Moe Amery | |
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MLA for Calgary-East | |
In office June 15, 1993 – May 5, 2015 |
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Preceded by | New district |
Succeeded by | Robyn Luff |
Personal details | |
Born |
Lebanon |
September 20, 1954
Political party | Progressive Conservative |
Spouse(s) | Mary |
Children | Mickey, Lila, Leena, Laura, and Malaak |
Residence | Calgary, Alberta |
Occupation | realtor |
Moe Amery (né Amiri; September 20, 1954) is a former member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, who represented the constituency of Calgary-East as a Progressive Conservative.
Amery was born Moe Amiri (he changed his name sometime between 1989 and 1993) in Lebanon on September 20, 1954, and came to Canada in 1974. He studied at the University of Alberta from 1975 until 1977, after which time he relocated to Calgary to become a realtor until his election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1993.
Amery's first two bids for elected office were unsuccessful; he sought provincial election in Calgary-Forest Lawn in the 1986 and 1989 elections, but was defeated both times, finishing second to New Democrat Barry Pashak each time. He was more successful in 1993, when he more than doubled Pashak's vote count in the newly formed Calgary-East. He was handily re-elected in each of the 1997, 2001, 2004, and 2008 elections.
In 1994, Amery introduced two different bills called the Maintenance Enforcement Amendment Act. The first, a private member's bill, would have made it impossible for individuals in arrears on child support payments to register their vehicles or renew their drivers' licenses. The second, a government bill, included the objectives of the first, but also took other measures, including ending a provision by which money held in a joint bank account could not be drawn upon to satisfy child support payments owed by one of the account-holders. The government bill passed with the support of the Progressive Conservatives and some Liberals, including Sine Chadi and Michael Henry. Other Liberals - including Gary Dickson, Debby Carlson, Bettie Hewes, Mike Percy, Percy Wickman, Ken Nicol, Nicholas Taylor, and Colleen Soetaert - opposed the bill on the grounds that it didn't go far enough in taking measures to recover payments, promoted animosity in an already adversarial process, and was written with insufficient consultation with the recently privatized registries centres. After the government bill passed, the private member's bill was ruled redundant by Speaker Stanley Schumacher.