Peter Blaikie
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Peter Macfarlane Blaikie (born May 10, 1937 in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada) is a prominent lawyer and statesman. He is the son of Kenneth Guy ("Bill") Blaikie (1897-1968), a chemist who emigrated from his native Scotland to Canada.
In 1958, Blaikie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec where he became lifelong friends with fellow student Scott Griffin, the founder of the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry that annually awards the Griffin Poetry Prize. Blaikie was a Rhodes Scholar in 1958 and obtained a Master of Arts from Oxford University in 1960 then a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from McGill University in 1965 and was admitted to the Barreau du Quebec the following year.
In 1973, he co-founded Heenan Blaikie in Montreal which became a leading Quebec and Canadian law firm, expanding to Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles. Lawyers in the firm include former Canadian Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien as well as the former Premier of Quebec, Pierre-Marc Johnson.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Peter Blaikie was a lecturer in Economics at Loyola College and at Concordia University and at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. He was the lead defendant in Procureur général de la province de Québec c. Peter M. Blaikie et autres, the 1979 constitutional challenge of Chapter III of the Charter of the French Language of the Province of Quebec that declared the French language the only language of the legislature and the courts in Québec. Blaikie was elected President of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, serving from 1981 to 1983 and in 1987 was elected Chairman of Alliance Quebec, serving until 1989.
A longtime friend and advisor to Aaron Fish, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Unican Security Systems Ltd., Blaikie was made a Unican director in 1983 and served as the public company's President and Chief Operating Officer from late 1993 until 1998 when he returned to his law practice.
Peter Blaikie is also a business columnist for the Montreal Gazette and Les Affaires, and has been a television commentator with CKMI-TV, the Montreal station of the Global Television Network. He is married to a psychiatrist, Dr. Maja Romer, with whom he has three daughters and one son.
