OTTAWA – Eugene Whelan figures a seat in the Senate will give him a perch from which he can take public aim at issues close to his liberal, federalist heart – national unity, farmer power and the need for Canada to continue foreign aid.
For the first time in a dozen years, it will also give him a seat inside the Liberal caucus where he can join the handful of liberals who think the Liberals have become too conservative.
“I would say a real Liberal is one that can’t fly unless it has two strong wings,” he said a day after his Senate appointment was announced Aug. 8.
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The former agriculture minister said he has had some concerns about the drift of the government, with its concentration on deficit reduction, reducing the influence of government and deregulation.
“I’ve always been one who believes in working through caucus, in private, and I will do that,” he said. “But I suppose I can make some suggestive speeches in public too.”
Whelan said one of his issues will be to promote Canadian independence from the Americans. “I always have been a fan of what (U.S. president) Thomas Jefferson said. Let no nation tell another what to do.”
Whelan considers his appointment to the Senate a vindication for several past slights.
In 1984 as prime minister Pierre Trudeau was preparing to leave office, he offered Whelan a chance to go to the Senate. Whelan turned it down, opting to stay in elected politics.
Then, the roof caved in. After a successful 22-year political career, he was fired twice in short order.
The memory still stings.
First, new prime minister John Turner dropped him from cabinet after he replaced Trudeau as Liberal leader. Then, as a consolation prize, he was appointed Canada’s first ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Before he could even leave Ottawa for Rome, the new Conservative government fired him as an example of inappropriate Liberal patronage.
Whelan still has hurt feelings about the episode.
He was not happy that in the official biography published by the Prime Minister’s Office last week, it referred to his ill-fated FAO ambassadorship. It did not mention that he had been fired by the Tories.
“This appointment lets me end my career with, how do you say, some position. I’m a little pleased about it.”
