Thomas Sidney Axworthy, (born May 23, 1947) is a Canadian civil servant, political strategist, writer and professor. He is best known for having served as Principal Secretary and Chief Speechwriter to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Axworthy is currently the Secretary General of the InterAction Council. Previously, he was president and CEO of the Walter and Duncan Gordan Foundation. He is a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Massey College, and the Bill Graham Centre of Contemporary International History, Trinity College, at the University of Toronto.
Personal life and education
Axworthy was born in 1947 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the second of four boys of Norman and Gwen Axworthy. He is the younger brother of Lloyd Axworthy, who has also had a distinguished career in Canadian politics. His parents were active in the United Church and community affairs. Through the United Church, he became a member of the Tuxis and Older Boys Association, eventually being elected as Premier. He entered United College, a United Church affiliated college in 1964, taking honours in history and politics. United College became the University of Winnipeg in 1968. At United College Axworthy was active in the debating club, student council, Uniter newspaper and model parliaments. Axworthy received a BA degree (Hons) from the University of Winnipeg and an MA degree from Queen's University (1972). From 1972 to 1973, he was a student at Nuffield College, University Of Oxford. He received a PhD degree (1979) from Queen's University. While at United College he met his future wife Roberta. They have two children and four grandchildren. In 2003, the University of Winnipeg gave Axworthy its Distinguished Alumni Award. Axworthy returned to live in his native Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2021.
Early career
Tom Axworthy joined the Liberal Party in the early 1960s, becoming active in the Canadian University Liberal Federation. As well as his involvement in the Young Liberals, Axworthy was a Liberal volunteer in Winnipeg local ridings in the elections of 1958, 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1968. In 1967, he worked as a research assistant for the Task Force on the Structure of the Canadian Economy, led by Walter Gordon. This was Axworthy's first opportunity to work on Canada's economic, social and industrial policies in depth, and this influenced his future thinking about such issues. His close association with Walter Gordon introduced him to Keith Davey, Jim Coutts, Tom Kent and Pierre Trudeau, all of whom became important influences in his life. In his graduate studies at Queens, Axworthy's concentrations were in Canadian politics, international relations and urban affairs. His first publications were for The Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg and while at Queen's University he became a research associate on the Metropolitan Winnipeg Study by University of Toronto professor Meyer Brownstone, the architect of the unicity amalgamation. L.J. Sharpe of Nuffield College subsequently invited Axworthy to study the politics of urban reform at Oxford. In 1974, at the invitation of Keith Davey, Axworthy returned to Ottawa to work on urban issues in that year's election campaign, where he drafted the Liberal Party's housing platform. Following the election, he joined the Office of the Minister of National Revenue as a Special Assistant on various policy issues. A year later, he was hired with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) under Principal Secretary Jim Coutts as a political strategist and policy advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In 1976 he helped organize the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, held in Vancouver, British Columbia which initiated his interest in water and sanitation issues, a priority in his later work with the Gordon Foundation. In 1979, with the defeat of the Liberals by Joe Clark, Axworthy worked in the Leader of the Opposition's Office as acting director and Senior Policy Advisor.
With the defeat of Clark's minority government, Axworthy returned to the Prime Minister's Office as Senior Policy Advisor, and was appointed Principal Secretary to Pierre Trudeau in 1981, a position which he held until 1984. During this time, he was a key strategist in the Repatriation of the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.