Royal Galipeau

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**Royal N. Galipeau**

Riding	Ottawa—Orléans
Political party:	Conservative
First elected:	2006 election
Profession(s):	Businessman, corporate director

Royal N. Galipeau (born January 5, 1947) is a businessman and civil servant in Ottawa, Canada. He was the successful Conservative Party candidate in the riding of Ottawa—Orléans in the 2006 federal election. Royal Galipeau has been married to his wife Anne for 30 years. They have three sons and one daughter. Mr. Galipeau’s family has been involved in community life and local politics for four generations.

In 1982 he was elected to Gloucester City Council, unseating an incumbent. On city council, he helped introduce equal opportunity hiring policies and unsuccessfully pushed to replace the term "alderman" with a gender-neutral term. In 1985, he ran for mayor of Gloucester, finishing third behind fellow councillor Harry Allen and interim mayor Mitch Owens.

Galipeau served as trustee and vice-chair of the Ottawa Public Library where he helped introduce content-filtered Internet access to city public libraries.^{[citation needed]} He served on the Ottawa-Carleton Regional District Health Council, helping prepare a policy for the delivery of minority language health services. He also served two terms as a director of TVOntario. In 2005, Galipeau was involved in the East-West Light Rail Transit Corridor Environmental Assessment Committee, studying implementation of a rapid transit system across Ottawa.

Galipeau was long a Liberal and served as campaign manager for the unsuccessful Liberal candidate in Carleton in the 1995 Ontario provincial election and as assistant to MP Mauril Belanger. However, in May 2005 he decided to run for the Conservatives. The riding of Ottawa—Orléans was a Conservative target. In the 2004 federal election, Walter Robinson, the high profile head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, failed to capture the seat, losing to Liberal newcomer Marc Godbout by 2,800 votes.

In 2005, several media organizations reported that the Ottawa library sent a collection agency after Galipeau to recover around $2,500 advanced to Galipeau for travel expenses since 2001. Galipeau had not submitted the required receipts to document these expenses. The library's tactic resulted in Galipeau submitting his receipts. [1]

Egale Canada, a pro-same sex marriage lobby group, tracked the position of candidates in the 2006 federal election. Galipeau (like many but not all Conservative candidates) received their "F" rating. He was Endorsed by Vote Marriage Canada a pro-marriage lobby group, dedicated to "restoring marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman." He is also strongly opposed to abortion.

In the federal general election of January 23, 2006, Galipeau defeated Marc Godbout by more than twelve hundred votes.