John Crosbie, a firebrand of a politician who served in several federal cabinet portfolios and who played a dominant role in his beloved Newfoundland and Labrador for decades, has died.
He was 88.
“To Newfoundland and Labrador and to Canada, he was an independent spirit, a passionate nation builder, an orator of biting wit and charm, and always — forever — a tireless fighter for the people,” reads a family statement released Friday morning.
“John’s is a legacy worth celebrating, a life worth emulating, a name indelibly etched in the history of this place we love.”
General visitation for Crosbie will take place at the House of Assembly in St. John’s on Jan. 14-15 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. NT.
A funeral service will be held at the Anglican Cathedral on Jan. 16 at 2 p.m.
Condolences from former prime ministers, colleagues, friends and media personalities alike came rolling in Friday, as news of Crosbie’s death spread across the country.
During a remarkable career that took him from St. John’s city council to the inner sanctum of Parliament Hill, from fishing wharfs to the negotiating rooms of international trade agreements, Crosbie earned praise — and criticism — for his quick wit, saucy tongue and willingness to make controversial decisions.
Chief among those was a stomach-churning decision to shut down the northern cod fishery off Newfoundland and Labrador in 1992, a decision that instantly put an estimated 30,000 people out of work and triggered what was called the single largest industrial layoff in Canadian history.
John Crosbie tells CBC News in 2017 about his experience in politics, when he says he had to fight for a better compensation package for displaced fisheries workers in 1992. (CBC)
He also oversaw Canada’s fateful 1989 free-trade agreement with the United States, championed the Hibernia offshore oil megaproject in the years before its development, and served as a powerful regional minister in an era when cabinet portfolios were allowed that kind of clout. A titan of Tory politics, he was unapologetic about patronage, claiming that appointing qualified supporters to public positions was key to democracy.
Crosbie never served as premier of Newfoundland and Labrador nor prime minister, but he was politically ambitious, launching unsuccessful leadership attempts at the provincial and federal levels.
In his later years, he served as Newfoundland and Labrador’s lieutenant-governor, a ceremonial role he embraced between 2008 and 2013.
His last major public appearance was in September 2018, when his son Ches Crosbie won a provincial byelection. Ches Crosbie is now the leader of the Opposition Tories in Newfoundland and Labrador’s House of Assembly.
Lt.-Gov. John Crosbie in the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature in St. John’s March 22, 2010. (The Canadian Press)
Born into privilege
John Carnell Crosbie was born Jan. 30, 1931, in St. John’s to a prominent business family. He overcame the painful shyness of his youth to emerge as a potent political force, with his career in public life stretching from the 1960s through to his final years.
Although known for a caustic wit and a willingness to argue with any political opponent, Crosbie — who trained first as a lawyer — once found public speaking so mortifying that he enrolled in a Dale Carnegie course to muster the courage to speak in public.
His political career accelerated quickly. Crosbie jumped from a seat on St. John’s city council to a cabinet seat in the Liberal government of legendary Newfoundland premier Joseph R. Smallwood in 1966.
Lt-Gov. Crosbie, wearing a sealskin coat, and his wife, Jane, greet Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, at Government House for a tree planting ceremony Nov. 4, 2009, in St. John’s. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)
But Crosbie resisted becoming a Smallwood protegé, and in 1968 quit cabinet — with future Liberal premier Clyde Wells — over frustrations with a deal Smallwood wanted to make with American industrialist John Shaheen over an oil refinery at Come By Chance.
Crosbie stayed on the sidelines of the provincial Liberals before stepping into a leadership race in 1969 to replace Smallwood. His ambitions were thwarted in bizarre fashion, though, when Smallwood — still the sitting premier — entered the leadership race to replace himself, insisting that Liberals could not trust the young politician he decried as a “merchant princeling.”
Crosbie broke ranks with the Liberals and, in a fateful move, jumped to the Progressive Conservatives, helping the once-feeble Newfoundland Tories muster enough strength to topple the 23-year grip on power that Smallwood had enjoyed. With Frank Moores as premier, Crosbie emerged as the de facto powerhouse of the PC government, serving in roles that included finance and government House leader.
By 1976, the lure of federal politics took Crosbie to Ottawa, after he won a byelection in St. John’s West — the riding he would represent for most of the next two decades.
Crosbie in the House Of Commons on May 17, 1988. (Chuck Mitchell/The Canadian Press)
In 1979, he was finance minister in Joe Clark’s short-lived Tory government, wearing mukluks (rather than the traditional new pair of shoes) to bring in a tough-love budget that included tax increases for what Crosbie called “short-term pain for long-term gain.”
Clark’s government wound up having a short term, with the NDP putting Crosbie’s budget to a non-confidence vote that triggered a new election.
In 1983, Crosbie entered the subsequent PC leadership contest that Clark called to resolve tensions within the party. He wound up placing third, behind Clark and the victor, Brian Mulroney. Crosbie declined to endorse either candidate, and earned attention as the largest defender of free trade in the race. But his campaign came under attack when, defending his inability to speak French, he quipped that he could not speak Mandarin Chinese, either.
Federal front bench
As a key member of Mulroney’s team in the wake of the Tory triumph in the 1984 election, Crosbie held several portfolios in the years to come: justice, transport, international trade and fishery.
A dedicated free trader, Crosbie held the torch for Canada as it negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The FTA became the template for NAFTA, the trilateral agreement later reached with Mexico.
His time in Parliament was marked as much by colour and controversy as by his political ambitions.
Federal Fisheries Minister Crosbie confronts fishermen in Bay Bulls on July 1, 1992. (CBC)
“Just quiet down, baby,” he told Liberal MP Sheila Copps in an infamous June 1985 exchange in the House of Commons. “I’m not his baby, and I’m nobody’s baby,” Copps fired back.
Five years later, Crosbie ignited another controversy about Copps when he quoted the lyrics of a Bobby Bare song at a B.C. fundraising dinner. “Pass the tequila, Sheila, and lay down and love me again,” he said. Crosbie and Copps, despite the headlines, became friends. She titled her 1986 autobiography Nobody’s Baby and he wrote the introduction for her second book, Worth Fighting For, in 2004.
Crosbie frequently earned the ire of feminists — New Democrat Dawn Black, one of what Crosbie called the “four horsewomen of the apocalypse” once called him a “Crosbiesaurus” — but he also held firm to Red Tory beliefs. Pro-choice, Crosbie actually fought in 1990 for the reinstatement of funding that had been cut for women’s programs across Canada, and held progressive views on social issues, including protecting LGBT people from discrimination.
Shutting down the fishery
In his final years in cabinet, Crosbie took on the fisheries portfolio — as well as the politically difficult decision to shut down the northern cod fishery on July 2, 1992. The decision came after months of consistently worsening reports of the state of cod stocks, and would be followed by other closures in Atlantic Canadian waters.
The day before, on Canada Day, Crosbie uttered one of his most famous remarks when he was confronted by angry fishermen on the wharf in Bay Bulls.
“Why are you yelling at me? I didn’t take the fish from the God damn water,” Crosbie yelled back.
Ches Crosbie, right, sits beside his father on Dec. 18, 2014. (The Canadian Press)
It was a sign of Crosbie’s clout in cabinet that he was able to deliver a massive compensation package that provided transitional income for about 28,000 people who either fished for a living or worked in fish plants that subsequently closed.
Crosbie retired from federal politics in 1993, the same year the PCs would be not only cleared out of office but reduced to a caucus of just two seats. Crosbie, who thought little of Kim Campbell’s leadership, found himself to be the blunt party member who called it the way he saw it after the loss.
“The world knows who’s responsible,” Crosbie told CBC News. “It’s the leader and those immediately around her who advised during the course of the election campaign. They must bear the burden of responsibility.”
Semi-public life
Although Crosbie would toy with the idea of a return to elected office — he briefly entertained the thought of a federal comeback leading into the 2004 election — he found other pursuits after Ottawa.
He wrote a 1997 memoir, No Holds Barred: My Life In Politics, in which he detailed behind-the-scenes exchanges with his former colleagues among the high and mighty. He also acknowledged that his sense of humour could be a liability with some pundits and journalists.
Conservative cabinet minister Crosbie is invested as Officer to the Order of Canada by Gov. Gen. Romeo LeBlanc at a ceremony at Rideau hall in Ottawa in 1999. (Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press)
“I refused to act as though I’d been weaned on a pickle,” he wrote, describing how he stood out from other politicians.
“The media, however, wouldn’t make the effort to listen to what I was saying or understand what I was doing. Instead, they stereotyped me as a buffoon, an entertainer, a jokester who was incapable of taking serious matters seriously.”
Crosbie also found himself bristling at having been often labelled a “loose cannon because I refused to pussyfoot around issues and only say safe, predictable things.”
Away from the political limelight, Crosbie returned to a private legal practice, but found new ways to participate in public life.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, left, shares a laugh with Crosbie, chancellor of Memorial University, as Chrétien receives an honorary doctor of laws degree in St. John’s on May, 24, 2000. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
In 1994, he was named chancellor of Memorial University, a post he held for 14 years.
In 2008, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Newfoundland and Labrador. His five-year term returned him often to the public eye, albeit in a much more ceremonial fashion.
During his tenure as lieutenant-governor, Crosbie pursued a project of passion: developing a memorial to sealers, particularly those killed in a notorious 1914 disaster. The Home From The Sea centre and memorial was formally unveiled in 2014.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The Tampa Bay Lightning selected Victor Hedman as the team captain on Wednesday as training camp opened, making the big defenseman the successor to Steven Stamkos.
Hedman, who is going into his 16th season with Tampa Bay, was considered the obvious choice to get the “C” after the Lightning did not re-sign Stamkos and their longtime captain left to join Nashville.
“Victor is a cornerstone player that is extremely well respected by his teammates, coaches and peers across the NHL,” general manager Julien BriseBois said. “Over the past 15 seasons, he has been a world-class representative for our organization both on and off the ice. Victor embodies what it means to be a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning and is more than ready for this exciting opportunity. We are looking forward to watching him flourish in his new role as we continue to work towards our goal of winning the Stanley Cup.”
The 33-year-old from Sweden was a key contributor in the Lightning hoisting the Cup back to back in 2020 and ’21, including playoff MVP honors on the first of those championship runs. Hedman also took home the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman in 2018 and finished in the top three in voting five other seasons.
Ryan McDonagh, who was reacquired early in the offseason in a trade with the Predators, and MVP finalist Nikita Kucherov will serve as alternate captains with the Lightning moving on to the post-Stamkos era.
TORONTO – While Toronto FC is looking to improve its position on the pitch, general manager Jason Hernandez is trying to do the same off it.
That has been easier said than done this season.
Sending winger Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty to CF Montreal for up to $1.3 million (all dollar figures in U.S. funds) in general allocation money before the secondary transfer window closed in early August helped set the stage for future moves.
But there have been plenty of obstacles, which Hernandez has been working to clear.
“We feel a lot more confident going into this upcoming off-season that we did the one prior,” said Hernandez. “There’s a level of what I would say booby-traps that were uncovered when I first got the (GM) role at the end of last summer.”
The club is paying off departed forwards Adam Diomande and Ayo Akinola as well as a $500,000 payment due in 2024 to Belgium’s Anderlecht for Jamaican international defender Kemar Lawrence. That payment was part of the transfer fee for Lawrence, who joined TFC from Anderlecht in May 2021 and was traded to Minnesota United in March 2022.
Diomande was waived while Akinola’s contract was terminated by mutual agreement.
“That comes to an end in ’25, which is nice,” said Hernandez. “We had to suffer from a salary cap perspective this season. But those things coming off, the Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty money coming in, we’re going to be in a position to make some good additions, which is positive.”
While MLS clubs are allowed one contract buyout per year, Toronto had already used its on former captain Michel Bradley, who retired after last season. Bradley had previously restructured his contract, deferring money.
TFC’s only other move during the summer transfer window was the signing of free-agent defender Henry Wingo. Hernandez said the club knew going into the window that it was likely limited to the one acquisition “unless other business happened”
“We knew we had this bucket of money and we knew we were going to go get Henry,” said Hernandez.
While the sale of the highly touted Marshall-Rutty opened up other possibilities, it came on the eve of the transfer window closing. And the team did not like what it saw in the free-agent market.
“A lot of the opportunities we were presented in the free agency space felt more like a short-term, Band-Aid decision versus what actually the club probably needs.”
Hernandez was not willing to take in players who came with a “club-friendly” salary cap charge in 2024 and a much bigger number in 2025.
Instead, Toronto promoted forward Charlie Sharp and wingback Nate Edwards to the first team from TFC 2 ahead of last Friday’s roster freeze.
MLS teams are operating on a salary budget of $5.47 million this season, which covers up to 20 players on the senior roster (clubs can elect to spread that number across 18 players). But the league has several mechanisms that allow those funds to go further, including using allocation money (both general and targeted) to buy down salaries.
Designated players only count $683,750 — the maximum salary charge — against the cap no matter their actual pay. Toronto’s Lorenzo Insigne is actually earning $15.4 million with fellow Italian Federico Bernardeschi collecting $6.295 million and Canadian Richie Laryea $1.208 million.
Hernandez says Laryea’s contract can — and “very likely” will — be restructured so as to remove the designated player status.
There are benefits in going with just two designated players rather than three.
Teams that elect to go with two DPs can sign up to four players as part of the league’s “U22 Initiative.” The pluses of that structure include a reduced salary cap charge for the young players and up to an extra $2 million in general allocation money.
Hernandez says the club is currently pondering whether that is the way to go.
Captain Jonathan Osorio who is earning $836,370 this season, restructured his deal to allow the team to sign Laryea as a DP. In doing so, Osorio had his option year guaranteed so his contact runs through 2026.
Hernandez and coach John Herdman will have decisions to make come the end of the year.
The contracts of goalkeeper Greg Ranjitsingh ($94,200), defenders Kevin Long ($277,500), Shane O’Neill ($413,000) and Kobe Franklin ($100,520), midfielder Alonso Coello ($94,050) and Brandon Servania ($602,710), and forward Prince Owusu ($807,500) — all on the club’s senior roster — expire at the end of 2024 with club options to follow.
While there is more work to do, Hernandez believes TFC is on the right road.
Toronto, which finished last in the league at 4-20-10 in 2023, went into Wednesday’s game against visiting Columbus in a playoff position at eighth in the East at 11-15-3.
“By every metric, we are miles ahead of where we were at this point last year,” said Hernandez.
“That’s a low bar, so that’s not saying much,” he added.
But he believes TFC is “quite competitive” when it has all its players at its disposal.
“To get results in this final stretch, we’re going to need our prominent players to really show up and have big performances, and be supported by the rest of the cast.”
After Columbus, TFC plays at Colorado and Chicago and hosts the New York Red Bulls and Inter Miami. The club also travels to Vancouver for the Canadian Championship final.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
Mackenzie Hughes might just be what the International team needs as this year’s Presidents Cup.
Hughes, from Dundas, Ont., is one of three Canadians on the squad competing in the match-play event at Royal Montreal Golf Club next week.
His putting skills, cool demeanour under pressure, pre-existing connections with teammates and clubhouse leadership could help the team — made up of non-American players outside Europe — end a nine-tournament losing skid to the United States at the biennial event.
“I’ve had this one circled on the calendar for a few years now,” said Hughes on joining fellow Canadians Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners as captain’s picks on the 12-player International team. “I pretty much knew that when it was announced the tournament would be in Canada and that Mike Weir was going to be the captain, you pretty much knew where that was going to go.
“To get that call from (Weir) is really special because he’s the guy that I looked up to, we all looked up to, as Canadian golfers.”
Pendrith and Conners are returning to the team after a disappointing 17 1/2 to 12 1/2 loss to the United States at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C. in 2022.
Hughes was ranked 14th on the International team standings in 2022 and could have easily been included on that squad after Australia’s Cameron Smith and Chile’s Joaquin Niemann were ruled ineligible after jumping ship to the rival LIV Golf circuit.
However, captain Trevor Immelman of South Africa instead chose the lower ranked Christiaan Bezuidenhout (16th) of South Africa, Pendrith (18th), South Korea’s Kim Si-woo (20th) and Australia’s Cameron Davis (25th).
“I certainly wanted to be on that team but also I understood the picks,” said Hughes, who lives in Charlotte and plays at Quail Hollow regularly. “I think that like a lot of guys that don’t get picked you more so look back on your own play and I wish I had made that selection easier for them.
“I didn’t do myself any favours in the six weeks leading up to it and that’s a hard pill to swallow.”
It may have been a costly oversight on Immelman’s part, as finishing holes was an issue for the International team in 2022 and Hughes is one of the best putters on the PGA Tour. This season he’s third in shots gained around the green and fifth in shots gained from putting.
“It doesn’t mean that just because I was there it would have turned the tide, but I’d like to think maybe I could have helped,” said Hughes. “That’s why you play the matches. You have to get out there and do it.”
This year Hughes made it easier for Weir, the Canadian golf legend from Brights Grove, Ont., to choose him. Hughes is 51st in the FedEx Cup Fall standings and has made the cut seven tournaments in a row, including a tie for fourth at last week’s Procore Championship.
“Mac played very solidly all year. Really like his short game, an all-around short game,” said Weir on Sept. 3 after announcing his captain’s picks. “He’s one of the elite and best short game guys on the PGA Tour
“I also love Mac’s grit. So that was the reason I picked him.”
Hughes’s intangible qualities go beyond grit.
He, Pendrith and Conners will arrive at Royal Montreal as a unit within the International squad, having become close friends while playing on Kent State University’s men’s golf team before turning pro. They’re also part of a group of Canadians, including Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., that regularly practice together before PGA Tour events.
“To have those guys with me is really icing on the cake, it’s very special,” said Hughes. “Opportunities like this don’t come around very often: to play this kind of team competition, which is already hard to do, but to play with some of your best friends, it almost seems scripted.”
An 11-year professional, Hughes has also been a member of the PGA Tour’s player advisory council the past two years and has been an outspoken advocate for making professional golf more accessible to fans.
Although Weir relied heavily on analytics to make his captain’s selections, Hughes’s character came up again and again when asked why he was named to the team.
“I just have a gut feeling with Mac that he has what it takes in these big moments,” said Weir. “They’re big pressure moments, and I have a feeling he’s going to do great in those moments.”
DP WORLD TOUR — Aaron Cockerill of Stony Mountain, Man., continues his chase for a spot in the Europe-based DP World Tour’s playoffs. The top 50 players on the Race to Dubai standings make the DP World Tour Championship and Cockerill moved eight spots up to 39th in the rankings after tying for ninth at last week’s Irish Open. He’ll be back at it on Thursday at the BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.
KORN FERRY TOUR — Myles Creighton of Digby, N.S., is ranked 38th on the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour’s points list. He leads the Canadian contingent into this week’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. He’ll be joined at Ohio State University Golf Club — Scarlet Course in Columbus, Ohio by Edmonton’s Wil Bateman (53rd), Etienne Papineau (65th) of St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que., and Sudarshan Yellamaraju (99th) of Mississauga, Ont.
CHAMPIONS TOUR — Calgary’s Stephen Ames is the lone Canadian at this week’s Pure Insurance Championship. He’s No. 2 on the senior circuit’s points list. The event will start Friday and be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill Golf Course in Monterey, Calif.
LPGA TOUR — There are four Canadians in this week’s Kroger City Championship. Savannah Grewal (97th in the Race to CME Globe Rankings) of Mississauga, Ont., Hamilton’s Alena Sharp (115th), and Maude-Aimee Leblanc (142nd) of Sherbrooke, Que., will all tee it up at TPC River’s Bend in Maineville, Ohio.
EPSON TOUR — Vancouver’s Leah John is the low Canadian heading into the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout. She’s 54th in the second-tier tour’s points list. She’ll be joined by Maddie Szeryk (118th) of London, Ont., and Brigitte Thibault (119th) of Rosemere, Que., at Mystic Creek Golf Club in El Dorado, Ark.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
