Eugene Francis "Gene" Whelan PC OC CD PAg LLD (h.c.) (11 July 1924 – 19 February 2013) was a Canadian politician, sitting in the House of Commons from 1962 to 1984, and in the Senate from 1996 to 1999.

[1] During his career, he would meet Queen Elizabeth II, help Canada beat U.S. president Richard Nixon to the punch in "opening up" China, and play a catalyzing role in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War.

[10] Whelan first won a seat in the House of Commons in the 1962 election, representing the southwestern Ontario riding of Essex, and held it until his retirement in 1984.

[5] In 1996, Whelan was appointed to the Senate by Jean Chrétien, and served in the chamber until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 1999.

[6] He once recalled a time when his qualifications for Minister were questioned: I remember one time when I was out West, someone asked me what the hell I knew, coming from Ontario, about being minister of agriculture and I said I knew just as much as Allan Blakeney, premier of Saskatchewan who was born in Nova Scotia, or Don Getty in Alberta who was born in Quebec, or Bill Vander Zalm in B.C.

[11] As Minister, Whelan promoted the extension of national marketing boards — first implemented with the creation of the Canadian Dairy Commission in 1970 — to eggs in 1972, turkey in 1974, and chicken in 1978.

For those commodities not under supply management, he fought to maintain a level playing field in world markets at a time when other countries strongly subsidized such products.

He opened markets in the Soviet Union for Canadian wheat, and established legislation to protect fruit and vegetable growers from processor bankruptcies.

[17] His green stetson hat became well-known and Whelan was seen as an ardently vociferous advocate for the agricultural sector, with a habit for plain-spokenness (which occasionally got him in trouble).

[1] During his last term as Minister of Agriculture, Whelan became good friends with Aleksandr Yakovlev, then the USSR's Ambassador to Canada, as both men were ardent agriculturalists.

The relationship became so close that Pierre Trudeau called him in to get assurance that Whelan had not divulged any national secrets, as the minister was a member of the Cabinet defence committee.

And then, verily, history plays tricks on one, we had a lot of time together as guests of then Liberal Minister of Agriculture Eugene Whelan in Canada who, himself, was too late for the reception because he was stuck with some striking farmers somewhere.

I somehow, for some reason, threw caution to the wind and started telling him about what I considered to be utter stupidities in the area of foreign affairs, especially about those SS-20 missiles that were being stationed in Europe and a lot of other things.

Progressive Conservative Party of Canada leader Brian Mulroney promised to rescind the appointment if he became Prime Minister.

[1] Whelan also actively participated in the Agri-Energy Roundtable (AER), an international non-governmental organization which forged a dialogue between food-surplus and energy-surplus nations, their private sectors, and multilateral agencies.