'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. Stevens ran as a candidate in the
1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. He finished seventh on the first ballot, and withdrew in favor 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 lost the party nomination in his riding in a bitter fight and 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' behavior 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.
As of 2006, Stevens runs Freedom International Association along Noreen Stevens and Alice Patry, a registered corporation that controls the domain
bloc-harper.com. This website promotes the idea that
Stephen Harper, leader of the
Conservative Party of Canada and now Prime Minister, and
Gilles Duceppe, leader of the separatist
Bloc Québécois, are collaborating to weaken Canadian federalism, to the point that - whether intended by Harper or not - it will lead to the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country.
External links
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Stevens discusses his vindication in an audio interview with ''THECOMMENTARY.CA'' in February 2005