Jason Kenney

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Jason Kenney (born May 30, 1968 in Oakville, Ontario) is a Canadian politician. He is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada in the Canadian House of Commons, representing the riding of Calgary Southeast since 1997. Kenney is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada for multiculturalism.

Kenney was born in Ontario and raised in Saskatchewan. He graduated from the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a Catholic residential college located in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. He did undergraduate studies in philosophy at the St. Ignatius Institute of the University of San Francisco, a private Roman Catholic university founded by the Society of Jesus.

In 1988 Kenney served as an executive assistant to the leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. Kenney's prior experience also includes a term as Executive Director of the Alberta Taxpayers Association, and President and CEO of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a taxpayer advocacy organization.

He was originally a member of the Reform Party of Canada (1997-2000), and then the Canadian Alliance (2000-2003). He co-chaired the United Alternative Task Force, and served as the national co-chairman of Stockwell Day's campaign for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. He also served as National Co-Chair of the Canadian Alliance 2000 election campaign. Kenney has also served as the official opposition deputy house leader and has formerly been the critic for Canada-United States relations, national revenue, and finance.

He has also served as a volunteer director for several non-profit organizations. These include the Catholic Civil Rights League and the National Foundation for Family Research.

Kenney has been named one of Canada’s "100 Leaders of the Future" by Maclean's magazine, "one of Canada’s leading conservative activists" by the Globe and Mail, and "one of 21 Canadians to watch in the 21st century" by the Financial Post magazine.

Kenney was one of the leading supporters in the Canadian House of Commons of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In 2005, during parliamentary debate on same-sex marriage in Canada, Kenney referred to Halpern v. Canada, an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that unanimously held that the law prohibiting same-sex partners from marrying violated s. 15 of the Charter and was unconstitutional. Kenney was also criticized for attempting to show that fellow MPs Libby Davies and Svend Robinson, both of whom had opposite sex relationships before coming out, were proof that marriage law doesn't discriminate against LGBT individuals since they can still marry members of the opposite sex.

In a later debate, when Don Boudria noted that a Christian group had registered a web domain in his name, using it to attack his position on same-sex marriage, Kenney criticized Boudria for being too "ignorant" to register his own web domain. In a spoof of Kenney's remarks, comedian Rick Mercer created jasonkenney.org. Mercer made the domain redirect to the website of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, and subsequently changed it to Egale Canada.

Kenney has also been active in promoting human rights (particularly freedom of religion) in autocratic countries. He is a member of Parliament's Canada-Tibet Committee, and was instrumental in causing honorary Canadian citizenship to be granted to the Dalai Lama in June 2006.

In January 2005, during a government trade mission in China, Kenney visited the home of recently deceased Zhao Ziyang, the deposed Communist party chief. Zhao was a reformist purged for sympathizing with pro-democracy protesters before they were crushed by the military in 1989.

Then-Prime Minister Paul Martin, who also attended the Chinese trade mission, was critical of him for this visit which made Kenney the first and only western politician to pay respect to late pro-democracy leader.

On February 6, 2006 he was appointed to be Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper, with the portfolio of multiculturalism.

In August 2006, Kenney compared Hezbollah with the Nazi Party of 1930s Germany. He also rebuked Prime Minister of Lebanon Fuad Saniora for having criticized Canada's support for Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. Saniora had argued that most nations of the world, apart from Canada, regarded Israel's military actions in Lebanon as disproportionate. Kenney's response was, "Canada took a responsible position and I would hope that the Lebanese prime minister would express gratitude".[1]

In April 2006, Kenney attended a rally supporting the PMOI, a terrorist organization interested in the violent overthrow of the Iranian government, and the purging of Western influence in the region. The group was rallying on the parliament grounds and Kenney made a short statement giving greetings from the Prime Minister, and stating the governments policy on supporting Human rights in Iran. Kenney later stated that he did not remember attending the rally, and then that he did not know at the time the group was connected to a terrorist organization.^[1]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Political Biography from the Library of Parliament

Preceded by Jan Brown

Member of Parliament Calgary Southeast 1997-present

Succeeded by Incumbent

	Alberta Caucus serving in the 39th Canadian Parliament.
Senators	Tommy Banks (Lib), Joyce Fairbairn (Lib), Daniel Hays (Lib), Elaine McCoy (PC), Grant Mitchell (Lib), Claudette Tardif (Lib)
Members of Parliament	Diane Ablonczy (Con), Rona Ambrose (Con), Rob Anders (Con), Leon Benoit (Con), Blaine Calkins (Con), Rick Casson (Con), Ken Epp (Con), Peter Goldring (Con), Art Hanger (Con), Stephen Harper (Con), Laurie Hawn (Con), Rahim Jaffer (Con), Brian Jean (Con), Jason Kenney (Con), Mike Lake (Con), Ted Menzies (Con), Rob Merrifield (Con), Bob Mills (Con), Deepak Obhrai (Con), Jim Prentice (Con), James Rajotte (Con), Lee Richardson (Con), Monte Solberg (Con), Kevin Sorenson (Con), Brian Storseth (Con), Myron Thompson (Con), Chris Warkentin (Con), John Williams (Con)