obituary

Sunday September 20, 2020

RIP John N. Turner

When John turner became the new Liberal Leader there was a very strong sense of change in the air in Canada. It wasn’t just the Liberal party that was looking to renew itself, the Progressive Conservatives had done that very thing by electing a promising, charismatic newcomer to the political scene, Brian Mulroney.

It wasn’t until I neared the age of 16 that I witnessed my first major changing of the guard in Ottawa. With the exception a brief interregnum when Joe Clark seized control the same machine that guided Liberal governments in the 1970’s was there into the mid 80’s.

The election leaders, 1984

Pierre Trudeau had essentially been Prime Minister since before I was born. 

People forget that by 1984 Canadians had grown quite tired of Pierre Trudeau. While his legacy now shines for repatriating the constitution and putting the nation on a progressive path, thanks in part to inspiring activist movements of the 60s and 70s, there were big dark clouds that hung over Trudeau and his government. Relations with the western provinces were horrible thanks to the National Energy Program, and Quebeckers were in full on separation mode thanks to work left undone in signing on the province to the Charter of Rights. The arrogance of the elder Trudeau had highlighted by growing deficits, crony patronage appointments, and a lavish farewell world ego tour (minus cultural costumes his son would later show up in) to promote peace in the waning days of the cold war.

A walk in a snow storm convinced Pierre Trudeau to retire from his position, a whiteout, perhaps, that was a metaphor for an empty slate of ideas left to run on. 

The last John Turner cartoon – May 26, 2016

John Turner, the Prince in waiting, had all the qualities to become a long reigning Canadian Prime Minister: Rich, smart and well-educated, athletic, handsome, bilingual, connected, and well experienced in powerful cabinet positions. 

Timing was Turner’s worst enemy, however. 

He couldn’t brush off the reek of arrogance left from 16 years of Liberal rule, and faced formidable opponents not just in Brian Mulroney, but also Jean Chretien, who, when running for the leadership against Turner in 1984, used the slogan, “call for a man from Main Street, not Bay Street.” The Turner vs. Chretien struggle was a carry over from the Trudeau vs. Turner fight that had brewed since the latter’s resignation from cabinet several years prior. This inner party challenge would play out among future Liberal leaders and wannabe leaders.

Patting the bum of Liberal Party President Iona Campagnolo during the 1984 election might be regarded as Canada’s first #MeToo moment that may not have sunk him were he a 1960’s cabinet minister. It did him no favours in the mid 80’s and will remain part of his ugly legacy, and among one of the many reasons which resulted in a rump of 40 or so Liberal MPs in the House of Commons.

by Graeme MacKay, 1988

The Free Trade debate and the passions it unleashed in John Turner may be his most enduring legacy of his leadership. But again, timing was his biggest enemy when he fought hard against Mulroney while at the same time having knives stuck in his back from the dissent in his own party.

Turner was able to oversee a doubling of the Liberal caucus following the 1988 convention he might have been able to carry on were it not for the ongoing sniping and sideline maneuvers from power hungry Jean Chretien. It became too much for Turner and he resigned from politics in 1990. Eight years of Chretien rule would send Turner deep into private life and declining health. While the testimonials are full of praise for a gentleman who devoted much to the importance of public life, he as much a victim of political skullduggery and dirty politics from within his own party.

It is interesting to see that in the recollections of the life lead by John Turner the strongest voice comes from his biggest foe, Brian Mulroney. 

Often said was the line that Robert Stanfield was the greatest Prime Minister Canada never had. Perhaps that’s true of an older generation, but from my vantage point John Turner was the greatest Prime Minister who never really got the chance.

August 25, 2015

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Thursday, May 8, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, May 8, 2014

Death of an Original Hipster

Farley Mowat, one of Canada’s best-known authors and a noted environmentalist, has died at age 92.

Mary Shaw-Rimmington, the author’s assistant, confirmed his passing to CBC News on Wednesday afternoon. Mowat died at his home in Port Hope, Ont.

Mowat, author of dozens of works including Lost in the Barrens and Never Cry Wolf, introduced Canada to readers around the world and shared everything from his time abroad during the Second World War, to his travels in the North and his concern for the deteriorating environment.

Pierre Berton 1920-2004

More than 17 million copies of his books, which have been translated into dozens of languages, have been sold worldwide. The gregarious writer was a consummate storyteller, whose works spanned non-fiction, children’s titles and memoirs.

Describing Mowat as “a passionate Canadian,” Prime Minster Stephen Harper touted the writer as “a natural storyteller with a real gift for sharing personal anecdotes in a witty and endearing way.” (Source: CBC News)

Meanwhile, we may have reached “peak beard frequency,” according to research published in the journal Biology Letters recently.

Men’s facial hair trends may be guided by Darwinian selection, researchers hypothesized. So they asked women and men to rate different faces with “four standard levels of beardedness.” The faces that were rarer were rated as more appealing. It’s an evolutionary phenomenon known as “negative frequency-dependent sexual selection.”

“The idea is that perhaps people start copying the George Clooneys and the Joaquin Phoenixs and start wearing those beards, but then when more and more people get onto the bandwagon the value of being on the bandwagon diminishes, so that might be why we’ve hit ‘peak beard’,” study author Prof Rob Brooks told the BBC.

“Peak beard” is reached when the most men in professions not usually associated with facial hear sport beards. The BBC suggests that may have happened in January when a Newsnight

Some say the Rubicon was crossed in January when Jeremy Paxman, the BBC Newsnight presenter, shaved his beard off, saying “beards are SO 2013.”

When “peak beard” frequency is reached, the pendulum swings back toward lesser-bristled chins — a trend we may be witnessing now, the scientists say. (Source: Discovery.com)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Friday, April 11, 2014

Friday, April 11, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, April 11, 2014

Jim Flaherty’s personal touch was a rarity on Parliament Hill: Greg Weston

Jim Flaherty was promising improvements to a federal disability savings plan that helps parents of special needs children when the tears started welling behind his glasses, a few drops at first, then more and more until the nation’s finance minister was openly sobbing on live television.

“The politician lost to the parent on that one,” he later told a friend.

Thursday, it was his critics’ turn to cry.

One after another, opposition MPs who have made a career of publicly savaging Flaherty across the floor of the Commons were dissolving in tearful grief over the sudden death of a man they now call a friend.

It was an extraordinary sight rarely seen in Canadian politics, MPs of all political stripes clearly mourning more than the loss of a fellow parliamentarian.

In Jim Flaherty, their loss seemed deeply personal.

Jim FlahertyNDP leader Tom Mulcair completely choked up when he got to the words: “He was a good person.”

NDP MP Charlie Angus, a well-known Commons scrapper, started to tell a story about Flaherty, but fell apart in tears before he could finish.

Liberal finance critic Ralph Goodale said Flaherty had the extraordinary ability to get into a no-holds-barred donnybrook in Parliament “but somehow managed to leave you more chuckling than angry.”

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said tearfully: “I disagreed with his policies, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t very, very fond of him.”

One of Flaherty’s long-time loyal aides, Chisholm Pothier, says in many ways the affable former finance minister was “an old-style politician,” a throwback to the days when MPs could be foes in the Commons and still be friends at the bar.

Pothier says Flaherty wouldn’t hesitate to invite one of the opposition finance critics out for a drink. He liked most of them. And they liked him. (Source: CBC News)

 

Friday, March 8, 2013

Friday, March 8, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, March 8, 2013

Canadian music legend Stompin’ Tom Connors dead at 77

In a final message to fans released after his death on Wednesday night, Canadian country music star Stompin’ Tom Connors issued an appeal for Canadians to “keep the Maple Leaf flying high.”

“It was a long, hard, bumpy road, but this great country kept me inspired with its beauty, character, and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world,” said Mr. Connors in the message, which was posted to his website. “I must now pass the torch, to all of you, to help keep the Maple Leaf flying high, and be the Patriot Canada needs now and in the future.”

Mr. Connors died in Peterborough, Ont., at the age of 77 from “natural causes,” according to spokesman Brian Edwards.

Mr. Edwards said the musician, rarely seen without his signature black cowboy hat and stomping cowboy boots, knew his health was declining and had written the message shortly before his death.

On Wednesday night, in one of the first of many online tributes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the musician a “true Canadian original.”

Born Thomas Charles Connors, the musician earned the name “Stompin’ Tom” for his propensity to pound the floor with his left foot during performances and will probably be best remembered for The Hockey Song, a 1973 hit that remains on standard rotation at hockey arenas around the world. (Source: National Post)

Saturday October 20, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday October 20, 2012

Lincoln Alexander 1922-2012

He was never one to sell himself short, to shrink into the background and idly watch.

Lincoln Alexander, who has passed away at the age of 90, always knew he was a politician, not a policy wonk. But he also knew he was a politician whose skin colour would lend his every move, his every accomplishment, the weight of history.

“I have no qualms about saying I don’t think anyone can work a room better than I can,” he once told an interviewer.

“I’ve never really been in awe of anyone. When you’re 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds and good lookin’, you know, you’re not in awe of too many people.”

It’s hard to imagine a man of lesser confidence surmounting so many barriers to African-Canadians in the span of a single lifetime — the first black Member of Parliament, the first black cabinet minister, Ontario’s first black lieutenant-general.

Alexander’s ability to mix courtliness and anger soon came to the fore amid 1971’s “fuddle duddle” scandal, in which Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was alleged to have mouthed an obscenity in the House of Commons, one directed at Alexander and Newfoundland MP John Lundrigan.

“He mouthed two words, the first word of which started with F, and the second word of which started with O,” Alexander told reporters at the time. “Now I think that we’ve reached a point where this type of conduct, it’s not only disgraceful but it’s unacceptable, and I tried to bring that point home.” (Source: Toronto Star)