Sinclair Stevens
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Sinclair McKnight Stevens, PC (born February 11, 1927) is a former Canadian parliamentarian.
He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1972 federal election as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament, defeating Liberal incumbent John Roberts in the riding of York-Simcoe. Stevens ran as a candidate in the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. He finished seventh on the first ballot, and withdrew in favour of the eventual victor Joe Clark. He served as President of the Treasury Board in the short-lived (1979-1980) Clark government.
Stevens turned against Clark, and was an early supporter of Brian Mulroney's leadership bid which culminated in victory at the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. After the 1984 election, which resulted in a Tory landslide, Stevens became Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion.
He was forced to resign from Cabinet in 1986 following allegations of conflict of interest. In December 1987, a special commission of inquiry headed by Justice William Parker ruled he had violated conflict of interest allegations on fourteen counts. Stevens won the party nomination in his riding once again, but Prime Minister Brian Mulroney refused to sign Stevens's nomination papers. forcing the riding association to nominate another candidate. As a result of this bitter fight Stevens left Parliament in 1988.
In December 2004, a Federal Court judge declared null and void the findings of the Parker Inquiry. The court ruled that Parker's definition of conflict of interest exceeded that in the guidelines governing ministers in the Mulroney Cabinet, and that Stevens's behaviour did not violate the guidelines that governed him.
Stevens returned to prominence as a bitter opponent of the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives into the Conservative Party of Canada. Stevens backed an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to block the merger. [1]
Stevens has since become involved with the website bloc-harper.com, which promotes the idea that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe are weakening Canadian federalism in a way that could lead to Quebec's separation from Canada.
In 2007, following Tracy Parsons's resignation as leader of the Progressive Canadian Party, Stevens became that party's interim leader. [2]
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