John Crosbie: In Memoriam

Convivium, 16 January 2020

As mourners gather today to honour John Crosbie, Fr. Raymond de Souza recollects the late politician’s outspoken presence and performance through the years.

Mourners on behalf of a grateful nation gather today at St. John the Baptist, the Anglican Cathedral in St. John’s, for the funeral of the pride of a nation, John Crosbie. Two nations, actually.

When Crosbie was born 88 years ago, Newfoundland was its own dominion, separate from Canada. Scion of one of Newfoundland’s most prominent families, Crosbie’s political career began under the titanic Joey Smallwood, the man who led Newfoundland into Canada and ruled it afterward, part pharaoh, part premier. 

Crosbie would enter provincial politics as part of Smallwood’s cabinet, but would later resign in protest against the autocratic tendencies and corruption of a de facto one-man rule. Crosbie would challenge Smallwood for the leadership, and lose, but his immense courage was the sine qua non of Newfoundland’s transition to normal democratic politics.

But there was nothing normal about Crosbie, if by that is meant being just another politician, competent and creditable. He was much more than that. It was the rhetorical fireworks that got attention, but it was the courage that was more important; whether it was standing up against Smallwood or taking the heat, in person, for standing down the cod fishery of Newfoundland. 

But it is not for me to recall his provincial career in Newfoundland or his various cabinet posts at the federal level – finance, fisheries, justice and international trade. There is only one person in the land to do justice to that tale, and it is Convivium’s friend Rex Murphy, Crosbie’s fellow Newfoundlander. Read his generous and comprehensive tribute here. 

Rex speaks of Crosbie as perhaps the last of the “true characters.” Why the last? That is worth considering. 

Continue reading at the Convivium:
https://www.convivium.ca/articles/john-crosbie-in-memoriam/