Elmer MacKay

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Elmer MacIntosh MacKay, PC , QC , BA , LL.B (born August 5, 1936) is a retired Canadian politician.

MacKay was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as the Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Central Nova through a 1971 by-election. He was re-elected in subsequent elections, and served as Minister of Regional Economic Expansion in the short lived (1979-1980) government of Prime Minister Joe Clark.

MacKay resigned his parliamentary seat in 1983 in order to allow newly elected PC leader Brian Mulroney to enter Parliament through a by-election in MacKay's Nova Scotia riding. In the subsequent 1984 election, Mulroney moved to a Quebec riding, and MacKay was again returned to the House as Central Nova's MP.

Following the election, Mulroney became prime minister, and appointed MacKay to the Canadian Cabinet where he served as Solicitor General of Canada for a year before becoming Minister of National Revenue. In 1989, MacKay became Minister of Public Works. From 1989 to 1991, he was also responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Act. While the parliamentary opposition often accused MacKay of doling out patronage, no wrongdoing was ever proven. He was removed from the ACOA portfolio in 1991. From 1991 to 1993, he remained Public Works minister and was given responsibility for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

MacKay retired from Cabinet when Mulroney's tenure as party leader ended in 1993, and did not run in the 1993 election.

After leaving politics, MacKay's name was mentioned in relation to the Airbus affair due to his friendship with principal figures such as Karlheinz Schreiber and Frank Moores, but no specific allegations were ever made against MacKay.

Elmer MacKay's son, Peter MacKay, entered politics several years after his father's retirement, and was the final leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The younger MacKay, currently a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, is now the Member for Central Nova, a re-creation of the same riding his father once represented. Once in government, Peter was assigned several portfolios, including that of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and the job of representing Prince Edward Island in government; both jobs previously performed by Elmer.