John Turner

John Napier Wyndham Turner was born in England and moved to Ottawa as a child with his widowed mother, senior economist Phyllis Gregory. A brilliant Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and an Olympic-caliber sprinter who held the Canadian record in the 100-meter dash, he was elected to Parliament as a Liberal in 1962.

As Pierre Trudeau's Minister of Justice (1968-1972), Turner created the Law Reform Commission of Canada, appointed the first women to federal courts, and reformed the Criminal Code. He served as Prime Minister in 1984, later leading the historic national debate against the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in the 1988 election, championing Canadian economic and cultural sovereignty.