Pat Carney - Definition and Overview

Patricia (Pat) Carney (born May 26, 1935) is a Canadian Senator and former Cabinet minister. Carney first ran for the Canadian House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative in the 1979 Canadian election and was defeated. She was first elected in the 1980 Canadian election as Member of Parliament from Vancouver Centre. When the Tories formed government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a result of the 1984 Canadian election, Carney was appointed to Cabinet as Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and was responsible for dismantling the previous government's unpopular National Energy Policy. In 1986 she was promoted to Minister of International Trade and, as such, was involved in negotiating the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement.

Carney did not run for re-election in the 1988 Canadian election. In 1990 she was appointed to the Canadian Senate. Carney, a pro-choice advocate of women's rights to abortion voted against the abortion law proposed by her sucessor as MP for Vancouver Centre, Kim Campbell. The bill failed in the Senate by one vote.

More recently Carney mused that British Columbia might benefit from separating from Canada.

Carney became a Conservative Senator in 2004 following the merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance.

External link

• Senator Pat Carney (http://sen.parl.gc.ca/pcarney/) official website