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 The Hon. Bill Graham, 12th Chancellor of Trinity College
Click here to read more It was a tough decision when the Hon. Bill Graham announced in February 2007 that he would not run again for office in the next federal election. But Parliament’s loss was Trinity College’s gain. In becoming the college’s highest-ranking volunteer officer, Graham, a 1961 Trinity grad, joined a long line of distinguished predecessors that began with Sir John Beverley Robinson (1791-1863). It is a role for which he is eminently well suited. First elected a Liberal MP for Toronto Centre-Rosedale in 1993, Graham served from 1995 to 2002 as chairman of the standing committee of the House of Commons on foreign affairs and international trade. He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2002 under former prime minister Jean Chrétien and Minister of National Defence in July 2004 in the government of Paul Martin. In February 2006 he was appointed Leader of the Official Opposition, a position he held until last December. While at Trinity on the way to earning an Honours BA in Modern History at U of T, Graham was prime minister of Trinity’s Literary Institute, the oldest student debating society in Canada. Ironically, he says, he spent much of his third year in the Lit “constantly being overthrown by my opposition. I spent the whole time in parliamentary manoeuvres,” he laughs - albeit not at such a high level as in later years. In his fourth year, he was elected Head of Arts. Although he was struck early by political aspirations, it was law that occupied the early part of his career. After earning his law degree at the University of Toronto in 1964, winning the school’s Gold Medal, he pursued a doctorate in law at the Université de Paris. As a partner in Fasken & Calvin in Toronto he practised in litigation and international commercial law, primarily in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In the 1980s, prior to being elected to Parliament, he was a professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, where he taught International Trade Law, Public International Law and the Law of the European Community. “Chancellors play a very important role at Trinity as the presiding dignitary at our ceremonies and important meetings such as Corporation,” says Provost Margaret MacMillan, adding that they also serve in other less defined ways: helping to set the tone of the College, bringing the different communities together, inspiring the students, and giving advice and help to the Provost. Graham and his wife Cathy, also a Trinity grad (’63), were married in the Trinity College Chapel. They have two children, Katy and Patrick. Michael Wilson: Trinity's 11th Chancellor
Click here to read more The Hon. Michael Holcombe Wilson (BCom 1959, DSL Hon. 1994) first arrived at Trinity College as a fresh-faced 17-year-old in September 1955. In 2003 he returned, this time as the 11th chancellor in Trinity’s long history. Wilson served 14 years as a federal Progressive Conservative MP, the last nine, until 1993, as a senior member of the cabinet of prime minister Brian Mulroney. Those years, especially the almost seven he spent as minister of finance, were enormously stimulating. In that portfolio, “everything that moves comes across your desk,” he recalls. In addition to his duties as Chancellor and as chair of UBS Global Management, Wilson juggled a range of charitable activities, from fundraising for mental health and neuroscience to membership in Trinity’s Strength to Strength Campaign Cabinet. In February of 2006, he was appointed Canada's Ambassador to Washington. His memories of his time as a student at Trinity are many and fond, he says. He played football for four years and in 1957 was a member of the college team that won the intramural Mulock Cup. “That championship,” he remarks with a laugh, “only seems to come once every 25 years [the next one wasn’t until 1982-83].” He also wrote for the college newspaper, the Salterrae, and became quite proficient at ping-pong in the Buttery. Sir John Beverley Robinson: Trinity's First ChancellorSir John Beverley Robinson had a highly influential judicial and political career in Upper Canada. As a child, he moved from Lower Canada to Kingston when his father was appointed surveyor general of the vast woods and reserves of Upper Canada – not a job for the faint-hearted. For the young John Beverley, the move west proved momentous, too. From the ages of eight to 16, he was under the tutelage of the Rev. John Strachan, who was then embarking on a storied career in the Church of England in Upper Canada and would later found Trinity College. A relationship of mutual respect ensued, the culmination of which was Robinson’s appointment as Trinity’s first chancellor in 1853. The two men were staunch Tories and members of the elite Family Compact that governed the affairs of the colony. And while the Family Compact has long since faded away, the Tories – and, in their modern form, the Progressive Conservatives – provide the thread of history that leads from Robinson to Trinity’s 11th chancellor, Michael Wilson, both prominent Anglican laypersons, as well as sometime politicians.
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