Crosbie belonged to a prominent St. John's family involved in hotels, fish exporting, insurance, shipping and manufacturing.
He and many younger convention delegates feared that the RGL was disorganized and bound to lose the referendum campaign unless a new party was formed.
Crosbie subsequently served as a member of the seven-person delegation sent to Ottawa to negotiate the final Terms of Union with Canada.
Dissatisfied with the negotiations, he refused to sign the final agreement citing objections to its financial terms and retired from public life.
His son, John Crosbie, became a prominent politician serving as cabinet minister at both provincial and federal level, the latter in the government of Brian Mulroney, where he fulfilled his father's dream as an architect of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.