Hugh Segal (October 13, 1950 – August 9, 2023) was a Canadian political strategist, author, commentator, academic, and senator. He served as chief of staff to Ontario Premier Bill Davis and later to Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Segal resigned from the Senate of Canada on June 15, 2014, as a result of his appointment as master (later principal) of Massey College in Toronto.
Life and career
Politics and public policy
Segal was inspired by a visit from Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1962 to his school, United Talmud Torah Academy in Montreal. Segal went on to graduate from the University of Ottawa and was an aide to federal Progressive Conservative Leader of the Opposition Robert Stanfield in the early 1970s, while still a university student.
At the age of 21, he was an unsuccessful Progressive Conservative candidate in Ottawa Centre for the House of Commons of Canada in the 1972 general election. He was defeated again in 1974.
As a member of the Big Blue Machine, Segal was a senior aide to Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Bill Davis in the 1970s and 1980s, and he was named Deputy Minister at age 29. From 1992 to 1993, he was Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
Segal finished second to Joe Clark after the first ballot of the 1998 Progressive Conservative leadership election, but he chose to withdraw and support Clark (the eventual winner) in the second ballot runoff vote against third-place finisher David Orchard. He had also briefly considered running for the PC leadership in 1993.
Senate
In 2005, Segal was appointed to the Senate of Canada by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin. He was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee until he "reluctantly" agreed to resign in 2007 at the request of the Conservative government, which reportedly wished to appoint a more ideologically conservative senator to the role after the committee issued a report critical of the Conservative government's foreign aid policy. Segal insisted, however, that the move was an administrative one. Segal later served as Chair of the Special Senate Committee on Anti-Terrorism.
In December 2013, Segal announced his intention to resign from the Senate in June 2014, twelve years before he would reach the mandatory retirement age of 75, to accept an academic appointment as Master of Massey College in Toronto.
Commonwealth
On July 7, 2010, Segal was appointed to the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) by Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma. The group's mandate is to set out decisive recommendations on how to strengthen the Commonwealth and fulfill its potential in the 21st century. In December 2011 the federal government appointed him special envoy to the Commonwealth with the task of convincing individual countries to sign on to the EPG's 106 recommendations.
Political views
Segal espoused a moderate brand of conservatism that has little in common with British Thatcherism or US neoconservatism. He was a Red Tory in the tradition of Benjamin Disraeli, Sir John A. Macdonald, John Diefenbaker and his mentors Robert Stanfield and Bill Davis. This political philosophy stresses the common good and promotes social harmony between classes. It is often associated with One Nation Conservatism. The focus is on order, good government and mutual responsibility. Individual rights and personal freedom are not considered absolute. In his book Beyond Greed: A Traditional Conservative Confronts Neo-Conservative Excess (Toronto: Stoddart, 1997), Segal sought to distinguish what he called "traditional" conservatives from neo-conservatives, notably those in the United States.
In an earlier book, his 1996 memoir No Surrender (page 225), Segal wrote: "Progressive Conservatives cannot embrace the nihilistic defeatism that masquerades as a neo-conservative polemic in support of individual freedom and disengagement." He went on to deplore "American fast-food conservatism." In a speech to the National Press Club on June 21, 1995, Segal referred to the "selfish and directionless nature of the American revolution -- which was more about self-interest, mercantile opportunity, and who collected what tax than it was about tolerance or freedom."