Elaine McCoy
|
The Honourable Elaine McCoy QC |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Facilitator of the Independent Senators Group |
|
|
Assumed office September 27, 2016 |
|
| Senator for Alberta | |
|
Assumed office March 24, 2005 |
|
| Nominated by | Paul Martin |
| Appointed by | Adrienne Clarkson |
| MLA for Calgary-West | |
|
In office 1986–1993 |
|
| Preceded by | Peter Lougheed |
| Succeeded by | Danny Dalla-Longa |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
March 7, 1946 Brandon, Manitoba, Canada |
| Political party | Independent Senators Group (2016—present) |
| Other political affiliations |
Alberta PC Independent Progressive Conservative (2013–2016) Progressive Conservative (2005–2013) |
Elaine McCoy, QC (born March 7, 1946 in Brandon, Manitoba) is a Canadian senator from Alberta and Facilitator of the Independent Senators Group. She was the last remaining member of the Canadian Senate to sit as a Progressive Conservative following the retirement of Senator Lowell Murray on September 26, 2011. On February 11, 2013 she changed her designation to Independent Progressive Conservative, before changing it once again, to Independent, on February 17, 2016.
McCoy was appointed to the Senate by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the recommendation of Prime Minister Paul Martin, on March 24, 2005. She sits in the Upper House representing Alberta as an Independent. Unless she resigns, McCoy will continue to sit in the Senate until March 7, 2021. She currently sits on the Senate Committee for Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament, and previously, on the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Initially a member of the Progressive Conservative caucus, a rump caucus made of Tory Senators who had refused to join the new Conservative Party of Canada in 2003, McCoy was ultimately the last Progressive Conservative in the chamber following the retirement of Senator Lowell Murray in 2011. She changed her designation to Independent PC in 2013 and then to non-affiliated in 2016, following the decision by the government of Justin Trudeau to make the Senate a non-partisan institution and appoint independent Senators. In September 2016, she and fourteen other non-affiliated Senators formed the Independent Senators Group to advocate for the rights of non-affiliated Senators as the upper house was still organized around partisan lines resulting in non-affiliated Senators being underrepresented on committees and not receiving the funding given to party caucuses. McCoy was elected facilitator of the new group for the 2016-2017 parliamentary term. In December 2016, the Senate agreed to recognize the ISG and granted it funding and also agreed that non-affiliated Senators would be appointed to Senate committees in numbers proportionate to their numbers in the Senate.
...
Wikipedia