THE ADVOCATE 355
VOL. 79 PART 3 MAY 2021
MY FRIENDSHIP WITH PIERRE TRUDEAU
By Bill Ferguson
WHISTLER SKI PARTY
I first met Pierre Trudeau when he came to the second Whistler ski party I
had organized for my law firm, Ferguson Gifford, and our sister firms in
Ontario and Quebec. Ralph Farley, a partner at Heenan Blaikie, the firm
that Pierre joined after he left politics, telephoned me as the event
approached. He said Pierre would like to attend. Pierre wanted to be treated
the same as everyone else, and he required the least expensive bachelor
room at the Delta Mountain Inn.
When I was a young man, I used to say that in addition to many of my
older relatives, I had three heroes. Pierre Trudeau was one of them. Even
though I had in one election voted against his government, I never lost my
admiration for him. To say I was pleased that he was coming is an understatement.
My respect for Pierre Trudeau started when I was an undergrad in political
science at UBC. Pierre was then a constitutional law professor and
author in Montreal. His writings stirred my Canadian nationalism. Pierre
was elected to the Commons and then appointed Justice Minister. When I
was a first-year law student at UBC in 1968, I wrote him a letter urging him
to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party. Undoubtedly, I was one of many
urging him on. I have kept his letter in response. From one so new to public
office, it contained this sentence: “It is correspondence such as yours which
makes public life so worthwhile.” If memory serves, I shyly told him about
our earlier correspondence, but only after we became well acquainted and
when I was filling a void in our conversation on a chairlift.
Our offices were in Bentall 4, which was the Vancouver rendezvous for
the first batch of lawyers arriving from Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. With
flights arriving for many about the same time, we were able to justify a bus
for the trip to Whistler. Some spouses and children, our administrator, and
lawyers and students who had to stay back and work would arrive at
Whistler later when work permitted.
When Pierre and the others arrived, I was busy with some work that had
to be put to rest. It was easy to find a recruit to show Pierre and others
around the office. I noticed on this first occasion, and on every one there-