Liberal cabinet minister John McCallum often found himself engulfed in controversy

Open this photo in gallery: Economist and academic John McCallum died of lung cancer at the age of 75 on June 21.The Canadian Press As the 2000 federal election loomed, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien recruited a star candidate to bolster his effort to win a third Liberal majority, a McGill University economist-turned-banker named John McCallum. "In many ways, Mr. McCallum comes out of central casting, a rumpled ... academic who is fluently bilingual but with an easy media presence in both official languages," enthused Globe and Mail columnist Hugh Winsor. There was talk that Mr. McCallum, seen as an articulate,…