A VERY SPECIAL APPOINTMENT
The Hon. Bill Graham returns to Trinity as the College’s 12th Chancellor
APRIL 26, 2007 - It was a tough decision when the Hon. Bill Graham announced in February that he would not run again for office in the next federal election. But Parliament’s loss has just become Trinity College’s gain.
On May 8, Graham, a 1961 Trinity grad, will be installed as Trinity’s 12th Chancellor. “It’s a great opportunity to go back to the university and go back to one’s roots and make a contribution,” he says. Once settled as Chancellor, he says he would like to play a part in enhancing Trinity’s International Relations Program.
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, which accounts, in part, for his fluency in French. (From 1979 to 1987 he was president of the Alliance Française de Toronto, and he is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur of France.)
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.
“Bill Graham brings just the right combination of experience and qualities to the post. He has had a distinguished public career as a well-known lawyer and academic and, most recently, politician and cabinet minister. And – the icing on the cake – he’s a Trinity grad!”
Graham and his wife Cathy, also a Trinity grad (’63), were married in the Trinity College Chapel. They have two children, Katy and Patrick. Graham will be installed as Chancellor at the Trinity Faculty of Divinity Convocation on May 8. He succeeds the Hon. Michael Wilson, a 1959 Trinity grad, now Canada’s Ambassador to the United States.
Trinity’s history extends back to 1851; its first chancellor was Sir John Beverley Robinson, attorney general of Upper Canada, who had been a prize pupil of the college’s founder, John Strachan, the first Anglican bishop of Toronto.
