Ted Menzies, PC, MP (born February 18, 1952) is a Canadian politician. He currently represents the electoral district of Macleod in the Canadian House of Commons and serves as Minister of State for Finance.

In opposition[link]

A farmer born in Claresholm, Alberta, Menzies was elected into the Canadian House of Commons as a Conservative in the 2004 federal election in the riding of Macleod. He was elected by over 27,000 votes more than the Liberal candidate, Chris Shade. During the 38th Canadian Parliament he served as the opposition critic for International Cooperation and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the opposition critic for International Trade and Internal Trade.

Portfolio in Conservative government[link]

After the Conservative victory in the 2006 federal election, he was appointed as parliamentary secretary to Josée Verner, who is presently the Minister for International Cooperation, Minister responsible for Official Languages, and Minister responsible for La Francophonie.

On February 10, 2006, Menzies received some news coverage when it was revealed that despite being the parliamentary secretary responsible for La Francophonie, he did not speak French. His appointment was criticized by New Democrat Yvon Godin (an Acadian).

In his defence, Menzies replied that "we have two official languages in this country. Not just French. Not just English. We have two official languages." He argued that the best means of representing both languages was with a Francophone minister with an Anglophone parliamentary secretary.^[1]

It was subsequently specified that he was appointed parliamentary secretary to Josée Verner "exclusively to support the Minister in her foreign aid files only."

On October 10, 2007 Menzies was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance. On January 4, 2011, Menzies was promoted to Minister of State with the finance portfolio and was sworn of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

Opposition to McTeague RESP bill[link]

Supported by the three opposition parties, Dan McTeague's private member bill passed through the Commons on March 5, 2008. The bill would give parents substantial tax breaks for saving education money. Under McTeague's bill, taxpayers who deposit $5,000 into a registered education savings plan (RESP) for their children's post-secondary education will earn a $5,000 tax deduction, similar to the deduction allowed for contributions to an RRSP. Under the Conservative savings plan, introduced in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's February 26, 2008 budget, there is no deduction for annual contributions.^[2]

Ted Menzies lashed out at the proposal and suggested Mr. McTeague explain how the government will pay for it.^[3] "I'm going to suggest to the senators that this is an uncosted $900-million proposal that the Liberals have put forward," Mr. Menzies said. The paradox of the Tories approaching the Senate wasn't lost on the bill's sponsor, Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who said he was "disappointed but not surprised" that the Conservatives were thinking of stalling the bill in the upper house.^[4] However other MP's such as Garth Turner strongly support McTeague's bill and call it “the greatest financial tool in a generation.”^[5]

References[link]

External links[link]

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

v t e   Current members of the Canadian Cabinet Ablonczy · Aglukkaq · Ashfield · Ambrose · Baird · Bernier · Blaney · Clement · Duncan · Fantino · Fast · Finley · Flaherty · Fletcher · Goodyear · Gosal · Harper · Kenney · Kent · Lebel · LeBreton · MacKay · Menzies · Moore · Nicholson · O'Connor · Oda · Oliver · Paradis · Penashue · Raitt · Ritz · Shea · Toews · Uppal · Valcourt · Van Loan · Wong · Yelich

v t e   Current Members of the House of Commons of Canada Government v t e Conservative Party Harper Ablonczy Adams Adler Aglukkaq Albas Albrecht Alexander Allen Allison Ambler Ambrose Anders Anderson Armstrong Ashfield Aspin Baird Bateman Benoit Bernier Bezan Blaney Block Boughen Braid Breitkreuz G. Brown L. Brown P. Brown Bruinooge Butt Calandra Calkins Cannan Carmichael Carrie Chisu Chong Clarke Clement Daniel Davidson Dechert Del Mastro Devolin Dreeshen Duncan Dykstra Fantino Fast Findlay Finley Flaherty Fletcher Galipeau Gallant Gill Glover Goguen Goodyear Gosal Gourde Grewal Harris Hawn Hayes Hiebert Hillyer Hoback Hoeppner Holder James Jean Kamp Keddy Kenney Kent Kerr Komarnicki Kramp Lake Lauzon Lebel Leef Leitch Lemieux Leung Lizon Lobb Lukiwski Lunney McColeman MacKay MacKenzie McLeod Mayes Merrifield Menegakis Menzies Miller J. Moore R. Moore Nicholson Norlock Obhrai O'Connor Oda Oliver O'Neill-Gordon Opitz Paradis Payne Penashue Poilievre Preston Raitt Rajotte Rathgeber Reid Rempel Richards Rickford Ritz Saxton Scheer Schellenberger Seeback Shea Shipley Shory Smith Sopuck Sorenson Stanton Storseth Strahl Sweet Tilson Toet Toews Trost Trottier Truppe Tweed Uppal Valcourt Van Kesteren Van Loan Vellacott Wallace Warawa Warkentin Watson J. Weston R. Weston Wilks Williamson Wong Woodworth Yelich T. Young W. Young Zimmer Official Opposition v t e New Democratic Party Mulcair Allen Angus Ashton Atamanenko Ayala Aubin Benskin Bevington Blanchette Blanchette-Lamothe Boivin Borg Boulerice Boutin-Sweet Brahmi Brosseau Caron Cash Charlton Chicoine Chisholm Choquette Chow Christopherson Cleary Comartin Côté Crowder Cullen D. Davies L. Davies Day Dewar Dionne Labelle Donnelly Doré Lefebvre Dubé Duncan Dusseault Freeman Garrison Genest Genest-Jourdain Giguère Godin Gravelle Groguhé D. Harris J. Harris Hassainia Hughes Jacob Julian Kellway Larose Lapointe Latendresse Laverdière LeBlanc Leslie Liu Mai Marston Martin Masse Mathyssen Michaud Moore D. Morin I. Morin M-A. Morin M-C. Morin Nantel Nash Nicholls Nunez-Melo Papillon Patry Péclet Perreault Pilon Quach Rafferty Ravignat Raynault Rousseau Saganash Sandhu Savoie Scott Sellah Sims Sitsabaiesan Stewart Stoffer Sullivan Thibeault Toone Tremblay Turmel Third Party v t e Liberal Party Rae Andrews Bélanger Bennett Brison Byrne Casey Coderre Cotler Cuzner Dion Duncan Easter Eyking Foote Fry Garneau Goodale Hsu Karygiannis Lamoureux LeBlanc MacAulay McCallum McGuinty McKay Murray Pacetti Regan Scarpaleggia Sgro Simms St-Denis Trudeau Valeriote Independents v t e Bloc Québécois Plamondon Bellavance Fortin Mourani v t e Green Party May v t e Independent Goldring Hyer 41st Canadian Parliament Vacancies: 1

Peggy Nash
Member of Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office May 2, 2011 [1]
Preceded by	Gerard Kennedy
Constituency	Parkdale—High Park
Member of Parliament
In office January 23, 2006 – October 13, 2008
Preceded by	Sarmite Bulte
Succeeded by	Gerard Kennedy
Constituency	Parkdale—High Park
President
In office August 15, 2009 – June 18, 2011
Preceded by	Anne McGrath
Succeeded by	Brian Topp[2]
Constituency	New Democratic Party
Personal details
Born	Peggy A. Nash (1951-06-28) June 28, 1951 (age 60) Toronto, Ontario
Political party	New Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Carl Kaufman
Children	3
Residence	Toronto
Profession	Labour negotiator

Peggy A. Nash (born June 28, 1951) is a Canadian labour official and politician from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is the New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) for the Parkdale—High Park electoral district (riding) in Toronto, and was the Official Opposition's Finance Critic, in Canada's 41st parliament. Before becoming a parliamentarian, she worked as a labour official at the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW), where she became the first female to negotiate a major contract with one of the Detroit-based automobile corporations in 2005. She was first elected as the MP for Parkdale—High Park in the 2006 federal election. In the 2008 federal election, she was defeated in her re-election bid by Liberal candidate Gerard Kennedy. After her defeat, Nash returned to her previous job as a labour official with the CAW. She was elected to a two-year term as the federal NDP's President on August 15, 2009, at the party's convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She ran for parliament again in the 2011 federal election, and defeated Kennedy, to regain her former seat in the Canadian House of Commons.

She became a candidate to replace the late Jack Layton as leader of the federal NDP in October 2011, but was ultimately unsuccessful in her bid, placing fourth. In April 2012, she was reappointed as the NDP's Finance Critic.

Life prior to politics[link]

Nash was born in Toronto, and holds an Honours B.A. in French language and literature from the University of Toronto and is fluent in English, French and Spanish.^[3] Nash has lived in the Parkdale—High Park electoral district for over twenty years, where she is married with three sons.^[4] In the years before she ran for parliament, Nash worked as a ticket agent and union activist with the Canadian Airline Employees Association. When that union merged with the Canadian Auto Workers in 1985, she became an assistant to national president Bob White. When he stepped down, she continued in that same capacity with his successor Basil "Buzz" Hargrove. She worked as a labour negotiator in the transportation, service and manufacturing sectors and was the first labour woman responsible for major auto negotiations in North America, when she negotiated the 2005 Ford Canada contract.^[5] Nash also wrote articles published in Our Times, Canadian Dimension, The Canadian Forum, and Our Schools Our Selves, and co-authored an article in the Canadian Labour Law Journal.^[3]

Member of Parliament[link]

39th Parliament • 2006 to 2008[link]

Nash's initial campaign for electoral office was unsuccessful. She vied for the federal parliamentary seat in the Parkdale–High Park electoral district during the 38th Canadian general election.^[3] She lost a close contest to the incumbent Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Sarmite Bulte on June 28, 2004.^[6] Nash ran again in the 39th Canadian general election, in a rematch of the 2004 campaign. Bulte came under heavy criticism as she received campaign donations from entertainment companies, which was considered a conflict of interest given she supported stricter copyright laws.^[7] Nash narrowly won the election with a 4.6% margin, or 2301 votes, on January 23, 2006. ^[8]

Her first term as an MP was during the 39th Canadian Parliament. Nash became the NDP's Industry Critic and Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.^[3] She introduced a bill to reinstate a national minimum wage of $10 per hour.^[9] Other House of Commons issues she advocated for included ones that dealt with water sustainability,^[10] public transit,^[11] and the Arts.^[12] She brought forward legislation including the "Once in a Lifetime" bill, to reunite new Canadians with their families.^[13] She championed several consumer issues such as reducing credit card interest rates, ATM fees, and payday lender interest rates.^[14]

As a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology,^[3] Nash was instrumental in stopping the acquisition of MacDonald Dettwiler by U.S.-owned Alliant Techsystems.^[15] MacDonald Dettwiler is the Canadian space company which produced the Canadarm and RADARSAT-2 satellite, and impacts the issue of Canadian Arctic sovereignty. Nash argued that the sale would have devastated the Canadian aerospace industry and eliminated Canadian control over a technology developed with the aid of millions of Canadian taxpayers' dollars.^[16]

Nash has also been active in Parliamentary Friendship Groups for Poland, Ukraine and Tibet. As the Member of Parliament representing the largest population of Tibetan refugees in Canada, she helped push for a resolution declaring the Dalai Lama an honorary Canadian citizen, and also personally introduced a motion calling for negotiations between China and Tibet.^[17] Both resolutions received unanimous support in the House of Commons.^[17] She was a parliamentary representative on the 2006 Canadian post-war fact-finding mission to Lebanon that was condemned by the Conservative government for its support for the legalization and decriminalization of Hezbollah in Canada.^[18][19]

40th Canadian general election and its aftermath[link]

In the 40th Canadian general election, held on October 14, 2008, she was defeated by Gerard Kennedy, the Liberal candidate who formerly represented the electoral district at the provincial level.^[20] Nash was subsequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the Ontario New Democratic Party 2009 leadership election, although, she did not run. ^[21]

After leaving Parliament, she returned to her position as one of the five assistants to CAW president Ken Lewenza.^[5] Her new duties within the CAW shifted from transportation, to dealing with CAW bargaining units in post-secondary education and airlines.^[5] Her responsibilities also included representing the union at the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).^[5] At the federal party's national convention, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she was elected party President on August 15, 2009.^[22]

41st Parliament • 2011 to present[link]

On January 15, 2010, it was announced, on the Parkdale—High Park NDP website, that Nash would be running for the nomination to be the electoral district association's candidate in the 41st Canadian general election.^[23] She was acclaimed as the NDP candidate in Parkdale—High Park on January 28, 2010 and campaigned until the May 2, 2011 election. ^{[24] [25] [26]} In a rematch of the 2008 campaign, Nash defeated Kennedy by 7313 votes, or 14 percent, to regain her seat in parliament. ^[27] Jack Layton, in his role as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition during the 41st Canadian Parliament, appointed Nash as the Finance Critic, in his Shadow Cabinet on May 26, 2011.^[28] When she became an MP again, she did not re-offer to run for president, and Brian Topp was acclaimed as her replacement at the federal NDP's Vancouver bi-annual convention on June 18, 2011.^[2]

Leadership candidacy[link]

With Jack Layton's death on August 22, 2011, the NDP began seeking a new federal leader. On September 9, the NDP's executive decided the rules for the leadership election, the date and place for the convention, and whether or not MPs could keep their critic portfolios once they publicly declared their intention to run for the position.^[29][30] Nash expressed interest in running, but appeared hesitant at first to run, because she would have to resign as the Finance Critic.^[29] By the last week of October, she sent signals that she intended to run,^[31] and announced her candidacy on October 28 at a press conference in Toronto.^[32] On March 24, 2012, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, she placed fourth on the second ballot, and was automatically dropped from contention.^[33] She did not back any of the remaining candidates, and freed her delegates — that had not already voted in advance — to vote for whomever they wanted.^[34] A few weeks later, new NDP leader Thomas Mulcair reappointed her to the Official Opposition's Shadow Cabinet as the Finance Critic on April 19.^[35]

Awards[link]

She has been involved with many organizations advancing women's equality. She was a founding member of Equal Voice, an all-party organization which advocates for the election of more women in Canada,^[3] and was a recipient of a Certificate of Honour from the City of Toronto for her contribution to women’s equality.

In 2006, Now named Nash the Best MP in Toronto.^[36] Before she served in the House of Commons, she was active in foreign-affairs matters including being a Canadian election monitor in the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa in 1994; and, an election monitor in both the 2004 and 2007 Ukrainian elections. She was the recipient of two environmental awards from the Sierra Club of Canada and she helped create the NDP Green Car Strategy with Greenpeace and the Canadian Auto Workers.

In February 2009, in recognition for her work as a trailblazer who opened doors for women in the labour movement, and making childcare issues a public priority, Nash became the recipient of the 2009 YWCA Toronto Woman of Distinction award, in the Labour category.^[37][38] The YWCA also recognized her contributions for advancing the women's causes in politics, through her involvement with the founding of Equal Voice and becoming an elected member of the House of Commons.^[38] She was presented with the award at the 29th Annual YWCA Women of Distinction Awards Dinner, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on May 13, 2009.^[37]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Peggy Nash - Parliament of Canada biography

v t e   Current Members of the House of Commons of Canada Government v t e Conservative Party Harper Ablonczy Adams Adler Aglukkaq Albas Albrecht Alexander Allen Allison Ambler Ambrose Anders Anderson Armstrong Ashfield Aspin Baird Bateman Benoit Bernier Bezan Blaney Block Boughen Braid Breitkreuz G. Brown L. Brown P. Brown Bruinooge Butt Calandra Calkins Cannan Carmichael Carrie Chisu Chong Clarke Clement Daniel Davidson Dechert Del Mastro Devolin Dreeshen Duncan Dykstra Fantino Fast Findlay Finley Flaherty Fletcher Galipeau Gallant Gill Glover Goguen Goodyear Gosal Gourde Grewal Harris Hawn Hayes Hiebert Hillyer Hoback Hoeppner Holder James Jean Kamp Keddy Kenney Kent Kerr Komarnicki Kramp Lake Lauzon Lebel Leef Leitch Lemieux Leung Lizon Lobb Lukiwski Lunney McColeman MacKay MacKenzie McLeod Mayes Merrifield Menegakis Menzies Miller J. Moore R. Moore Nicholson Norlock Obhrai O'Connor Oda Oliver O'Neill-Gordon Opitz Paradis Payne Penashue Poilievre Preston Raitt Rajotte Rathgeber Reid Rempel Richards Rickford Ritz Saxton Scheer Schellenberger Seeback Shea Shipley Shory Smith Sopuck Sorenson Stanton Storseth Strahl Sweet Tilson Toet Toews Trost Trottier Truppe Tweed Uppal Valcourt Van Kesteren Van Loan Vellacott Wallace Warawa Warkentin Watson J. Weston R. Weston Wilks Williamson Wong Woodworth Yelich T. Young W. Young Zimmer Official Opposition v t e New Democratic Party Mulcair Allen Angus Ashton Atamanenko Ayala Aubin Benskin Bevington Blanchette Blanchette-Lamothe Boivin Borg Boulerice Boutin-Sweet Brahmi Brosseau Caron Cash Charlton Chicoine Chisholm Choquette Chow Christopherson Cleary Comartin Côté Crowder Cullen D. Davies L. Davies Day Dewar Dionne Labelle Donnelly Doré Lefebvre Dubé Duncan Dusseault Freeman Garrison Genest Genest-Jourdain Giguère Godin Gravelle Groguhé D. Harris J. Harris Hassainia Hughes Jacob Julian Kellway Larose Lapointe Latendresse Laverdière LeBlanc Leslie Liu Mai Marston Martin Masse Mathyssen Michaud Moore D. Morin I. Morin M-A. Morin M-C. Morin Nantel Nash Nicholls Nunez-Melo Papillon Patry Péclet Perreault Pilon Quach Rafferty Ravignat Raynault Rousseau Saganash Sandhu Savoie Scott Sellah Sims Sitsabaiesan Stewart Stoffer Sullivan Thibeault Toone Tremblay Turmel Third Party v t e Liberal Party Rae Andrews Bélanger Bennett Brison Byrne Casey Coderre Cotler Cuzner Dion Duncan Easter Eyking Foote Fry Garneau Goodale Hsu Karygiannis Lamoureux LeBlanc MacAulay McCallum McGuinty McKay Murray Pacetti Regan Scarpaleggia Sgro Simms St-Denis Trudeau Valeriote Independents v t e Bloc Québécois Plamondon Bellavance Fortin Mourani v t e Green Party May v t e Independent Goldring Hyer 41st Canadian Parliament Vacancies: 1