John Napier Turner CC (born June 7, 1929) was the seventeenth Prime Minister of Canada from June 30, 1984 to September 17, 1984. He is the oldest living former Prime Minister.
He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, and emigrated to Canada as a baby in 1932. He was educated at the University of British Columbia (B.A. Honours), Oxford University, (Rhodes Scholar, B.A., Bachelor of Civil Law), and the University of Paris (the Sorbonne).
He was married in 1963 to Geills McCrae Kilgour (b. 1937) and has one daughter and three sons. He practiced law in Toronto, Ontario and was elected as a member of Parliament in 1962. He served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Lester Pearson in various capacities, most notably as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. When Pearson retired Turner ran in the race to succeed him, finishing third at the 1968 Liberal leadership convention behind the winner Pierre Trudeau. Turner served in Trudeau's cabinet as Minister of Justice during the October Crisis and then served as Minister of Finance until 1975 when he resigned to protest the implementation of wage and price controls.
From 1975 to 1984, Turner worked as a corporate lawyer on Bay Street but occasionally made speeches on political issues. When Pierre Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader the first time in 1979, Turner announced he would not be a candidate for the Liberal leadership.
Trudeau was talked into rescinding his resignation after the government of Joe Clark was defeated by a Motion of No Confidence and returned to serve as Prime Minister until 1984.
When Prime Minister Trudeau retired, John Turner re-entered politics and was elected leader of his party and became Prime Minister, defeating Jean Chrétien at the June 1984 Liberal leadership convention.
John Turner served as Prime Minister of Canada for only a few months. Plagued by controversy over a series of patronage appointments he made shortly after taking office in fulfilment of an agreement he had made with Trudeau, he was defeated by Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative Party in the 1984 federal election. Particularily damaging to his campaign were poor debate performences, voter fatigue of the Liberal government and charges that Turner appeared "serially insincere" during press scrums and public speeches. His period in office was thus almost entirely consumed by the election and Turner's government had too little time to implement any serious legislative initiatives.
He would remain leader of the opposition, losing to Mulroney again in the election of 1988. In the latter election, Turner campaigned vigorously against the (then) proposed Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, arguing its adoption would equate the entire abandonment of Canada's political sovereignty to the United States.
Chrétien resigned from Parliament in 1985 but led a long and bitter backroom struggle to depose Turner which finally succeeded when Turner resigned as party leader in 1990. The ongoing and often open unpopularity of Turner within his own party led to many Canadian editorial cartoonists to always draw him with a back stabbed full of knives.
After Politics
Turner is a member of several Boards of Directors for several large Canadian companies. In late 2004 Turner headed the delegation of Canadian election monitors to Ukraine who helped monitor the Ukrainian presidential runoff vote of December 26. The monitoring was the first mission of the new Canada Corps.
Legacy
If Turner does leave a legacy it is his changes to the Liberal Party's ideology, policies and membership itself under his years of leadership as opposed to his brief months as Prime Minister. While Turner painted himself as a protectionist and anti-Free Trade crusader in 1988, he was largely pro-business and favoured smaller government and big tax-cuts for corporations during his 6 years as Liberal Party leader. Turner's ideological wing of the Liberal Party has ascended to the heights of power under current Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin while the philosophically left-wing elements of the party, who despised Turner and embraced Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien have been moved into the party's periphery.
Turner is the most recent Canadian Prime Minister who was born in England. Prior to Turner, the last British-born PM was the equally unpopular Mackenzie Bowell who served for two tumultuous years as PM in the 1890's.
In 1994 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
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Brian Mulroney | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons
| width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Herb Gray
|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Pierre Trudeau | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |Liberal Leaders
| width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Herb Gray
|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Bill Clarke , PC | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra
1984-1993 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Ted McWhinney, Liberal
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federal riding created in 1966 | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |Member of Parliament for Ottawa—Carleton
1968-1976 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Jean Pigott , PC
|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Egan Chambers , PC | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |Member of Parliament for St. Lawrence—St. George
1962-1968 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
federal riding abolished in 1966
Last updated: 05-07-2005 11:54:51
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04
