Canada lost a political legend on this date in 2013 with the death of the past Minister of Agriculture, Eugene Whelan. In 1972 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau brought Whelan into cabinet as Minister of Agriculture. He was famous for wearing his green Stetson and for his advocacy on behalf of Canadian farmers. Whelan also formed an unlikely friendship with his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, and escorted the future leader of the USSR on the latter’s visit to Canada in 1983. Truly larger than life, and popular amongst partisans of all political stripes, Whelan was summoned to the Senate on the advice of his old friend, Jean Chrétien in 1996.
