Raymond Speaker

Raymond Speaker
Member of Parliament for Lethbridge
In office 1993–1997
Preceded by	Blaine Thacker
Succeeded by	Rick Casson
Leader of the Official Opposition in Alberta
In office 1980–1982
Preceded by	Robert Curtis Clark
Succeeded by	Grant Notley
MLA for Little Bow
In office 1963–1992
Preceded by	Peter Dawson
Succeeded by	Barry McFarland
Personal details
Born	Raymond Albert Speaker December 13, 1935 Enchant, Alberta
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Ingrid Marie Schwab (m. 1966)
Children	two
Alma mater	University of Alberta
Profession	farmer, teacher

Raymond Albert "Ray" Speaker, PC OC (born December 13, 1935) is a Canadian farmer and politician. Speaker was born and raised in Enchant, Alberta where he farms to this day. He also worked as a teacher until 1962.

Provincial politics

He entered politics in the 1963 provincial election when he was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the Social Credit Party of Alberta from the mostly rural riding of Little Bow. He served as minister without portfolio in 1967, Minister of Health and Social Development and Minister of Personnel in 1968, and Chairman of the Human Resources Development Authority in 1969.

He remained a Social Credit MLA for many years after the party lost power in the 1971 election, usually winning handily even as the party's support ebbed away in the rest of the province. When party leader Robert Curtis Clark returned to the backbench in 1980, a few months after losing the 1979 election, Speaker became parliamentary leader of the party and hence Leader of the Opposition. However, in 1982, Speaker announced that Social Credit would be sitting out the next provincial election due to dwindling support for the party. A few months earlier, Clark's former seat had been resoundingly lost in a by-election, costing Social Credit official party status. Speaker's announcement was disavowed by party officials. A motion to dissolve the party failed. Soon after the writs were dropped for the election, Speaker and Walt Buck resigned from the party and were reelected as independents.

Denied funding guaranteed to political parties, Speaker and Buck formed a new right-wing party, the Representative Party of Alberta. It branded itself as a modern version of Social Credit without the social credit monetary policy, and was intended to be a home for former Socreds who had also left what remained of the party. Speaker was elected its leader. However, in 1989, Speaker crossed the floor to the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta. He was reelected with 70 percent of the vote in 1989, his highest total. Following that election, he was named to the cabinet as Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs.

National politics

Speaker ran for and won a seat in the Canadian House of Commons in the 1993 election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Reform Party of Canada in the Federal Riding of Lethbridge. He served as finance critic and then House Leader of the Reform caucus. He retired from politics at the 1997 election.

In 1999, Speaker was appointed to the Security Intelligence Review Committee, an agency which provides an external review of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and was named to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

In 2001, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.^[1]

In 2003, he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lethbridge, Honorary Doctorate of Laws.

After the Conservative Party won a plurality of seats in the 2006 federal election, Speaker was appointed to the Prime Minister's transition team. He also was the chair of the Conservative-Canadian Alliance merger.

He was appointed as a mentor for the Trudeau Foundation of Canada in January 2008.

References

1. Order of Canada citation

External links

• Raymond Speaker – Parliament of Canada biography