It is a great personal and professional pleasure to welcome the most recent biographer the Rt. Hon. John Turner, to Art’s History. TVO’s Steve Paikin, the author of the acclaimed John Turner: An Intimate Biography of Canada’s 17th Prime Minister, is a veteran journalist, broadcast, documentary film maker and biographer whose books include studies of Bill Davis, John Robarts and now Mr. Turner. Today, Steve looks back on the June 30, 1984 swearing-in of Mr. Turner as Prime Minister. Over to you Steve!
By Steve Paikin
Ever since resigning as Pierre Trudeau’s finance minister in 1975, John Turner wondered whether he’d ever get a chance to lead the Liberal Party of Canada and become prime minister. As a 38-year-old MP in 1968, he challenged Trudeau for the leadership. But the forces of Trudeaumania were too strong. Trudeau would go on to win four of the next five general elections.
Sixteen years later, Trudeau retired as prime minister and Liberals everywhere hoped to entice Turner out of the private sector, where he’d spent the past decade becoming one of the country’s most successful lawyers and corporate directors. He may have been out of politics for a long time, but he looked straight out of central casting as a strong, handsome, dynamic leader.
Turner decided to make a comeback and was successful. He easily won the Liberal leadership on the second ballot, defeating Jean Chretien. Forty years ago today, on June 30, 1984, he was sworn in as Canada’s 17th prime minister.
Sadly, for Turner, that was the high-water mark of his return to public life. He’d won the job he’d always wanted, but his timing wasn’t good. The Liberals had been in power for 20 of the previous 21 years and the demand for change was everywhere. In addition, Canadians saw a Turner who wasn’t the same confident politician he had been during his first tour in office. His French had declined, his personal positions on issues ran afoul of what was now Trudeau’s Liberal Party, and he seemed rusty and out of touch with the times.
Three months later, Canadians handed the largest majority government ever to Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney. Turner’s tenure as prime minister lasted just 79 days --- the second shortest ever --- ahead of only Charles Tupper.
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.