When the Gods Changed by Peter C. Newman

Author:Peter C. Newman [Newman, Peter C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-35828-8
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2011-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

AND THEN THERE WAS HIS PAST with the front-runner in the race. The relationship between Rae and Ignatieff was a part of their inheritance. Michael’s father, George, and Rae’s father, Saul, were buddies—and rivals—in the External Affairs Department, in the postwar era, Ottawa’s most prestigious posting. As quintessential diplomat-politicians they were always more concerned with the consequences of failure than the rewards of success; they were both dedicated to civilizing the international status quo. They both applied for Rhodes scholarships, but only Ignatieff won—a generation later Bob Rae would reverse the families’ Rhodes fortunes. Afterwards, they moved up the ladder together into senior ambassadorial postings, but Ignatieff was always the aristocrat while Saul Rae had to scramble.

Saul’s father had been a gambler and wastrel, while his mother, Nell, fed her three children by enlisting them in a successful vaudeville act called the Three Little Raes of Sunshine. The family denied its Jewish origins until the late 1960s. At the 1968 Liberal leadership convention, Pierre Trudeau introduced himself to Bob’s sister, Jennifer, by whispering, “Will you go out with me?” She said yes, and became the radiant woman in his busy new life as the Sun King of Canada; there was serious talk of an imminent engagement. Fearing that they would be outed by a publicity blitz, Saul Rae called his family together to tell them that his name was really Cohen and that they were all Cohens, not Raes—they were Jewish, not Anglican, the religion in which the children had been raised. The revelation hit twenty-year-old Bob the hardest, in the sense that he treated the news not as change of religion but as a change of life. From then on, he made a point of eating at Jewish restaurants, went out with Jewish girls, and married one, the magnificent Arlene Perly, a journalist and prominent advocate for the arts, literacy and women’s and children’s welfare. She and Bob soon became a power couple; it was her husband, the precocious parliamentarian, who in 1980 introduced the Commons motion that brought down the short-lived government of Joe Clark.

Michael and Bob became friends at the University of Toronto, and spent a year as roommates in a flat above a shoe store near the campus. They both graduated in 1969, and both applied for the Rhodes scholarship like their fathers before them; this time, Rae received it and Ignatieff didn’t. And thereby hangs a tale. The third mutual best friend of their college days was Jeff Rose (who later became president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees). He told me that so profound was the friendship between the two young men that Ignatieff stepped aside in favour of Rae. Since Rhodes scholarships are non-transferable, what must have happened was that either Ignatieff chose not to apply, improving Rae’s shot at the few spots allotted to Canada per year, or that Ignatieff did apply but dropped out for the same reason. Ignatieff went to Harvard instead, which was not without cachet, but at the time the Rhodes was the top prize.

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