Royal Galipeau

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Royal N. Galipeau

Member of Parliament for Ottawa—Orléans
Incumbent
Assumed office 2006
Preceded by	Marc Godbout

Born	January 5, 1947 (1947-01-05) (age 61) St-Isidore, Ontario
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Anne Galipeau
Residence	Ottawa
Profession	advisor, businessman, corporate director

Royal N. Galipeau (born January 5, 1947 in St-Isidore, Ontario) is a Member of Parliament for the Ottawa—Orléans federal constituency. A businessman and civil servant in Ottawa, Canada, he was the successful Conservative Party candidate in the 2006 federal election. Royal Galipeau has been married to his wife Anne for over 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.

He is one of the Deputy Speakers of the House of Commons, officially titled as Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole House.

A noted activist for the equal rights of Franco-Ontarians, Mr. Galipeau served two terms as a director of TVOntario during which he became one of the founders of TFO.

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. 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.

On January 23, 2006, Mr. Galipeau was elected to the House of Commons with a margin of 1,231 votes over his closest opponent. He also received 1,800 more votes than the Conservative candidate had won in the previous general election.

On April 30th, 2007, several media organisations reported that Galipeau, in his capacity as Vice-president of the committees of the Whole, had agreed to help students from La Cité collégiale and Algonquin College gain access to federal student employment programs on Parliament Hill. Many of these programs are reserved to students registered at one of the four National Capital Region universities.

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 neglected to submit the required receipts to document these expenses. He promptly did and resolved the matter. Some called the Library's actions extreme, others called Galipeau negligent. [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.