Murdoch keeps his spirits up and looks back on his years in politics

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In his more than 30 years in local and provincial politics, “Bognor” Bill Murdoch has never been short of things to say.

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So it was Wednesday, when Murdoch held court from his bed at Chapman House, sounding loud and philosophical, though looking physically impaired. He has been hospitalized for a week.

“Maybe he’s come to the end of the road, huh? Who knows,” he told a visitor.

“With you, who knows,” joked the visitor.

“Well, I really don’t know. But we are prepared for it. »

He spoke of his years as a nonconformist MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound; a Progressive Conservative who put his constituents before his party, while showing a great ability to get noticed.

Murdoch’s Montreal Canadiens jerseys, signed by Habs greats, and other hockey memorabilia line the wall across from his bed. He has a collection of 800 jerseys.

The hospice staff came and went. One of them smiled and asked him how many meals he had eaten. Family and friends visited him to wish him good luck.

He had a two-year battle with bouts of cancer and when he went into a coma at Owen Sound Hospital he was transferred to hospice. But Murdoch surprised everyone by waking up hungry for a meal and full of hope.

It has been 11 years since the 77-year-old left provincial politics. But the four-term MLA was never far away. He was on the air to host the Open Line radio show on CFOS 560 AM. On Friday, people will be invited to call with memories of him and he plans to listen.

He helped found the Bruce Gray Music Hall of Fame, which was destroyed by fire last January, as well as the Legion at Hepworth. Murdoch mentioned that a fundraiser for a concert is coming up.

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And Murdoch added his voice in 2017 to ultimately successful calls from former Gray County Wardens for Gray Gables to remain a Gray County long-term care facility.

Murdoch lost his first constituency race in 1987 to Liberal Ron Lipsett. But he won in 1990, beating Lipsett who placed third behind New Democrat Peggy Hutchinson. Murdoch won the next three provincial elections handily and chose not to run in 2011.

He was an avid fighter who chose an independent path at Queen’s Park, where he felt power was too centralized and too many decisions were made for elected officials like himself.

The prime minister chooses ministers, their associates and committee chairs, which Murdoch said the caucus should do. And he suggested that people should elect candidates who swear to do what voters want, not what the prime minister tells them.

“There is not the democracy that we think we have in Canada. We elect dictators. There’s no doubt about it,” he said when he announced his retirement.

On Wednesday, he said it was getting worse. Nothing personal, but the premier’s nomination of Rick Byers as the party’s candidate in that constituency offended Murdoch’s guiding principle that locals should decide, he said. Byers won the election in June.

Murdoch was also unhappy with expectations of party allegiance and said MPs should only have to toe the party line on money votes. He never received a ministerial position and it is easy to imagine why. But then-Prime Minister Mike Harris told him why.

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“Mike sat down with me,” he said Bill, “I can’t put you in the cabinet.” I would love to, but you won’t do what you’re told,” Murdoch said Wednesday. “So I said, ‘I know. I will do what I think is good for my riding.

Murdoch admitted he probably attended the legislature the least of any MP at the time because he said he saw no point in being there when he could attend constituency events and meet local needs.

Sometimes his positions were controversial.

He was a persistent opponent of the Niagara Escarpment Commission because it prevailed over local opinion. It’s become “less intrusive,” perhaps because of years of hindsight, he said. Groups should buy land to protect them, and he has joined and supports one that does.

His popular opposition to industrial wind farms was again based on government supplanting local decision-making.

Although he fought for an inquiry into the Walkerton water disaster, opposition parties called for his resignation in 2003 when he suggested his Conservative government took no responsibility for the disaster and refused to apologize.

The Bognor cattle farmer was a vocal critic of his own government. And he despised the “Toronto mentality” in which unelected “bureaucrats” decided what was best for rural ridings like his.

Some called him grandstanding and said he would have done more for the constituency if he sided with his party. But that wouldn’t have been Murdoch’s way.

Murdoch says he understood that the media plays an important role in the political game and that he took advantage of it, whether he liked the media or not.

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“You played the game as you had to play it. I think. And I haven’t always been right either. I would be the first to admit it.

He was temporarily kicked out of caucus in 2008 after he objected to then PC leader John Tory’s support for funding private religious schools, suggesting Tory should get a new job. Still, he said he loved Tory.

In 2003, he threatened to embarrass Tim Hudak, then Minister of Consumer and Business Services, by calling for his resignation in the Legislature the next day if the government considered closing land registry offices in the morning – and They did not do it.

During his tenure in Mike Harris’ government, he stood up and demanded the resignation of a government minister, Bob Runciman, who tried to shut down the prison in Owen Sound. Eventually it was closed.

The inquiry into the Walkerton water tragedy has been concluded after a standoff with the Prime Minister. At first, Harris wanted a committee to study it, Murdoch said. When the opposition called for an investigation, Murdoch told the Conservatives he would vote with the Liberals and the NDP, which would be bad for the government.

Shortly before the vote on the Liberal motion, which was defeated, Murdoch was again asked to side with his party and told that Harris would call an inquiry the next morning if he did. Both men kept their promises.

“I’m not bragging. But that’s why Mike broke. Because he couldn’t get a member of the region to vote against him,” Murdoch said Wednesday.

Murdoch said he got what he wanted from Harris regarding Walkerton, including the Walkerton Clean Water Training Centre, which opened under the Liberal government. But he was upset that he hadn’t been asked to help open it.

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In all honesty, Murdoch didn’t just target his party members.

He called Dalton McGuinty, when he was Liberal Premier of Ontario, a liar in the Legislative Assembly for not consulting widely as promised on the new harmonized sales tax. Murdoch was also expelled, but he didn’t want to leave for two days.

And on several occasions he directed his anger at the Sun Times, even calling for a boycott of the paper after a Sun Times editorial endorsed another candidate.

Prior to provincial politics, Murdoch served for 12 years on the former Sydenham Township Council. By the mid-1980s, concern had grown over the numerous rural lot severances granted by the Gray County Planning Approvals Committee, chaired by Murdoch.

This eventually led to the province assuming temporary planning authority in the county in 1991 and criticizing Grey’s planning procedures. At the time, Murdoch blamed a “Toronto mentality” for the takeover and “socialism to the limit”.

His private involvement as a development partner in Sydenham Mills, a proposed 25-lot luxury development for a hardwood lot in the township, which the Ontario Municipal Board ultimately rejected in 1990, also sparked concerns.

He pitted provincial ministries and environmentalists against Murdoch, who was Reeve of Sydenham at the time, and his development partners.

Although not particularly religious, Murdoch remains open to a miracle, he said. He doesn’t want to die but admits he doesn’t have much to say about it. He feels bad for his family, but they will move on, and so will the world, he said.

“The disease, whatever it is, is in my lung. They cannot operate. And we stopped all medication. They keep him comfortable, he said. “I know they feed me well.”

“I think he’s remarkable,” said his wife Sue. “And all the support that we’ve seen, really over the last two years that he’s been sick, is incredible. And since we got here, just incredible.

“But it’s a tribute to him, because he has meaning with people,” she said, her voice picking up at the thought.