Donald Johnston (politician)

Donald Johnston with Vladimir Putin (2011)

Donald "Don" James Johnston PC OC QC (born June 26, 1936 in Ottawa , Ontario ) is a Canadian lawyer , author and politician of the Liberal Party of Canada , who was a member of the House of Commons for several years , was temporarily minister and between 1996 and 2006 Secretary General of the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD ) was.

Life

Lawyer, Member of the House of Commons and Minister

After attending school, Johnston graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He finished another law degree at McGill University in 1958 with a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL). He joined the Stikeman Elliott law firm in 1961 and was a co-founder of the Johnston Heenan Blaikie law firm . In addition, he was from 1964 to 1977 lecturer for tax law at the Law Faculty of McGill University.

On 16 October 1978 Johnston was a candidate of the Liberal Party in a by-election in the constituency Westmount first elected as an MP in the House of Commons and represented in this then since the general election of May 22, 1979 until the elections on 21 November 1988 the constituency of Saint- Henri-Westmount . At the beginning of his parliamentary activity, he was briefly chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts from October 9 to December 14, 1979.

On March 3, 1980, Johnston was appointed President of the Treasury to the 22nd Canadian Cabinet by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and held that office until September 29, 1982. He was then Minister of State from September 30, 1982 to June 29, 1984 Science and Technology and at the same time Minister of State for Economic Development until December 6, 1983 and Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development from December 7, 1983 until the end of Trudeau's term of office on June 29, 1984.

After Trudeau's resignation as chairman of the Liberal Party, Johnston was one of the successor candidates at the party congress on June 16, 1984 and achieved third place among the seven candidates in the first ballot with 278 delegate votes. In the second ballot, John Turner then prevailed with 1,862 delegate votes (54 percent), clearly against Jean Chrétien (1,398 votes and 40 percent) and him (192 votes and 6 percent).

After Turner was also Trudeau's successor as Prime Minister on June 30, 1984, this appointed him from June 30 to September 16, 1984 as Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the 23rd government of Canada .

Opposition politician and OECD Secretary General

After the Liberal Party's defeat in the general election on September 4, 1984 , Johnston initially took over the post of spokesman for the Liberal opposition group for finance from October 11 to March 1986 and at the same time for foreign affairs from January 1, 1985 to May 7, 1987 . In January 1988 he resigned from the Liberal Party before becoming a member again in early 1990. Between June 23, 1990 and May 1, 1994, Johnston, who also received honorary doctorates in civil law (DCL (Hon.)) And economics (D.Econ. (Hon.)), Was President of the Liberal Party of Canada.

In 1996 Johnston was the first non- European to succeed Jean-Claude Paye as Secretary General of the (OECD) and held this position for ten years until he was replaced by José Ángel Gurría on May 31, 2006. In the same year he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order awarded the White Double Cross of Slovakia . For his long service as a lawyer and politician, he was also appointed Officer of the Order of Canada on April 10, 2008 . He was also awarded the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honor .

Publications

• Fiscalamity: how to survive Canada's tax chaos , Don Mills 1974
• How to survive Canada's tax chaos , Markham 1977
• Government and business: a personal perspective , Ottawa 1982
• Up the hill , Montreal 1986
• With a bang, not a whimper: Pierre Trudeau speaks out , Toronto 1988
• Pierre Trudeau speaks out on Meech Lake , Toronto 1990

literature

• Donald Johnston , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 25/2006 of June 24, 2006, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Entry on Parliament's homepage
• Order of Canada