Edgar Peter Lougheed ( LAW-heed; July 26, 1928 – September 13, 2012) was a Canadian lawyer and Progressive Conservative politician who served as the tenth premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985, presiding over a period of reform and economic growth.
Born in Calgary, Alberta, Peter was the son of Edgar Donald Lougheed and Edna Alexandria Bauld and grandson of Canadian Senator Sir James Alexander Lougheed, a prominent Alberta businessman. Peter Lougheed attended the University of Alberta where he attained his Bachelor of Laws while playing football at the University of Alberta before joining the Edmonton Eskimos of the Western Interprovincial Football Union for two seasons in 1949 and 1950. After graduating, he entered business and practised law in Calgary.
In 1965, he was elected leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, which held no seats in the legislature. He led the party back into the legislature in the 1967 provincial election as the leader of the Official Opposition, then elected as Premier with 49 of 75 seats in the 1971 election, defeating the Social Credit Party and ending the dynasty which had governed Alberta since 1935. Lougheed established a progressive conservative dynasty in the province that lasted until 2015, when the New Democratic Party won a majority government; at 43 years and 7 months it was the longest unbroken run in government for a political party in Canadian history. Lougheed led the Tories again to victory in 1975, 1979 and 1982, winning landslide majorities each time, with vote tallies of 57 to 63 percent of votes cast.
As premier, Lougheed furthered the development of the oil and gas resources, and started the Alberta Heritage Fund to ensure that the exploitation of non-renewable resources would be of long-term benefit to Alberta. He introduced the Alberta Bill of Rights. He quarrelled with Pierre Trudeau's federal Liberal government over its 1980 introduction of the National Energy Program. After hard bargaining, Lougheed and Trudeau eventually reached an agreement for energy revenue sharing in 1981. Calgary's bid to host the 1988 Winter Olympics was developed during Lougheed's terms. Alberta also experienced economic success and went through significant social reform under the Lougheed administration.
From 1996 to 2002, Lougheed served as Chancellor of Queen's University. He sat on the boards of a variety of organizations and corporations. In a 2012 edition of Policy Options, the Institute for Research on Public Policy named Lougheed the best Canadian premier of the last forty years.
Edgar Peter Lougheed was born on July 26, 1928, in Calgary, Alberta, as the second biological son to Edgar Donald Lougheed (1893–1951) a lawyer from Calgary, and Edna Alexandria Lougheed (née Bauld) (1901–1972) of Halifax. Lougheed's paternal grandfather was Sir James Alexander Lougheed (1854–1925) a Senator, federal cabinet minister in the Robert Borden and Arthur Meighen governments, and pioneer lawyer in Calgary.
Lougheed's paternal grandmother, Belle Hardisty, was Metis by both her paternal and maternal lines. She was niece of Richard Hardisty (1831–1889), Canada's first Métis Senator. He served in that chamber from 1888 to his death in 1889, when the seat was filled by Belle's husband, James Lougheed.
James Lougheed, Peter's grandfather, accumulated significant wealth in real estate and oil firms before his death in 1925. Much of James Lougheed's oil securities were sold following his death to pay the estate tax. Although James Lougheed's home Beaulieu went into tax recovery proceedings after his death, the City of Calgary permitted James' widow to continue to reside in the home until her death. The onset of the Great Depression resulted in lower demand for the family's office real estate leading to financial difficulties for Edgar Lougheed and his family who continued to manage several properties. Many of Peter Lougheed's early years were spent moving between rented homes and apartments in Calgary. The Lougheed family fortune recovered in the 1940s with growing demand for accommodation in the family's real estate holdings.
Lougheed attended several schools in Calgary, including Strathcona School for Boys, Earl Grey School, Rideau Park School, and the Central Collegiate Institute. At the Central Collegiate Institute, Lougheed founded the students' union and became its first president.
After graduating from the Central Collegiate Institute in 1947, Lougheed enrolled at the University of Alberta where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1951 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1952. Lougheed was elected as the president of the Students' Union in 1951, defeating Ivan Head and two other candidates. In an interview for Wood's biography of Lougheed, Head complemented Lougheed's university campaign, recognizing Lougheed's first-rate organizational abilities. Lougheed also served as the editor for the sports section for The Gateway, the University of Alberta student newspaper. While studying at the University of Alberta he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity, served as president and in Rutherford House for four years.
Despite his small stature, Lougheed took a strong interest in football in his youth. Prior to attending the University of Alberta, Lougheed played for the junior Calgary Tornadoes as a halfback. A sports writer of the Calgary Herald described Lougheed as a "speedy and elusive back", and the Edmonton Journal described him as "gifted with the fine turn of speed" and "an elusive handful".
During his time as a student, Lougheed was also involved in football. He played for the University of Alberta Golden Bears and later for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Western Interprovincial Football Union for two years, in 1949 and 1950. Lougheed's position with the Eskimos was as a punt return specialist.
On June 21, 1952, Lougheed married Jeanne "Jeannie" Estelle Rogers (1928–2020), whom he met while attending the University of Alberta. Jeanne was born in Forestburg, Alberta to Lawrence Rogers, a physician and Estelle Christena Gunston.
After finishing law school, Lougheed started working at the law firm of Fenerty, McGillivray and Robertson in Calgary. However, he had his sights set on Harvard University to pursue a Master of Business Administration, which he completed in 1954. While still a student at Harvard, Lougheed had a number of jobs including a brief time at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City, and a summer with Gulf Oil in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was during this time in Tulsa that Lougheed saw firsthand the aftermath of an oil boom town after the resource had been depleted. According to political scientist and biographer Allan Tupper suggested Lougheed drew parallels between Tulsa and a possible future for Alberta.
After completing his Master of Business Administration at Harvard, Lougheed faced a career crossroads. Lougheed was a staunch believer that people should avoid excessive specialization in favour of maximizing their diversity of experience, and he anticipated spending time in business, law, and politics. In pursuit of business, Lougheed accepted a position as a legal assistant with the Canadian construction firm, Mannix Corporation in June 1956, where he was eventually promoted to a corporate law and management position. Later in 1962, Lougheed left Mannix to establish an independent law practice, partnering with John Ballem who brought oil and gas experience and later adding Marvin McDill. Lougheed also served on several boards including the Calgary Stampeders football club, and the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition board in 1963. However, in the early 1960s, Lougheed began to turn his attention toward politics.
Lougheed's family history through his grandfather was rooted in the Conservative Party, and that motivated him to pursue a political career. However, during that time, Alberta was represented almost entirely by Progressive Conservatives in the House of Commons of Canada. Although this made federal politics an option, Lougheed saw it as a drawback; he considered the field of federal Progressive Conservatives politicians from Alberta to be crowded, and the life of a backbencher held little appeal for him.