16 Facts About Allan MacEachen

Allan MacEachen was the first deputy prime minister of Canada and served from 1977 to 1979 and 1980 to 1984.

Allan MacEachen was the son of Annie Gillies and Angus MacEachen, a coal miner from Inverness County, Nova Scotia.

Allan MacEachen's parents both spoke the distinctive Nova Scotia dialect of Scottish Gaelic at home and Allan MacEachen himself was a fluent speaker.

Allan MacEachen was elected for the first time to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1953 election as a Liberal under the leadership of Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent.

Allan MacEachen was re-elected in the 1957 election but was defeated in the Progressive Conservative Diefenbaker sweep in the 1958 election, the largest federal electoral victory in Canadian history.

Allan MacEachen was re-elected to Parliament in the 1962 general election and again in the 1963,1965,1968,1972,1974,1979, and 1980 elections.

In 1968 Allan MacEachen contested the leadership of the Liberal Party but did not do well, largely because there was a second Nova Scotian on the ballot.

Allan MacEachen was courted to run for leader again in 1984 but opted to support John Turner, the eventual winner.

In 1979, when the Liberals lost the election to Joe Clark's Conservatives, Allan MacEachen served as interim Leader of the Opposition when Trudeau announced his retirement from politics.

Allan MacEachen took the role of Finance Minister and announced the National Energy Policy as part of his 1980 budget.

Allan MacEachen was in that position only briefly, as Turner lost the 1984 election, but Allan MacEachen started the practice of allowing opposition senators to chair a number of committees, a practice that continues today.

In 1988, after a request by Turner, Allan MacEachen blocked the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in the Senate to force an election before the issue was settled.

Allan MacEachen then led a filibuster against the bill, with Liberal members defying Speaker Guy Charbonneau, who voted for Conservative motions.

Allan MacEachen retired from the Senate in 1996 after he had reached the mandatory retirement age of 75, and he became a dollar-per-year adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

In 2006, Allan MacEachen endorsed Bob Rae's candidacy to lead the Liberal Party, and was appointed honorary campaign chair of Rae's campaign.

Allan MacEachen died at the age of 96 on September 12,2017, at St Martha's Hospital in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.