John Turner, Prime Minister Who Fought Trade Deal, Dies at 91

(Bloomberg) -- John Turner, the former Canadian Prime Minister who opposed efforts to bring his country into a free-trade agreement with the U.S., has died. He was 91.

Turner died Saturday in Toronto, according to a government statement.

Canada’s 17th prime minister, Turner’s tenure lasted less than three months, the second-shortest in the country’s history, after he replaced Pierre Trudeau as Liberal Party leader in in 1984. He called an election and lost in a landslide to Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives.

Turner had been a minister in successive Liberal governments in the 1960s and 1970s, but perhaps is best known for leading opposition to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement negotiated under Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan -- the precursor to the current North American trade pact.

John Napier Turner was born in the London suburb of Richmond on June 7, 1929. When he was just three years old, his father Leonard died, and shortly afterward his mother Phyllis brought him to her native Canada, first to Rossland, British Columbia, and a year later to Ottawa, where she took a job with the tariff board.

While studying political science, economics and English at the University of British Columbia, Turner was also a star sprinter. In 1947 he captured a national record when he ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds. The following year he qualified for the London Olympics, but a bad knee prevented him from competing.

Turner was a gifted politician, lawyer, and athlete who was “deeply committed to the law and democratic process,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement.

First Seat

Turner graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949, became a Rhodes Scholar and went on to study law at Magdalen College at Oxford University, where his track and field teammate was Roger Bannister, who broke the four-minute mile, and one of his classmates was Malcolm Fraser, the future Australian prime minister.

Turner won his first seat in 1962 in a Montreal district, and become a cabinet minister in 1965 under Lester Pearson.

As justice minister, Turner oversaw the use of the War Measures Act in 1970. Trudeau’s government used the law to suspend some civil rights and send soldiers to Montreal after two kidnappings by the terrorist group Front de libération du Québec, which called for the separation of the Canadian province.

After Pearson resigned in 1968, Turner sought the leadership but lost out to Trudeau, father of the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

As finance minister, Turner’s 1974 budget was rejected by the opposition parties that controlled parliament, triggering an election that Trudeau won.

Turner quit politics in 1976 to practice corporate law at McMillan Binch in Toronto.

When Trudeau retired in 1984, Turner returned to politics, defeating future Prime Minister Jean Chretien in the 1984 Liberal leadership race. That victory made him prime minister without a seat in Parliament, which was part of the reason he called a quick election.

‘Fortress North America’

But that turned out to be a significant miscalculation. Turner’s Liberals plunged to 40 seats out of 282, compared with 147 under Trudeau’s last mandate. Mulroney won 211 seats in the House of Commons, the country’s biggest majority government, after Turner struggled during televised debates to explain 19 patronage appointments made as he took power.

Turner revived his image and his party in a passionate, unsuccessful 1988 electoral rematch against Mulroney, when he led efforts to defeat Mulroney’s plan for a free-trade agreement with the U.S. Turner attacked Mulroney’s free-trade plan in the campaign, saying it would erode Canadian sovereignty.

“I don’t believe our future depends on our yielding those economic levers of sovereignty to become a junior partner in Fortress North America to the United States,” Turner said during the campaign.

Liberal seats more than doubled to 83, and Mulroney’s tally fell to 169 seats, still a majority.

Turner quit as opposition leader in 1990, the end of his political career, and joined Miller Thomson LLP law firm in Toronto before retiring in 2013.

He is survived by his wife Geills, his daughter Elizabeth, and sons Michael, David and Andrew.

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