Mark Warner (Canadian politician)

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Mark Warner
Residence	Toronto, Ontario

Mark A. A. Warner (born 1964) is a Canadian international trade and competition (antitrust) lawyer previously with the Toronto firm Fasken Martineau DuMoulin.^[1][2]

Warner was chosen in February 2007 as the Conservative Party of Canada's candidate for the House of Commons in the riding of Toronto Centre by-election following the retirement of Bill Graham, but on October 30, the national council of the party dropped him as its candidate because of differences between Warner's campaign and the national party's campaign over social and urban issues. ^[3][4][5]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Federal politics 2.1 Conservative Party 2.2 Liberal Party 3 References

[edit] Biography

Warner was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1968.^[6] His early childhoood home was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he attended the Halifax Grammar School before his family moved to North Bay and then Pickering, Ontario. Warner earned a BA (Joint Honours) in Economics and Political Science at McGill University in Montreal and an MA in Economics from the University of Toronto before earning an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University and an LLM in International & Comparative Law from Georgetown University Law Centre^[7]. He is licensed to practice in Ontario, Canada and New York State, and was previously a Member of the Brussels Bar.^[1]

At McGill, Warner served on the university's senate and co-founded the Black Students Network. He was an activist in the anti-apartheid movement and campaigned successfully for McGill and the University of Toronto to divest holdings in companies doing business in apartheid-era South Africa.^[8][9] He was awarded McGill's Scarlet Key Society award in 1986 for his leadership of the South African divestment campaign at McGill.^[10]

He is the co-author of Canadian Law and Practice of International Trade (2nd edition, 1997) with Bill Graham, the retired MP for Toronto Centre, amongst others.^[11] Warner worked as a legal counsel in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Trade Directorate in Paris from 1996-2000.^[12][13] Warner has practiced law in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York City and Brussels. Over the course of his career, he has taught competition and trade law courses at: the University of Leiden (Netherlands), the World Trade Institute (Switzerland), the International Institute for Management in Telecommunications (Switzerland), the University of Western Cape (South Africa), and the International Law Institute (Uganda).^[1] Prior to joining the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), he was Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the Centre for International & Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law teaching courses on corporate law and trade law.^[14] Warner has also been an arbitrator for ICANN domain name disputes, and his June 19, 2000 decision in QTrade Canada, Inc. v. Bank of Hydro was the earliest arbitral finding of reverse domain hijacking.^[15]

Warner regularly speaks publicly at events on, trade policy^[16] and competition policy^[17] and is invited to comment on current economic developments in news media such as the Financial Times ^[18], the Toronto Star^[19], Agence France Press ^[20], the Wall Street Journal and the Dow Jones Newswire^[21].

He lives in the Toronto neighbourhood of Cabbagetown and currently serves on the board of directors of the Cabbagetown Youth Centre.^[22] He has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Regent Park Community Health Centre.^[23]

[edit] Federal politics

[edit] Conservative Party

As a student at the University of Toronto, he published studies on a bilateral free trade agreement between Canada and the United States with Professor Alan M. Rugman.^[24] This work led him to work in 1988 and 1993 for the election of the David MacDonald, the last Conservative MP for Toronto Centre.

In February 2007, Warner won the Conservative Party's nomination to represent Toronto Centre in the Canadian House of Commons.^[25]

On October 31, 2007, it was reported that Warner was disallowed as a candidate by the party's national council, reportedly due to conflicts between his campaign and senior party officials. In an email to supporters obtained by the Toronto Star, Warner said, "It has been very difficult to mount a credible local campaign, given the lack of support from the national campaign on the one hand and their seemingly contradictory insistence on micro-managing of our local efforts."^[5]

In his press release announcing his displacement as a candidate Warner identified himself as a Red Tory, and indicated that he is "one of a growing number of Progressive Conservative candidates to be removed."^[26]

In an interview with the CBC, Warner indicated a number of issues with party headquarters where there was conflict. Warner says that headquarters opposed Warner's indication that he attended the XVI International AIDS Conference in 2006 (the same conference Stephen Harper was himself criticized for not having attended as Prime Minister), were against him commenting to a reporter about a textbook he co-wrote with a group that included Graham, and opposed his listing of affordable housing as an issue he promoted ^[4]. Warner also states that the party would not allow him to participate in a Toronto Star forum on poverty earlier in the year and that the party resisted his emphasis on health, housing, poverty and urban issues. "We've had, for a number of months, a series of differences between our campaign and the national campaign, over the degree to which I could run a campaign that would focus on the kind of issues that matter in a downtown urban riding," Warner told the Star.^[3]

Don Plett, Conservative Party president, said of the decision "Well let me just simply say this; that in a national campaign, that is exactly what it is – a national campaign. There are certain things that we expect all of our candidates to do in a national campaign... Mr. Warner has admitted himself that he wasn't prepared to go along with that, then I think he's answered his own question. But I'm not suggesting that. I'm simply saying that we can't discuss the reasons why. If Mr. Warner says that is the reason, then he's, I guess, telling everybody `I wasn't prepared to go along with the rules.'"^[3]

[edit] Liberal Party

Bob Rae, the Liberal candidate in Toronto Centre, also spoke out to defend Warner and criticized the Conservatives for their decision, calling it a "national disgrace". ^[4] Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion has said that Warner "has shown that he is a man of courage and he has values. ... It seems his values are very close to our values." Dion added that he would be ready to consider welcoming Warner into the Liberal Party.^[27] A few weeks later Warner confirmed that talks are underway for his potential candidacy as a Liberal in either Toronto-Danforth or Don Valley West where John Godfrey is retiring. Subsequently, Warner stated that he had "not ruled out a run for the Liberals in Toronto if they are seriously interested and if a `good fit' riding becomes available"^[28]. Godfrey indicated that as a former Progressive Conservative Warner might have appeal in Don Valley West;^[29] Warner initially expressed interest in the nomination,^[30] but subsequently declined to contest the nomination.^[31]

Warner endorsed Liberal Bob Rae's candidacy in Toronto Centre over that of his replacement, Conservative Don Meredith. Warner cited two reasons for doing so. Warner said of Meredith that “Telling your potential constituents ‘you stink, you don’t wash, you live in filth’ probably isn’t the best way to win an election.”^[32] Also, Warner indicated he was outraged by reported leaks and distortions of confidential communications between the Canadian government and advisors to Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and that he could not "understand in any respect why our government is interfering in that election and the attempt to elect what looks like the first credible attempt to elect a black American president.”^[33] In the by-election, Meredith received 12.5% of the vote, a drop of almost one-third from the Conservative candidate's result in the previous election, and placed fourth behind Liberal victor Bob Rae and the New Democratic and Green candidates.

[edit] References