Ex-premier was ‘true champion of nova scotia’
JOHN BUCHANAN 1931-2019
Former Nova Scotia premier John Buchanan, who led the province from 1978 to 1990, has died at the age of 88.
A Halifax lawyer before entering politics, Buchanan was known for his outgoing personality and folksy manner.
It was those traits that were fondly remembered at the Nova Scotia legislature Friday shortly after news of his death. The legislature stood for a moment of silence.
“He was a true champion of Nova Scotia,” Liberal Premier Stephen Mcneil said.
Buchanan was first elected to the legislature as the Progressive Conservative member for Halifax Atlantic in May 1967 and later held various cabinet posts before being elected party leader in 1971.
After an emphatic defeat to the Gerald Regan Liberals in 1974, Buchanan was elected as Nova Scotia’s 20th premier in September 1978.
Personable and often more popular than his party, he led the Tories to three more election victories in 1981, 1984 and 1988.
While in government Buchanan sought to make the province self-sufficient. But he was criticized for his financial policies, which massively ballooned Nova Scotia’s net debt, and by 1986 his government was also reeling under the weight of a messy expense-claims scandal that landed two members in court.
In June 1990, the controversy surrounding Buchanan’s government reached a crescendo when Michael Zareski, the former deputy minister of the Government Services Department, alleged widespread corruption reaching into the premier’s office.
Buchanan denied the claims that he accepted kickbacks and interfered with government spending decisions by directing work to friends.
But two months later, he resigned in the midst of an RCMP criminal investigation to accept a Senate appointment offered by then-prime minister Brian Mulroney.
The Mounties cleared him a year later of the kickback and patronage allegations, and in 1992 they said there was insufficient evidence to charge him in relation to a separate investigation into a secret Tory trust fund that supplemented Buchanan’s income.
Regardless, the damage was done to his public image as “Honest John.”
Tim Houston, Nova Scotia’s current Tory leader, hailed Buchanan Friday as a master campaigner and skilled politician who never lost his sense of humour.
He said Buchanan was “full of life” in his later years.