The word is “brash.” Ahead of the 1963 federal election, Jim Coutts, then a twenty-four-year-old Liberal campaign chairman in Alberta, was trying to recruit Harry Hays, Calgary’s former mayor, as a candidate. But Coutts had a poll showing that more than 50 percent disapproved of Hays, then a Conservative. When Hays asked about his chances, Coutts…
Robert Lewis
Robert Lewis spent eight years as a Time correspondent and twenty-five years at Maclean’s, the last seven as editor-in-chief. He is the author of Power, Prime Ministers and the Press: The Battle for Truth on Parliament Hill.
Articles by
Robert Lewis
It was a dizzying era to be a reporter for Time magazine. The brand and its history provided a young man from small-town Canada with access to prime ministers and princes, rogues and scalawags. Montreal in 1967 was no exception. The city was abuzz with excitement about the opening of Expo 67, the world’s…
Most Canadians in their late fifties and beyond remember where they were when it happened. Some 16 million viewers — more than 70 percent of the population — were glued to TV sets at home, at school, at work, and outside shop windows. In Stratford, Ontario, William Hutt had just finished the transformative storm scene in act 3 of King Lear when he turned to the audience and…