Tony Clement

Tony Peter Clement, PC, MP (born January 27, 1961) is a Canadian federal politician, President of the Treasury Board, Minister for the Federal Economic Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor) and member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Clement had previously served as an Ontario cabinet minister, most recently as Minister of Health and Long-Term Care under Premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.

Moving to federal politics, he was a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada after its formation from the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties in 2004 but ultimately lost to Stephen Harper. Clement won the seat of Parry Sound—Muskoka in the 2006 federal election, defeating incumbent Liberal cabinet minister Andy Mitchell. The Conservatives formed a government in the election and Clement was appointed as the Minister of Health and Minister for FedNor.

Early life and career

Clement was born Tony Peter Panayi^[3] in Manchester, England, the son of Carol (née Drapkin) and Peter Panayi. His father was a Greek Cypriot and his mother was Jewish (part of her family had immigrated from Aleppo, Syria).^[4][2] He emigrated to Canada in childhood with his parents when he was four years old.^[4] His parents later separated and his mother remarried Ontario politician John Clement, who adopted Tony.^[5]

As a student at the University of Toronto, he was elected twice, both as an undergraduate and as a law student, to the university governing council . He was also president of the campus Progressive Conservatives.^[5] He first attracted the attention of the media in 1985 when he created a new society to invite the Ambassador of South Africa, Glen Babb, to speak at the University of Toronto and debate Professor Bill Graham in order to defend free speech This was after the International Law Society had withdrawn an invitation as too controversial because of the issue of apartheid.^[6]

A graduate of the University of Toronto, he completed degrees in political science in 1983, and law in 1986, and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1988.

Clement became president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in 1990 and was a close ally of then-party leader Mike Harris. He ran, unsuccessfully, for Metro Toronto Council in 1994 losing to future mayor David Miller in the ward of Parkdale-High Park. He served as Harris's Assistant Principal Secretary from 1992 to 1995, and played a leading role in drafting policy directives for the Common Sense Revolution.

In provincial politics

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the provincial election of 1995, defeating incumbent Liberal Bob Callahan by over 6,000 votes in the riding of Brampton South. After serving as a parliamentary assistant for two years, he was appointed Minister of Transportation on October 10, 1997. One of the initiatives under his watch was the completion of Highway 403, which had been discontinuous for decades. He also represented the Progressive Conservative government on a variety of televised discussion panels, and won a reputation as a rising star in the party.

Clement was re-elected in the provincial election of 1999, defeating Liberal candidate Vic Dhillon by over 8,000 votes. He was promoted to Minister of the Environment on June 17, 1999, and served in this capacity until May 3, 2000. In this role he implemented the program known as Ontario's Drive Clean, which mandated periodic emissions tests on vehicles in southern Ontario.

Clement was appointed Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on October 25, 1999, and held this position until February 8, 2001.

On February 8, 2001, Clement was appointed Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. He initiated primary care reform, oversaw the implementation of Telehealth Ontario (a toll-free health information line staffed by registered nurses), and expanded Ontario's hospitals system. Clement also entered into a public-private partnership for a hospital redevelopment in Brampton. Throughout his term, his supporters launded him as an innovative and effective administrator.

Clement ran for leadership of the Ontario Conservatives and finished third on the first ballot. Clement then threw his support to victorious candidate Ernie Eves on the second ballot. When Eves became Premier, he kept Clement in the Health portfolio.

Clement was especially prominent when Toronto suffered an outbreak of SARS in the summer of 2003, travelling to Geneva in a successful bid to urge the World Health Organization to lift a travel ban to Canada's largest city.^[7]

The Eves government was defeated in the 2003 provincial election, and Clement was unexpectedly defeated by Vic Dhillon by about 2,500 votes in a rematch from 1999. Clement afterwards worked as a counsel for Bennett Jones LLP. He also was a small business owner, as well as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

Federal politics

Clement first became prominent in federal politics in 2000, sitting on the steering committee for the United Alternative. This initiative was meant to provide a framework for the Reform Party and Progressive Conservative Party to unite under a single banner. It did not accomplish this end, but nonetheless led to the formation of the Canadian Alliance later in the year; Clement served as the Alliance's founding President.

Soon after the 2003 provincial election, Clement declared himself a candidate for the leadership of the new Conservative Party of Canada. His support base was undercut by the candidacy of Belinda Stronach, however, and he placed third in the party's leadership vote, while Stephen Harper emerged as the winner.

He then sought election as the Conservative Party candidate in Brampton West in the 2004 federal election, but lost to Liberal incumbent Colleen Beaumier by about 3,500 votes.

For his second attempt to win a seat in the Canadian House of Commons, in the 2006 campaign, he switched to the Parry Sound—Muskoka riding. On election night, he was declared to be the winner, by 21 votes. Upon conclusion of the judicial recount, Clement was found to have defeated Mitchell by 28 votes: 18,513-18,485. On February 6, 2006 Clement was appointed as Minister of Health.

Minister of Health

Some of Clement's initiatives included establishing the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, announcing a national strategy on Autism, and working towards establishing Canada's first Patient Wait Times Guarantees.

On September 29, 2007, the CBC reported Clement's new strategy to combat the growing drug abuse problem in Canada. "The party is over" for illicit drug users, he announced, with the new policy aiming towards widespread arrest of drug users, in contrast to the old strategy of targeting dealers. Over 130 physicians and scientists signed a petition condemning the Conservative government's "potentially deadly" misrepresentation of the positive evidence for harm reduction programs. Clement stated that governments in Canada have been sending the wrong message about drug use, and he wanted to clear up the mixed messages going out about illicit drugs.^[8]

Minister of Industry

On October 30, 2008, Clement was sworn into the office of Industry Minister.^[9] This includes the appointment to the Office of the Registrar General of Canada.

Mr. Clement also received attention in early 2010 for statements regarding Stephen Harper's act of proroguing the 40th Canadian Parliament in December 2009, a continuation of the 2008–2009 Canadian parliamentary dispute. Despite outrage by Liberal Party supporters regarding the progrogation, Clement claimed that only the “elites” and “chattering classes” care about prorogation.^[10] Thousands of Liberal Party and New Democratic Party supporters protested during the 2010 Canada anti-prorogation protests.

Mr. Clement was the Minister of Industry at the time that the Chief Statistician of Canada, Dr. Munir Sheikh, resigned on 21 July 2010 over a disagreement between the scientific community and the policy decisions of Prime Minister Harper's government.^[11] Following the release of internal emails, Mr. Clement has been accused of misleading Canadians about Statistics Canada's response to the census changes.^[12]

President of the Treasury Board

Shortly, after the May 2, 2011 election, Clement was asked by the Prime Minister to be the President of the Treasury Board. His role includes the management of government; in order for Cabinet approved policies and programs to be implemented, they must be approved by the Treasury Board.^[13]

As President of the Treasury Board and part of the Conservative Party of Canada's election platform, Clement has been tasked to lead the creation and implementation of a cross-government spending review.

References

External links

• Official website
• Ontario Legislative Assembly Parliamentarian History

• Profile at Parliament of Canada
• Parliamentarian profile at ParlInfo
• Speeches, votes and activity at OpenParliament.ca
• Voting history at How'd They Vote?