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Mitchell Sharp joined the Canadian Institute of International Affairs in 1938, just ten years after it was established. He remained an active and valued member until his death 66 years later. In 2003, the year of the Institute's 75th anniversary, we organized a meeting at which Mitchell joined in a panel discussion with six other former Canadian foreign ministers. On that occasion we presented Mitchell with the Institute's first Distinguished Member Award, recognizing his contributions to the CIIA, but more broadly his remarkable contributions to Canada.
We are honoured to bring together in this special issue of Behind the Headlines the reminiscences of Mitchell by six of the many people who knew, worked with, and admired a great Canadian.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JEAN CHRETIEN
Eulogy at the service at Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa
27 March 2004
Mes relations avec Mitchell Sharp ont commence quand le Premier ministre Mike Pearson a voulu me remplacer comme son secretaire parlementaire par un nouveau venu du nom P.E. Trudeau. Il m'a dit: "Je voudrais que tu deviens secretaire parlementaire du ministre des Finances Mitchell Sharp et si tu travailles bien tu sera peut-etre le premier Canadien francais a devenir ministre des Finances." Et il a eu bien raison. C'est a ce moment que Mitchell est devenu mon mentor.
Cet homme erudit, ouvert d'esprit, cultive et devoue a ete d'une generosite et d'une affabilite incroyable a mon endroit et sans ses conseils, peut-etre que je ne serais jamais devenu Premier Ministre du Canada.
As I had not much knowledge about the country outside of Quebec, I turned to this man born in Winnipeg who left a very good job to come from the West to be a young bureaucrat in Ottawa during the war. There he rubbed shoulders with the great mandarins of the time. Anybody who worked as a senior bureaucrat between the early 1940s and 1958 would agree that he was among the great, like Mike Pearson, Norman Robertson, Bob Bryce, and Jules Leger.
In 1958, he resigned as deputy minister on a question of principle and joined the private sector, where he was very successful. He organized for his friend Mike Pearson the famous Kingston conference and decided in the election of 1962 to take on Donald...