How long was john turner prime minister

One turning point came during a televised debate when Turner, under fire from Conservative leader Brian Mulroney, said he had no option but to approve a mass of patronage appointments proposed by Trudeau before he left office. The Conservatives swept to power with seats of the in the House of Commons. The Liberals fell to just 40 seats from but Turner hung onto his position. His day tenure as prime minister is the second shortest in Canadian history. In the election campaign he took a strong stance against a proposed free trade agreement with the United States but lost again to Mulroney, although not as badly.

Marc Kealey, a former aide speaking on behalf of the family, said Turner died peacefully in his sleep at home in Toronto on Friday night. Turner failed to live up to the great expectations of his early career, serving as prime minister for just 79 days in after a difficult, decades-long climb to the top job.

A track athletics star, Turner graduated from the University of British Columbia in , winning a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University. After studying law, he went to Paris to work on a doctorate at the Sorbonne. The young lawyer caused a stir when he danced with Princess Margaret at a party in , giving rise to speculation that the two would become a couple.

The delegates who stuck with him until the bitter end were rumoured to have subsequently formed the " Club," a secretive cadre of well-placed political organizers quietly waiting for his next leadership campaign. The promising Liberal would soon be considered Trudeau's heir apparent and the natural choice to continue the Liberals' traditional anglophone-francophone leadership rotation. Shuffled into the finance portfolio in , Turner faced mounting economic pressures due to the global oil crisis.

He also became the government's main economic interlocutor with the White House, playing tennis with Treasury Secretary George Shultz and frequently ironing out bilateral issues over dinner with President Richard Nixon. Successive Turner budgets prioritized low unemployment levels, but at the cost of double-digit inflation and soaring deficits.

Still, some Liberals would later defend Turner as a voice of fiscal prudence at the Trudeau cabinet table, implementing the government's policy in public but privately advocating restraint while other ministers clamoured for ever-bigger budgets. In time, Turner and Trudeau developed a notorious rivalry, and after 10 years as a senior minister in the Trudeau government, Turner resigned from cabinet in with a terse, enigmatic letter.

Turner formally vacated his seat in Parliament in and decamped with his wife and four children to Toronto. He remained in Toronto for the ensuing eight years, refusing to give interviews but maintaining a public profile as the Liberal Party's leader-in-waiting. Turner would also prove a thorn in the side for many former cabinet colleagues, pumping out corporate newsletters to clients that lambasted the Liberals' economic policies.

After Trudeau's second resignation in , Turner finally won the top Liberal job, becoming leader and prime minister at a convention many saw as a coronation.

But he inherited a party sagging and scarred from too many years in power. Turner's decision to move ahead with over appointments proposed by Trudeau in his final days as prime minister cemented the party's image as out of touch and too comfortable in power.

During the '84 televised election debate, Mulroney eviscerated Turner when the Liberal leader unconvincingly argued he had "no option" but to follow through with the appointments. In one of the most iconic exchanges in modern Canadian politics, Mulroney replied: "You could have said: 'I am not going to do it.

This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price. In the end, the Liberals suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of the Progressive Conservatives, receiving just 40 of seats — at the time, the party's worst-ever showing.

Turner had been prime minister for little more than 11 weeks. Only Charles Tupper held the country's top job for less time — 68 days in Turner hung on as Liberal leader, however, rebuilding the party and duelling with Mulroney over the Meech Lake Accord and, most memorably, Canada's trading relationship with the U. He also weathered the firestorm created by Reign of Error , a searing biography by journalist Greg Weston that portrayed Turner as a heavy-drinking, hypocritical loose cannon.

One CBC reporter said it was "written with acid. Fearing the impact Mulroney's Free Trade Agreement would have on Canadian sovereignty, Turner made the controversial move in to instruct Liberal senators to block legislation that would have ratified the deal. Turner was accused of misusing the powers of the unelected Senate, but he told CBC's Bill Cameron at the time, "I believe if Canadians are given a choice to vote on this trade deal, people will reject it.

The decision triggered an election dominated by Canada's trading relationship with the U. In another iconic live TV election debate, Turner told Mulroney "You've sold us out" with "one signature of a pen," and argued the deal would "turn us into a colony of the United States. In the end, although the Liberals increased their share of the House of Commons to 83 seats, Canadians returned the PCs to power with a second majority.