Pat Carney

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For the Black Keys drummer, see Patrick Carney.

Patricia "Pat" Carney, PC, BA, MA, LLD (born May 26, 1935 in Shanghai, China) is a Canadian Senator and former Cabinet minister.

Carney first ran for the Canadian House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the 1979 election and was defeated. She was elected in the 1980 election as the Member of Parliament (MP) from Vancouver Centre.

When the Tories formed government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a result of the 1984 election, Carney was appointed to Cabinet as Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, and was responsible for dismantling the previous government's unpopular National Energy Policy.

In 1986, she was named Minister of International Trade and, as such, was involved in negotiating the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement.

Carney did not run for re-election in the 1988 election. In 1990, she was appointed to the Canadian Senate. Carney, a pro-choice advocate of women's rights to abortion, voted against the abortion law proposed by her successor as MP for Vancouver Centre, Kim Campbell. The bill failed in the Senate by one vote.

More recently Carney mused that the Province of British Columbia might benefit from separating from Canada.

Carney became a Conservative Senator in 2004 following the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance.