Former Prime Minister John Turner defied his successor as Liberal leader, Jean Chrétien, on this date in 1991. He did so in an address to the Commons announcing his support of Canada’s taking part in military action against Iraq.
Turner offered unequivocal backing to the UN. At the same, his former party was waffling on providing support to the Mulroney government’s firm backing of the UN’s resolution that approved removing Iraq from Kuwait by armed force.
“Canada has had a proud role in the United Nations right from the beginning,” Turner the House on January 16, 1991. “This country has stood by the United Nations even when other countries, including the United States, lost faith in that organization.”
TVO’s Steve Paikin, in his new portrait of Canada’s 17th PM, John Turner: An Intimate Biography, describes what happened when Turner completed his speech.
“After Turner finished, (Prime Minister Brian) Mulroney led his caucus in a standing ovation and crossed the floor to shake the now Liberal backbencher’s hand,” Paikin writes. “It may have been Turner’s most important moment, but those on Team Chrétien were deeply unhappy with it. MP John Nunziata, one of Turner’s former Rat Packers, said rather ungenerously: ‘It’s his revenge and he’s trying to pave his way into certain boardrooms.’”
You can read sections of Turner’s speech below:
The Right Hon. John Turner: This Parliament and our country, Canada, are faced with a clear choice. We can continue to stand behind the United Nations and its resolutions for which we voted and which told Iraq what it must do to avoid war. We can remain an integral part of the most determined demonstration of collective political will ever marshalled by the United Nations to stand up against aggression. In my view it is the choice which all our history and the long tradition of Canada’s support for the United Nations oblige us to make today. To do otherwise would repudiate the votes we have unfailingly cast in support of United Nations resolutions. It would also repudiate our commitment to internationalism and to the United Nations, the hallmarks of the Liberal Party and Canada’s foreign policy for decades ….
The United Nations, not the United States, set the January 15 deadline,” he said. “Anyone who knows the United Nations . . . knows that it is very jealous in being master of its own destiny. Nobody pushes the United Nations around, not even the United States. No one nation, especially the United States, is able to impose marching orders on that institution . . . Canada has had a proud role in the United Nations right from the beginning. This country has stood by the United Nations even when other countries, including the United States, lost faith in that organization.”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.