426 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 78 PART 3 MAY 2020
Peter Duggan Watts
Peter Duggan Watts (Dad) was born in Montreal on
November 20, 1942.
Dad grew up in a home on Sentinel Hill in West
Vancouver up above Park Royal. He went to school in
West Vancouver, where he was reportedly an aboveaverage
student.
He was an air cadet and won some marksmanship
competitions. While Dad wasn’t much of a hunter, he enjoyed shooting. He
brought that tradition to our family property in the Botanie Valley, where
we had some fun with it.
Dad attended university at UBC, graduating with a commerce degree and
a law degree. He later completed an M.B.A. and for years taught land law,
contracts and agency law.
He met our mother on a trip to Mount Hood, Oregon. They got married
on November 27, 1970 in a small church near UBC. For many years they
lived in Point Grey before moving our family to a home on Hudson Street.
After university, Dad was in-house counsel for a large Canadian corporation.
Most of his dealings related to real estate. He authored several books
and articles, including the Realtor’s Code of Ethics and the Real Estate Practitioner’s
Guide. As a notary, I have met many people who knew him as a
teacher or as a lawyer, had read his books or had heard his presentations at
conferences. All held him in very high regard.
As I dictated this piece, as I heard Dad dictate many letters, I made sure
to speak slowly and clearly and enunciate each word. At home, I sometimes
talk a little quieter than my “outside” voice and often think about speaking
slowly and clearly. I believe it is something that I have picked up by osmosis,
listening to Dad work as he dictated—period, paragraph, period, paragraph.
Dad was part of a few different law firms over his years practising as a
lawyer. He was sometimes part of a team, and most often led the team,
though I believe he preferred to work on his own. And by “on his own”, I
certainly do mean in a well-supported way. Dad practised law for almost 40
years.
Dad was a success as a lawyer. Mainly he worked in real estate law. He
had several large clients with large transactions and complex real estate
needs. He was in-house counsel on retainer for most of the real estate
boards throughout the province. He acted for realtors in trouble with the