Eugene Whelan, a colourful and popular former federal agriculture minister, is dead at age 88.
He died Feb. 19 from complications after a stroke.
Whelan was Canada’s 21st agriculture minister and with almost 11 years in office, the country’s third longest serving.
He was renowned for his green Stetson, his fierce defense of agriculture and farmers and his often-mangled English that became known as Whelanese.
Although dairy farmers famously showered him with milk during a protest on Parliament Hill in the mid-1970s, Whelan defended supply management marketing boards created under his watch in the 1970s and stood up to critics of food price increases during the inflation years of the 1970s and 1980s.
He was an MP from southwestern Ontario for 22 years.
As a cabinet minister, Whelan served in three governments under prime minister Pierre Trudeau. He held the office from late 1972 until 1979 when Trudeau was defeated and then 1980-84 in Trudeau’s last government.
He said later that Trudeau gave him a long rein, even though some of his fellow cabinet ministers made sure many of Whelan’s grand schemes did not get funding or get off the ground.
“Trudeau told me, ‘Gene, I don’t know what the hell you do but keep doing it,’ ” he said in an interview years later.
Whelan was dropped from cabinet in 1984 when John Turner replaced Trudeau but was appointed Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
He never got to take the job.
Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney quickly cancelled Turner’s patronage appointments and foreign affairs minister Joe Clark delivered the news.
“I was fired by two prime ministers” in one year, Whelan later complained.
Ever after, he referred to former prime minister Clark derisively as “little Joe.”
In 1984, Whelan ran a spirited but doomed campaign to become Liberal leader. He came last.
He became an agricultural consultant, published an autobiography and was a popular fixture at Liberal conventions.
In 1996, prime minister Jean Chrétien appointed him to the Senate where he served as deputy chair of the agriculture committee and helped lead the successful political fight against introduction of a dairy growth hormone into Canada.
Whelan was a farm activist in Ontario before politics and received many awards, including an honorary degree from the University of Windsor, an Order of Canada and a place in the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.
