From 1976 to 1984, Turner took a hiatus from politics, working as a corporate lawyer onBay Street. Trudeau's resignation in 1984 triggereda leadership election, which Turner successfully contested. When he was sworn in as prime minister after winning the leadership election, Turner was not an MP or senator — the last time this would occur untilMark Carney in2025. Turner held the office of prime minister for just 79 days,[1] as he advised thegovernor general todissolve Parliament soon after being sworn in. He went on to lose the1984 election in a landslide toBrian Mulroney'sProgressive Conservatives, leading the Liberals to the second-worst defeat for a governing party at the federal level (in terms of proportion of seats). Turner stayed on as Liberal leader and led the Opposition for the next six years. In the1988 election, he vigorously campaigned against Mulroney'sproposed free trade agreement with the United States, and led the Liberals to a modest recovery. Turner resigned as party leader in1990 and did not seek re-election as an MP in1993.
Turner was Canada's first prime minister born in the United Kingdom sinceMackenzie Bowell in 1896, Canada's second shortest-serving prime minister behindCharles Tupper,[2] and Canada's fourth longest-lived prime minister, living to the age of 91.
Turner was born on June 7, 1929,[3][4] inRichmond,Surrey, England (now a part of London), to Leonard Hugh Turner, an English journalist with theManchester Guardian,[4] andPhyllis Gregory, a Canadian economist.[5] He had a brother, Michael, born in 1930 (who died shortly after birth), and a sister, Brenda, born in 1931.[6] When Turner's father died in 1932, he and his sister moved to Canada with their Canadian-born mother. The family settled in her childhood home inRossland, British Columbia, and later moved toOttawa.[4]
Turner was educated atAshbury College and St Patrick's College, Ottawa (senior matriculation). He enrolled at theUniversity of British Columbia (UBC) in 1945 at age 16 where he was a member of the UBC chapter of theBeta Theta Pi fraternity, and was among Canada's outstanding track sprinters in the late 1940s.[8][9][10] He held the Canadian record for the men's100-yard dash and qualified for the1948 London Olympics, but a bad knee kept him from competing.[11][12] He graduated from UBC with a BA (Honours) in 1949.[7][13][14]
On July 25, 1958, a ball was hosted by Turner's mother and stepfather (in the latter's role of Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia), in honour of Princess Margaret atHMCS Discovery, the Canadian navy's land station inVancouver. Turner danced withPrincess Margaret,[17] one year his junior, and they sat out talking, refusing requests to return to supper. This was the first time that Turner received significant press attention in Canada. Further meetings between them during Margaret's three week official visit to Canada led to considerable speculation about whether the two would become a serious couple. Contemporary press reports suggested there was some consternation about the reports among British officials, but their Canadian counterparts were more relaxed.[18][6][19]
A year later, in September 1959, press attention returned when reports circulated that Turner had been a recent guest at Balmoral in August where discussions had taken place concerning marriage between the pair; that he had also paid a secret visit to see her in April and that his parents had commented on their close friendship during their visit to Scotland in August.[20]
According to letters discovered in 2015, written by Margaret to her friend Sharman Douglas and obtained by theDaily Mail, the relationship was more serious than previously thought with the princess writing in one letter, seven years later: "John Turner is here & we meet on Thursday. It will seem so funny as we haven't met since I nearly married him & he's bringing his wife!". Turner told theDaily Mail: "I have never talked about it, and I am not going to start talking about it now".[21] Brenda confirmed a "very definite attraction" between her brother and the princess, but said that Turner was uninterested in royalty and would not have given up Catholicism.[22]
It has been claimed Turner attended Margaret's party atBalmoral Castle in August 1959 where his roommate was Margaret's future husbandAntony Armstrong-Jones;[22] however, according to his authorized biography, Armstrong-Jones visited Balmoral for the first time in early October 1959.[23] Turner was the only Canadian unofficial guest attheir wedding in May 1960. Turner remained friends with Margaret, he and his wife often meeting the princess in Britain or during official visits to Canada. They attended Margaret's 2002 private funeral and were Canada's official representatives at the memorial service.[22]
In 1965, while vacationing inBarbados, Turner noticed that former prime minister andLeader of the OppositionJohn Diefenbaker, staying at the same hotel, was struggling in the strongsurf andundertow. Turner, a competitive swimmer while in university, jumped in and pulled Diefenbaker to shore.[28]
Turner served in theCabinet of Prime MinisterLester Pearson in various capacities, most notably asMinister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. When Pearson retired, Turner ran to succeed him at the1968 leadership convention. Turner, at age 38 the youngest of the dozen leadership candidates, stated "My time is now",[29] and remarked during his speech that he was "not here for some vague, future convention in, say,1984".[30] Turner stayed on until the fourth and final ballot, finishing third behindPierre Trudeau and runner-upRobert Winters.[31]
Turner served in Trudeau's cabinet asminister of justice for four years. Biographer Paul Litt argues that Turner was a hard-working, well-informed minister whose success was assured by his warm relationship with his peers. His achievements, say Litt, included strengthening the rights of individual defendants on trial, greater efficiency in the justice system, creation of the influentialLaw Reform Commission, selecting highly professional judges, and bringing a policy perspective to the Justice Department. He led the government's position in the highly controversialOfficial Languages Act, and he took control during theOctober Crisis in 1970.[32]
A member of theBusiness Liberal faction of the Liberal Party,[33] Turner then served asMinister of Finance from 1972 until 1975. His challenges were severe in the face of global financial issues such as the1973 oil crisis, the collapse of the postwarBretton Woods trading system, slowing economic growth combined with soaring inflation (stagflation), and growing deficits.[2][34] His positions were more conservative than Trudeau's and they drew apart. In 1975 Turner surprisingly resigned from cabinet.[3] The Liberals had won the1974 election by attackingRobert Stanfield'sProgressive Conservatives over their platform involving wage and price controls. However, Trudeau decided to implement the wage and price controls in late 1975. In a 2013 interview withCatherine Clark onCPAC, Turner confirmed his resignation from cabinet was a direct result of refusing to implement wage and price controls, after campaigning against them in 1974.[35]
In his memoirs, Trudeau wrote that Turner said he resigned as Finance Minister in 1975 because he was tired of politics, after 13 years in Ottawa, and wanted to move on to a better-paying job as a lawyer in Toronto, to better support his family and to be with them more, as his children were growing up. Trudeau also suggested that Turner's years as finance minister were very difficult because of turbulent and unusual conditions in the world economy, characterized asstagflation, largely caused by enormous increases in the price of oil.[36]
From 1975 to 1984, Turner worked as a corporate lawyer at theBay Street law firmMcMillan Binch.[37] When Pierre Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader in 1979 following anelection loss, Turner announced that he would not be a candidate for the Liberal leadership. Trudeau was talked into rescinding his resignation after the government ofJoe Clark was defeated by amotion of no confidence, and returned to contest and win the1980 federal election. Trudeau then served as Prime Minister until 1984.[38]
Trudeau retired after polls showed the Liberals faced certain defeat in the next election if he remained in office. Turner then re-entered politics, and defeatedJean Chrétien, his successor as finance minister, on the second ballot of theJune 1984 Liberal leadership convention. He was formally appointed prime minister on June 30.[16] When he was sworn in, Turner was not an MP or senator; the next occurrence of a PM not being elected to the Commons or Senate would beMark Carney in2025. He also announced that he would not run in a by-election to get into the Commons, but would instead run in the next general election as the Liberal candidate in theBritish Columbia riding ofVancouver Quadra, a seat held by the Tories. This was part of Turner's strategy to rebuild the Liberals' image inwestern Canada; at the time, the party held no seats west ofWinnipeg.[39]
In his final days of office, Trudeau recommended thatGovernor GeneralJeanne Sauvé appoint over 200 Liberals topatronage positions, includingsenators, judges, and executives on various governmental andcrown corporation boards. Turner then made a further 19 appointments himself, one of Trudeau's conditions for retiring earlier than he had planned.[40]
On July 9, only nine days after being sworn in, Turner asked Sauvé to dissolve parliament and advised her tocall an election for early September. Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney and other experts had expected Turner to tour Canada during the summer and early autumn, accompanyingQueen Elizabeth II andPope John Paul II on their upcoming visits, and then call the election for later in the autumn.[40] As the campaign unfolded, the Tories and Mulroney, who was fighting his first general election in any capacity, soon took the lead.[40]
Early in the campaign, Turner appeared rusty and old-fashioned.[41] His policies contrasted with Trudeau's and seemed to legitimize the Tory calls for lowering the deficit, improving relations with the United States, cutting the bureaucracy, and promoting more federal-provincial harmony. He spoke of creating "make work projects",[3] a discarded phrase from the 1970s that had been replaced by the less patronizing "job creation programs". Turner was also caught on television patting the bottoms of Liberal Party PresidentIona Campagnolo and Vice-President Lise St. Martin-Tremblay, causing an uproar amongfeminists, who saw such behaviour as sexist and condescending.[42]
During the televised leaders' debate, Turner attacked Mulroney over the patronage machine that the latter had allegedly set up in anticipation of victory, comparing it to theUnion Nationale governments ofQuebec. Mulroney responded by pointing to the raft of patronage appointments made on the advice of Trudeau and Turner. Turner had the right to advise Sauvé to cancel Trudeau's appointments—advice that she was bound to follow by convention—but failed to do so and added to his own. Mulroney demanded that Turner apologize to the country for what he called "these horrible appointments." Turner claimed that "I had no option" except to let them stand. Mulroney responded, "You had an option, sir – to say 'no' – and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party." He highlighted the Liberals' long record in government and resulting patronage appointments.[43]
Turner discovered late in the campaign that the Liberals' electoral hopes were poor in their traditional stronghold of Quebec.[44] The party had heretofore relied on Trudeau's appeal, patronage, and traditional dislike of the Progressive Conservatives for victory in recent previous elections. Turner had surrounded himself with Trudeau's factional opponents and Trudeau himself did not endorse Turner.[45] In a last-minute turnaround, Turner rehired much of Trudeau's staff during the final weeks, but this had little effect. Quebec's disaffection with the federal Liberals regardingpatriation in 1982 further contributed to their defeat. Mulroney, a nativeQuebecker, was able to harness that discontent to the Progressive Conservatives' advantage by promising a new constitutional agreement.[40]
On September 4, the Liberals were swept from power in a Tory landslide.[46] The Liberals were cut down to 40 seats, the fewest in the party's history until2011, against 211 for the Progressive Conservatives. The Liberals fell to 17 seats in Quebec, all but four in and aroundMontreal. Eleven members of Turner's cabinet were defeated. It was the worst defeat the Liberals experienced in a federal election since1958.[46]
Turner stepped down as prime minister on September 17.[47] The election having been called just over a week after his being sworn in, Turner held the office of prime minister for two months and seventeen days, the second-shortest stint in Canadian history, ahead of onlySir Charles Tupper, who took office after dissolution of parliament.[48] Turner, along with Tupper and later Mulroney's successor,Kim Campbell, were the only PMs who never faced a parliament or implemented any legislative initiative.[49]
In 1984, Turner managed to defeat the Tory incumbent in Vancouver Quadra, Bill Clarke by 3,200 votes, a surprising result given the size of the Tory wave, and becameleader of the opposition.[50] He was the only Liberal MP from British Columbia, and one of only two from west of Ontario. The Liberals, amid their worst showing in party history and led by an unpopular Turner, were said by some pundits to be following theBritish Liberals into oblivion. Though the Liberals had not fared much better in the1958 election, they had clearly emerged as the main opposition party back then. After the1984 election, however, the NDP were not far behind with 30 seats.[51] Their leaderEd Broadbent consistently outpolled Turner and even Mulroney, except in Quebec.[52]
The Liberals responded by using their largeSenate majority, built up over years of Liberal majorities in the Commons, to stall Mulroney's legislation. In addition, a group of young Liberal MPs, known as the "Rat Pack", pestered Mulroney at every turn. The group includedSheila Copps,Brian Tobin,Don Boudria, andJohn Nunziata.[53]
Turner's leadership was frequently questioned, and in the lead up to the 1986 Liberal convention, a vote of confidence loomed large. The popular Jean Chrétien resigned his seat, creating a stir in caucus.Keith Davey publicly voiced his concerns with Turner's leadership,[54] which coincided with backroom struggles involving Chrétien's supporters. The public conflict is said to have influenced many Liberals to support Turner, and he ended up getting a little over 75% of the delegate vote.[55]The Liberals faced more internal conflict in the next few years, but polls frequently had them in front of the Progressive Conservatives (but with Turner last in preferred prime minister categories). The upcomingCanada–US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) andMeech Lake Accord threatened to divide the party until Turner took the position of being pro-Meech Lake[56] and against the FTA. Turner asked the Liberal Senators to hold off on passing the legislation to implement the agreement until an election was held. It was later revealed that Mulroney planned to have an election called, anyway.[57]
When theelection was called for November 21, 1988, the Liberals had some early struggles, notably during one day in Montreal where 3 different costs were given for the proposed Liberal daycare program. The campaign was also hampered by aCanadian Broadcasting Corporation report that stated there was a movement in the backroom to replace Turner with Chrétien.[58][59]
Turner campaigned rallying support against the proposed FTA, an agreement that he said would lead to the abandonment of Canada's political sovereignty to the United States.[60][61] His performance in the debate and his attacks on Mulroney and the FTA, where he accused the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of selling Canada out with one signature of a pen,[59] raised his poll numbers, and soon the Liberals were hoping for a majority. This prompted the Progressive Conservatives to stop the relatively calm campaign they had been running, and followAllan Gregg's suggestion of "bombing the bridge" that joined anti-FTA voters and the Liberals, Turner's credibility.[62] The ads focused on Turner's leadership struggles, and combined with over $6 million in pro-FTA ads, stopped Turner's momentum. Also not helping the Liberals was that the NDP had opposed the FTA as well (though not as vocally); this likely resulted in vote-splitting between the opposition parties. Although most Canadians voted for parties opposed tofree trade, the Tories were returned with a majority government, and implemented the deal.[63][16]
The Liberals more than doubled their representation to 83 seats, and kept their role as theOfficial Opposition; the NDP had also made gains but finished a distant third with 43 seats. The Progressive Conservatives won a reduced majority government with 169 seats.[59][63]
The election loss seemed to confirm Turner's fate; he announced he was standing down from the party leadership in May 1989,[64] officially resigning in June 1990. Turner resigned as Official Opposition leader, while still holding the Liberal leadership, soHerb Gray became thecaucus leader in the interim.[65] Chrétien won that year'sleadership convention overPaul Martin.[66] Although not officially endorsed by Turner himself, Martin was widely the favourite of Turner's supporters.[67]
Turner continued to represent Vancouver Quadra in the House of Commons before retiring from politics in the 1993 election.[13]
In 1990, Turner returned to practising law, this time working for Miller Thomson LLP, while he continued serving as an MP for another three years. He eventually became head of the firm's scholarship program. Turner was also a board member for several corporations.[3]
According to Canadian protocol, as a former prime minister, he was styledThe Right Honourable for life.
Turner was ranked 18th out of the first 20 Prime Ministers of Canada (throughJean Chrétien) by a survey of Canadian historians in 1999. The survey was used in the bookPrime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders byJ. L. Granatstein andNorman Hillmer.[85]
Turner was appointed a Companion of theOrder of Canada on October 19, 1994, and was invested on May 3, 1995. His citation reads:
He became Canada's seventeenth Prime Minister, crowning a distinguished parliamentary career during which he held several key Cabinet portfolios. Parallel to his political life, he has been a respected member of the law profession and supporter of many charitable organizations, in particular Mount Sinai Hospital and the Community Foundation of Toronto. His passion for his country is admired by all Canadians.[86]
Coat of arms of John Turner
Crest
Issuant from a coronet érablé Gules the rim bearing a frieze of alternating dogwood lily and trillium flowers all Argent a demi wolf Or charged on each shoulder with a poppy Gules seeded Sable and bearing in the dexter forepaw an ansul Gules;
Escutcheon
Gules four canoe paddles their handles conjoined in cross between four canoes Or on a canton the mark of the Prime Ministership of Canada (Argent four maple leaves conjoined in cross at the stem Gules);
Supporters
On a grassy mound rising above barry wavy Argent and Azure set between two stems growing thereon roses Gules thistles and shamrocks Or and standing in front of river cedar trees Vert dexter a caribou buck Or gorged with a collar of river cedar branches Vert pendant therefrom the badge of a member of the House of Commons of Canada sinister a caribou doe Or gorged with a like collar pendant therefrom a medallion per bend barry wavy Azure and Argent and Vert;
^Goar, Carol (September 17, 1984)."John Turner maps his future".Maclean's.Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2020.
^Wallace, Bruce; Tedesco, Theresa (May 15, 1989)."Stepping Down".Maclean's.Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2020.
Turner, John N. (2009).Politics of purpose. McIninch, Elizabeth., Milnes, Arthur, 1966-. Kingston, Ont.: School of Policy Studies, Queen's University.ISBN978-1-55339-227-9.OCLC277196309.