David Dingwall on cabinet ministers, baseball and entitlements

As Justin Trudeau's new set of cabinet ministers — many of whom are political rookies — get their feet wet this week, we have some words of experience from a guy who's been there, done that.

At the height of his political career in the mid 1990s, Maclean's magazine described David Dingwall as having "the stamina of a triathlete, the killer instinct of a pit bull, and the political acumen of an Allan MacEachen."  

Dingwall, the son of a janitor, went from living in the basement of the school in South Bar, Cape Breton, to the upper reaches of power as one of the most influential ministers in Jean Chrétien's government.  

When Dingwall lost his seat in 1997 to the little-known NDP candidate Michelle Dockrill, it was one of the biggest vote reversals, and biggest surprises, in Canadian politics.

Dingwall recently sat down with Information Morning in Cape Breton for a wide-ranging interview with host Steve Sutherland, 18 years after he was voted out of office.  

From that interview, here are some quotable quotes from Dingwall, a guy never noted for his bashfulness:

1.On entering politics  

Dingwall: "I've always wanted to help people, and I found that public life was a way in which you could impact the decisions that affect people. You can make an impact if you're part of the process." 

2. On Lying

Sutherland: "Is it ever OK to tell a lie?"

Dingwall: "Of course!"

3. On the potential closure of the Stora pulp and paper mill in 1994  

"Well I don't think I can say on air what I told the CEO of Stora (who) had flown over from Sweden. It was a pretty rough conversation. He didn't like it, and I didn't like saying what I said, but it had to be said. And the fight was on."

4. On Pierre Trudeau-era cabinet minister Marc Lalonde  

"Lalonde was a workaholic. I remember him saying to me when I was his parliamentary secretary: he said, 'I hear you're very bright.' I said, 'Well, thank you very much, Mr. Minister.' 'Well,' he said, 'just don't be wrong.'"  

5. On Cape Breton political icon Allan J. MacEachen  

"Before I went into cabinet in '93, Mr. MacEachen and I had dinner, and I asked him for advice. He said, 'Look, you just have to master your own portfolio. Don't try to be a master of everybody else's portfolio.' And boy that was good advice.

"When you're around a cabinet table, a prime minister will look upon you for expertise in that portfolio. If you're the minister of health and you're commenting on international issues that you know very little about — you haven't been briefed, you may not even have read the cabinet document — you're not going to come across as persuasive as you normally would.  

"However, if you're very well briefed on your own portfolio, people then look to you and say, 'Hey, they know what they're actually talking about.' And that gives you a little bit of leeway to comment on other things."  

6. On Chrétien-era cabinet minister Sheila Copps  

"Sheila Copps was a fighter. If she shook your hand and said, 'Look, I'm going to support [you],' you knew that she would support you both in cabinet, cabinet committee meeting, and behind the scenes. Whereas others would not."

7. On former prime minister Jean Chrétien  

"You had to be on your toes with Mr. Chrétien, because you didn't know whether he read the file or didn't read the file. But he would ask you four or five questions, and if you knew your stuff, you were fine; but if you didn't know your stuff, he'd let you know."

8. On losing his seat in 1997  

"The last two and a half weeks of the campaign, I knew that I was in trouble. I remember Mr. Chrétien called me — he was on the bus — and I said, 'Look, I'm in deep doo-doo here. My numbers are going down, I can see it, I can see it at the doors.'  

"People would say, 'Nice to see you Dave!' and then they'd turn their heads. I'm not sure if I could've done anything differently. I think the dye was cast, the wave was coming, and I was out."

9. On saying, 'I'm entitled to my entitlements'  

"These guys were trying to deny me — and most important, my wife — of a pension. There are certain legal rights that you have as an individual, and when they're trying to take those things away … that's why I said what I said.

"It was an arrow which was going straight through to the prime minister of the day, to the clerk of the privy council of the day, opposition parties, anyone that wanted to listen … that I was going to get what I was entitled to. Should I have said it differently? Perhaps. But I said it."

10. On being interviewed for the position of commissioner of Major League Baseball after leaving politics

"I remember quite distinctly: [the executive recruiter] put his hand by his mouth and he said, 'I'm sorry, the compensation is only seven.' I thought he meant 700,000 [dollars], and at that time, they were offering the commissioner 7.5 [million dollars]! When he said that, I had to bite my hand."