Lisa Raitt

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The Honourable
Lisa Raitt
PC, MP
Raitt in 2009
Minister of Transport
Incumbent
Assumed office
July 15, 2013
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Preceded by Denis Lebel
Minister of Labour
In office
January 19, 2010 – July 15, 2013
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Preceded by Rona Ambrose
Succeeded by Kellie Leitch
Minister of Natural Resources
In office
2008–2010
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Preceded by Gary Lunn
Succeeded by Christian Paradis
Member of the Canadian Parliament
for Halton
Incumbent
Assumed office
2008
Preceded by Garth Turner
Personal details
Born Lisa MacCormack
(1968-05-07) May 7, 1968
Sydney, Nova Scotia
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) David Raitt (separated[1])
Children 2
Profession Lawyer, administrator

Lisa Sarah MacCormack Raitt, PC, MP (born May 7, 1968) is a Canadian politician, who is the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the riding of Halton. She is a professional administrator (1999-2008) turned professional politician (2008-present). Raitt serves as the Minister of Transport in the Cabinet of Canada.

Background

Raitt was born Lisa MacCormack in Sydney, Nova Scotia, as the youngest of seven children. Her father, Colin, worked for a local coal mine, loading coal onto ships, and later served as city alderman, and secretary-treasurer and a lead negotiator for the Cape Breton Railway Transportation and General Workers. Her mother, Tootsie, worked as a businesswoman. Raitt was married to Second City alumnus, playwright and stay-at-home dad David Raitt and has two sons, John Colin (b. 2002) and Billy (b. 2005)[2] and is now divorced.[1]

Raitt graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia with a bachelor of science degree. She went on to do a Masters degree in chemistry, specializing in environmental biochemical toxicology, from the University of Guelph. Raitt possesses an LL.B from Osgoode Hall Law School, and was called to the Ontario bar in 1998. That year, she was granted a Dr. Harold G. Fox Scholarship.[3] As a result, she trained with barristers of the Middle Temple in London, United Kingdom, which specialized in international trade, commerce, transportation and arbitration.

Toronto Port Authority (1999-2008)

Main article: Toronto Port Authority

Raitt served as the TPA’s Corporate Secretary and General Counsel,[4][5] and harbourmaster from April 2001.[6] She was the first female harbourmaster of a Canadian port.[6]

As General Counsel for the TPA, she filed a $1 billion dollar lawsuit over 600 acres (240 ha) of land that was transferred in the 1990s to the City of Toronto's Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) by the Toronto Harbour Commission (THC).[7] The disputed lands, mostly the infill lands of the Don River delta, constituted around 85% of the THC's land assets as of the early 1990s. The lands had been transferred in two separate agreements, in 1991 and 1994 in exchange for a permanent subsidy for the THC. The TPA's legal claim was that the transfer had been done while the majority of directors of the THC were City-appointed, and who had acted in the City's interest and not in the Commission's fiduciary interest, and that the deals crippled the THC's ability to be self-sufficient by ending any potential revenues from those lands. Since the TPA was inheriting the role and activities of the THC, it was thus crippled itself.[8] The TPA and the City settled out of court in exchange for a promised bridge to the Island Airport across the Western Gap and approximately $50 million. The bridge was never built; instead a pedestrian tunnel under the Western Gap now exists.

In 2002, Raitt was appointed as president and chief executive officer of the Toronto Port Authority (TPA), a Canadian federal corporation that manages the Toronto Harbour as well as the Toronto City Centre Airport.[5] See relinquished the post of harbourmaster to Angus Armstrong in 2004.[9]

As CEO of the TPA, Raitt was responsible for building the International Marine Passenger Terminal, a Toronto home for the now-defunct Canadian American Transportation Systems, a Rochester, New York-based group. The ground was broken on 24 August 2004, and CATS operated for six months in 2005.[10] The Rochester firm that initially owned the ferry had a 14 year lease on the use of the terminal that would have paid the City of Toronto $250,000 per year.[10] [11] The terminal was reported to have cost $10.5 million to construct,[12] which makes a 0.33 cost recovery factor. The lease was terminated in December 2009 after payment of a $90,000 settlement. The terminal has seen little use since then except to dock cruise ships and as a movie set.[13]

During her time as CEO of the TPA, the Air Canada Jazz service to the Toronto City Centre Airport was discontinued under a legal cloud.

In 2006 Raitt jointly filed a political libel action for $3.4 million against Community Air, a citizen group that had criticized her.[14] The lawsuit was criticised as a SLAPP type legal tactic meant to silence critics of the airport.[15] The suit was eventually settled out of court when in May 2007 Community Air agreed to retract its statements and apologize.[16]

In 2006, the TPA was criticized for its use of lobbyists by Olivia Chow, NDP MP for the riding including the Airport. Chow accused the governing Harper government of backing down on a promise to slay cronyism in Ottawa because Tory-connected lobbyists were pushing the expansion of Toronto's controversial island airport. Raitt stated that the Port Authority spends around CDN $50,000 a year on lobbyists, and confirmed that their lobbyists were: Peter Naglik, Vic Gupta and Bill Hearn.[17]

Raitt was responsible for the new TCCA1 ferry for passengers at the Toronto City Centre Airport, which is located on Centre Island.[18]

Raitt was quoted as "proud to have assisted in the remarkable growth of Porter Airlines" in her time at the TPA.[5]

Mismanagement allegations

New Democrat MP Olivia Chow called on Sheila Fraser, the federal auditor general, to conduct an audit of the port authority to investigate why Baird increased the membership of the board of directors from seven to nine - and why Raitt, while CEO of the authority, was allowed to run up almost $80,000 in travel and other expenses over two years when the organization was running a deficit.[19]

A November 2009 report by the Toronto Star claimed that Raitt signed off on her own expenses inappropriately,[20] but the TPA claimed the Star's report was inaccurate.[21] This followed another story in the Toronto Star that a TPA employee used the office computer to send emails about a Conservative fundraiser event.[22] The Toronto Port Authority released the results of its own partisan review conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on September 14, 2010, The PWC review results showed that "all but one of the 15 complaints lodged by the former Directors were groundless".[23]

Federal politics (2008)

In September 2008, Raitt was appointed to run as the Conservative candidate in Halton against Liberal incumbent Garth Turner.[24] Turner was formerly a Conservative member but was suspended from the Conservative caucus in 2006 for breaching confidentiality. He later joined the Liberals after briefly sitting as an independent member.[25] A bitter campaign between Turner and Raitt ensued. Turner made public accusations of dirty tricks by the local Conservative association and Raitt, calling Raitt a "master of deceit."[26] Raitt made controversial comments about the North and global warming. At an October 6 meeting of the Oakville, Ontario, Chamber of Commerce, Raitt was on record cheering about the possibilities of increased tourism and shipping opportunities in the North, thanks to the melting polar ice cap.[26][27]

Minister of Natural Resources (October 2008)

On October 14, 2008, Raitt defeated Turner by over 7,000 votes. Raitt was named to the Cabinet of Canada on October 30, 2008, as Minister of Natural Resources, one of eleven women named to the Cabinet.[28]

Secret documents left at news bureau

On June 2, 2009, CTV News reported that a folder of confidential and secret ministerial briefing documents had been left by Raitt or her staff at the CTV News Ottawa office for a week. CTV News chose to reveal the contents which listed the funding for the Chalk River nuclear reactor which had recently shut down, causing a shortage of medical radioisotopes. On June 3, the opposition parties demanded that the government fire Raitt or accept her resignation. Raitt claimed to have offered her resignation and that the offer was rejected by the Prime Minister. A ministerial aide, Raitt's 26-year-old director of communications, Jasmine MacDonnell, offered her resignation which was accepted.[29]

Some critics attempted to draw parallels to a similar occurrence in 2008 involving Maxime Bernier, who ultimately was forced to resign his cabinet post as Minister of Foreign Affairs after leaving sensitive documents pertaining to a NATO conference at the home of an ex-girlfriend. Speaking to reporters, the Prime Minister said that "Minister Raitt was working at the time. She was undertaking employment activity, ministerial activity in the company of her staff who were responsible for these documents, certainly for accounting for these documents later."[30] Addressing the parallel he added, "[i]n the case of Minister Bernier, his actions were much more personal in nature and that was the difference in the responsibility."[31]

Taped comments about radio isotope shortage

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

On June 8, 2009, CBC news online reported that a Nova Scotia court heard an argument to block the Halifax Chronicle-Herald from publishing a story about an audio recording involving Raitt. The injunction was denied.[32] On the audio tape, made on January 30, 2009, by the same aide who resigned on June 2, was a discussion between Raitt and the aide over the radioisotopes shortage. The judge ruled that the public interest over-rode the issue of confidentiality.[33]

On the tape, Raitt made comments on the radio isotope issue, describing it as "sexy ... Radioactive leaks. Cancer." and hard to control because it is "confusing to a lot of people".[33] Raitt also made comments on the parliamentary skills of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq:

"Oh, God, she's such a capable woman, but it's hard for her to come out of a co-operative government into this rough-and-tumble. She had a question in the House yesterday, or two days ago, that planked. I really hope she never gets anything hot."[33]

Raitt also made comments about Manitoba MP Joy Smith, who introduced a private member's bill on human trafficking:

"Speaking of career-limiting moves, I’m in shock that that MP, Joy Smith, brought forward private member’s legislation on human trafficking. She’s on Canada AM. And the reason being is that there’s no way any of us should be introducing anything around justice issues or finance issues right now. You just can’t touch those two things."[34]

Minister of Labour (January 2010)

On January 19, 2010, Raitt was moved from the Ministry of Natural Resources to the Ministry of Labour.[35] Prime Minister Harper publicly defended Raitt, saying she has "a great future."[36]

Incident at Lester B. Pearson Airport

The Ottawa Citizen and National Post reported Raitt's appearance at Lester B. Pearson Airport on March 22, 2012, and subsequent reaction by Air Canada baggage handlers was the reason a wildcat strike occurred the next day. According to Bill Trbovich, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), Raitt was walking through the airport when three workers started “clapping and saying ‘Oh, great job’. Raitt is alleged to have asked the RCMP to ‘arrest these animals’. The strike caused widespread disruption to Air Canada schedule, causing flight cancellations and delays. Raitt's office denied the allegation.[37][38]

Minister of Transport (July 2013)

Raitt was made Minister of Transport on 15 July 2013, nine days after the Lac Megantic derailment (LMD), because a CP line runs straight through her riding. She replaced Denis Lebel, MP for Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean who was previously since May 2011 Minister of Transport, Infrastucture and Communities, amongst other positions.[39]

Rail Safety

  • On 9 July 2013, the Ministry of Transport was in full damage control mode owing to the LMD. Two Directors (Marie-France Dagenais and Luc Bourdon), and an Associate Deputy Minister (Gerard McDonald) tried to finesse their delayed reaction to a scathing December 2011 report by the Auditor General of Canada on rail safety.[40] Raitt took over the Ministry on 15 July. She issued a directive sometime in autumn 2013 requiring railways to inform municipalities about the kinds of dangerous goods they were carting through their communities, but a spokesman for Canadian National said on 8 January 2014, upon the occurrence of the hazardous derailment (PRD) near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick,[41] that it was too soon for those regulations to have come into effect.[42] Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to intervene during a stop in Inuvik on 8 January 2014 and said: “We have made significant investments in rail safety and rail inspections,” he said. “We have increased both of those vastly.”[41]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ottawa Citizen Newspaper (November 16, 2011). "Labour Minister Lisa Raitt parted ways with her spouse". Ottawa Citizen Newspaper. 
  2. ↑ Brennan, Richard (November 9, 2008). "Resources minister used to taking heat; Former head of Toronto Port Authority clashed with waterfront residents, city over island airport". Toronto Star. p. A8. 
  3. ↑ "Past Recipients". The Harold G. Fox Education Fund Website. Retrieved 2008-09-17. 
  4. ↑ "Port CEO rips Martin for bridge comments". The Globe and Mail, Online Edition. 28 November 2003. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 TPA: "Toronto Port Authority CEO Lisa Raitt taking leave of absence to seek public office" 9 Sep 2008
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Covering the waterfront; Toronto's first female harbourmaster takes helm of complex port job". Toronto Star. 5 April 2001. p. B1. .
  7. ↑ Barber, John (November 7, 2002). "Taxpayers hit both ways in TPA lawsuit". The Globe and Mail. p. A26. 
  8. ↑ Tassé(2006), pp.35–37
  9. ↑ "Senior Management of Toronto Port Authority". Toronto Port Authority. Retrieved 2008-09-12. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Debra Black (2006-05-06). "Beleaguered ferry heads off across the pond; Rochester unties Spirit of Ontario Sold for $29.8M to plug financial hole". Toronto Star. p. A 12. Retrieved 2011-12-30. "The Toronto Port Authority's terminal that accommodated the ferry at Cherry Beach will be put to other use, said Lundy. Other cruise vessels on the Great Lakes use it. And the Toronto Port Authority is also looking at other possibilities for the terminal." 
  11. ↑ Emily Mathieu (2009-12-18). "Rochester ends fast ferry lease". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2011-12-30. "According to the Democrat & Chronicle, the ferry board agreed to pay the Toronto Port Authority a settlement of $90,000 (U.S.) to end the lease. The board also voted to dissolve the Rochester Ferry Co." mirror
  12. ↑ Charles Wyatt (2005-08-18). "Port authority embarking on fresh start: Focus shifting to rebuilding ties, efficiency". Business Edge news magazine. Retrieved 2012-04-24. "The ferry is now owned by the City of Rochester and uses a $10.5-million international marine passenger terminal built by the Toronto Port Authority. The ferry is operating at 50-per-cent capacity, but usage is expected to increase." mirror
  13. ↑ "Filming: Rates valid until August 31, 2012". Toronto Port Authority. 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-23.  mirror
  14. ↑ Ontario Superior Court of Justice: "Statement of Claim" 12 Jun 2006
  15. ↑ Barber, John (June 21, 2006). "Port Authority's cynical SLAPP aimed at silencing its critics". The Globe and Mail. p. A13. 
  16. ↑ Gray, Jeff (May 3, 2007). "Port agency settles suit against Community Air". The Globe and Mail. p. A15. 
  17. ↑ Brieger, Peter (August 31, 2006). "Chow accuses Tories of cronyism over Island Airport". National Post. p. A10. 
  18. ↑ Dawson, Mary (June 25, 2009). The Watson Report, June 2009 (PDF). The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Government of Canada. Retrieved 2009-06-26. 
  19. ↑
  20. ↑ Diebel, Linda (November 9, 2009). "NDP wants to see Lisa Raitt's expenses". Toronto: www.thestar.com. Retrieved 2010-04-09. 
  21. ↑ "Toronto Port Authority responds to inaccuracies in Toronto Star articles". November 6, 2009. 
  22. ↑ "Tory fundraiser sparks uproar". The Toronto Star. October 1, 2009. 
  23. ↑ "Toronto Port Authority releases Forensic Review Report" (Press release). Toronto Port Authority. 2010-09-14. Retrieved 2010-11-01. 
  24. ↑ "Port Authority CEO to run for Tories". The Globe and Mail. 6 September 2008. p. A18. 
  25. ↑ "Raitt leaves incumbent Turner in her wake". Toronto Star. October 15, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-16. 
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Depko, Tina (October 9, 2008). "Sparks fly at Halton debate". The Oakville Beaver. p. 1. 
  27. ↑ Findlay, Andrew (February 5, 2009). "Pipeline would bring tankers into B.C. inlets". straight.com. Retrieved 2009-02-05. 
  28. ↑ "The new face of cabinet". Toronto Star. October 30, 2008. 
  29. ↑ "Minister grilled, aide resigns after secret documents left at news bureau". CBC news. June 3, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-03. 
  30. ↑ "Under fire, Raitt keeps job;PM refuses offer of resignation over mishandled documents". Ottawa Citizen. June 4, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09. 
  31. ↑ "Minister won't lose job over lost documents". The Canadian Press via Canoe CNEWS Politics. June 3, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09. 
  32. ↑ "Court hearing begins over Raitt audiotape". CBC News. June 8, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-08. 
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 "Outrage over Raitt 'sexy' cancer comment". Canadian Press. June 9, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09. 
  34. ↑ Rabson, Mia (June 9, 2009). "Raitt's shot at Manitoba MP Joy Smith caught on tape". Winnipeg Free Press. 
  35. ↑ parl.gc.ca: "Member of Parliament Profile (Current): Lisa Raitt"
  36. ↑ Akin, David; Fitzpatrick, Meagan (January 19, 2010). "Harper shuffles cabinet to focus on economy". Canwest News Service. Retrieved 2010-01-19. 
  37. ↑ Stechyson, Natalie (2012). "Injunction ends Air Canada wildcat strike; accusations fly over comments to Raitt". ottawacitizen.com. Retrieved March 23, 2012. "Lisa Raitt" 
  38. ↑ National Post Staff (2012). "Suspension of Air Canada workers who slow clapped Lisa Raitt caused wildcat strike | News | National Post". nationalpost.com. Retrieved March 23, 2012. "asked that the RCMP ‘arrest these animals’" 
  39. ↑ parl.gc.ca: "The Canadian Ministry (September 2001 to date) - from 19 Mar 2013"
  40. ↑ "Transport Canada vowed to fix inadequate oversight of dangerous goods transportation in 2011" o.canada 9 July 2013
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 G+M: "New Brunswick train derailment fire renews questions of oil-by-rail’s dangers" 8 Jan 2014
  42. ↑ G+M: "Train derailment and fire involving crude oil tankers likely caused by brake malfunction" 8 jan 2014

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