In The Weekly Wrap, Sean Speer, our editor-at-large, analyses for Hub subscribers the big stories shaping politics, policy, and the economy in the week that was.
Why I’m a Nigel Wright conservative
There’s been much written and said this week about Nigel Wright’s hard work, professional achievements, and extraordinary service. He did and accomplished a lot in just 62 years.
Yet his tendency towards action in business, politics, or charity shouldn’t overshadow his formidable intellect and first-rate mind. Nigel thought deeply about everything from culture to economics to metaphysics. His intellectual framework for seeing and understanding the world was rich and textured. Even when he was confronting something new, he started with a structure of serious ideas.
He drew on history, philosophy, theology, and economics not as abstractions but as practical guides for how to live and how to serve. Conversations with Nigel were never superficial. He brought the same intensity of thought to a discussion about tax policy as he did to the role of grace in human affairs.
All of this could be a bit intimidating for a young person who was still trying to make sense of the world. We started a book club after he left the Prime Minister’s Office that lasted for about six months, in part because his contributions were so incisive and penetrating that I think it daunted others from weighing in.
But it was also a huge source of inspiration—a challenge to those around him to think more deeply, too. As a PMO staffer, seeing Nigel’s diligence and rigour first-hand necessarily motivated you to raise your own standards.
He extended this depth of thought to his understanding of conservatism. His scrutiny of and commitment to conservative ideas were second to none. He ultimately saw them as the best means for understanding human nature, economic decision-making, and how we ultimately live together. Re-reading emails from him on these questions in recent days has reminded me that I’m a Nigel Wright conservative.
His intellectual seriousness was, of course, matched by a moral seriousness. Nigel believed that our gifts and talents imposed obligations to our families, communities, and the country itself. His faith wasn’t merely private. It animated his public service, his generosity, and his sense of responsibility.
What made Nigel remarkable was how he combined these qualities with kindness and humility. He had no interest in being the loudest voice in the room. He wanted to be the most useful. Those of us fortunate to have known him were shaped by his example of quiet excellence.
How I’ll ultimately remember Nigel, though, is how he brought together action and thought. He was a doer, but he was also a thinker. His ideas informed his work, and his work gave weight to his ideas. That balance is rare, and it’s what made him such an exceptional presence in business, politics, and in the lives of those around him.
Resources and resourcefulness—Canadian growth requires both
This week’s pipeline announcement from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has put natural resources back at the centre of the national conversation. That’s welcome, of course. Leveraging Western Canada’s abundant oil and gas reserves remains vital for Canadian prosperity.
But as someone said to me in Calgary, we should aspire to an economy in which oil and gas resources are developed and yet also less fundamental to our overall growth story. The point wasn’t by any means to diminish the sector’s importance. It was to remind us that prosperity in the 21st century requires more than hydrocarbons. It requires entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and the scaling of new ideas, particularly in technology.
This is the kind of positive-sum vision that Canada badly needs. It’s a direct challenge to the zero-sum thinking (e.g., “resourcefulness” versus “resources”) that has too often put resource development and boosting the country’s start-up ecosystem in a false tension. A healthy economy decidedly needs both.
