July 11, 1924 – February 19, 2013
Eugene Whelan, a folksy farmer who spent a dozen years as Canada’s flamboyant minister of agriculture, died recently at the age of 88.
Whelan was perhaps best known for his trademark green cowboy hat, his generous jowls, his bull-in-a-china-shop bluntness and his fractured grammar.
In 1996, Whelan was appointed by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a former cabinet colleague, to the Senate.