, either. Because it is indeed possible to have friends in politics – and in a way that helps constituents, too.

Partisans – younger ones and TruAnon, in particular – don’t get that. They see the universe in black and white, and regard any political opponent as a mortal enemy. They believe disagreement is treason and a capital offence.

The successful political folks aren’t like that. Jean Chretien, Doug Ford, for example. Olivia Chow, too.

Chretien, for whom I once worked as Special Assistant, was friends with folks across the political spectrum. Ralph Klein, Roy Romanow, Roy McMurtry, you name it: the most-successful Liberal Prime Minister of our generation had friends of many different stripes. Some Grit partisans may not have approved, but Chretien didn’t care.

In the case of NDP Premier Romanov and Conservative cabinet minister McMurtry, too, Chretien’s friendship paid big dividends. In November 1981, when a deal to repatriate the Constitution looked to be falling apart, Chretien met quietly with his NDP and Tory friends – in a kitchen pantry at the Ottawa conference centre, no less – to hammer together a deal.

The “Kitchen Accord,” as it became known, was what led to the creation of a truly Canadian Constitution, and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And it wouldn’t have happened if those three – a Liberal, a Conservative and a New Democrat – hadn’t been friends.

Doug Ford – for whose caucus, full disclosure, my firm does consulting work – comes from the same school. The Ontario Premier famously has friends in every political party, and it has clearly benefited the province he has led since 2018.

This writer saw the proof of that, close up. When I was helping to run Olivia Chow’s 2014 mayoral campaign, Ford and I met. He was also a candidate for mayor, and we started talking regularly.

Not only was Chow okay with that – she encouraged it. Doug’s brother, Rob, had been a Toronto city council seatmate with Chow’s husband, Jack Layton. They became good friends.

When Layton tragically died of cancer in 2011, Rob Ford was bereft. “Today’s definitely one of the saddest days in Toronto, but not only in Toronto, but Canada,” Ford said at the time, adding that, when he arrived at Toronto City Hall, Layton “taught me a lot…He taught me never to take things personal. He taught me, you’re going to be surprised on who votes with you sometimes and who votes against you.”

When Layton’s casket was brought into City Hall, Rob Ford was one of the few who escorted it. On that day, he put friendship before politics.

His brother, Doug, is cut from the same cloth. Much has been made of Doug’s support of his friend Mark Saunders in the just-concluded Toronto mayoral by-election. But much of the partisan speculation about his future relationship with Toronto’s mayor-elect is misguided.

“[Chow] is someone I have had a good relationship with” said Ford on Tuesday – and it’s the truth, going back to the years Rob and Jack were both alive. “We’ll work together and we’re going to find common ground when we sit down because she’s actually quite a nice person.”

And they will work well together – not just because they have to, but because they know how to. When the political stakes are high, as they too often are these days, letting rabid partisanship get in the way is just plain dumb.

So, yes, when in politics, get a dog. Sure.

But get some friends across the aisle, too. It helps – everyone.

Comments (17)

Comments (24)