John Turner: letter and editor's response (regarding a picketing incident on September 19, 1995).

John Turner

On September 19, 1995, Mr. John Turner, former Prime Minister of Canada, was picketed by pro-lifers while delivering an afternoon address during an ecumenical service in the Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter, London, Ontario, on the occasion of the opening of the new season for the Courts and the Judiciary. We received the following letter apropos our news story from Mr. Paul Bundgard, chairman of the Opening of the Courts Committee.

From Paul Bundgard

While reading your November, 1995 issue I came across an item in News in Brief which attracted my attention: a short piece on John Turner under the heading "Catholic counter-witness" (No. 9, p. 14). As one of the persons identified in that piece, I would like to comment on it, to the extent the facts are within my knowledge.

The item contains a number of inaccuracies and omissions.

First, and contrary to the conclusion one might draw on reading the item, Mr. Turner did not speak at a "Red Mass" (a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit marking the start of the judicial year). The Mass, held at St. Peter's Cathedral, London, was celebrated over the noon hour on September 19, long before Mr. Turner arrived in the city. The homilist was the Cathedral rector, Monsignor O'Donnell. Mr. Turner instead spoke at an ecumenical service held in the Cathedral later that afternoon. The item makes the Mass and ecumenical service appear as one and the same event. They were, in fact, two separate events, one Catholic and the other ecumenical. Bishop Sherlock's attendance at the ecumenical service should be understood in that context.

Second, the item refers to my having given a "statement," and leaves the reader with the impression that this statement was somehow linked with "accusations" by diocesan officials that pro-life supporters were engaging in "revisionist history." This supposed "statement" (which to me suggests a public pronouncement of some sort, in my capacity as chairman of the Opening of the Courts Committee) was in actuality a private letter I had written to a specific prolife individual in response to concerns he had expressed about Mr. Turner. The letter clearly stated that it was written in my personal capacity. I had no mandate from the Committee to make any sort of "statement." Although I would have had no objection to the making of this letter public, I was surprised to see it quoted in your magazine without any prior consultation with me. Had I been consulted, I would have pressed for accurate and complete coverage. The part of the letter reproduced in your News in Brief item should have been reproduced with the paragraph in which it appeared:

[S]peaking from my own knowledge, Mr. Turner has always been in fundamental opposition to abortion. In the late 1960s, he perceived (rather presciently, as it turned out) that the political climate in Canada was strongly inclined toward abortion on demand. He sincerely believed that the balance struck by former section 251 was the best that he could achieve in the circumstances. I enclose, for your reference, copies of pages 130 and 131 from a book, John Turner: The Long Run, written by Jack Cahill and published by McClelland and Stewart in 1984. These pages, which only touch on the issues, support my understanding of Mr. Turner's position and his own efforts in struggling with the moral issues involved. Ultimately, however, God must be the judge of the sincerity of those efforts and the choices he made, just as God shall be the judge of us all.

(Apart from what is said in News in Brief, I have no knowledge of the quotation said to be taken from remarks made by Mr. Turner in 1990. However, I can only wonder if this quotation, even if accurate, is rendered in proper context. In any event, it does not describe the 1969 abortion law correctly and does not accord with other statements made by Mr. Turner.)

Third, whatever happened to the principle of giving credit where credit is due? The item is headed "counter-witness" but fails to mention at all the powerful witness that Mr. Turner gave at the Opening of the Courts service by speaking on behalf of the poor of our society, who now appear to be sharing disproportionately in the burden of reducing government debt. He called on laws and public policy to safeguard the rights and interests of the poor, as well as to protect their access to the justice system. Why could this have not been reported? Has Mr. Turner been judged incapable of any good?

Finally, why was nothing said about the manner of witness given by certain prolife demonstrates? Do you really think that their ad hominem attacks advanced the prolife cause?--a cause which I support (consider, for example, the pickets describing Mr. Turner as a "natural born killer"--alluding to a recent Hollywood film which, by the way, I do not think pro-lifers should be helping make part of the popular culture). In seeking to rebuild a societal consensus in favour of life, prudence and charity must be exercised. So, too, the pro-life press must be prudent and charitable, showing at all times a careful regard for the truth.

London, ON

The Editor responds

I would like to thank the writer for his letter, and for providing the opportunity to discuss the more important aspect of this exchange, that is, the position of John Turner vis-a-vis abortion. Let me, therefore, first reply to the details raised by Mr. Bundgard regarding the event itself.

First. The nature of the event was as Mr. Bundgard explains. Our report telescoped the two events too much.

Second. I acknowledge Mr. Bundgard's correction that while he was the chairman of the Opening of the Court's Committee, the letter was written "in my personal capacity, and as a parishioner of St. Peter's," as it reads in the original letter. The "statement" of our news report therefore, was not a statement, but a personal letter written to our contact person "as a result of a telephone conversation he (the contact person) had... with Monsignor O'Donnell." There is, then, no institutional connection between this letter and other observations about pro-life protesters supporting a "revisionist" history made elsewhere.

Fourth. (I am skipping third.) I agree with the sentiment expressed in the final paragraph that the signs saying "natural born killers" were inappropriate and illchosen. Such things do happen in the rush to get a picket organized, but that's not an excuse.

Third. The quality of Mr. Turner's address on September 19 was never in question; it was simply not of interest under the circumstances. The designation "counter-witness" refers to those who invited Mr. Turner. It is they who are giving counter-witness by their social approval of the speaker.

I would like to make it clear that I believe John Turner to be a fine gentleman. As his biographer points out, he is informed about the Church's social teaching, which was the subject of his talk. He has read Papal encyclicals and he has continued to take an interest in such matters, regularly attending, for example, the annual summer Conferences of the Pontifical Institute at St. Michael's College in Toronto. Indeed, I was told that his address on September 19 was impressive.

Let us now, however, turn to the real issue at hand: John Turner's stand on abortion, both in the past and to-day, in an attempt to get at the truth once and for all.

Who is John Turner?

Born in 1929, John Turner, a Catholic, received his early education at Ashbury, a private school, then as a teenager at St. Patrick's College high school in Ottawa. After four years at the University of B.C. (honours Political Science), he won a Rhodes scholarship and studied jurisprudence and law in Oxford. He practised law in Montreal for eleven years and was elected to Parliament in 1962.

In July 1968 he became Minister of Justice in the newly elected Trudeau government. In 1972 he switched to Finance, then resigned from the Cabinet in September 1975, and from the Commons in February 1976. He returned to politics in 1984, won the Liberal party leadership upon the resignation of Pierre Trudeau, and thus became Prime Minister. After a few months in office he was defeated by Brian Mulroney's Conservatives, but he remained Liberal leader until the end of 1989, when he declined to run in the fall election.

The key event of his life.

What was the most important event in John Turner's political career? Without a doubt, it was the passage of the Omnibus Bill in 1969 which included the legalization of abortion.

Let me come to the point at once: John Turner's 1969 action on abortion was absolutely wrong both in its intellectual and moral principles, as well as in its execution and wording.

But should we, as Paul Bundgard suggests, not leave John Turner's past record on the abortion issue to the judgment of God Himself? I don't think that suggestion very fair, coming right after the writer's own views that Mr. Turner

a) is fundamentally opposed to abortion;

b) had the foresight to do something about abortion on demand;

c) sincerely believed his proposed and enacted Section 251 offered a balanced response.

There are other reasons for pursuing the issue: not only are the effects of Mr. Turner's decision still with us today, but his reasons for enacting Section 251 are still as threatening today as they were in 1969.

Mr. Bundgard suggests that John Turner is essentially opposed to abortion. I answer: so is practically everyone else in Canada, man, woman and child. But pray, tell, why is it that after Mr. Turner's amendment to the Criminal Code of May 14, 1969, there were 542 abortions in hospitals in 1969; 11,152 in 1970; 30,923 in 1971; and rising steadily thereafter, year after year, to 104,000 in 1993?

As for our quote from a 1990 speech by Mr. Turner that "The 1969 law was the best we could get. Why? Because it left the decision to abort between a woman and her doctor" (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 9, 1990), it fits his general views very well indeed. And we shall now see why.

Origins

The idea about large moral issues concerning "private morality" only was officially launched--so to speak--by the British "Wolfenden Report" of 1957. It became British law in 1967 concerning both homosexuality and abortion. Turner came to accept this, hence his statement that "morality is a matter of private conscience" (Hansard, April 17, 1969).

As Jack Cahill reports in his biography, when Turner went on a speaking tour as Minister without Portfolio two years earlier, in January 1967, he "advocated updating the Criminal Code so that it would not legislate anyone's private morality" (p.120). Turner read Wolfenden but apparently not Wolfenden's main critic, former Justice Lord Devlin, who argued conclusively that the Criminal Code cannot be neutral. Of necessity, it must represent somebody's moral criteria. (For a fuller discussion, see my Morality and Law in Canadian, Politics, 1974, Chapters 1 and 9.)

House of Commons 

With respect to the 1969 debate in the House of Commons. Mr. Turner, with full knowledge and free will, rejected every single proposal to tighten up the wording of the government's amendment, whether these proposals came from Conservatives, Liberals or Creditistes. In Cabinet he opposed the idea of a free vote (Minutes, Globe, June 20, 1989). There were MPs in the House during the April-May 1969 debate forecasting disaster. He would not listen. He denied that the government was legalizing abortion, or supporting abortion, or even condoning it. Abortions, he said, would not be done for socio-economic reasons, for rape, or for the risk of deformity of the foetus.

In his obstinacy Mr. Turner refused to define the word "health," even when three members of his own party pointed out that this might open it to the World Health Organization's interpretation--an interpretation rejected by the investigating House of Commons-Senate Committee previously. Under it even the slightest physical discomfort is listed as a "health reason" (Hansard, April 29, 1969) "Health," Turner said, "is incapable of definition and this will be left to the good professional judgment of medical practitioners to decide."

In fact, when later on, in August of 1970, he was asked how the word "health" was to be defined, he quoted the WHO definition (Globe & Mail, Jan. 18, 1975). By March 6, 1975 he had "advanced" to the point where he said that abortion "should be left to the personal conscience" (Ottawa Citizen, March 6, 1975).

Private morality only

Jack Cahill, the biographer quoted by Mr. Bundgard (pp. 130 and 131). confirms that Turner saw abortion as a private (religious) issue and one, moreover, where "you have to give away a little of your Catholicity" for the sake "of the common good" (as if abortion were just a Catholic issue and as if Catholics could give away somebody else's human rights). Cahill states that in 1969 Turner received "thousands of letters, mostly from Catholics, protesting the proposed relaxation of the abortion legislation." Unfortunately, he paid no attention to these, nor to the resignation of his riding president in Ottawa-Carleton, the Catholic Dalton McGuinty, in protest against his stand, nor for that matter to a delegation of the Bishops. "I asked the boys," Turner says (page 131), "whether they had a legal opinion as to what the Bill really meant and they didn't have one." So I said to them, `Here's what it really means. . .' "

Well, rarely in world history and never in Canadian history has a "legal" opinion proved so bloodily wrong as Mr. Turner's. Yet as far as anyone can tell, it has never led to an examination of conscience on his part. In the election campaign of 1984 he proudly reminded his listeners that "I am one of the architects of the abortion amendment." The number killed that year was 62,291, not counting thousands of lives extinguished in the illegal abortuaries of Quebec.

No change of views

If after a number of years Mr. Turner had acknowledged his error, pro-lifers would not take umbrage today. But, alas, there is no evidence of a change of heart or mind at all. This is best illustrated by a lengthy statement in the House of Commons on November 8, 1989, on the occasion of Prime Minister Mulroney's legislation. Turner explained to the House that "within our society there are two diametrically opposite and opposed views on abortion," which, he observed, cannot be reconciled philosophically, theologically or politically.

What then did Mr. Turner suggest? Did he, twenty years after 1969, place himself at the defence of the inalienable right of every human being to life? Alas, no. "It is our duty, as legislators," he said "to attempt to find that uneasy accomodation between those two points of view." We must "somehow . . . seek the common good," he stated. But in a pluralistic society such as we have in Canada, he continued,

"I believe our duty is not to impose our own beliefs rigidly on the views of others who may strongly disagree. . . we have the responsibility, not only not to impose our personal views on a final legislative decision . . . but not to allow our own personal views, no matter how deeply held . . . to be the sole criterion by which we judge this legislation."

(Hansard, Nov. 8, 1989)

This is a muddled view of the role of a parliamentarian, let alone of a Catholic legislator, who should believe in objective standards of moral behaviour. American columnist Joseph Sobran recently called this type of thinking "the orthodoxy of nonsense."

Everyone's first duty, and surely that of the statesman, must be to the Truth.

Yet the above passage argues that the element of truth plays no role. It fits the notion, now so common, that in a "pluralistic" society there is no truth, that all beliefs are subjective, or equally right or equally wrong even when they contradict one another and that, therefore, we just hope for the best and seek an "accomodation." One finds no understanding of the inalienable rights of every living human being, nor that abortion is an act of violence which ends in death, an act which is directly contrary to God's command. And all this, in face of the Pope's constant repetition, year in, year out, that abortion is a heinous crime against both God and man.

Consulting theologians

That leaves one final and serious aspect. Mr. Turner prides himself on having "consulted theologians," one in Quebec City and one in Toronto. Mr. Cahill has him say to the Bishops' delegation: "Gentlemen, I happen to have two theological opinions as to what my duty is. I had them and they knew it."

And in January 1985, at a Liberal Party luncheon in Winnipeg, he repeated that "we consulted religious advice--before drafting those words," adding, "in the circumstances, it's the best accommodation" (Montreal Gazette, Jan. 19, 1985).

I have no information about the reaction of the Bishops' delegation. If they offered no resistance, this should not appear strange. During the years 1966-1969 it was the approach of the Conference of Bishops to argue that Catholics cannot, must not impose their views, on political-moral questions. That's one reason why those years were such a disaster (see my article in Study Sessions of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association 1982, pp. 87-109, "Understandable but Mistaken: Law, morality and the Catholic Church in Canada, 1966-1969").

I know that in Toronto Mr. Turner consulted a Professor at the Pontifical Institute, who told him that it was his responsibility to go ahead as he saw fit. That was a sad day and one feels sympathy for Mr. Turner. Yet when I mentioned this to the late Father John Kelly, President of St. Michael's, he said: "Well, wait a minute; he asked two people here, who gave him opposite advice. He chose the one convenient to his plans."

The theologian in Quebec must have suffered from the same deception as the one in Toronto, thinking that the Second Vatican Council wanted the Church to accommodate herself to the world when the Church really wanted renewal to better face the world and Christianize it.

So was John Turner justified in presenting his "accomodation"? Well, no. If he had read the "thousands of letters" from Catholics in 1968 and 1969 mentioned by Jack Cahill, he would have discovered the real position of the Catholic Church, and also that of natural moral law and Divine law. But the letter writers were dismissed out of hand and that's how Mr. Turner comes to justify himself!

Conclusion

Pro-lifers have a right to protest when other authorities--Catholic or otherwise--invite people of standing such as John Turner to speak at gatherings sponsored by them. Such social acceptance gives scandal by glossing over the evil of abortion.

The flyer handed, out at the September 19, 1995, London picket says: "We appeal to Mr. Turner to join with us to repair the damage he has done and help restore legal protection for the unborn child." This is meant very sincerely. A conversion would first put him straight with God. In addition, it would be a powerful sign towards renewal and reparation. Needless to say, the same is true for the other Catholic former Prime Ministers: Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. Let us continue to work and pray for their conversion.