Commentator Rex Murphy parlayed his wit and eloquence into media stardom

Rex Murphy became one of Canada’s best-known media figures, through his work on television, radio and in print, but he was a man so intensely private that few people knew the real Rex Murphy. He was a complex man, loved by conservatives for his attacks on the Liberal Party, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and what he saw as climate-change alarmism that hurt oil workers in his native Newfoundland and Alberta. He shared these views in newspaper columns and appearances on CBC Television’s The National.He lampooned Mr. Trudeau, a couple of years before he became Prime Minister, in this commentary on The National: “The trouble with Mr. Trudeau is these kinds of appearances, more fluff than fodder, playing off his glamour, place him very much in the unserious world of reputation celebrity and give nutrition to the thought that he is a lucky lightweight and not a serious leader of a modern democracy.” He ended his 3-minute-29-second monologue with this closing line: “The lightness of being Justin may just be unbearable.”