18 Facts About Gordon Towers

Thomas Gordon Towers was a Canadian politician, member of Parliament, and the 13th lieutenant governor of Alberta.

Thomas Gordon Towers was born on July 5,1919, the youngest of four children to Thomas Henry Towers and Janet Morrison, on the family's homestead in the Willowdale District southeast of Red Deer, Alberta.

Gordon Towers was educated at the Willowdale School, and although he aspired to go to university, he was unable to leave the family farm due to the Great Depression.

In March 1941 Towers joined the Royal Canadian Artillery but was given an honourable discharge after three months in May 1941 due to a hip injury.

Gordon Towers made a third run for the seat in the 1972 election after Thompson, by then a Tory, unsuccessfully sought a seat from British Columbia.

Gordon Towers did not run in the 1988 election following a heart attack in 1987.

Gordon Towers was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1978 and a delegate of the Canadian Branch, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to the 29th Parliamentary Seminar, which was held at Westminster.

Gordon Towers introduced several pieces of legislation to Parliament regarding representation, including the 1982 Private Members Bill C-223 which proposed Parliament continue to limit its membership to 282 until Canada reached a population of 50 million.

Gordon Towers served in this post from March 11,1991, to April 17,1996, when his successor Bud Olson was sworn in as the 14th lieutenant governor.

In 1993, Gordon Towers broke with tradition and refused the advice of Economic Development Minister Ken Kowalski and did not approve an order in council for a $1.5 million grant program.

The program would have granted a substantial government loan for the restructuring of a motor hotel, and Gordon Towers exercised his right to withhold approval based on insufficient documentation.

Gordon Towers insisted the lieutenant governor "is not just a rubber stamp".

Gordon Towers created controversy when he called for the resignation of his successor as lieutenant governor, Bud Olsen, after he held the 1997 New Year's levee in Medicine Hat, becoming the first time the province's levee had been held outside the capital city of Edmonton.

Gordon Towers went so far as to appeal to Prime Minister Jean Chretien for Olsen's removal from office after Olsen remarked he "doesn't give a damn" what Gordon Towers thought of him breaking the tradition.

Gordon Towers died in Red Deer from complications of diabetes on June 8,1999.

In 1989, Gordon Towers was named the Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International, and the 1990 Citizen of the Year by the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce.

Gordon Towers was made a Knight of Grace of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in 1991, and honorary lieutenant-colonel of the 749 Communication Squadron, Red Deer, in 1992.

In 1992 Gordon Towers received an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Alberta.