Former prime minister John Turner passed away over the weekend at age 91, and while you can read about his life here and here, for example, there were a couple of things I wanted to mention about his time in office. Thanks to the problems with the leadership selection processes in this country, Turner didn’t have a seat when he won the Liberal leadership and was sworn in as prime minister. He was only in office for eleven weeks, never meeting the House of Commons, and was defeated in an election shortly thereafter, though he did win a seat and stayed on as leader of the opposition for six years. Most of the tributes to him this weekend have not talked about his reputation for being “handsy,” barring the famous bottom-patting incident with party president Iona Campagnolo, though Susan Delacourt says that he was respectful and wasn’t patronizing to women reporters, who were still rare in the day.

What I think is most interesting, however, was that Turner fought an election in 1988 on the question of free trade, and Turner was bitterly opposed, saying that this would turn Canada into a colony of the United States, and that there would only be doom ahead. The then-Progressive Conservatives were the pro-trade party, and won the day with a majority parliament. Here we are a little over thirty years later, and the situations have reversed themselves – now it’s the Liberals who are champions of free trade and open markets, while the modern iteration of the Conservatives are turning into protectionists who are pushing a “Canada First” plan. It’s amazing how things can change so much in that long (particularly when parties abandon ideology for the sake of populism).

I also am curious how they plan to conduct a state funeral for Turner given the current pandemic restrictions. One supposes that they could have him lie in state within a space like the Sir John A Macdonald building on Parliament Hill, and that the funeral will be televised with a lot of people in masks, but it will no doubt be a challenge for all involved.

Good reads:

• All eyes will be on just what Julie Payette will add of her own to this week’s Throne Speech, and if there will be any awkwardness around it.
• Seamus O’Regan makes the obvious case that Canada can’t meet emissions reduction targets unless nuclear energy is part of the mix.
• Ontario has become a complete gong show about COVID testing because the province didn’t increase capacity.
• There is a situation around non-Indigenous fishermen blockading and removing the traps of Indigenous fishermen on the East Coast, in spite of treaty rights to fish.
• Here is a look into the complications around Charter rights like freedom of expression in First Nations communities.
• As a Canada Angle™ to US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death, here are recollections about her from former SCC Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.
• Kevin Carmichael posits that while an “ambitions and responsible” recovery plan sounds contradictory, it may actually be what the country needs if done right.
• Chantal Hébert lays out why the lack of a fall election will increase the pressure on Chrystia Freeland in her new role as finance minister.
• Susan Delacourt recalls when four “Resistance” premiers being in town would be the “real” opposition to Trudeau, and how times have changed.

Odds and ends:

My latest Loonie Politics video talks about what we can expect from this week’s Speech from the Throne.

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