He called himself "Emeritus Senator." We gave him the title "Campaign Doctor" and for the entire 2000 election campaign Heath Macquarrie, then 81 years old, filed a steady stream of election campaign columns for The Hill Times. Often a political book reviewer for our newspaper and a columnist, we gave the Parliamentary veteran, retired Tory Senator and former MP, the job to offer an historical look and current prognosis of a modern-day election campaign. He did the job and liked the title "Campaign Doctor." The Prince Edward Island boy, who was in Parliament for 37 years, had an institutional memory of Canadian political history and a refreshingly wise, gentlemanly look at the nasty 2000 campaign. He correctly predicted a low voter turnout, a massive Liberal majority and read the lack of excitement in the electorate early on. He urged Joe Clark to open the tent and he offered a statesman-like view of the political scene, saying things like "even those modern pollsters can be wrong." He liked exclamation marks. In another column he correctly gauged that "There is no clear sign of an enlivened political atmosphere in our politically becalmed country."

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