Close X
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
ADVT 
National

Former senator, MP and journalist Pat Carney is dead at the age of 88

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 26 Jul, 2023 05:03 PM
  • Former senator, MP and journalist Pat Carney is dead at the age of 88

Pat Carney, who pioneered roles for women in Canadian politics and journalism, has died at the age of 88. 

Her niece, Jill Carney, confirmed in a statement that the former MP and senator passed away Tuesday. 

Pat Carney was the first female Conservative member of Parliament elected in B.C. and the first female Conservative appointed from the province to the Senate. 

Born in Shanghai, China, in May 1935, Carney was educated in Canada and worked as a journalist and economic consultant in the Northwest Territories and Yukon before entering politics. 

She was first elected to the House of Commons in February 1980 in the riding of Vancouver Centre.

Her website says she began her journalism career in the 1960s and was the first female business columnist writing for daily newspapers, including the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province. 

It says Carney was also the first woman in every government portfolio she held, serving as the minister of energy, minister of international trade and president of the Treasury Board in Brian Mulroney’s cabinet. 

Carney also pioneered the development of distance learning, and in 1977 received a B.C. Institute of Technology award for innovation in education.

After retiring from politics, Carney continued to contribute to newspapers. Last year, she wrote about “the most chilling moment” of her political career, when she voted against her own government’s anti-abortion bill in 1991.

The bill came within a single vote of being enshrined in law.

“There was no doubt about how I would vote. I had told my voters that I believed a decision on an abortion was the right of a woman, her conscience and her doctors,” she wrote in the Globe and Mail.

“For personal reasons, I would not have an abortion, but that was my choice; I knew other women had their own reasons to make a different one."

Carney said in her 2007 farewell speech to the Senate that her favourite story about entering politics came when she tried to shake the hand of an elderly woman in downtown Vancouver in 1979. 

“The benign-looking senior snatched her hand away and snapped viciously: ‘I would rather my hand withered and dropped off before shaking hands with a Conservative.’ She then walked away,” Carney said.

Carney was a mother of two and lived on Saturna Island, one of B.C.’s Gulf Islands. 

 

MORE National ARTICLES

49 year old man dead after crash takes place in Cloverdale area of Surrey

49 year old man dead after crash takes place in Cloverdale area of Surrey
Two motorcycles were travelling east bound on Fraser Highway approaching 182 street, when they both lost control and struck the center median. The 49 year old male rider of one of the motorcycles was transported to a local area hospital where he was pronounced deceased. The other rider, a male, suffered serious injuries.

49 year old man dead after crash takes place in Cloverdale area of Surrey

Drilling down on cost of federal dental care

Drilling down on cost of federal dental care
In its 2023 budget Tuesday, the government revealed the federally administered insurance program will be far more expensive over the next five years than it originally thought. It is also projecting that ongoing costs after that will more than double to $4.4 billion per year, up from $1.7 billion.

Drilling down on cost of federal dental care

Humboldt reflects five years after bus crash

Humboldt reflects five years after bus crash
The CEO of the Horizon School Division, whose term at the helm of the hockey team has ended, was unexpectedly thrust into an international spotlight after the crash. So was his community and team. Now, Garinger says, the intense focus has faded but the small Saskatchewan city east of Saskatoon is still figuring out how to exist within that legacy.

Humboldt reflects five years after bus crash

Rogers-Shaw deal gains final approval from Ottawa

Rogers-Shaw deal gains final approval from Ottawa
The largest telecommunications deal in Canadian history will go forward after Rogers Communications Inc.'s $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc. received approval from Ottawa on Friday. The green light means the deal has cleared its final regulatory hurdle just over two years after it was first announced.

Rogers-Shaw deal gains final approval from Ottawa

Liberals' online-streaming bill closer to passing

Liberals' online-streaming bill closer to passing
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has said his government is against the amendment because it could create a loophole for big companies to avoid following the law. The U.S. government has also raised concerns that the law could discriminate against American companies, with some U.S. senators calling for a trade crackdown.

Liberals' online-streaming bill closer to passing

Ozempic puts cross-border drug sales in spotlight

Ozempic puts cross-border drug sales in spotlight
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said on Tuesday he wants a federal clampdown on sales to non-residents after it was discovered that Americans were being sent thousands of doses of Ozempic in the mail from B.C., the majority prescribed by a single practitioner in Nova Scotia.    

Ozempic puts cross-border drug sales in spotlight