Gordon Edward Kaiser

Bob Heggie

I am honored that Tim Egan and Rowland Harrison, Gordon’s collaborators on this journal, asked me to offer a remembrance of Gordon.

Gordon was our friend, teacher, and a giant in the fields of competition law, telecommunications, and energy regulation.

He had three full professional careers: an accomplished lawyer, a successful entrepreneur, and an impactful regulator and adjudicator.

For many of you who worked with and knew him, you will remember his shrewd insights, keen intellect, and unyielding, principled advocacy. Gord worked in the tradition of excellence; high standards of craftsmanship in his writing and an affection for ideas and connecting people. He was an idealist who would never back down from a fight and relentlessly pursued his philosophy of the law centered on fairness, democratic principles, and the public interest.

Gord’s strong-minded individualism and scholarship came naturally to him. He loved to tell the story that as a thirteen-year-old he asked his parents for a full set of the Dominion Law Reports. He knew he wanted to be a lawyer and loved the practice of law, but his gifts extended to economics, and he graduated from his beloved Alma mater, Queen’s University, with both a law degree and master’s in economics. This combination served him well throughout his career, but particularly as a bold adjudicator as Vice-Chair at the Ontario Energy Board where he ranks as one of our most distinguished interpreters of the law.

Gord’s public service contributions are his greatest legacy, including the establishment of this journal and the Energy Law Forum. Perhaps his most important contribution was creating a culture in the regulatory community that focused on education.

A lifelong learner, at his heart Gord was a teacher. He established an energy regulation course at Queen’s University that has educated more than 1,400 students over the years. I vividly recall Gord delivering passionate lectures at the course, holding the students’ rapt attention. He delighted in the camaraderie with his students, always holding court at his favourite restaurant — Chez Piggy — after a day of lectures.

Gord had an abiding interest in technology and much of his later years were spent focused on how technology would allow our energy sector and markets to meet the issues facing us today and flourish in the future.

Gord cared deeply about people and relentlessly brought them together to debate policy, technology, or the latest regulatory and legal cases.

In our system of shared responsibility, his vision for regulators was, above all, to protect the public interest. As we honor his legacy, let’s re-dedicate ourselves, today and every day to serve the role he envisioned — a protector of the law and a guardian of the public interest.

My world is sadder and darker with Gord gone — I miss his friendship most of all.

Timothy Egan

Anyone with experience working with Gordon Kaiser will probably have a sense of the familiar as they read these brief comments on his role in the founding of Energy Regulation Quarterly (ERQ).

One day the suggestion arose for a journal commenting on regulatory decisions. There was much agreement that too often decisions came down and no one reflected on their implications, much less their merits. Gordon had been a driving force for many years already in keeping a robust conversation going amongst regulators, the legal community, utility executives and policymakers. The ERQ was but the next step building on the Queen’s regulatory course, the various industry-regulator dialogues and other efforts that he, Michael Cleland, Hans Konow, Peter Gurnham, Bob Heggie and many others had so carefully developed. Whether or not the germ for the idea of the ERQ was his, he immediately seized on it and ran with it, suggesting he was an ideal candidate to be an editor.

As it turned out he was. He was instrumental in building support for the idea from day one. Into an (initially) very sceptical regulator pool, he plunged (cannonballed?) with his usual enthusiasm, assuring them that “no publisher will tell me what to say so you know it will be independent.” It worked, and regulators across the country started reading it. He was key to soliciting content, bending arms as few others could to get pieces written from experts across the country and abroad, drawing on his incredible network of friends and acquaintances. And he made a point of contributing regularly himself, usually entirely unsolicited…

Gordon was a force of nature and it showed in how he got things done. Speaking as his publisher I can say that while working with Gordon often involved the unexpected, he was always incredibly committed to the project and determined to meet over a good meal and fine red wine to hash out any concerns.

Alongside his fellow founding editor, Rowland Harrison, he made sure that the ERQ established itself as an important forum for reflection on economic regulation in the energy sector in Canada. May the ERQ’s continuing success be part of his legacy.

To Charlene and his family, all of us behind ERQ extend our deepest sympathies at their loss — Gordon’s death is a sorrow shared by us all. May he rest in peace.