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'I had no option' says John Turner

Broadcast Date: July 25, 1984

When the 1984 election campaign kicked off, John Turner enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls ahead of Brian Mulroney and his Progressive Conservatives. But the tide is drastically turning as the two enter the 1984 televised debates. With the question of patronage lingering in the air, Mulroney delivers the verbal equivalent of a sucker punch – forcing a flustered Turner to defend controversial Trudeau patronage appointments. The clip from the debate shows the pivotal exchange as Mulroney makes his rival pay for the legacy of his predecessor.

'I had no option' says John Turner

• In the waning days of his power, Pierre Trudeau named 218 loyal Liberals to plum government jobs. The list included six sitting MPs, including Eugene Whelan and Bryce Mackasey, and reduced the Liberal majority in Parliament to a minority.

• To alleviate some of the negative publicity, Trudeau suggested to his potential successors in cabinet that they defer some of the appointments until after a new leader was selected. Turner, the front-runner, agreed to a written deal that committed him to make 79 of Trudeau's controversial patronage appointments after the leadership convention.

• As Trudeau's successor, Turner struggled to distance himself from his old rival. He promised to smooth over French Canada, which was upset about being left out of the 1982 constitutional patriation, and to forge a new relationship with Western Canada.

• But his undoing would prove to be the controversial patronage appointments initiated by Trudeau, and grudgingly approved by Turner himself.

• Against the advice of his aides, Turner signed a letter affirming to Trudeau that he would follow through on the appointments. (That is the letter that Mulroney refers to this in this clip).

• During the 1984 English language election debates, Turner attempted to challenge Mulroney about a rumoured plan to reward longtime Tories with post-election appointments, saying it smacked of "patronage at its best."

• But before he could follow up his accusations, Mulroney launched a counter-attack that turned the tide of the election.

• "You had an option, sir, to say 'No,'" the Tory leader said. "And you chose to say 'Yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party."

• A visibly flummoxed Turner responded by saying "I had no option." Mulroney continues, calling his defence of Liberal patronage "an avowal of failure."

• Voters responded at the polls on Sept. 4, 1984. The Progressive Conservative Party enjoyed a landslide victory, winning half the popular vote and 211 of 282 seats. The Liberals dropped from a pre-election minority of 135 seats to a mere 40, marking the worst showing for the party in the 20th century.

• Turner holds the inauspicious record as being the shortest serving prime minister of the century - he served a total of 80 days in office. Prime Minister Sir Charles Tupper holds the record for the shortest ever time in office, having served a mere 69 days in 1896.

• Many held up Turner's defeat as resounding proof that he was "yesterday's man" of the Liberal Party, but Turner defended his decision to run.

• "Life is a trust," he told Saturday Night magazine writer Ron Graham in 1984. "And one has a fiduciary obligation toward one's country to put back into it what one has received. I've received a great deal, and I believe that a free society only operates properly if the best men and women offer to serve."

• Despite calls for his resignation Turner stayed on as leader of the Liberal Party, and travelled the country in an effort to rebuild his shattered party.

• In a 1986 Liberal policy convention delegates responded to his efforts, with more than 75 per cent voting to keep him on as leader.

'I had no option' says John Turner

Medium: Television

Program: News Special

Broadcast Date: July 25, 1984

Guest(s): Brian Mulroney, John Turner

Moderator: Peter Truman

Duration: 3:58

Last updated:
July 29, 2009