John English (Waterloo 150 Profile)

John English

John English is a renowned Canadian historian, but above all else he is a storyteller and his most highly regarded tales are the ones he tells us about our political leaders.

English set his sights on Canada’s most enigmatic leader last year with the release of his book Citizen of the World; The Life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau Volume I: 1919 – 1968. With unprecedented access to Trudeau’s personal papers, English wrote a definitive story about the early life of a man who has long fascinated Canadians.

One reviewer wrote that the book exposes the “yearnings and self-doubts of a man slowly, so painfully slowly, coming to maturity”. English, who is a history professor at the University of Waterloo, said the former Prime Minister “had a sense of himself as having an unusual future, a future in public life. He thought his abilities were remarkable, and they were”.

During his career, English was also the official biographer of former Prime Minister Lester Pearson. His widely acclaimed two-volume biography was called Shadow of Heaven: The Biography of Lester Pearson Vol. 1, 1989 and The Worldly Years: The Biography of Lester Pearson Vol. 2, 1992. English also wrote books on former Prime Ministers Arthur Meighen and Sir Robert Borden.

Born in Woodstock, Ontario in 1945, English studied at the University of Waterloo before receiving his PhD from Harvard University. He returned to the area in 1972 for a teaching position at the University of Waterloo.

Since 2002, English has balanced his teaching duties with his work as the executive director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo. CIGI was founded in 2001 for the purpose of conducting research and developing connections among international policy makers for solutions to global issues.

While he has chronicled the lives of many famous Canadian politicians, he was a politician himself, serving as the Member of Parliament for Kitchener between 1993 and 1997. As the Liberal candidate English trounced his competition, getting more votes than all the other candidates combined. English had campaigned on the need to make changes to the free trade deal, support small business and invest in infrastructure to create jobs.

English’s political involvement began back in the 1960s while he was a student at the University of Waterloo. He was actively involved in the Liberal party and his friend Hilde Abt was involved in student politics. During their undergraduate years, they realized their passion for politics was as strong as their passion for one another. Their first date was at a Liberal convention in Toronto. After they married, Hilde English went on to become a prominent lawyer and community activist.

In 1992 John English was awarded an honourary degree by Wilfrid Laurier University and in 2000 he was named to the Order of Canada. Both John and Hilde were awarded the prestigious Tim Fitzpatrick Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 for their community work. Hilde died in 2006 after a long battle with cancer.

“There’s a responsibility to participate in public life and political life”, English said once. “If you stand away from it you can’t really complain about the results.”

Photo courtesy of The Record, Waterloo Region, Ontario Canada c.2006