Ron Basford, 72; Former Canadian Cabinet Minister

Ron Basford, 72, a former federal Canadian Cabinet minister who led the campaign to convert Vancouver’s Granville Island from a rundown industrial area into a thriving tourist mecca, died Monday of a heart attack in Sechelt, British Columbia.

A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Basford earned his law degree from the University of British Columbia. He held a number of Cabinet posts, handling consumer and corporate affairs, and served as minister of justice and attorney general, minister for urban affairs and acting solicitor general.

He was responsible for bringing the metric system into use in Canada and eliminating capital punishment. He sponsored legislation to place more nutritional information on food packages and worked to get equal pay for equal work.