Whitest-of-the-white Prime Minister for a few months after Pierre Trudeau saw the writing on the wall. Turner quietly traveled the country and listened to nearly every sector of the political spectrum before the 1988 election. He turned out to be the only political figure in the country who understood the implications of Mulroney’s Free Trade initiatives, and came close to saving the country from what it is today. Unfortunately, he was also a bum-pinching Good Old Boy who had trouble staying on his feet in a social breeze. We’ll never know if he was the right man at the wrong time, or the wrong man at the right time. Wife Giels, who was the best qualified PM’s wife in a half-century, apparently has a discreet opinion about this. .