Edgar Peter Lougheed ( LAW-heed; July 26, 1928 – September 13, 2012) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the tenth Premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985 as a Progressive Conservative, presiding over a period of reform and economic growth.
He is widely considered one of the greatest Premiers in Canadian history.Peter was the son of Edgar Donald Lougheed and Edna Alexandria Bauld.
His grandmother was Isabella Clark Hardisty (1864-1936), the Metis daughter of William Lucas Hardisty (Metis) and Mary Ann Allen (Metis).
His grandfather was Senator James Alexander Loughheed, who married Isabella Hardisty on September 16, 1884 in Calgary.
His grandfather was a member of the Senate and a prominent Alberta businessman.
Peter Lougheed played football at the University of Alberta before joining the Edmonton Eskimos (CFL) for two seasons in 1949 and 1950.
He then entered business and practised law in Calgary.
In 1965, he was elected leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, which at that time had no seats in the legislature.
He led the party back into the legislature in the 1967 provincial election, then to power with 49 of 75 seats in the 1971 election, defeating the Social Credit Party which had governed the province since 1935.
Lougheed established a Tory dynasty in the province that lasted until 2015, when the New Democratic Party won a majority government; it was the longest unbroken run in government for a provincial party in Canadian history.
Lougheed led the Tories to victory in 1975, 1979 and 1982, winning landslide majorities each time.
As premier, Lougheed furthered the development of the oil and gas resources, and started the Alberta Heritage Fund to ensure that the exploitation of non-renewable resources would be of long-term benefit to Alberta.
He introduced the Alberta Bill of Rights.
He quarrelled with Pierre Trudeau's federal Liberal government over its 1980 introduction of the National Energy Program.
After hard bargaining, Lougheed and Trudeau eventually reached an agreement for energy revenue sharing in 1982.
Calgary's bid to host the 1988 Winter Olympics was developed during Lougheed's terms.
Alberta also experienced economic success and went through significant social reform under the Loughleed administration.
From 1996 to 2002, Lougheed served as Chancellor of Queen's University.
He sat on the boards of a variety of organizations and corporations.
In a 2012 edition of Policy Options, the Institute for Research on Public Policy named Lougheed the best Canadian premier of the last forty years.