1. Among the Pillars
Principles for Survival and Success

2. AMONG THE PILLARS
Principles for Survival and Success
A Lecture by John A Campion
1. Carpe Diem …
2. Life is a Long Song …
3. Ask Not What …
4. Wagons and Stars …
5. Lightness of Being …
6. When the Darkness Descends …
7. Brook no Interference …

3. - 2 -
Part 1: Carpe Diem
In April of 2014, I was in Vancouver on business. As is my usual, I
stayed at the Hotel Vancouver.
I checked myself into the hotel on the Gold Floor. Only one other
person was in the private lounge when I arrived. It was Robin Williams.
He looked older, distracted and delicate. Wishing to respect his privacy,
but also desiring to acknowledge his stardom, I simply said “Hello, Mr.
Williams.”
I went to my room and hand wrote a note to Robin Williams to
acknowledge how important he and his work in cinema had been to me,
and my children and family. I did not receive a reply. Robin Williams
committed suicide three months later.
Upon hearing of his death, I turned back to my favourite Robin Williams
movie, “Dead Poets Society”. Let me refresh your memory of the script
by replaying a short excerpt.

4. Robin Williams is playing the teacher, Mr. Keating. He walked into
class and looked at his students discussing significant poetic issues,
including “Captain, My Captain” coming from the poem by Walt
Whitman about Abraham Lincoln. The teacher, Keating, then turned to
a student, Mr. Pitts. The script reads as follows:
KEATING: Now, Mr. … Pitts, that’s a rather unfortunate name. Mr.
Pitts, where are you? (Pitts raises his hand while everyone
around him snickers).
KEATING: Mr. Pitts, would you open your hymnal to page 542 and read
the first stanza of the poem you find there?
PITTS: “To the virgins, to make much of time.”?
KEATING: Yes, that’s the one. Somewhat appropriate, isn’t it?
PITTS: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying, and
this same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying.”

5. KEATING: Thank you, Mr. Pitts. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”
The Latin term for that sentiment is carpe diem. Now, who
knows what that means? (Meeks immediately puts up his hand)
MEEKS: Carpe diem. That’s “seize the day”.
To those readers under the age of 30, carpe diem will have a familiar
ring. I will put it somewhat differently. The difference between you and
me is approximately 2,000 Saturday nights. It seems a long time when
you are 25 … it seems no time when you are 65.
In order to understand what 2,000 Saturday nights may mean for you
and your career, I recommend that you decide where you would like to
be in 1,500 Saturday nights and devote time and attention to figuring out
how you might get there. The first step is to imagine the career and life
that you would most like to have if there were no impediments of any
kind. Once you have fixed your imagination on that dream, pick a path,
find a model, choose a mentor and brook no interference in achieving
your dream.

6. I can assure you that you will not reach your dream. Your life and
career may be much greater than you could have ever imagined today. It
will certainly be very different. Opportunities will present themselves,
modifications will become necessary, disappointments will have to be
overcome but if you do not imagine it I can assure you that you will
have no chance of achieving it.
The second point attaching itself to carpe diem and your 2,000 Saturday
nights career is that you will want to have some vague notion of what
might be available for you to accomplish when as the Beatles plead
“Will you still love me when I’m 64?”. It is my experience that in your
profession, in your family, among your friends, and to your society those
who follow their dream, make contributions as best they can and act
with honour and integrity will have opportunities to contribute long past
the time when the workaday world would have you retire and fade into a
private life.
* * * * *

7. - 6 -
Part 2: Life is a Long Song
Jethro Tull sang a song of the same name, and said: “ if you wait, your
plate I will fill, don’t you fret, don’t you fret, I will give you good
cheer”.
It is here that I wish to refer to my own career to put some of the pieces
into perspective. As an economic partner in the law firm and as a lawyer
serving society, I have 300 reported and public decisions dealing with
public issues and private disputes. I have been handsomely paid in
some,such as the $8 billion defence of Nesbitt Burns over the Bre-X
Minerals Limited gold fraud and the 23 year multi-suit case against
Atomic Energy Of Canada Limited over the construction failure of two
nuclear reactors and the $1.6 billion supply of medical nuclear isotopes
and acted pro bono for others. I taught as an adjunct professor for 20
years in University of Toronto and Osgoode Law Schools, and have
spoken at many law schools in Canada. With my co-author, Diana
Dimmer, I published a book and have given over 100 lectures and
written papers across Canada and around the world. I have acted in

8. public inquiries before the United Nations, before the Gomery Inquiry
and elsewhere. I have acted for public bodies like the Ontario Energy
Board, Financial Services Commission of Ontario, Federal
Commissioner of Competition and Department of Justice. I have acted
in cases dealing with assisted suicide, poverty, disabilities, criminal
matters and family matters. My work in teaching has taken me around
the world. I have had the privilege of being elected to office within the
law firm and four times a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada.
I have been President of Federation of Law Societies and the Empire
Club of Canada, a speaking club televised and broadcast across Canada
on a weekly basis. In politics, I have been a loyal member of the Liberal
Party of Canada and Ontario, acted for two Prime Ministers, four
leadership candidates and written the Rules for the selection of
candidates in the party. All of this was done as a back-drop to the
creation and raising of a family, the passion and enjoyment of friendship
and the constant search for personal well-being.

9. I give you the elements of ‘life as a long song’ in order to put into
context what next follows.
For you, in this lecture, I ask myself what was the central theme of all
this activity. I can identify some themes : I did not want to be bored, not
for a single moment; I was ever curious; I craved intimacy with my
family and friends; and I felt injustice very strongly whenever it crossed
my path. I wanted to set things right.
What follows in the remaining five points are observations about
success, contribution and well-being. These are not meant to be
proscriptive, but are observations for you to incorporate into your own
philosophy and actions.
* * * * *

10. - 9 -
Part 3: Ask not What
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for
your country.” This is one of the most quoted phrases from a modern
political speech. Jack Kennedy spoke those words in his inaugural
address as President of the United States of America in 1961.
Let me take you to October 1995. It was a Monday night at 10:00 p.m.
I received a telephone call from Federal Cabinet Ministers Brian Tobin
and Sergio Marchi asking if I could raise $15,000 by noon the next day
at the request of the Prime Minister. Without having a clue how, I
responded ‘yes’. They said that the Cabinet would make a decision that
evening and get back to me by midnight. I received no return call. The
next day on Tuesday, I was in Montreal on business and attended with
Francis Fox at the Paul Sauve arena what was to be the last public
speaking engagement of Prime Minister Chretien in the 1995
referendum in Quebec on that province’s decision whether to separate
from Canada (the “yes” side) or not separate (the “no” side) . The polls
indicated that the “Yes” side was ahead 14 points and the country was

11. lost. There was simply no way to make up 14 percentage points in the
few days left. I flew back from Montreal that evening deeply depressed
and personally distressed. From 1967, I had been involved in the debate
about Canada’s future. I had been a guide at Expo ’67 and there had two
weeks taking care of Premier John Robarts as he celebrated Canada Day
at 100, welcomed Her Majesty the Queen, met with Prime Minister
Pearson and the premiers of all provinces. Premier Robarts later
commissioned the Federation of Tomorrow Conference on the future of
Canada. We Canadians engaged in the confederation debate through
the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1977; the first referendum; the
repatriation of the Constitution in 1980 to 1984; the creation of the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms; Meech Lake Accord; Charlottetown
Accord; and now, the country stood again at the brink. On Tuesday
night at midnight, Ministers Tobin and Marchi called again and asked
me to raise the$15000 by noon the next day. In the next 36 hours,we
raised $186,000. It was used to fund the Montreal rally held in Montreal
on the Friday, three days before the referendum vote. As you know, the
rally took place and the vote was taken. Canada was preserved by less

12. than a 1% differential in the votes between the ‘yes’ side and the ‘no’
side. For a fleeting moment, I had been given my chance to make a
major public contribution. I am sure that my position as Director with
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, made later that year, arose
because of these efforts.
This opportunity did not just arise out of thin air. It arose because I
became seriously interested in politics in 1967, flirted with politics until
1977 and then became intensely involved in local electoral politics with
Jim Peterson in 1977; with Bill Graham in 1984; with Paul Martin’s
leadership bid in 1990; as counsel to the Liberal Party and the Prime
Minister and various cabinet ministers in 1992; which continues to this
day. Person by person, convention by convention, and job by job, I
made my sometimes thankless contribution in the political backrooms
through fundraising, offering my legal services on a pro bono basis, and
being available to complete tasks, big and small-- until I was offered an
opportunity to make a difference.

13. In my political life, I was largely known as an able lawyer. That single
base allowed me to befriend and assist political operatives like Senator
David Smith, party presidents from across the country, Cabinet
ministers, political advisors and assistants, bureaucrats at Department of
Justice and other departments, and Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin.
These are heady contacts. They came while giving legal advice and
raising money. It gave me an opportunity to talk policy. More than
anything, it allowed me a sense of excitement and breadth of
involvement that is not available through any other means. It gave me
personal expression to celebrate and participate in the delicacy and
extraordinary potential of our great country.
Those of you interested in networking and making contacts in law,
business, bureaucracy and all walks of life, politics is a great vehicle.
There is still no greater calling than a public one.
* * * * *

14. - 13 -
Part 4: Wagons and Stars
“Hitch your wagon to a star” was first written in an 1862 essay called
“American Civilization” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wrote “Now that
is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labour, to hitch his
wagon to a star and to see his chores done by the gods themselves.”.
Emerson was saying that wisdom came from a high purpose. In a more
modern context, ‘hitch your wagon to a star’ is a prescription for find a
mentor or a successful person with whom you can connect and learn and
associate.
If you are a young woman interested in the practice of law or becoming
a politician or becoming head of an international organization, follow
the career of the Chief Justice of Canada, the President of the
International Monetary Fund, female judges throughout Canada,
politicians from Judy LaMarsh to Michäelle Jean.
If you are a young man, there are an equal number of mentors in
Canadian and international life.

15. One such mentor whom I have had the pleasure of associating with was
Maurice Strong. He has a high school education, and no more. And yet,
he has more world university degrees than there are universities in
Canada. He has been honoured by more countries, Queens and Kings
and Heads of State than any other Canadian. He was variously President
of Power Corporation of Canada until 1966; designed and became the
first head of Canada’s foreign aid program, called CEDA and the first
deputy minister in Canada without a university degree; in the early
1970s was appointed Secretary General of the United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment; commissioned a report on the
state of the planet called Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of
a Small Planet which summarized the findings of 152 leading experts
from 58 countries in preparation for the first UN meeting on the
environment held in Stockholm in 1972, and which was the world’s first
“state of the environment” report; was Secretary General of the 1992
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the
“Earth Summit”) held in Rio di Janeiro, took a leading role in
implementing the results from the Earth Summit; was asked by Prime

16. Minister Trudeau in 1976 to create Petro-Canada; was appointed CEO of
Ontario Hydro, then the largest utility in the world; President and
Chairman of the Extension Committee of the World Alliance of
YMCAs, was President of the University of Peace from 1988 to 2006,
an Honourary Professor of Peking University, Chairman of the Advisory
Board for the Institute for Research on Security and Sustainability for
Northeast Asia and, most importantly, served as under secretary in seven
different portfolios at the United Nations over several decades.
He is the father and grandfather of the modern environmental
movement. The world’s success in achieving an environmental
awareness and progress, including inspiring his good friend Al Gore, lies
at his feet.
Maurice has received numerous awards, including Officer of the Order
of Canada, Pearson Medal of Peace, the Swedish Royal Order of the
Polar Star, the first non-U.S. citizen to receive the Public Welfare Medal
from the U.S. Academy of Sciences and awards from across Canada and
around the world.

17. It was for Maurice Strong that I appeared to defend him before the
$90-billion United Nations Oil for Food Inquiry in New York. Paul
Volcker, the former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve system, was the Chair of the Inquiry. I did the work pro bono.
For ten years thereafter, I spoke to Maurice Strong at least once a week
and oftentimes daily. It was an introduction to and a chance to forge
connections with the international world of economics, United Nations,
heads of State, the environmental movement and heads of corporations.
I met with Maurice in New York, China, and Switzerland. Maurice
called me from just about every country in the world. My association
was and remains an education, an opportunity and an insight that was
only available through law, politics and a curiosity about the world.
* * * * *

18. - 17 -
Parts 5 and 6: Lightness of Being and When the Darkness Descends
Lightness of being is derived from the book of the same name written by
the Czech writer, Milan Kundera. Sabina, one of his main characters,
celebrates lightness, originality and individuality.
I choose to dwell upon the lightness of being for a moment, because it is
my observation that those who are happily willing to take on tasks big
and small, who treat their colleagues with honour, frankness, collegiality
and joyfulness are sought out for friendship and for important career
tasks and public obligations.
It follows from the Old and New Testament prescription to honour your
father and your mother. That phrase is a Commandment and is repeated
often in the Old and New Testaments of the Jewish and Christian bible.
It goes well beyond religion. It goes well beyond your parents. It calls
for reverence of your fellow human beings. It calls upon you to value
personal relationships as of each person you meet and work with as if
they were part of your own family. It calls upon you to respect merit
and rank. It calls upon you to be as kind to those who work for you or

19. provide services to you as you would to those for whom you work and to
those whom you aspire to associate with.
In the legal world, you need only look to two former law professors of
mine, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Frank Iacobucci;
to our present Governor-General, David Johnson; or to the Chief Justice
of the United States ,John Roberts; and to Christine Lagarde, the
president of the International Monetary Fund. Each one of these people
has an impeccable academic background, an extraordinary work ethic
and a degree of accomplishment that has taken them to the top of their
worlds. What is common among them is a personal lightness of being, a
friendliness, a desire in action and word to value every person who
comes into their orbit.
It is my observation that those who can envision and act with a lightness
of being are the ones sought out for advancement at every stage of their
careers and ultimately to positions of high responsibility. We like to
promote and reward those whom we like. It is not how impressed
people are by your accomplishments but it is how you make people feel

20. about themselves that should most guide your approach to everyone you
meet.
Let me turn to “darkness descending”.
For this discussion, I would like to refer to the horrible time and place
when one lies between “… the devil and deep blue sea”.
The phrase comes from the punishment meted out for sailors on the
High Seas when they have been found guilty of serious misbehaviour.
The guilty sailor is drawn by ropes under the hull of the ship. If he
survives, that is the end of the matter. The bottom of the boat, at the
keel, was called the “devil”. When the sailor was between the ‘devil’
and the deep blue sea he was at the most dangerous point of his life,
when his very existence hung in the balance. He was between the ‘devil
and the deep blue sea’.
Each one of you will experience among your friends and family, among
your colleages and by yourself, a moment when confidence recedes,
when the world feels dangerous and when you are so exposed that there
is an open window to your heart.

21. There are two points I wish to make about the time when darkness
descends.
Firstly, you must know that darkness is coming. It will surprise you,
and will come quickly from internal sources or because of external
events out of your control. The prospect of the darkness descending
demands that you keep a balanced and healthy awareness of your own
physical and psychological well-being. It demands that you be aware
that your friends and family will be suffering in the same way at some
point. You should learn skills to keep a healthy sense of balance and
compassion and assist others-intimates and strangers alike-when the
darkness decends and the way ahead is seems hopeless.
Secondly, when darkness comes to you, it is then that you will be most
tested.
You will rely upon the principles upon which you have lived your life
and treated others. One of the key tests of life’s principles is what
decisions you make about life and career when nobody is looking and
nobody will know the result.

22. More importantly, you should not try to solve the problems alone, in
anger or in haste. If it is a public matter, one cannot answer allegations
of wrongdoing or solve personal problems alone.
My message is to embrace the lightness of being whenever you can and
be prepared for the descending darkness whenever it comes.
* * * * *

23. - 22 -
Part 7: Brook No Interference
This phrase, “brook no interference” has its origins in Olde English and
first appeared in the 1540 poem by Roesslins: Byrth of Markynde. The
poem said: “ if she refused or cannot brook meat”. This ancient phrase
has a modern Canadian equivalent, “beavers when damming , brook no
interference”.
At the outset of my conversation, I encouraged you to create a dream.
In the center, I have given you some observations about my world, my
work and my intimates and the principles that guided me.
At the end, I encourage you to create your own set of principles and find
your own dreams. You have but 2,000 Saturday nights in your career.
At 25, it seems forever. At 65 it seems no time at all.
But, whatever, you do, brook no interference in the realization of your
dreams with honour and joyfulness. Foreswear short-term gains for life
as a long song , live life in all its complexity in the light; being always
prepared to defend against the darkness.