{"id":230625,"date":"2019-09-12T02:40:33","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T06:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=230625"},"modified":"2019-09-12T02:40:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T06:40:33","slug":"former-veterans-affairs-minister-greg-thompson-dies-at-72-after-life-of-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/09\/12\/former-veterans-affairs-minister-greg-thompson-dies-at-72-after-life-of-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Veterans Affairs minister Greg Thompson dies at 72 after life of service"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Canadian politician Greg Thompson, wearing a Remembrance Day poppy. (Photo By User:Sherurcij – Uploaded as en:Image:G Thompson.JPG on April 16 2006, Copyrighted free use<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FREDERICTON — New Brunswick politician Greg Thompson, who served in both the provincial and federal cabinets — including time as minister of Veterans Affairs — has died at the age of 72.<\/p>\n

Thompson was first elected as a member of Parliament in 1988 and later re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2006 and 2008.<\/p>\n

He served as minister of Veterans Affairs and regional minister for New Brunswick under former prime minister Stephen Harper.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1990s Thompson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma but battled the illness.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he entered provincial politics and was elected in the riding of Saint Croix, then named minister of intergovernmental affairs.<\/p>\n

Premier Blaine Higgs says Thompson’s life was anchored in love of his family and service to others.<\/p>\n

Higgs said he knows he’ll have to call a byelection, but during a period of mourning — and with a federal election underway — he’s in no rush to set a date.<\/p>\n

New Brunswick Liberal Leader Kevin Vickers — a former sergeant-at-arms in Ottawa– said Thompson would often stop by his chair in the House of Commons to discuss the news of the day from back home.<\/p>\n

He describes Thompson as a fine gentleman with a long history of serving the people of New Brunswick.<\/p>\n

People’s Alliance Leader Kris Austin also offered his condolences and said Thompson had a legacy of public service in which he worked hard to serve the people he represented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREDERICTON — New Brunswick politician Greg Thompson, who served in both the provincial and federal cabinets — including time as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":230626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230627,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230625\/revisions\/230627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}