Retired senator Michael Pitfield, a longtime confidant of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and a man who wielded enormous political influence, died Thursday after a decades-long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 80.

Pitfield was Trudeau’s clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to cabinet. As a senator, Pitfield played an especially prominent role in the repatriation of the Constitution — a “passion project” of his, say his adult children — and the establishment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. Photos of the day show him standing behind the Queen as she signed the constitutional proclamation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his condolences in a statement late Thursday, saying Pitfield’s legacy is “far-reaching” and “enduring.”

“He was a tireless advocate of bilingualism and national unity whose leadership helped bring us closer as a country and make our democracy uniquely our own,” Trudeau said.

“On a personal level, I will remember Michael as a family friend, who was especially dear to my father and our family.”

Pitfield, a grandfather of eight, married at the age of 35. He and his wife, Nancy, who died from breast cancer in 1999, are survived by their three children — Caroline, 44, Tom, 42, and Kate, 39.

Tom Pitfield was in Europe on the day his father died. His sisters told the Star all three agreed that their father’s lifelong passion was government work, and he advocated taking it up, whether in the public service, the Senate, in political parties or in business “to make the country better.”

Pitfield was born in Montreal in 1937. Noted for his intelligence from a young age, he started attending St. Lawrence University at the age of 13. He graduated at the age of 16, then returned to Montreal to enroll in law school at McGill University.

Pitfield joined the public service in 1959 as an administrative assistant to Davie Fulton, a justice minister in the Diefenbaker government.

In the years that followed, Pitfield pulled off a meteoric rise through the ranks, becoming an influential figure — and the subject of much intrigue in Ottawa — as a top adviser in Pierre Trudeau’s government. The two men had met in the 1960s and forged a close friendship, with news reports claiming that the pair even vacationed together.

Pitfield became clerk of the Privy Council at age 37, then the youngest to hold the most senior post in the federal public service.

When he retired as clerk of the Privy Council, Pitfield became vice-chair of Power Corp., and continued to work for the Quebec corporate giant for years along with sitting as a senator.

He was appointed to the Senate by Trudeau in 1982 to represent Ottawa-Vanier. Despite his close ties with the Liberal Party of Canada, Pitfield sat as an independent.

Pitfield retired from the Senate in 2010, finding himself to ill to continue. He had been seriously sick for some time. News reports in the early 2000s detailed how he made speeches and participated in Senate debates despite severe tremors caused by the disease.

Tom Pitfield was chief digital strategist for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election campaign and for his campaign to become leader of the Liberal Party. President of the small-l liberal think-tank Canada 2020, Pitfield is married to Anna Gainey, president of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Gainey said the Senate was where Pitfield was “comfortable intellectually, and in his element. My understanding is he was a giant in that space, he had very strong views on the Clarity Act and other pieces of legislation.”

Caroline Pitfield, now director of policy in the federal health minister’s office, remembered her father’s fierce intelligence, and said his passion was “his commitment to serving the country and his unabashed and enthusiastic idea that you should do so.”

“I think he saw it as something sort of akin to teaching or medicine or the priesthood, it was almost a calling for him, that you serve your country and make it a better place.”

But Caroline added, “My dad was a great dad before it was trendy to be a great dad.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“He was a dad and a loving husband before anything else,” chimed in Kate Pitfield, who remembers playing checkers on the floor of his office, or watching Sesame Street with him when he came home. “He was an incredibly charming man, a bit of an old soul, with a sparkle in his eye.”

Kate Pitfield, who works in advertising in Toronto, said when she told her father she wanted to work at “something more creative” than government, he insisted, “sweetheart, government can be creative too.”

A funeral is expected to be scheduled for next week in Montreal.

Read more about: