1. Hugh Segal served as chief of staff to Ontario Premier Bill Davis and later to Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
26 Facts About Hugh Segal
1. 2.
Hugh Segal was inspired by a visit from Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1962 to his school, United Talmud Torah Academy in Montreal.
3.
Hugh Segal went on to graduate from the University of Ottawa and was an aide to federal Progressive Conservative Leader of the Opposition Robert Stanfield in the early 1970s, while still a university student.
4.
Hugh Segal finished second to Joe Clark after the first ballot of the 1998 Progressive Conservative leadership election, but he chose to withdraw and support Clark in the second ballot runoff vote against third-place finisher David Orchard.
5.
Hugh Segal had briefly considered running for the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1993.
6.
In 2005, Hugh Segal was appointed to the Senate of Canada by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin.
7.
Hugh Segal was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee until he "reluctantly" agreed to resign in 2007 at the request of the Conservative government, which reportedly wished to appoint a more ideologically conservative senator to the role after the committee issued a report critical of the Conservative government's foreign aid policy.
8.
Hugh Segal insisted that the move was an administrative one.
9.
Hugh Segal later served as Chair of the Special Senate Committee on Anti-Terrorism.
10.
In December 2013, Hugh Segal announced his intention to resign from the Senate in June 2014, twelve years before he would reach the mandatory retirement age of 75, to accept an academic appointment as Master of Massey College in Toronto.
11.
On July 7,2010, Hugh Segal was appointed to the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group by Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma.
12.
Hugh Segal espoused a moderate brand of conservatism that has little in common with British Thatcherism or US neoconservatism.
13.
Hugh Segal was a Red Tory in the tradition of Benjamin Disraeli, Sir John A Macdonald, John Diefenbaker and his mentors Robert Stanfield and Bill Davis.
14.
Hugh Segal opposed on civil liberties grounds the imposition of the War Measures Act by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the October Crisis of 1970.
15.
Hugh Segal favoured strengthening Canada's military and encouraging investment while maintaining a strong social safety net.
16.
On June 6,2012, Hugh Segal had a comment published in the National Post outlining his views on Basic Income.
17.
In December 2012, Hugh Segal published an essay in the Literary Review of Canada promoting the benefits of a guaranteed annual income.
18.
Hugh Segal lived in Kingston, Ontario, and until 2014 was a faculty member at Queen's University's School of Policy Studies, and has taught at the university's school of business.
19.
Hugh Segal served as president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a Montreal think tank, from 1999 to 2006.
20.
Hugh Segal sat on the board of directors and was a distinguished fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.
21.
Hugh Segal was appointed Master of Massey College in the University of Toronto and retired from the Senate to accept the position.
22.
Hugh Segal retired from the Massey College position effective June 30,2019, five years into his seven-year term, and was succeeded by Nathalie Des Rosiers.
23.
Hugh Segal was born in Montreal into what he described as a "very low-end, working-class family in what is called Le Plateau".
24.
Hugh Segal was the brother of corporate executive and former university administrator Brian Segal, and of artist Seymour Segal.
25.
Hugh Segal was married to Donna Armstrong Segal, a former Ontario Ministry of Health executive.
26.
Hugh Segal died on August 9,2023, in Kingston, Ontario, at the age of 72.