Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #22 - Peter Johnston

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

Born in 1944 out east in Ottawa (in the back of a cab on the way to the hospital) he went to school at Notre Dame. He served in the army, became a lawyer & now judge. He talks of being taught by WWII veterans, being married for 50+ years & being a part of this community. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

This is Glenn Healing. Hi, this is Braden Holby. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hi, this is Brian Burke. This is Jordan Tutu. This is Keith Morrison. This is Kelly Rudy. Hi, this is Scott Hartnell.

Hey, everybody. My name is Steele-Fer. This is Tim McAuliffe of Sportsnet, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. I finally have my voice back. A few people are reached out. And we're saying it sounded like I was hit by a truck on Monday,

which, fair enough. hadn't had a whole lot of sleep and my voice was non-existent shall we say so um it's back we're back we made her uh the trek to toughnal saskatchew in and back we're up over 270,000 dollars raised for um breakfast programs in lloyd minster and surrounding area so huge uh huge shout out to everybody who helped and help make this possible and for you guys and the community around to just keep pushing it. It was really, I don't know, it was just one of those stupid ideas that when you put it into

motion, it just kept gaining traction and traction. And pretty soon, we're in the middle of a thunderstorm biking through and cruising by Saskatoon all the way out to a small little hamlet, toughnall, and getting a great meal from the folks there and having a conversation with Quick Dick, which you heard on Monday. And it was a whirlwind. And we went there. And we went there. Aaron back and it almost feels like a dream here as I slowly, you know, my brain function starts to come back after a few nights of good sleeps and, and it's hard to believe it's come and gone to be completely honest. But I just can't say thank you enough to everybody who helped push it along.

There's so many people that came to our aid or donated big numbers at the start or, you know, companies continuing to put on some fundraisers. This week, Spiro's has their grand opening of their patio on Thursday night. Proceeds are coming back to Bike for Breakfast. They've got a bunch of stuff going on for the kids, and that's super cool. If you're PWM Steel for the month of June, it's got a steel bin out. You can donate steel, and the proceeds of that come back to Bike for Breakfast. And then the scoop, who doesn't like a little ice cream?

Each week they have a different flavor that the proceeds of it come back to Bike for Breakfast. waiting for cookie dough myself and then i'll probably be there seven days in a row because that's that's the best now that's not uh today today we got another archive episode coming at you but before we get there let's get to today's episode sponsors jen gilbert and team for over 45 years since 1976 the dedicated realtors of colewell banker city side realty have served loyminster in the surrounding area they offer star power providing their clients with seven day a week access they know Service is a priority because big life decisions are not made during office hours. And in the current environment, they've adopted virtual reality with this technology.

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Great training for the bike. And let's sink our teeth in some beef dips, drink some beer. It was a fun night. Regardless, for all the way to the end of the bike trip, if you bought a beef dip, if you bought a growler of beer, the proceeds came back to Bike for Breakfast. So a huge show up to Three Trees, Tap and Kitchen. Of course, Jim Spaneraneth, for help.

and put that on. And that's just, that's what Three Trees does. And did you know if you follow them on social media every week they're giving away gift cards? And all you got to do is just follow along, interact with them, and you get a chance at winning maybe a free meal, right? Also, I got to bring up, you can get your growlers filled there. We had Brad Hoffman on the road trip and we may have dabbled into some Fourth Meridian at the end of it. And you can get that filled up at Three Trees, of course, or Ribstone Creek. Always, always, always, because it is, humming there there's always a buzz in the air at three trees call for a reservation 780 874-76-25 crude master transport since 2006 crude master has been an integral part of the

community they continue to be leaders of this area you know i i'm bringing up all the different people who've helped uh the bike for breakfast crew and they were the first call uh that yours truly made and they came up big right they came up big in in the form of 25 grand. It was a huge number right off the hop. Them along with Wayside really kicked us off back at the beginning of May. And I can't thank Heath and Tracy and the family enough for everything they've done for the podcast and for this community. They seem to always be willing to give and back it up.

And of course, Heath has been on the podcast. So if you want to go back and listen to him talk, he's a guy that I truly do respect. He's a man of his word. And Crude Master just seems to step up. the time. HSI group, they are the local oil field burns and combustion experts that can help make sure you have a compliant system working for you. The team also offers security, surveillance, and automation products for residential, commercial livestock, and agricultural applications. Of course, here at the building, we got HSI group a couple of times,

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sidewalks, patios. Speaking of Spiro's brand new patio, it was Kiva Concrete who did that. I remember walking up and talking to Chris in the middle of them doing that job last summer. And they are attention to detail, folks, very much so. They have a lot. They have a lot of I also do barns, shops, garage pads, and countertops. Yeah, countertops. I had no idea. Essentially, if you can dream it, they can do it. Give the boys a call.

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Now, if you're in any of these businesses, make sure you let them know. You heard about them from the podcast. And let's get on to that T-Barr-1, Tale of the Tape. Born in 1944, originally from Ottawa, Ontario. attended school at Notre Dame, was an instructor in the Army, married for 50 plus years, lawyer, judge, volunteer, family man, and community pillar. I'm talking about Peter Johnston. So buckle up. Here we go. It's November 15th, 2020. I am joined today in studio by Peter Johnston. So first off, thanks for

joining me. You're most welcome. I'm not sure Roy anybody would pick me to come here, but thanks. It's appreciated. The project is to grab different people from the community. All, you know, men, women, different, where they grew up, all come to the mixing pot of Lloydminster and how they affected Lloydminster, right? So, I mean, you hold a pretty prominent position at town. You're a judge. So, I mean, it's not like you're some guy just sitting on the street.

And I would argue even that guy probably has some things to stay, and it would be interesting to sit and listen. So I think, as I tell everyone who, walks through the doors here, everybody's got a story to tell. I'm just sitting here, going to hopefully prod out some good things out of it. So you're brought in, sir, because somebody obviously thinks you have a few things to say. I hope it's not somebody I put in jail. Well, we were just talking about before we started here. You're not originally from the Lloyd Minister area. So how about we start with where exactly are you from? Where were you born?

I was born in the backseat of a taxi cab at the corner of Carling Avenue and Pratt. Preston in Ottawa, Ontario, March the 22nd of 44. My dad was out of the city working, and my mom didn't quite make it to the hospital. It was another 15 blocks. And as my mom told me, the taxi driver got so spooked, he ran. And somebody stopped, drove the taxi and drove me up to the Ottawa Civic Hospital where I was born. The middle child of six. That's one way to make an entrance. Yeah, that was quite right in the Italian district of Ottawa, right? You grew up then in Ottawa?

Yeah, I grew up in Ottawa. We lived in the west end of Ottawa. My dad was a contractor, construction supply contractor, and my mom worked in that office. And as you might talk about later, my mom then went back to university again and got a degree in library science and became the public commission librarian in Ottawa. So that's what they did. And dad was in the construction business. He sold a lot of concrete. He was involved in all the major runways, you know, concrete runways that were done all through Ontario. And I remember he did one big underground facility in Chalk River. But he was an engineer, brightest guy I ever knew. Right. So yeah,

I was there and as I indicated to you earlier, I was never a very good student. I was pretty well interested in sports. You know, if you weren't playing at a hockey rink, you were on the road playing road hockey and later I became a fairly good runner, so I was involved in the track and field scene and football in Ottawa. I played a lot of football when I was there. left school and went to work for a men's clothing store in Ottawa, owned by a family business friends of mine. I knew the sons. And then I knew some friends that went to Notre Dame in Wilcox.

And I told my mom, I said, I'm going to, I'm going to go to Notre Dame in Saskatchewan, mom. And she said, why would you do that? So she said, you're not much of a student. Said, I'm going. I talked to my grandmother and she gave me some money and said, sure, you just go there. And it turned to be one of the best years of my life. You know, there's a couple of guys there that end up playing with Detroit Red Wings,

the Carlender brothers. Hugh McPhail was another outstanding athlete there. And there wasn't a lot to eat. When you woke up in the morning, if there was any water in the house that we lived, it was an old convent. It would be frozen in the morning. It slept in a sleeping bag. So it was way before what Norderdeme is today, right?

We mean it was artificial. It wasn't artificial ice. It was just natural ice. How old are you at this time? Today? No. When you're in Notre Dame. Oh, I'm 18.

17, between 17 and 18. It turned 18 there. So you're taking university courses there? No, you could. A friend of mine, Peter McInnelly, he got his BA there. But no, I was just doing my junior year there of high school because I kind of I left school and after the season was over, all the sports were done. And I went and worked for this clothing store that I had worked at, you know, over the years as a kid.

It was Fisher Park, ER Fisher Limited. So I worked down on the Spark Street Mall and then I worked in their West End store. They had four stores in Ottawa. What was it a trip like from Ottawa out to Notre Dame back then? Did you train? Did you drive? Yeah, no, we trained it. And I went with another buddy of mine from Ottawa who had played football with and knew him pretty well. And he and I both made application to go.

And then this other guy, Peter McAnnelly, he's from the same area, he went. You know, sat up on a train the whole way. There was no fancy dining cars. You just sit up and you smell like a diesel motor by the time you get there, right? So when I got there, it was the first time out west. And so you sit in Wilcox, Saskatch, and you look at it. one way and you could see Moose Jaw and the other way you could see Regina and there was I couldn't I never forget all the you know it was all wheat fields around there it was wasn't wasn't

very fancy I was really quite surprised and after the first week or so of school and it was there was nuns there was a Catholic girls were there was a Catholic school 40% were Catholic the rest were whatever and Father Murray he didn't care whether you were Catholic or Protestant. You went to church. Everybody had to go to church and listen to his sermons. And I was working one night because my school marks were okay. I never found school hard, even though I didn't go very much. And so Kent and I were there, red-headed chap who's since passed away. We're sitting there one night at 10 o'clock doing homework. And this guy comes in. It's Father Murray. I never met him. A plaid shirt on cigarette ashes down the front of him.

and he said, hey, you pair of bastards, what are you doing here? Get these lights out. No, come with me. Took us back to his office, sat down and said, what are you going to have to drink? I said, Pear, I don't drink. And Kent said, oh, yeah, sure, bear. He gave us a couple of glasses, dirty, go wash those up and pour a scotch for him and a scotch for Kent. And we sat there for, well, probably an hour and I got to understand what this guy was about. You could speak Latin, could speak Greek, could speak French, just a genius of a guy. And just loved people, right? And as I mentioned earlier, I got one of my jobs was driving him frequently to Guijina to meet with his friends. He was a friend of Thatchers and, you know, he knew a lot of fairly important

people. And so I probably got to know them as well as anybody would because of all the trips that I would take. But he knew Greek history and he was just such an interesting man. It had quite an impact on me. As I say, the surroundings weren't all that wonderful. When you say he had quite an impact on you, what do you do that changed maybe your outlook on where you were headed? Well, I got to tell you, some people might find this a surprise, is I thought seriously about being a priest in my younger days. You were a Catholic family, and there was a couple of really good priests in our church that we were at.

In fact, one of them, his brother went to an order to him, and he was another reason that I considered the idea of going out there. But it was just pairs, you know, he wasn't, Catholicism wasn't it. It was Christianity that he was interested in and people, and he would do anything to help a kid get ahead. And, you know, he went through some pretty tough times in the 30s, and there's lots of old hounds around this city that went to that school and came back here and played hockey with the Border Kings in later years.

So, yeah, it was just his down-to-earth, his view on life. He was a real philosopher. So that was interesting. At Christmas, I went home in the bus. I went home in the train again with Kent. And I brought my report car home just to show my mom. I think my average was 98, and she didn't believe it. She said, I've never seen those marks from you.

Well, the way it worked is he went to school all day with a couple of nun teachers and Hugh Huck and some other great teachers, actually. And because in those days, we had little sister, Mother Edith. She finished all the math courses by Christmas, whole year. and those are the days when they did departmentals and the people from that school scored as high as anybody in the province so when I went home and showed my mother those marks

she couldn't believe it she thought are you you not fooling me are you and I said no and it turned out I would help the kids because I had some ability in French I'd taken a lot of the biology before in high school in Ottawa so you would end up helping your your buddies or the girls out

in school, which is a far cry from where I was because, as I say, was never a student. But I managed to get through with very good marks. You went from being a poor student. You're telling me you're a poor student. That's what you said. I was a poor student. I wasn't very good, but my mom even said that before I left. And you came back with 98's?

Yeah, I didn't have to go to school a lot to learn if I talked to you. I remember a lot of what we heard. I have a sister who's, my old sister's a lawyer, and she's a totally gifted person with a photographic memory. There's not many that do it, but she would pick up a piece of paper, and it was like it was a duplicator. She just knows it all.

And she's 80 now and still working for the government as a pension specialist lawyer in Ottawa. Wow. So, you know, mom and dad were both very bright. My dad was incredibly smart, but they both were. And so, you know, some genetic, I guess, some genetic base there that I could learn if I wanted to. And even when I went to law school and arts, you know, I had a job at the bay when I went to school to keep myself in school at University of Saskatchewan where I went to later on met my wife. I worked a lot more than, and worked to make money than I probably did at school.

You say when you took the train out, it's the first time coming out west. What are some other things you remember about that time? You paint a pretty vivid picture of it being very cold, flat, not having a whole lot going on. What else sticks out about that time? Like obviously you're pretty found, you mentioned hounds an awful lot. Like it's a brotherhood, which I assume it is, because it's a culture that Notre Dame has created there. And when you go there and once a hound, always a hound or something along that mantra, I assume. and you can see that it means very much to you.

So what are some other things about that time that stick out? You're going to laugh at this. I'm not a very big man, but food. There wasn't very much food when you're at Notre Dame, right? And I didn't have a lot of money. You'd go to the mess hall and there would be a loaf of bread on the table. Here's a typical Friday. A loaf of bread in the table would be 10 guys at that table.

No butter. and you get beans, and if you're lucky, they'd be one or maybe two pieces of hot dog in there. Any dreams I had about being home was about food. My mother was a wonderful cook. And so I think being hungry, I think I left there at 138 pounds. You know, I mean, not that I'm that big, as you can tell.

Still, 138. 38. And so maybe that's why I was fast, but I would have gone out there at 100. and a half, 150, you know. And I think it was the guys. It was the, and a couple of girls from the convent were end up to be good friends

because you were in class with them and you'd be debate with them and all that sort of thing. But it was the friendships that you made, you know, there was just some incredibly good guys. We'd go out, one of the guys had a Volkswagen, you'd go out hunting prairie chicken. And, you know, so it was, It was really, yeah, it may certainly made a difference to me because of the camaraderie that was there.

You know, in our current state with the pandemic going on and, you know, running out of toilet paper and such oddities, do you ever just think back to then and think, man, like we don't realize how good we got it? Like, really? I mean, when you think about a loaf of bread between 10 guys, like, think about that. Yeah, because you'd go there for breakfast and to be toast, and if you want anything in toast, there was lard in the table. That's what you would use, not butter, not marjor. Did you ever get homesick? Did you ever go like, what? And I do. No, no, I didn't because I was, you know, really involved in the sporting side of things. You know, I wasn't good enough to make the first grade of hockey there. I played a lot of hockey, but I was in football. I was good

and I played pretty well in the cross. So I was a pretty good athlete. And so, you know, it was great. I liked the sporting side of things. And school, like, they were serious about school. People think, oh, that. So you're finished your classes all day. Then there's two hours, and you got to stay there in that study hall.

And one of the teachers that sit there and watch, make sure that it was done. And I remember this one guy, and he stayed there afterwards. he was sitting across from the teacher and he's mucking around. I know what he was doing. And Huey Huck just reached across and gave him a right cross, broke his jaw. So there was another guy that was there too that was you make sure you did your work. And he just looked over at one of the guys, it was Gary Rogers. And his dad used to own Roger's shoes here in Lloyd Minster.

Gary, take him to the hospital. So he said, never got out of his sheriff and just picked this guy up, took him to regina. got his teeth wired together and he came back. It was rough and tumble, right? And if you were a new boy, you know, they'd make it rough on you and you'd have to run for the senior guys, do favors for them. But there was none of this stuff that you hear about today,

you know, some of these terrible things where kids are beaten up and I think sexually abused as part of the getting into the hockey. you know, getting into these hockey teams. And I've seen enough of that even through the courts to know that it exists. So that wasn't the situation that nobody was ever beaten up or. But just different times. It's different times, Sean. You bet.

Can you imagine sending your kids somewhere or them going somewhere and only being a low for breath? Like I just, you know. Yeah, see, my parents wouldn't have known. I don't think. You never ever wrote letters back or said, this is a pretty cool little place. I suggest not coming for a visit for a while, though.

Well, they wouldn't have come out. There were six kids in the family, and I'm not afraid to admit it. My dad had an alcohol problem. And he, like you remember, in 64, he made over a million dollars in his business. That was big-time stuff. And by 57, he got his,

Alcohol was on a runaway, and he turned himself into, turned himself to some friends in AA, people who became friends. And so my mom went back to university, six of us in school, got her degree. She only had her degree was from Toronto. So she got her second degree and became a librarian. So she had her hands full. Dad struggled, you know, after he quit drinking. And then he preached.

well committed his life to helping people with alcohol problems in AA. So they were in no position to be driving out to visit me or they had, you know, there was still three younger kids that they were looking after. So yeah. You were off on an adventure. I really was. It was off in your own, right? And I had spent previous years in the military in the summertime. I became an instructor in the Army as a full time call out as a young man with the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. So I, you know, I was kind of a lonely, not a lonely kid. I was not afraid to be out on my own. You know, I say this all the time when I come in here and I talk to your generation.

Not that there aren't wars going on in the world, there certainly are, but coming off of World War II, that impacted Canada and the United States and North America way different than Europe. That's right. Yep. So when you talk about doing military service, I understand it isn't going off to war, but that's foreign to me,

except the reason that is, is because time marches on, and as time marches on and we haven't gone back to a World War II, there isn't as much pressure, I assume, to have those groups still active all the time. what was the like were you pushed to join these groups or did you want to join them or two of the guys the two guys that I hung out with they were both really good football players Dave Skinner and Barry Starr and Dave Skinner he was he was in the militia as well

he's with the Cameron Highlanders he said should join this Peter it's a good deal So I did join it and I joined the Cameron Highlanders and they taught you all sorts of military things and you went to Camp Iperwashes were one of the places I went to I went to Picton, became an instructor but the guys that taught me were all Second World War vets

and one of the guys that remember is a survivor of Dieppe. Tough, tough bugger and there was Sergeant Major Howard PPCLI and on the parade square I remember going on there and he just I don't know. When we first got there, I didn't know beans about, you know, how to dress.

He just looked at me, said, hey, you with a, you're sticking out like the handles on a water jug. What are you doing? Did you press your shirt inside of your boot? And that really got to me. By the time I was, by the time a month was over, I became part of the crack drill squad. I wasn't going to be, I wasn't going anywhere without knowing exactly what to do. And I met a guy named Paul Cuthbert who had spent a couple years there and he helped me have my boots capped and I had shirts tailored and knew how to block my hat. And, you know, I could walk and chew gum at the same time.

So I end up as one of my disappointments is in the second year that I was at Hipper Wash, I was in charge of the drill platoon. And my mom and dad came to see it and they had trouble with them. the breaks and they never made it for the March pass. And I was, you know, I'm the guy that's in front telling everybody eyes front and all that sort of thing. So I went on to instruct in Pickton, Ontario. And those are the days when Bobby Hull and Dennis Hull were playing ball, playing ball there. I remember going to seeing some of their ball games. And of course, Dennis was a gorilla, as you can remember. He was beating, beard and Bobby, I think. And we had the, the Van Dues, the Royal 22nd from Montreal.

And I was a drill instructor. You know, I'd instruct other stuff, weapons and things. But over here, they did not like me because it was a Maudsie Anglia, I was English. And as a drill instructor, you become a bit of it. You know, you've got to get these guys in shape and a hurry. And tell when you say left, right, that means your left foot goes, and then your right foot goes.

And oftentimes when I watch some of these march passes, I can't believe how bad they are when guys are at a step. But it was, again, it was another experience in my life. You know, you had to learn to take orders. And I never really even thought about it until now. And then even when you sent me this questionnaire, and I started to reflect what happened in Lloyd, you know, how is it I got to Lloyd Minster?

And, you know, how do I get to know people and how do I get some clients? Well, I think, you know, when I look, Listen, to the 20-year-old, I'm old. To everyone else, I'm pretty young still. Yeah. And I still, I'm at 34, I can reflect and go, geez, like this, opened a door over here, which let me, you know,

and you just, you play that game. I can play that game all night long. And what's cool about having you guys come through is you get to, you get to hear about some of those little things that maybe they altered your life ever so slightly, but they obviously taught you some very valuable lessons and being in the drill squad and having, you know, World War II vets around you that had been through some, let's just call what it is, some serious shit. I mean, it's hard not to have them say something and not be like, okay, right? That's pretty cool. Yeah, because I remember as we were doing, we were at the range of the

Bren guns and the guy, this one guy told you that was, he had survived Diep and he said, you know, you can, we set it up as opposed to just shooting multiple rounds. It was 450 to 500 rounds a minute for the Bren gun. It was 303 shells. And he said, yeah, he said, I ended up, I could kill people from a mile away. And I said, really. And he set it up, factored into the wind and hit the bullseye about five times out of ten a mile away. So when you look at this November 11th and I watched it all the time and you see those shows and what those guys went through, you know, then you realize how lucky we are. You know, here we are a whole generation and never knew more. You and me and your dad and your grandpa and I suppose your horse would have been around

for the first World War and Second World War and uh is it Don in the days Don and Donna and Donna Don would have been around for both he would have been a young man for the first one and then the second one he would have been you know and it's probably right around my age yeah right right like it's it's uh it's good um

I find it very interesting to talk about people who've even experienced being around people that were in it because you know I had Sy Campbell on the actual podcast. Yep. And Cy Campbell is 90, be turning 96 this year, I think. Geez, maybe he is 96,

because it was a year ago at least. Anyways, when I interviewed him, he was 94, was active as all could be, lives in U.N.D. Saskatchewan, and flew 36 missions over enemy territory in World War II and talked as crystal clear as you could get

about it and made the hair on your arms rise, right? Oh, yeah. But so many of those stories have disappeared because, I mean, you've got to be pretty much 100 now to recall a lot of that. 92 is the average age of Second World War Vett now. Oh, there you go. Yeah, 92. And so they're disappearing fast and a pandemic like this that is very hard on that, you know, that age group, they're falling away even quicker.

Yeah, so it seems to be really hard on people to have to. to wear a mask just sends me crazy when people whine and complain. You know, it's... Well, when you put it in comparison to, you know, some of the things that the generation before mine had to do and were asked to put on a mask, yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But I always go back to the with the wife, people just love to complain. I'm sure back in your generation, they complained about something.

They had to have complained about something. There had to been one thing, whether it was the neighbor or whether it was, you know, I don't know. There's always something to complain about because even when you're on the best day, you can find something to complain about. Yeah, I guess I'm old enough now that I just count my lucky stars with my family and, you know, because as you asked me, how long you've been married. Well, I met this girl at the University of Saskatchewan in September of 67. I saw her walking down the hallway at STM, which was the Catholic College at U.S.

So I'm going to marry her and did. You said you were going to marry her? I'm going to marry that girl. When you saw her? Yeah. When was it? I'm always, the reason I asked this, okay, I met my wife at college.

On the first day I was on campus, I walked right by her, gave her the coldest shoulder, and didn't think anything of it because I thought my shit didn't stink, so to speak. And then it was like three months later, we started dating and now we've been together for like 13 years or whatever it is great is she a girl from here she's from minnesota oh okay so i'm curious about love at first sight because for me

obviously it didn't happen otherwise i would have stopped and talked to her maybe the best thing i did wasn't stop who freaking knows right i don't know how to play that game but what is it about that how how can you possibly look at somebody and go that's the one and she i never talked to her i saw her walking down the hallway. And there was three of us that lived together, we were all three guys from Ottawa. And I met her probably maybe even two months later. I just saw her and there was a magnetism there.

You could feel it? Yeah. Yeah, I just looked at her and she just was really attractive. What did she say when you went and talked to her? What was the first thing he said to her? Well, at the college in those days, there was a lot of music and I played guitar and banjo and so there was a Saturday night they would have deals or people would come and perform and I went there and sang and she was there

and sang with a group and she was in the Glee club which was a pretty big thing and they cut records they were that good I wasn't that good and I also played a church and you did folk folk services and so that's where I met her probably got to know her and I knew a lot of Corey Lightfoot stuff, and I knew of Kingston Trio and all. Yeah, it was music probably that drew us quite a bit together then. Yeah, so there you are 52 years later, and I'm just really lucky. We're good pals. 52 years of marriage together.

52 years of marriage. So you just had your 50th anniversary. 52nd, just had her 52nd in July, yeah. In July. Yeah. Another cool string or theme that happens in these is a lot of the community pillars that come through this room have really good personal lives. Like they have strong values, I would say. What have you learned over 52 years of being with the same partner?

Like what have you, what possible lessons or can you share with? everybody. I could share that I have probably a very patient partner. Because Sean, when you start from nothing, you come here and you don't have a single client, right? But I'd been in court a lot, so anybody was in trouble, they would, I had relative success, they would come to me. And as the practice grew, it became demanding. And it was one of the questions you asked here was, something that really toughest time in your life was the practice took took my life over. In the last five years, I had so many clients, had so many commitments. I had partners that didn't work as hard as I did. You know, they want to be gone at four or five and I'd be there,

go back every night, I'd be there on a lot of weekends. And I mean, I was fortunate. I had some great clients over the years. And it just, I didn't, I didn't see a lot of them. I was, we didn't take many holidays because I was trying to build this practice. Four kids on a farm. She was a farm girl, raised in a big farm in Delmas and raised all our own, raise all our own food and raised our own chickens and pigs and, yeah, survived. Because it was It was a lean year. I think that first year, I think my gross income was $1,800. What? $1,800. $1,800. Yeah, gross. Net, it was a net income, yeah.

You came to Lloydminster, and the first year... As a lawyer. As a lawyer, you netted $1,800? Okay, but you've got to qualify that. I opened up on Labor Day, September, until about Christmas. and my income was $1,800. And when I was, when I articled, I was making $400 a month. And then I had this period of time when I didn't have any money. She was a teacher. So she was carrying the bacon.

I have to assume that. In that time of like, you're trying to make a name for yourself. you're trying to get some clients, you're trying to get some money rolling. Do you get kids at this time? Yeah. We had one son, Greg, and I had him at university. Second year law school, he was born. So along this road, there had to have been some second guessing.

So I'm going like, maybe this isn't going to work out. Maybe we should move to SAS too. Maybe I should go take a job under somebody else. None of that? No. new rate from the start by the time

I had finished my had written my exams and the bar exams and got admitted I'm going to do it I'm going to make a name

and I'm going to have a practice and it's going to be a good practice never look back never wanted to move to the city I had a my in the questions you asked me

I had a very strong agricultural base my first big clients were Willoughby brothers Howard and John and Harry They had the Willoughby Truckingham It was a big business then They had probably the biggest haulers

And that to me was a big coup And they were great Howard was so good to me And because he was kind of the head of the family In terms of the business But over the years I became acting for the farmers Against the Oil Companies I would represent them To make sure they got enough money

For the imposition of a well on their land and I end up going to the Court of Appeal of Alberta defending the rights of farmers. So I became very involved in the farm community. You wouldn't maybe know him. Dennis Wolveser had a feedlot west of town and I lived out there. Jack Tingley was my neighbor. Jack was big into cattle.

And when there wasn't much going on, I'd be over helping Jack, check cattle, pull calves, and got to know his dad, John, who had Tingley implements, north of the tracks. those days. I just became, like I got steered over to the agricultural side. And it still exists. I have a lot of my good friends are from the farming community, including neighbors of yours and of your family, right? So Wobister was a whole in this feed lot, a university-educated, very, very bright guy, and I bought cattle from them. I thought it would be a right-off for tax. It really wasn't

anything, it was just being involved in the industry that I loved. And, you know, when Richie Davies became a good friend, and Mac Creach, Mac and Pat Creach are great friends of ours. And so that's kind of where I end up steering off to the agricultural side, not so much on the commercial guys building houses and stuff. Although I did work for Ray Nelson, but that was a lot more on a personal side of what I did for Wraith and, you know, any of his business dealings, although there were some for sure. So, yeah, and I still have those strong roots to the agricultural community, hey. That fascinates me. Did it take long to build that practice in? You know, you talk about 1800 in the first year, but I mean, it's the first quarter essentially of your practice. Yeah, Sean,

It did take a while. I mean, the good clients, and they knew they were with George Bainton. George, as I told you, an amazing guy. He was a mentor to me and a model. And Ben Gulak had been here. He was with Minor and Gluck. And minor was one of the early, early mayors in Lloyd Minster. And then a classmate of mine, Wally Moskell went with that firm as well.

And I guess I was lucky because the lawyers in this town were really a good bunch of people. they would help and they were honest they weren't out just to make money right they you know i haven't asked this yet how do you end up in lloyd then i mean you're from ottawa yeah you basically land in nonderdane wilcox for a year did you like the west that much then that you that you come back no i did like it uh i went back to ottawa to university to university of ottawa actually was St. Pat's College, which became part of Carlton University. My sister was the vice president of the student council, and I went to Catholic College. I went back, and again, I wasn't a brilliant student, but I did all right. And then at the end of the year, near the end of the year, there was a

bunch of exams in the two English classes, and one prof gave his class an open book exam, and our prof wouldn't do that. So I said, that's not fair. So I started a strike. And it didn't go well. In fact, they said, we really, we really don't need you back here next year if you're interested in coming back to St. Pat's. So two friends of mine that I went to school with and went to Notre Dame with, we end up saying, let's go west. There was a woman that my mother knew from being the Public Service Commission librarian there from Saskatoon and they said let's go to U of S.

My great uncle was a Catholic priest who was the head of the head of the order, the bazillions and there was the bazillions ran the Catholic College in Saskatoon so it all sort of tumbled together and I said let's go we'll go out there this girl that knew my mom from Saskatoon she said would you take my car back out to Saskatoon so three of us Kent Barry and I took her car and drove out to Saskatoon and and then it wasn't long before I met Leonor, and then I think I'll stay here. I remember going out to the farm, you know,

go out during combine season. And I don't think the mother ever, the grandmother didn't trust me. She thought I was the hired man. She thought I was Italian, because in those days I had black, long curly hair. So here's this Englishman in a very strong French community. There were some of the uncles, Sean, wouldn't speak to you in English.

So you might be your senior year high school, French that you're trying to get by on, but I did. It was one uncle, very clever guy. Kids, he had a big family and doctors and lawyers and accountants, and his name was Robert Robert, and he wouldn't speak English. I'd speak French, and he was just so happy that I'd give it a world, eh? So, and so we tell our kids actually French till about grade four. And then my, my vocabulary I kind of got a little weak at grade four. And there wasn't any French class at that time. There wasn't any French radio.

So my wife, who is French, just let it go. And the kids still say, why didn't you teach us French today? You know, I wish they had the second language, although they learned Spanish. So, yeah. How do you, see, A, I always like to point out this out. I don't know if this is a romantic or what, but. you protest and by protesting leads you to U of S where you meet your wife and it's love at first sight. I don't know what that is.

I'm still trying to figure that out like what that's the universe or the whatnot. But I always love seeing that in people's stories. That one simple choice closes the door and opens another one and that door leads down this hallway, which becomes the rest of your life, right? And I think for a lot of people, if they ever listen to us, that's the beauty about every day is you just never know what's coming. What door is going to open? What door is going to close? So Delmus is 60 miles from Lloyd Minster.

But I had a connection to Lloyd Minster before I even went to University of Saskatchew. Okay. I'm listening. So I had a girlfriend in grade 12, and she and she and I are still very close friends. And she had a cousin that was moving to Ottawa from Lloyd Minster. Her dad was a pharmacist here in town. Mother was teacher at the composite high school, the high school in Lloyd and Lloyd Minster. And it turned out they ended up dating her through that first year at St. Pat's College.

And so I learned about a lot of the people in Lloyd Minster through her. People would come and visit. And she and I are still very, very good friends to this day. and her brother came. I remember when they came, Dick came. The name was Ellis. Bob Ellis used to have the, he used to be a pharmacist right here in town.

And the son Dick came and he told me, I played, I was a quarterback for the Lloydminster football team and said, it was in the summertime. Well, come on, we'll go, we play ball all summer. You came to Lloyd to play football? No, no, no. He came to Ottawa. And then when I was playing football,

lot of football at the time. Oh, okay. I missed. And he said, yeah, I used to be the quarterback. I said, well, come on. We played touch football. And somehow I missed the part there. Carry on. Dick, Dick couldn't have been the quarterback. He just couldn't have been. And then so I got to know about a lot of the people. And the first girlfriend, Kathy, her grandpa was called the Prairie Gardener. He had a show that was quite famous about gardening in the Western Canada. So I got to know. a lot about the West through those guys. And again, they were, they were into music, that family. And I, he, her dad played the wash tub bass. I had the banjo and guitar, so we'd have sing songs. So it was great, great time for me, right? So 60 miles away from Lloydminster,

finished my art, finished my law school. And the last, you, I knew I was coming here because this guy offered me a job for the summer, Joe McLean. So, Leonor stayed at home. I came and I worked for him in the summer, stayed at his house. His wife, Mrs. Lillian McLean, was a fabulous woman. She's a nurse, looked after her husband. And so I spent two summers working here. And so I got to know, in those times, I got to know an awful lot of people, because all I would be doing was criminal law. I resented it somewhat, Sean, because a good set of articles as a principal, and I've been principal to a number of lawyers, you've got to give them a, give him a, taste of everything that happens in a law practice. Here's what happens in the real

estate business. This is what happens in corporate commercial. This is what happens in the state law. All he did was criminal. I mean, I loved it. I loved being in court. Ran the very first 08 case that was ever run in Lloydminster and won it. And so I guess that opened a lot of doors, but 08? 0.8? Over 08. You're talking impaired. Okay. That's where my brain went, but I'm better. And by winning it, you mean you convicted a guy of drinking and driving? Oh, no, I saved them. Saved them. Right? The police, it was in, they had the breathalizer in those days in the early days. It was called the Borkenstein breathalizer model 600A. And I studied that

machine. I knew that machine better than any guy that ever operated it here, just because if I'm going to do it, I want to be prepared, right? That was part of maybe my military things. You're always prepared. Be prepared. I mean, that's the scouts, but it was certainly in the military. And they They were very surprised and after I won that I ended up doing quite a few of those cases, eh? A lot of guys that were drinking and driving and there was ways to beat it and they had to follow a certain procedure. So interestingly enough, that led me to a lot of guys who'd come to me for drug cases.

And in those days, pretty serious stuff. What is pretty serious stuff? Everything about drugs was serious. I had a guy that would have gone to jail in high school. and he was growing a marijuana plant at his mother's house and just told her it was part of a high school project he said it was glorious sativa some kid ratted him out cultivation of marijuana was an offense you could go to jail for a long time on and I managed to get him out get him off of that isn't that crazy now I mean yeah look at where we're at now compared to that well in those days

Ben Gulak, as I say, he was a good liberal. He was the Crown prosecutor. So when you're in private practice, they hire private guys to do prosecutions of drug cases in those days, federal cases. And Ben was a very easygoing, wonderful guy, Peter's brother. And I never lost. I was always, I think I was always better prepared than Ben. I was probably a lot keener. I was probably a pain in the ass, Keenan. And so I defended these guys. It was a really a tough case. Jim McCrae was a lawyer that I worked with Joe McLean. And there's a big, fairly big drug operation here. They had five miles of tape recordings from the Capri Hotel. And so it was a big sting operation. And I defended this one guy. McCrae defended the other guy. He ended up getting seven years, the guy, the guy

the gym defendant, I got my guy off. And he stiffed me. Didn't pay. Didn't pay. He was a $4,000 bill. Never paid it. That was a lot of money then, eh? You know, you mentioned before we started recording,

that you have the ability to basically not take cases if it doesn't align with, I don't know, your values. Would that be a safe? I wasn't comfortable. Just, like, sexual assault cases? Yeah. Guys that were, they may have been innocent, but I just couldn't do it, Sean. And I had a good friend, Dave Clements, and Dave article to me, and he's had his own practice,

and his son has taken that practice over Ross, great young guy, and he didn't mind doing him. I just, I didn't like, didn't like it, didn't do it. So when this guy stiffed me for four grand, and I can remember all his given names, there was a guy named Jack Dopp, who was the head of the drug section here, ultimately became the head of all the drug sections in British Columbia. He came to, he said, do you want to switch sides? And it was ticked off. I said, yeah, I'll prepare to do that.

So it turned out I got to be appointed to be the federal drug prosecutor after that. And that dovetailed into a lot of the work that I like to do because at the time I was a pilot, could use my plane to fly to Battleford or Vagerville or St. Paul. And, you know, I love flying an awful lot. And so you just get up in the air and off to St. Paul and put it on autopilot. Just a quick check of what you had that day. Cops would pick you up at the airport.

And you'd go in and prosecute the case. They did that for 12 years. And some fairly big cases. And Don Smith took over after me, and he did it for 12 years as well. And he left that about two years ago. Which side did you like better? I can't say that. I like both sides.

You just like the game or the process. I just like it. I like the process. And when I did that drug prosecution, the Charter of Rights is a big issue in defending criminal cases today. It wasn't then. These were real cases, right? And I think I lost, I can remember losing two cases in 12 years.

One sloppy police work, and the other one, I shouldn't have lost it, but I did because of, again, poor police work. And it was an interesting case because there was an undercover operation, and it was over at, not David's Stakehouse. What was the place before that? Amigos. A lot of the drug cases were in Amigos. So they did undercover operation. I didn't go and check these guys notes because, What they would do, they'd bring guys in mostly from Evanton, Saskatoon,

that have earrings and long hair and they're undercover guys. And I'd go to their safe house. They'd have a place in Lloydminster, and they would tell me who they're after and what they were doing. And I would check their notes. Because your notes, I would tell the policeman, those are your Achilles' heel. If you got lousy notes, you're not going to win. So this guy was up for selling undercover, and I think it was hash. and so good defense counsel was Jim McCrae.

He said, well, can you remember tell me what he was wearing that night? You're at the Euro amigos. Yeah, jeans and a T-shirt. Well, I'm looking at your notes here, Constable, because you have to give him your notes. I don't see anything about he was wearing. No, no, that's what he was wearing. At the end of the day, defense calls his mother.

He said, Mike lives at home and has for a long time, and I do all his washing, he doesn't own a pair of jeans. He only wears court rights. Judge Tippett, that was good enough for him, lost the case. Notes. So even now, when I sit as a judge, you can just tell. And oftentimes I'll talk to the policeman after and say, listen, the case, even last week, those notes are absolutely critical.

You may not think it's important. It may be a 08 case. But what happens if it's a murder case? And you've got poor notes. and you can say, I don't remember, or you might say something and then you correct yourself. And then defense says, well, what is it? Do you remember or you don't remember?

Or are you making it up just to cover yourself? As a defense lawyer, I would be that mean. I'd be going after the police pretty hard. So, anyway, I ended up doing that. And the other case that I lost was five pounds of pure coke. Marshall, Saskatchewan. lazy cop he stops these guys

and there's at the time the Charter of Rights was a big issue then stops these two guys driving an Audi outside of Marshall for speeding the cop stops him and then he says who are you to the passenger and the guy tells him who his name is he checks him out and he's got a warrant for his arrest for not paying a speeding

ticket and he says well I want to I want to search your car he goes in he comes back he's got one of the jackets he said this jacket's got about $5,000 cash and what is that? What are you doing? Guy said, well, we were buying cars in Montreal and a lot of the deals are cash. Okay, I'm just going to look again. They didn't know what he was looking for. He would have to say, I want to search the trunk or I want to search this and get permission. He had no reason to believe that they had drugs in the car, opens the trunk,

opens the suitcase and in there is a Coors six-pack, cardboard six-pack. Inside is two keys of pure coke. It was 98 percent, purest coke that I had ever seen in the years that I practiced. Supreme Court of Canada came out, said that's an illegal search. Gone. Just because he didn't do his job the right way, he could have put questions upon questions and done the proper search. The good thing was they seized the Audi, so they don't get that back because he's transporting drugs. Jacked off, this guy was telling you about it. I said, we should just let him go. He said, why? Well, he said, he's going to have to answer to somebody about two keys of Coke gone,

and the cops let him go. He said, that would have been justice. Of course, I didn't agree with them, but they got off. So I have multiple things that come to mind right now. One is, what do you think of all the current views towards the police. Defund the police. Get rid of the police. Police are terrible. They're sure two sides to that story, but

I have to be critical of the police to some extent because they're training I don't think is that good. I often worry about the type of individuals that want to be police. You may have friends that are in the forest, but I see bullies.

I see people who the job goes to their head. They're not trained. They're not trained to go to court. You know, you get these guys, I've had a sergeant. I remember this five years, I was a judge, during my being a judge, five years, never been in a courtroom. His evidence was crap. Just the poorest evidence, because you'd never been there. They don't have enough time or they don't train them well enough.

defund them not a chance in fact I think it'd be better if they did more work in training them better and making sure who they've got in there are people that should be policemen but I just think that they they attract some you know some guys that shouldn't be policemen how about our justice system in general because when I hear you discuss

note taking is critical and letting people off or getting people off. You know, they're obviously not the greatest individuals, but they get off because of poor work on the other side. Is that the justice system or is that, what is that? I think that's more a failure and perhaps of good police training. I think the justice system, and of course people say, well, you're biased, Peter, because you're a judge now.

I think we've got excellent judge. judges, you know, they do a really, really good job. And if we lose, if someone loses a case, oftentimes it's because of its poor police work. Right. I mean, you've got to prove that the guy is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the job of the crown. You know, and the defense, that's their job, is not to get the guy free. They're there to make sure the crown proves their case beyond a reasonable doubt. And I, in my time as a judge, I became the president of the Alberta Judges Association and traveled the country on behalf of our court. Got to meet a lot of judges across the province, and the 20% rule probably

still is probably still there. 20% of the guys you play hockey with are they don't want to work real hard. They're just there. And there's 20% I think I would much rather be in the golf course. And I absolutely passionate about the job that I did. I can give that damn what time you hours were. I finished one case at one o'clock in the morning and lawyers were whining about it. I did one in Wainwright one night that we went to 11. Female lawyer who I didn't particularly like. When are we going to take a break for lunch? I said, we don't break for lunch. I got clerks here. They have to go back to Vermilion. They got to travel home. Their love came from farms. I said, we're just going to try and get through the day. This girl said, well, we're going to have a

break for supper then. And the guy was very wealthy, charged of the 08. It was a big golf tournament, Oilman's golf tournament and Wainwright. And he and his dodged, big dodge, four by four, thought he should go over a couple of bridges on the golf course and a couple of greens. And yes, out of it. And said, no, we're going to head with it. Well, what about supper? I said, look, if you've got a blood sugar problem, I'll take the time you need. Otherwise, we're going. We finished at 11, and I convicted the guy. I mean, it's pretty obvious. And as I, when you're, it's a different job being a judge in the country than being in the city. So I come out of my back room, now dressed like a human, not with my robes. And the guy's there and he said, hey, I want to

talk to you. I said, sure. He said, you convicted me. You stayed and you made sure that I could get on with my life today rather than putting this off. Thank you. And took my time and talked to the guy. And so he does this year without a license right. And so I understand I got a reputation. I expect people to be there on time. In fact, I expect duty counts to be there ahead of time, talk to the people so the court runs smoothly. And some of the guys that I work with a lot over the years, they're the same way. They want to do the job. They're dedicated. it. Some of them think that they've been elevated to the, I don't know, they're elevated than they. But, Sean, you know what as well as I do. And what you do in your work, there's guys that work and there's guys that just get away with the least possible work.

That is life. All life. All life. Sure. And maybe 20% is a high rule. I don't think I know 20. because there was 128 judges. I'm the president of the association. I know every one of them by their first name. I mean, I mean, travel the entire province. So you get to know these guys. And we, the Alberta Provincial Court, they've got some just outstanding judges.

Did you always want to be in law? No. How did you stumble into law? I wanted to be. You mentioned you wanted to be a priest. Yeah. Okay, well, then I found women. And then there was, I found the opposite sex and that didn't last long.

Then I thought I'd be in medicine because I was always good in biology. And when I went to this university in Ottawa and St. Pat's, you had to do a three-day questionnaire. It was really tough. And at the end of the day, they would say, this is what you ought to be, right? Okay. So by the time I finished, they said you should not be an architect. because one of the things they had to do, there's boxes you had to put together,

and then they would show you where the window was on one side, and when you put this box together, the window had to be there. I just finally said, B, B, B, B, B, so on. Anyway, instead I should look at medicine or law. Went to the University of Saskatchewan. One of the priests that was there was a friend of my mom's family, Father O'Donnell, taught me, he taught me Shakespeare, and he said, I met with him, had coffee.

What do you want to do? I think I want to get my master's in English. And I could be a teacher. He said, you can be a lousy teacher, Peter. He said, think about something else. He said, maybe you should try, give law a try. And I didn't have this driving urge to be a lawyer, but I said, okay, that's, give that one a world.

I miss brutal honesty. My grandmother, Dora, used to have a way of just brutal honesty. but no malice to it. She wasn't trying to be rude. She was just, no point in telling you, you know, something that isn't true.

I'm going to tell you, walk in the door and Sean, you're fat. Remember that? Remember that a couple times? And it's just like, oh,

it's great to see you too grabber, right? But nobody else would tell it to you like it is, right? Or you look like whatever. I mean, as you can tell,

I got a mustache today. It's November, Moember. I've had the same. missing tooth now for 16 years if you can believe that off and on and grandma would tell it like it is and I miss people like that I find that was a very it is it is a very hidden skill that not many people have because it's hard to just you shouldn't be a school teacher right like maybe it's easier to say that I don't know but for most people yeah yeah yeah yeah you might be a decent school

teacher, right? Don't want to actually hit it head on. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and he, and me, he told you way, he told you where the bear did his business and he said, no, I don't think you'd be any good. And I liked English. It wasn't hard for me. And that was the part of my problem

even in the school. It was nothing that was very hard for me. You know, if I get serious, I remember I had this Latin teacher in high school. And I got a few good, you know, I'd be 60, 65.

And this guy, Matt Moroney, he said, yeah, you're never accomplished anything. The next test, I got 100. Just I'm going to show this asshole. But I thought that was in my mind. Same thing happened in math. Same thing happened in another history class. So if I was serious, I would do it.

But otherwise, I wouldn't study, right? I think my daughter accuses me of having, being a little ADD, you know, a little trouble focusing. And she said, yeah, it's such your problem. You're maybe even ADHD, you know. And probably true, right? Speaking of kids, your daughter and raising kids, you're a busy guy.

What are some of your memories of having kids? And what did you try to pass down to them? Well, they say nice things about me now. So we have four kids. was born in Saskatoon, the first kid, Greg. Right. And it was in the St. Paul's Hospital. And you couldn't go in.

When the baby was being born, you couldn't go in. I remember this nuns said, oh, no, you can't go in during childbirth. And when I was there, there was another lady having a vivian. She's just down the hall. You could hear her screaming like a banshee, right? And she was a doctor and came from a big family of doctors in Saskatoon. And my wife would never say anything. She's just a good farm girl and suffered through it.

I remember holding that Greg when the nun brought him out to me. And it was funny because my dad came to visit from Ottawa. And the time he took off five minutes after four on that Monday, Greg was born. So that was a big thing. And you asked me about some of the memories about Lloyd Minster and the other three kids were born here. Dr. Skeen delivered all three of them. Still, another guy that I just absolutely loved.

He was so good. And that was one of the biggest memories. Jose was born, our daughter, first daughter. And I was doing a trial in St. Walberg. I remember he was a welder. And he had biceps like my waist. He had a big guy. And he shows up in court.

Joe Polika is the judge, and he's a hard old hard guy. So this guy shows up in court and he's got a short sleeve t-shirt on, and he's got these bulging things. And the guy that's complained that he's beat up as a little skinny guy. So the optics weren't all that great. And then I get a phone call from the office and saying, Jose, your daughter's going to be born. And so I just looked at the judge and I said,

Judge Belique, I got to go. My daughter, get out of here, he said. I was driving at Pugio 504, and I think I probably set a speed record coming from St. Wall and to Lloyd, but I was there for the birth of Jose and then Michelle and then Luke, and they were all with John Skeen. And you could be in the delivery room and that sort of thing didn't bother me. So those memories of my kids being born here, going to school here,

you know, they were big deals. And I think what they, I often say, do you want to be in law? They said, no, you work too hard. And they've all turned out to be just incredible workers, right? They just, they're as bad or worse as than I am. And unfortunately, three of them are in Toronto when five grandkids, which is really tough and even more so with COVID because he's now canceled three trips to Toronto. Well, as I was saying, my wife is from Minnesota.

Whereabouts? I'm Minneapolis. Minneapolis. And we're the only, she has two siblings, one recently married and another engaged. but no grandkids, right? So Dave and Teresa's grandkids sit in Lowell, Lloyd, Minster, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and it's going to be, I don't know, year and a half before, you know, it'll be next summer, realistically, before.

To get to meet. To get to see them all again. They've met all three, and they've, you know, they, once or twice a year, we go down there, they come up here, but I tell you what, it's since, it's been since, uh, Christmas. It'll be a year here coming up in Christmas since we last saw them. And it doesn't look like it's getting any anytime soon. No, because Minnesota's not doing well. No, so I feel your pain. I'm like, I understand your pain. I shouldn't say I feel like it's, I mean, I get to be around my kids all the time. But I understand that my kids don't get to see half their, their family an awful lot. And it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. And I can tell you, Sean, I'm just lucky because my, very best friends in my life for my kids. We share a ton. My one son, the youngest son's an architect.

We live on 80 acres west alloyd. We built all kinds of stuff out there, you know, big stone oven and we did all kinds of things together. We built them when he got his house in Toronto, I went down there and, you know, housing is so expensive. And we spent a lot of time sistering Joyce and tearing up floors and doing all kinds of that kind of thing I enjoy doing, but he's very good. He's an excellent carpenter. And the eldest son, he's a musician who's done very well. He writes for television. Really? And he's actually the president of the Canadian Songwriters Association and Socan president. So he travels the world and goes to all the committee meetings in Ottawa to do with copyright laws to be sure that people who write,

music get credit for it and are paid for the work that they do. And he's a brilliant musician and his son is just won a scholarship to University of Toronto as a musician. And I miss that because music is, you know, I really do like music. We actually have held concerts in our house. I can tell you about that. Then the daughter is a prophet University of Toronto. And she's the youngest one youngest prop to ever get to be a full, a full,

and she's traveled the world speaking on food food is her area of sociology her husband's this prof too and he's just one of the smartest guys I ever met when you mean food what do you mean no the impact of what's what are the impact of food trends in the world right and so they they're just finishing a book called meat and they've been out here the last couple of summers visiting different meat plants and people how they raise they're raising their animals ethically and the effects that have and the changes of people, their food cultures, how it changes the impact in the world. She's written a number of books. I look at them and they're

from a sociological perspective. And I get past the first paragraph, to be honest, that doesn't interest me, right? But, you know, they're all incredible cooks. We buy all our own organic wheat because my brother used to be an organic farmer and he then passed that organic farm on to somebody else who grind all our own wheat and grow all our own food still and make all our own bread and the kids do my both my sons are they're both trained as chefs both worked as chefs as a musician right he had to have another job because he wouldn't make it so he became a chef he was a chef well of course he'd learned from his mother he did they always and Luke, the architect, I mean, they're just, they're incredible.

He worked in Scotland, you know, was he going to university as a chef? And our daughter, we have one daughter in Wainwright, who's a, she's a, she took fine arts and became a tattoo artist. She has her own shop in Wainwright. And so we have a musician. A musician, a tattoo artist, an architect, and a pro. Yeah. That's pretty good. They didn't get any architectural or artistic ability from...

Not bad for a guy who wasn't very good at school. Well, my wife was... She was an art major and she's pretty creative, so she got lots from them, right? Yeah. I want to ask, you know, I've watched... I don't know why it's come up in the last little bit, but I don't know whether it's just been a movie or two

that's caught my brain. I keep forgetting about it, but for a guy who's involved in law, As far as I know in Canada, in your lifetime, this never happened. But in the States, the draft, Vietnam, do you remember growing up and kids being called to war? Do you remember that point in time in life? No. I remember the draft Dodgers that came here, but no.

Do you remember any thoughts on the States and how they were doing it? No. No, it wasn't a big thing for me. How about then in your lifetime? thus far because you'd be 44 and you'd be 76 76 yeah you've seen some very very

worldly things happen whether we're talking about living through the cold war whether you're talking about putting a man on the moon whether you're talking about JFK more recently I mean pandemic's going on right now 9-11 I'm probably missing many a many a many

how about the Trump regime sure which is extremely troubling to me. You know, I'm just, I'm like a mosterous flame. I've got to read every day. I read for two hours of New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, anything I can get my hands on to see what's happening.

And I think it's so very dangerous. We're in just, he's still got 70 million boats. And he's still got these guys who were armed out there, militia guys in the woods. I really worry where we're going. just frightens me. So that's what keeps you up at night then?

Yeah, that's what keeps you up at night. You know what's crazy about that, Peter, is I have friends, and I do not read two hours a day. So take this with a very big grain of salt. I have friends that totally believe in the Trump. I have friends that totally believe in Biden. And all I can see right now, whether you're talking Canada or the United States,

is it seems so glaringly obvious to me that it's almost like right down the middle. It's like 50% of the population is over here. 50% of the population is over here. And every year that goes by, it gets more like combative. Like we're, you're an idiot and you're an idiot for thinking that. And that's the language that's used. Not even like, well, you got your own beliefs and it's okay. Yeah.

There's no centrist anymore, right? there were just polar opposites and maybe Biden if he ever gets in God knows what's going to happen maybe and he's had a history of being able to pull some of the sides into the middle and getting to agree

certainly Trump hasn't done that and so a lot of friends I ended up I did a lot of work in the oil business too I actually represented a lot of guys and I saw a lot of friends who are as right wing as can be and it's so far from where I am

you know, I'm a centrist, you know, I'd like to see the left looked after and have, but it just, it just frightens me. Sean, I don't know where we're going with these guys. I'm afraid there's going to be bloodshed in the States. And I think you're absolutely accurate that you see that seeping its way into Canada, right? You hear people and they got these things in their car, screw Trudeau and it just, well, I tell you what, I'm not a Trudeau. I don't know if I'd ride around with a bumper sticker that says, Screw Trudeau.

I'm a firm believer in democracy. I think, you know, the more people you talk about, the more countries you read about that don't have democracy, you see some pretty troubling things that go on. But I don't know if tomorrow, well, actually, I know for a fact, tomorrow I don't want somebody to go and assassinate Trudeau just to get rid of them. I think that's extreme. Actually, what I find troubling in my own.

own brain is how 50% of the population can love Trudeau and I can be on the other side and be like, I really don't like Trudeau. Yeah, I don't think you get 50% to do, but. But, but, but, honestly, whatever percent it is, there's a lot of smart people on that side. I can recognize that and go like, what am I missing that they see? That, that's what troubles me. And maybe I'm wrong on this. The longer I go, the more I just think people are concerned about their bubble. So if, If Trump came in and affected our bubble in a good way, people would love them. And if Trump came in and shut down the oil patch, people would hate them. And now if you move to Emmington, it changed.

And if you moved to Calgary, it changed. And if you moved to Greaton Valley, it changed. If you move over to Saskatchewan, it changed. And everybody has these little bubbles. And somehow those bubbles have either gotten smaller or bigger. I'm not sure what. But everybody's stuck in their bubble and can't see past it. Even with all the technology we have, the messaging doesn't go across.

The lining of the bubbles are getting ever thicker, right? Yes. They just don't, they get opaque, can't see through it, can't see the other side. Yeah, that's, and it bothers me, of course, with COVID now that I can't see the kids. And it really is troubling because there's projects there I was going to go and help with, because, you know, I am, I can, I can do some things that help fix up houses and whatever. Can't do it. You know, I was saying to the wife the other day, Peter, that I'm like, you know, I forget who said it.

And I can't remember the quote exactly. But it was just talking about you can't fix the world, but you can have your own little piece of paradise essentially. And here in Lloyd, we got a great little community. And we can do things in Lloyd to help boost up our community and, you know, positivity. and, you know, listen, my wife's a school teacher. She sees on a daily basis how some kids don't get breakfast. Don't come to school in winter clothing. Do not have a great home life.

That's on our doorstep, right? And we're looking across country trying to figure things out over there when we could solve some things here in Lloyd. What's some things in Lloyd that you've seen that have been a good thing or been a part of? Freddie Norris? Look at Freddie North done. I acted for Freddie years ago when he was just driving truck for Willoughby's. Freddie North has just given an incredible number of dollars to the community.

Ray Nelson. You know, everybody, there was a certain element of jealousy, I think, with Ray because of success. But I knew him. On a personal basis, I was a close friend with Ray. And I saw the things that he did to help people. Just, you know, so I saw that over the course of my time in Lloydminster. When I started to think about people, Ray Nelson, there was Dr. Elmer Smith, the Hempstock building, that's Dr. Jim Hempstock, great guy, the Harris brothers, Jim Kep.

There were so many people that I came into contact with. And I'm not an evangelical. In fact, I'm just probably kind of a fallen away Catholic. But I saw some of the things that people did. Let me just look at what Freddy's, Freddy, just a simple guy who ran a truck, and he's given away millions. And if Freddie is listening to this, I've tried, and I would love to have Freddie come in here and talk.

You'd have to bring Freddy's wife because she's a strong, that's a strong partnership. And, but. I will gladly say it, have both of them and be perfect. I've done couples before. So Freddie, bring your wife. Yeah, she's, and Freddy's just a humble little guy who has done so much. But people need to understand, you know, what people are doing in the community.

But he's so humble, he probably, you'd have to drag him through the door. Lily might, his wife may come in, drag him in with her. She's a little more outspoken. But seriously, look at what we've done in Lloydminster, you know. And so one of the things I was involved with, and I'll tell you, is the Slimthorke Recovery Center. I was a founding director of the Recovery Center when it was in the nurse's residence. here at the hospital in Lloyd Minster that no longer exist where it used to exist. Ron Harris was there, Slim Thorpe was there, Jim Hempstock, the doctor was there, Ron Harris, was

part of the original group. And look, I see what they've done for people. As I indicated to you, my dad had an addiction to alcohol. He joined AA. He was in AA for 30 years. When he died, I went home to the funeral in Ottawa. I hadn't been home for a long time. Church was jammed. We had a wake in Ottawa. You'd go to the funeral home and you would meet. And I was just blown away by the number of people that said, I don't know what I'm going to do without Mason, my dad, without him being here to help me. And so when you ask me who were the people that had the biggest impact is my mom and dad. It's probably the same. Maybe even your grandparents. as well because you're in more of a isolated community.

You know, when I look back at what your family has done and I did my history and I wanted to see who they were and who you were, you know, it's a very isolated community, but very strong principal people. And I've always taken from my dad that you've got to have time to listen to people and help people. So I'm not bragging. I didn't make a million dollars as a lawyer. I was more interested in helping people. I had a term where I did a lot of divorce work, you know, and all the families that are broken up over divorce work. So I saw all that. And it was just taking time to be with people. And at the end of my matrimonial career, I became a collaborative lawyer. Two people wanted

divorce, each of them would get a lawyer, and they were called collaborative lawyers. And that lawyer's job, my job, if I was acting for the wife or the husband, was to try and bring this couple together and try and resolve the fact he can't live together. You got kids, how are you going to resolve this? Because I do family court. I did as a judge. I hardly ran any family court trials because before we started, I just thought about my dad, take time, try and let these people have an opportunity to talk, listen to them, and I was never in a

hurry. I was never in a hurry to get to the golf course, not just because I'm a terrible golfer, but I just loved having been given the opportunity to do what I do. I am so blessed, apart from family, to have the ability to be a judge, work in family law, and try and get people, like I had people, Sean, it's just one of the couples, they had special. spent over $100,000 fighting each other. And that wasn't the collaborative lawyer approach. That's where each one had a lawyer, and they fought, and they would take all kinds of court cases on and file affidavits, spend money up to $100,000.

At the end of the day, the judge would have to make a decision, and it would never last. Collaboratively, you'd end up getting these people together, getting a plan. they would have to draw the minutes up of the meeting, and then they would come back and they would say, here's what we want to do. I remember sitting in court, family court one day, and they're sniping at each other. They're not listening.

And the mother said, well, we're going to decide who gets custody of the kids and what the visitation rights are going to be and how much money is going to be given to each party. And the wife said, well, he's actually a pretty good dad, and he's just, he's on a rant. I said, stop. Did you just hear what your wife said? No. Play that tape back again. She said you're a good dad. Is that not something that you should listen to? And maybe before you want to say all the bad things about her, you're a good dad. So let's work on that. Good dad. What does a good dad and a good mom do when it comes to kids? So those are the angles that you work. on. I think my father was an incredible guy and that he'd spent time with people. He came here

to visit me a couple of times and he knew that I was a founder, one of the founding directors of the Thorpe Recovery Center and he went to A.A. meetings, I went to those meetings with him as a young man. It was March the 7th, 1957. It was a Sunday. He drove his 57 Dodge Royal Converable up on the lawn, drunk. Sunday morning, a guy named Alec McKenzie came. Alec was his sponsor. He sponsor, ended up being his sponsor. I went to an AA meeting with dad probably I came back from the west and I went to a meeting with him and there's a guy who was apparently the most successful car salesman in Toronto. And I remember I'm dressed to the nine and he made a lot of money. And he said, yeah, you know what? I was in reform school as a kid. I was in Kingston penitentiary

and this guy showed up every week to run an AA meeting. and talk about how you can try and get control of alcohol in your life. And he said, I owe it all to Mason. You never used last names. And I remember I was pretty touched by that, of course. So look at that and the strength of my mom to have six kids, make it through, go back, get a degree, keep a household going. Those are the people, right?

and that's, I'm just pretty very fortunate. So when I hear my kids tell me that I'm, my wife, she was a teacher too, taught here, and so she spent a lot of time with the kids and did a great job. But they knew I cared, I guess. And as it turns out, they really are our best friends. So that's why it's so crushing not to be around them,

but we talk every day. FaceTime and whatever. Or A, thanks for sharing that. I enjoy doing this. I really enjoy doing it when people open up and share some personal stories. We're closing in on the end of this. I'm curious, a guy who's lived as long as you have,

if you could go back to your 20-year-old self impart a chunk of wisdom that you've learned, Is there anything you think you could talk to your 20-year-old self and say, hey, listen? Yeah. Yeah. And you really hit kind of a key thing in my life. I often wonder what I could have done had I studied, had I applied myself. It just wasn't in my makeup, maybe because I was a little ADD and I couldn't stay studying for hours and hours.

And I've got, you know, my oldest sister's a lawyer, my ex-sisters, they're all very bright. people. I wonder what would happen if I had a studied and got excellent marks and yeah, I just curious, what could I have accomplished? Not that I'm sad sad about what I've accomplished. You know, I've got a great family and I've got a lot of very, very good friends and I've got a great home life, right? And I got 80 acres and got lots of farm friends. So why would you want more? But if I go back to my 20s, I just, even to my teens, what could I have accomplished so I had to work?

You know, because I looked back at times when I did apply myself and come home with a 98 average at an order dame, right? I had to study. You couldn't leave the study room, right? And I can remember things really well, you know?

One of the things you wanted to talk about was the businessman prayer group. And you've mentioned a whole whack of those names. But in particular, why was that so important to you to write it down as something that you wanted to make sure we covered? Well, I think if you look at, I just wrote some of the names down, Ray Nelson. And I know what he gave away. And I, you know, I've acted for his family for his son since, and he's a good friend of mine. But I know what he gave back to the community.

Sure, he made a lot of money. But he gave an awful lot. Elmer Smith was the same way. He was my doctor. And I remember in my office downtown, it backed onto the clinic. And I went over and I was having trouble sleeping. He said, Peter, you got to stop drinking so much coffee. And you got to take some time for yourself.

He was just a good guy. And he was addicted to coffee and cigarettes. Jim Hempstock, these are guys we'd meet every week. We'd have breakfast. And it wasn't this evangelical thing. There was Ron and his brother Alf Harris were there. Jim kept another guy who cared about the community. His son now still sells life insurance,

but Jim was such a wonderful guy. He cared about his people. And like Jim came out and sold me the London life insurance. I remember him coming to our house out to the farm. And it was after supper. We were putting the kids to bed. I said, well, Jim, we got to put the kids to bed

and we have a time when we sing. And the kids were little, and I had my guitar out. We were singing songs in French. I turned around, he's in tears seeing this, right? But it was important to us, and he just had time. He was just, he was another anchor in this community. And the Willoughby's were great guys. Dr. Skeen, all these people, just, they had a, they were stabilizers, right?

They were stable influence on me, and they would help me whenever I needed help. I was lucky I wasn't a drinker, smoker. You know, never smoked any weed with the guys that did. We played broomball against these guys, and they were all a bunch of dope smokers when it wasn't legal, but good dudes, right? I got two fun ones for you before we sign off. One, you were telling me before we started

that you did Wade Redden's contract for Brandon. So just if you can give me a little bit of insight on that because I had never heard that before. So, well, his, I had a great respect for his mom. Pat was just one of the nicest people and I knew two of her close friends who were nurses. And they came in and they were really worried about the educational aspect when he went to Brandon. And so they had their form contract. Wade never said a word. Pat did all the talking, Gore did all the agreeing. And Wade said, whatever you think, Mom. And we went through. a bunch of things if he got hurt, what would happen about his education? And so there's a number of the changes we made in the contract. But I remember this big, lanky kid coming in and not saying boo. And as it turned out, he played, as you know, he played in Ottawa.

Harry Rosen's a big men store in Canada. My brother was the manager in Ottawa at the Rito Center and became friends with Wade. A lot of how things come together. Wade bought his clothes from him. But I guess I still see Gord at one of the post office when I'm there, but just again, humble, Pat would give you the shirt off her back, the job. She was just a great mom and a great, a great mom and a great partner to Gord. And I think at this day Gord still probably really misses Pat. You know, she was just a great person.

And you could see that in Wade and probably see that in his brother as well, you know. Yeah, just good people. Okay, I lied. I got two more for you now, because now that we've gone down a hockey story, and I really appreciate it. I mean, you see the jersey on the wall. You understand it from Helmand.

My brother grew up playing with Wade. My dad grew up coaching Wade, and all the, you know, dad and Gord coached together, and us as kids watched that group go on, and then, I mean, Wade, Dad, the Curry did. It's awesome. You also saw the other guy I got up in the dressing room, in the studio is Mr. Hockey,

and you got an opportunity to meet Mr. Hockey, Mr. Gordy Howe. Yeah. And it was interesting because it was during the bar course, and it was in the spring. And as I told you, these people, some of the guys that were doing their law degree, said, well, Gord's in town. I don't even was there for, but we went.

And it was so neat. Had a beer with him, and I didn't have a beer because I didn't drink at the time. I'll have a beer now. And he was such a nice guy. and he was probably, probably 60 at the time, but he just built. He had these big arms and shoulders, right,

and just this humble, just humble, right? Just an amazing guy. What did you ask Mr. Hockey about? Or what did you guys that played hockey and knew them? They would, I just, I was flying on a wall. Exactly. I just wanted to be there and not look like I had my mouth hanging open. I'm sure it was, Sean, because, I mean, he was just a total icon.

Even though I was a Canadian fan because I grew up in Ottawa and you had a choice in all right, either you listen to Foster Hewitt or you listen to the Montreal Canadiens. So I was a Toronto fan. Is you a Montreal Canadian fan? Well, I was. I was a Kenizian fan, but when I was here as a lawyer, I acted for some of these guys that had shares in the Oilers. So I would be, you know, you become an Euler fan, of course, because you're here and you go to the games with them.

Yeah. Final one. You being a well-read, a guy who likes to stay up-to-date on current affairs, that kind of thing. I'm always curious, I love getting the, I always, between the ears, like getting to pick somebody's brain. I love the opportunity to sit across from people and get to have these conversations where you get to spur some thoughts.

If you could have anyone to sit across the table from to pick their brain, who would you take? You know, I had a classmate in law school. He worked for CBC after he left law school. And then he became a member of Parliament. And because politics interests me, I would love to sit down. He lost the last election. Ralph Goodale, he lost the last election. He was a gold medalist.

He worked for C.E. and during the tough times, they say he was off with Trudeau. He was the only adult in the road. I would love to sit down with him and just talk about it because our families has a political background. My grandfather started a newspaper in Sydney, Nova Scotia called the Sydney Post, and he became a member of Parliament under Sir Wilford Laurier. He was a member of Parliament, and he funded Marconi, who brought over the first line of communication, transatlantic communication. And it didn't come to Signal Hill in Newfoundland.

It came to Nova Scotia. My grandfather was a minister of fishery and forestry, as it was in those days. And he funded, he got Laurier to give him $250,000 to fund it. and he was there to hear the first transatlantic signal from Marconi, who was an Italian, over to there. And so he was a liberal, and so I had liberal roots. Imagine being in that room. Oh, gosh, can you imagine? No, like, I mean, so that's why when you asked me the question, politics interests me.

I'd love to hear it from what Ralph would tell you, Ralph Goodale. And yeah, I haven't talked to him since law school. But just a brilliant guy. And he was one of those centrists. He was, he could see between all the bubbles. And there he was the only liberal in West. He was in Regina, sat there for a number of terms. So he's one guy I would, I'd love to sit down and talk to.

And the other guy would be George Bainton, because George had an incredible judicial career. He was a great judge. He handled some very big cases. And just because I love the guy. Just a wonderful guy. And yeah, just his knowledge. He was just so smart.

Yeah, all what I would like to be, you know. Well, I really enjoyed this. I appreciate you coming in. And you worried about what you were going to say. Well, here we are. You know, we haven't had the recorder go on for two hours, but I've been sitting for two hours. So appreciate you coming in.

and sharing a bit about your life, your career, some of the stories along the way. It's been certainly enjoyable sitting here getting to do this. Well, as you get older, history becomes important. And I never, when Lynn called me, I said, well, why would they want to talk to me? And she said, no, you'll enjoy it, Peter. And then I got the list of questions you sent me,

and I printed them and I looked at them. And it really, Sean, it really made me reflect on my life. And the questions sort of assume you were raised in Lloydminster and that wasn't the case but man I've been here since 68 you know so that's 50 odd years being in Lloydminster so it really is my home and so pretty pretty young lucky so yeah I enjoyed it I enjoyed this and I think it it serves our community well that people would take the time to ask about their history of Lloydminster where you mentioned Louis client of mine Louis Mareides who wanted to talk about his time in Greece.

But, yeah, a good friend and his kids grew up with my kids. So I'm probably older than him. Probably older than most everybody you talk to. Except your unity, man. Well, thanks again. You're most welcome. Hey, folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe.

Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Keeners, hopefully Wednesday is treating you well. I got to stick it to the champ. I went golfing chaper, and it was pretty good.

I'm not sure how that wristier's doing, and I know you're probably getting a little star crazy. Don't worry, I'll take up the golfing for you, buddy. I haven't shot over a 50 this year, guys. I know that's not saying much, but I feel pretty good about it. I'm a horrendous golfer. And to be in the 40s for three rounds this year, doing all right.

Now, I've got to give a shout out to Cindy Perlet. She listened to the Quick Dick McDick-McDick and said, Hey, Sean, I love this podcast. I may not always listen when they first come out, but I do listen, and you'll find me on my little garden tractor with my beats, headphones, plugging away at the acreage. I thought that was cool.

I always love listening or listening, hearing where you folks are listen to the podcast at, podcast at, geez, spit it out here. And I sent back to her that I think she's the first person to tell me that they're working away on the garden tractor. So, hey, I guess I'm everywhere. And I hope everybody, anywhere you're listening is having a great week. It is hump day, go enjoy yourself. The weekend is quickly.

Hopefully, you know, you're not like the champ and can't swing a club. Maybe you hit the golf courses, you know, I don't know. Maybe you're at the lake. Whatever you're at. Go enjoy it. Have some fun. Enjoy the sunshine and smile, folks. Summer is here and we need to enjoy it.

It's been a long, long year. All right. We'll see you guys on Monday.