20 June 2006 Meeting and AGM of the Canadian Club of Edmonton

The Edmonton Chapter of the Canadian Club will meet at 12:00 noon at the Chateau Lacombe 20 June 2006. Cost $25.00 .





Our feature speaker is:



A. Anne McLellan, P.C. , LL.M. , LL.B. , B.A. (born August 31, 1950, in Hants County, Nova Scotia) was the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada under Paul Martin.



She will be talking on Canadian Security.



Biography of Speaker from Wikipedia with some corrections.



Early life



Anne McLellan earned bachelor degrees in Arts and Law from Halifax's Dalhousie University. She then earned a Master of Laws from King's College London in the UK.



She became a professor of law, first at the University of New Brunswick and then, beginning in 1980, at the University of Alberta where she served at various times as associate dean and dean. She has also served on the board of directors of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.



Political career



Her first foray into politics was as the Liberal candidate for the riding of Edmonton Northwest in the 1993 general election, when she won her seat by 12 votes. She is known as "Landslide Annie" for her frequent, narrow electoral victories.



She quickly became a rising star in the Liberal Party, being one of 4 Liberals elected in Alberta, namely in the City of Edmonton, and was named to cabinet as Minister of Natural Resources. McLellan has the prenomial "the Honourable" and the postnomial "PC" for life by virture of being made a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada on November 4, 1993.



She managed to get re-elected in the new riding of Edmonton West in 1997 and 2000 despite Liberal unpopularity in Alberta being one of 2 Liberals from Alberta. She moved around the cabinet table, serving as Minister of Justice from 1997 to 2002 and Minister of Health from 2002 to 2003. As Justice Minister, she was responsible for implementing new anti-terror and security laws following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and administered the implementation of the Canadian gun registry, a Liberal program criticized for its expense and inefficiency.





Prominence in Martin cabinet



On being sworn-in as Prime Minister on December 12, 2003, Paul Martin showed renewed confidence in McLellan and sent a message to the west about his plans to reduce western alienation by naming her his Deputy Prime Minister. McLellan was also named minister for the newly created Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.



During the 2004 Canadian federal election, she was re-elected by 721 votes, or just over 1% of the vote, defeating Laurie Hawn of the Conservative Party of Canada in the riding of Edmonton Centre.



However, in the 2006 Canadian federal election on 23 January 2006, McLellan was defeated by Laurie Hawn, taking 38.36% to Hawn's 45.01% of the popular vote in Edmonton Centre.