Dan McTeague

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Hon. Daniel P. McTeague
Member of Parliament for Pickering—Scarborough East
Incumbent
Assumed office  1993
Preceded by	René Soetens
Born	October 16, 1962 (1962-10-16) (age 45) Winnipeg, Manitoba
Political party	Liberal

Daniel P. "Dan" McTeague, PC, MP , BA (Hons.) (born October 16, 1962 in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is the Canadian Member of Parliament for the Ontario riding of Pickering—Scarborough East. Fluently bilingual, he graduated from the University of Toronto and worked as an intern in Ottawa to Paul Cosgrove, (1982) then Minister of Public Works and Canada Mortgage and Housing. After graduation he worked as an assistant to Alvin Curling, Ontario Minister of Housing. McTeague and his wife Dr. Daniela Rossi have five children.

Contents 1 Political career 1.1 Registered Education Savings Plan 2 References 3 External links

[edit] Political career

McTeague was first elected to Parliament in the 1993 federal election and was re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2004, and 2006. He is a member of the Liberal Party of Canada and was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs tasked with protecting Canadians Abroad, until the Liberals lost the 2006 election. He served as the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Industry and the Chair of the Liberal Committee on Gasoline Pricing. His private members bills making it an indictable offence to evade the police by motor vehicle, changing the Competition Act, and recognizing Organ Donor Week have all been passed by the House of Commons, making him the only MP to have passed so many Bills.

An early advocate for proper compensation of Hep-C victims and an effective critic of Canada's restrictive Drug patent laws, he was also instrumental in pushing his own Government to do more to address the African Aids pandemic by relaxing those very laws. McTeague has undertaken to help Canadians in distress abroad with an initiative to help free a condemned William Sampson from Saudi execution.

Having chaired the Liberal Government Task Force on gasoline pricing in 1998, McTeague challenged the premium prices Canadians were forced to pay for gasoline in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Aug 2005) For 10 weeks Canadian refiners added several cents a litre to the price of gasoline even over prices in the most affected markets in the US.

On November 22, 2005, McTeague asked Immigration Minister Joe Volpe to restrict rapper 50 Cent from entering Canada, citing the death of a constituent at the performers previous concert in Toronto in 2004. 50 Cent's tour went on as scheduled but McTeague's intervention succeeded in seeing at least half of the accompanying members of the rapper's troupe, the G-Unit, banned in Canada as a result of the objections[2].

In July 2006 he condemned Prime Minister Harper's initial failure to address the plight of Canadians in Lebanon trapped by Israeli air strikes and challenged the PM's characterization of the attack as being "a measured response".

With Canadian troops facing more casualties in Afghanistan, McTeague led the charge to force the Harper Government to abandon the practice of docking injured soldier's "operational pay" once out of theatre. Oct 6, 2006. In May 2007 he again forced a reluctant Conservative Government to increase the funeral stipend to families of fallen Canadian soldiers, a matter they originally denied.

McTeague's interventions in Question period also resulted in goading the Conservative government to back away from its plan to eliminate the Liberal energuide program for seniors and low income Canadians.

[edit] Registered Education Savings Plan

McTeague tabled a private member bill that proposed to give parents substantial tax breaks for saving education money; taxpayers who deposited $5,000 into a RESP for their children's post-secondary education would earn a $5,000 tax deduction, similar to the deduction allowed for contributions to a RRSP. Under the Tax-Free Savings Account, introduced in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's 2008 budget, there was no deduction for annual contributions.^[1]

Ted Menzies, Conservative Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, lashed out at the proposal and suggested McTeague explain how the government would pay for his proposal,^[2] while Garth Turner strongly supported McTeague's bill and called it "the greatest financial tool in a generation."^[3] The Green Party said the government should have ceased threats to trigger an election over the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) private member’s bill.^[4]

McTeague's bill passed through the Canadian House of Commons on March 5, 2008, after Speaker of the House, Liberal Peter Milliken, ruled the Bill in order as it did not require a Royal Recommendation, given that it did not contemplate spending money, only reducing revenue ^[5] Flaherty served notice to the House of Commons on March 11 that he would introduce a ways and means motion to nullify the bill by including a provision to do so in legislation implementing the federal budget^[6], which is automatically a confidence motion. The RESP bill was the first time since 1840 that the Commons had attempted to force a change to the government's budget.^[7]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Federal Political Biography from the Library of Parliament
• Official website

Parliament of Canada
Preceded by René Soetens	Member of Parliament for Ontario 1993-1997	Succeeded by riding abolished
Preceded by riding created	Member of Parliament for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge 1997-2004	Succeeded by riding abolished
Preceded by riding created	Member of Parliament for Pickering—Scarborough East 2004-	Succeeded by Incumbent