Cheryl Gallant

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Cheryl Gallant
Cheryl Gallant
Member of Parliament
for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke
Incumbent
Assumed office 
2000
Preceded by Hec Clouthier
Born May 23, 1960 (1960-05-23) (age 48)
Sarnia, Ontario
Political party Conservative

Cheryl Gallant, MP (born May 23, 1960 in Sarnia, Ontario) is a Conservative Canadian politician.

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[edit] Personal life

Gallant was raised in Blenheim, Ontario. Gallant attended the University of Western Ontario, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry. Prior to becoming a politician, she worked for a major Canadian life insurance company as a group insurance executive and a time as an office manager of a family-owned professional practice. Gallant has been married since 1985, and is the parent of four daughters ranging in age from 12 to 18.[1]. She has served as the Chair of the City of Pembroke Downtown Development Commission and as a member of the Economic Advisory Committee for the city.

[edit] Political career

She is currently a member of the Conservative Party of Canada in the Canadian House of Commons. She has represented the riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke since 2000, and was a member of the Canadian Alliance party from 2000 to 2003.

She is a former Deputy House Leader of the Official Opposition, and the Canadian Alliance Deputy House Leader. She has served as CPC Critic for Science, Research and Development, was a member of the Commons Standing Committee on National Defence and Veteran’s Affairs, and the Standing Committee on Industry. She has also served as opposition critic of Canadian Heritage, Amateur Sport, the National Capital Commission, Science, Research and Development, the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, and Small Business.

She is largely viewed as one of the strongest social conservative in the House of Commons, and is a popular figure among the Christian Right, yet has occasionally drawn the ire of opponents. In 2002, she was accused of making anti-gay remarks to then Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham, when during a heated exchange, she kept interrupting "Ask your boyfriend" or "How's your boyfriend", despite the fact that Graham is married and has two children with his wife Catherine Graham. Gallant later apologized for her remarks.[2]

During the 2004 election, a controversy erupted when Gallant compared abortion to the beheading of Iraq war hostage Nick Berg.[3] The Conservative Party then announced that she was suffering from laryngitis, and after this, she did not appear at some scheduled debates.

Gallant resurfaced in the spotlight on March 17, 2005, when she suggested that Christians were being persecuted by the Liberal Party in a flyer she sent to her constituents. Tory leader Stephen Harper, confronted with the news, said "I'll let Cheryl Gallant explain those remarks herself; I haven't seen them."

Several constituents accused Cheryl of obtaining birth-date information from a passport application during the 2006 campaign. Her office regularly sends out greeting cards to constituents when his or her birthday comes. One affected resident told the Ottawa Citizen, "The principle is really bothering me: that my information has been gathered without my knowledge. I don't know how it's going to be used." Two families who received cards have sent letters to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, asking confirmation the MP won't use the collected personal information. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has no jurisdiction in investigating such matters. Gallant's aide says the Member receives many requests for birthday and anniversary cards, and the office is unsure how the information was put on the list, since Gallant receives thousands of requests for salutations and the birth date could have been on one of the request forms returned by a constituent.[4][5].

In the 2006 election, Cheryl Gallant once again won handily, with an additional 2500 votes from 2004. She received almost two and a half times the support of her nearest competitor, Don Lindsay, giving her the largest margin of victory in all of Ontario. When the vote count of the Liberal candidate Don Lindsay and the independent candidate Paul Kelly are combined, they roughly equal the percentage vote the Liberals received in this riding in 2004. This suggests that Gallant has maintained a core support of almost 60 percent, while her opponents consistently take votes from each other rather than from her. Don Lindsay's performance at an all candidates debate where he controversially responded to a World War Two veteran's question[6], and his subsequent negative response to the crowd's reaction significantly may have hurt his results and drove supporters to Paul Kelly.

Of around 60 major candidates in 15 Eastern Ontario and West Quebec ridings, Gallant was the only one who didn't attending a meeting with the Ottawa Citizen editorial board. "Ms. Gallant's decision to duck every difficult question from the media is nothing short of childish", commented Citizen columnist Kelly Egan.[5] Gallant has stated that she is focused on campaigning locally in order to keep in touch with the concerns of local constituents.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "About Cheryl", Official Website, 2004
  2. ^ Alliance MP apologizes for 'boyfriend' remark", CBC News, 15 April 2002
  3. ^ "MP Gallant compares abortion to Iraq beheading", CTV.ca News. 
  4. ^ "Tory message discipline much better this time", Canadian Press, 4 January 2006.
  5. ^ a b Egan, Kelly. "MP must explain her use of voters' private data", The Ottawa Citizen, 4 January 2006
  6. ^ Fischer, Doug. "Liberal finds handgun ban hard sell in Pembroke", The Ottawa Citizen, 19 January 2006.

[edit] External links

Parliament of Canada
Preceded by
Hec Clouthier, Liberal		 Member of Parliament from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke
2000-present		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
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