Sinclair Stevens
Encyclopedia
Sinclair McKnight Stevens, PC
(born February 11, 1927) is a Canadian
lawyer, businessman and former parliamentarian.
), the third child of Northern Irish immigrants Robert Murray Stevens and Anna Bailey McKnight. The family later moved near Kleinburg, Ontario
.
He attended Weston Collegiate Institute
and later, the University of Western Ontario
, class of 1950. He was active in the student newspaper and the model Parliament. He entered Osgoode Hall Law School
, where he met his fellow student and future wife Noreen Mary Terese Charlebois. Noreen was one of just five women in their class. They graduated in 1955 and married in 1958. From his university days until he articled, he was a part-time reporter for the Toronto Star
. Stevens articled with Toronto law firm Fraser & Beatty. He later formed his own firm Stevens, Hassard & Elliot.
In 1962 he formed York Trust and Savings Co. Former Bank of Canada governor James Coyne
became chairman in 1963. Stevens had interests in several other small trust companies. Unusual for the time, his branches were located in working class areas and Loblaws
stores, featuring extended service hours. York Trust grew at four times the rate of other trust companies.
By 1964 Stevens controlled 23 companies with assets of $130 million, having started in 1961 with just $215,000.
From 1963 through 1967 Stevens was embroiled in an attempt to form the first new Canadian chartered bank in fifty years, Westbank. This caused resentment in several quarters: Westerners saw it as yet another eastern-controlled firm; Conservatives were put off by the association with Coyne; and the feathers of the establishment banks were ruffled. The affair led to a falling-out with Coyne, and later with businessman Marc Bienvenu. John Diefenbaker
reportedly "loathed" Stevens over the issue.
.
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 cabinet minister John Roberts in the riding of York-Simcoe.
He won again in the elections of 1972
, 1974
, 1979
, 1980
and 1984
.
. At the time, he had only three years parliamentary experience, but five of the other candidates had also entered parliament in 1972. He finished seventh (of eleven candidates) on the first ballot, and withdrew in favour of the eventual victor Joe Clark
. This was seen as a surprising move, since Stevens was considered right-wing while Clark, a moderate, was on the party's left wing. Mulroney would "think about Steven's dramatic walk for years to come, never pretending to understand it"
Stevens had been the top official campaign spender (at $294,107) although Mulroney (who did not provide figures) is widely thought to have exceeded this
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. David Scott (brother of Ian Scott), John Sopinka
and Marlys Edwardh
were prominent lawyers involved in the commission, which cost more than $2.9 million. Edwardh had studied search and seizure, and the Parker commission was one of the first to make extensive use of subpoena
. Session lasted eight months, 93 witnesses were called and nearly 14000 pages of transcripts were recorded.
Scott's summation ran to 795 pages, while Sopinka's was 346 pages.
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 this step exceeded Parker's mandate. In voiding the definition of conflict of interest, the judge found that Stevens's behaviour did not violate the guidelines that governed him, since no valid guidlines existed.
and the Progressive Conservatives into the Conservative Party of Canada
. Stevens backed an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to block the merger.
's resignation as leader of the Progressive Canadian Party
, Stevens became that party's interim leader
.
Like Ernie Schreiber
, Stevens has not run in any election as a party leader with the exception of 2011
Queen's Privy Council for Canada
The Queen's Privy Council for Canada ), sometimes called Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council, is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs, though responsible government requires the sovereign or her viceroy,...
(born February 11, 1927) is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
lawyer, businessman and former parliamentarian.
Early life
He was born in Esquesing Township (today part of Halton Hills, OntarioHalton Hills, Ontario
Halton Hills is a town in the Regional Municipality of Halton, west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located within the Greater Toronto Area....
), the third child of Northern Irish immigrants Robert Murray Stevens and Anna Bailey McKnight. The family later moved near Kleinburg, Ontario
Kleinburg, Ontario
-External links:* * *...
.
He attended Weston Collegiate Institute
Weston Collegiate Institute
Weston Collegiate Institute is a Grade 9 to 12 public high school located in the York South-Weston area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the second oldest high school in Toronto, after Jarvis Collegiate Institute. Weston CI is located on 100 Pine Street and is near the Jane Street & Lawrence...
and later, the University of Western Ontario
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus covers of land, with the Thames River cutting through the eastern portion of the main campus. Western administers its programs through 12 different faculties and...
, class of 1950. He was active in the student newspaper and the model Parliament. He entered Osgoode Hall Law School
Osgoode Hall Law School
Osgoode Hall Law School is a Canadian law school, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and affiliated with York University. Named after the first Chief Justice of Ontario, William Osgoode, the law school was established by The Law Society of Upper Canada in 1889 and was the only accredited law...
, where he met his fellow student and future wife Noreen Mary Terese Charlebois. Noreen was one of just five women in their class. They graduated in 1955 and married in 1958. From his university days until he articled, he was a part-time reporter for the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
. Stevens articled with Toronto law firm Fraser & Beatty. He later formed his own firm Stevens, Hassard & Elliot.
Early work
In 1958 his first development, The Cardiff, was under way. This was followed up with several other development projects.In 1962 he formed York Trust and Savings Co. Former Bank of Canada governor James Coyne
James Coyne
James Elliott Coyne, BCL, BA was the second Governor of the Bank of Canada, from 1955 to 1961, succeeding Graham Towers. During his time in office, he had a much-publicized debate with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a debate often referred to as the "Coyne Affair" .-Life and career:Coyne was...
became chairman in 1963. Stevens had interests in several other small trust companies. Unusual for the time, his branches were located in working class areas and Loblaws
Loblaws
Loblaws is a supermarket chain with over 70 stores in Canada, headquartered in Brampton, with stores across Ontario and Quebec. Loblaws is a division of Loblaw Companies Limited, Canada's largest food distributor...
stores, featuring extended service hours. York Trust grew at four times the rate of other trust companies.
By 1964 Stevens controlled 23 companies with assets of $130 million, having started in 1961 with just $215,000.
From 1963 through 1967 Stevens was embroiled in an attempt to form the first new Canadian chartered bank in fifty years, Westbank. This caused resentment in several quarters: Westerners saw it as yet another eastern-controlled firm; Conservatives were put off by the association with Coyne; and the feathers of the establishment banks were ruffled. The affair led to a falling-out with Coyne, and later with businessman Marc Bienvenu. John Diefenbaker
John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker, PC, CH, QC was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 21, 1957, to April 22, 1963...
reportedly "loathed" Stevens over the issue.
Member of Parliament
In 1968, he moved to King Township, OntarioKing, Ontario
King is a township in York Region north of Toronto, within the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada.The rolling hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine are the most prominent visible geographical feature of King. The Holland Marsh, considered to be Ontario's "vegetable basket", straddles King Township...
.
He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
in the 1972 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1972
The Canadian federal election of 1972 was held on October 30, 1972 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 29th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in a slim victory for the governing Liberal Party, which won 109 seats, compared to 107 seats for the opposition Progressive...
as a Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
Member of Parliament, defeating Liberal
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
incumbent cabinet minister John Roberts in the riding of York-Simcoe.
He won again in the elections of 1972
Canadian federal election, 1972
The Canadian federal election of 1972 was held on October 30, 1972 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 29th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in a slim victory for the governing Liberal Party, which won 109 seats, compared to 107 seats for the opposition Progressive...
, 1974
Canadian federal election, 1974
The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term...
, 1979
Canadian federal election, 1979
The Canadian federal election of 1979 was held on May 22, 1979 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 31st Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of Liberal Party of Canada after 11 years in power under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Joe Clark led the Progressive...
, 1980
Canadian federal election, 1980
The Canadian federal election of 1980 was held on February 18, 1980 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 32nd Parliament of Canada...
and 1984
Canadian federal election, 1984
The Canadian federal election of 1984 was held on September 4 of that year to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 33rd Parliament of Canada...
.
Bid for PC leadership 1976
Stevens ran as a candidate in the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership conventionProgressive Conservative leadership convention, 1976
The 1976 leadership election of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was held in Ottawa on February 22, 1976, to elect a leader to replace Robert Stanfield, who had resigned after losing the 1968, 1972, and 1974 elections. It unexpectedly elected a 36-year-old, little-known PC Member of...
. At the time, he had only three years parliamentary experience, but five of the other candidates had also entered parliament in 1972. He finished seventh (of eleven candidates) on the first ballot, and withdrew in favour of the eventual victor Joe Clark
Joe Clark
Charles Joseph "Joe" Clark, is a Canadian statesman, businessman, and university professor, and former journalist and politician...
. This was seen as a surprising move, since Stevens was considered right-wing while Clark, a moderate, was on the party's left wing. Mulroney would "think about Steven's dramatic walk for years to come, never pretending to understand it"
Stevens had been the top official campaign spender (at $294,107) although Mulroney (who did not provide figures) is widely thought to have exceeded this
Cabinet Minister (1979-1980; 1984-1986)
Stevens 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
Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...
's leadership bid which culminated in victory at the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention
Progressive Conservative leadership convention, 1983
The 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership election was held on June 11, 1983 in Ottawa, Ontario to elect a leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada...
. After the 1984 election
Canadian federal election, 1984
The Canadian federal election of 1984 was held on September 4 of that year to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 33rd Parliament of Canada...
, which resulted in a Tory landslide, Stevens became Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion
Conflict of interest allegations and the Parker Commission
As a cabinet minister, Stevens had placed his business holdings in a Blind trustBlind trust
A blind trust is a trust in which the fiduciaries, namely the trustees or those who have been given power of attorney, have full discretion over the assets, and the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust and no right to intervene in their handling...
. He was forced to resign from Cabinet in 1986 following allegations of conflict of interest
Conflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
. In December 1987, a special commission of inquiry headed by Justice William Parker
William Parker
-Sportsmen:* Tony Parker, William Anthony Parker II, , Belgian basketball player* Smush Parker , American basketball player* Sir William Parker, 3rd Baronet , British rower and Olympic medalist*Will Parker, rugby union player...
ruled he had violated conflict of interest allegations on fourteen counts. David Scott (brother of Ian Scott), John Sopinka
John Sopinka
John Sopinka, QC was a Canadian lawyer and puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada, the first Ukrainian-Canadian appointed to the high court....
and Marlys Edwardh
Marlys Edwardh
Marlys Edwardh, CM is a Canadian litigation and civil rights lawyer of international reputation, recognized for upholding the causes of justice and the rights of the wrongfully accused...
were prominent lawyers involved in the commission, which cost more than $2.9 million. Edwardh had studied search and seizure, and the Parker commission was one of the first to make extensive use of subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
. Session lasted eight months, 93 witnesses were called and nearly 14000 pages of transcripts were recorded.
Scott's summation ran to 795 pages, while Sopinka's was 346 pages.
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
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
in 1988.
In December 2004, a Federal Court
Federal Court of Canada
The Federal Court of Canada was a national court of Canada that heard some types of disputes arising under the central government's legislative jurisdiction...
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 this step exceeded Parker's mandate. In voiding the definition of conflict of interest, the judge found that Stevens's behaviour did not violate the guidelines that governed him, since no valid guidlines existed.
Reaction to party merger
Stevens returned to prominence as a bitter opponent of the merger of the Canadian AllianceCanadian Alliance
The Canadian Alliance , formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance , was a Canadian conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003. The party was the successor to the Reform Party of Canada and inherited its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons and held...
and the Progressive Conservatives into the Conservative Party of Canada
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
. Stevens backed an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to block the merger.
Leader of the Progressive Canadians
In 2007, following Tracy ParsonsTracy Parsons
Tracy Parsons was the second leader of the Progressive Canadian Party, from May 2005 to November 2007. She ran in the 2008 federal election as a Liberal Party candidate in riding of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley...
's resignation as leader of the Progressive Canadian Party
Progressive Canadian Party
The Progressive Canadian Party is a minor federal political party in Canada. It is a centre/centre-right party that was officially registered with Elections Canada, the government's election agency, on March 29, 2004....
, Stevens became that party's interim leader
Interim leader
An interim leader, in Canadian politics, is a party leader appointed by the party's legislative caucus or the party's executive to temporarily act as leader when a gap occurs between the resignation or death of a party leader and the election of a formal successor...
.
Like Ernie Schreiber
Ernie Schreiber (politician)
H. Ernie Schreiber MA was the founding interim leader of the Progressive Canadian Party from 2004 until his resignation due to a heart condition in 2005.-Biography:...
, Stevens has not run in any election as a party leader with the exception of 2011