29 Facts About Reg Alcock

Reg Alcock represented the riding of Winnipeg South in the House of Commons of Canada from 1993 to 2006 and was a cabinet minister in the government of Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Reg Alcock earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Simon Fraser University and a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University.

Reg Alcock was the director of Manitoba Child and Family Services from 1983 to 1985 and in this capacity spearheaded an effort to rewrite the province's child protection legislation.

Reg Alcock was active with the Harvard Policy Group, which studies the effects of information technology on the public sector.

Reg Alcock began his political career at the provincial level, working as an organizer for the Manitoba Liberal Party in the early 1980s.

Reg Alcock was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for the Winnipeg division of Osborne in the 1988 provincial election, in which the Manitoba Liberal Party rose from one seat to twenty under the leadership of Sharon Carstairs.

Reg Alcock later worked as campaign manager for high-profile Liberal incumbent Lloyd Axworthy in the 1988 federal election in Winnipeg South Centre.

Reg Alcock served as official opposition house leader and finance critic and was re-elected in the 1990 provincial election despite a shift against his party.

Reg Alcock endorsed Jean Chretien's bid to lead the federal Liberal Party in 1990, and declared his own intention to enter federal politics in 1992.

Reg Alcock won the Liberal nomination for Winnipeg South in early 1993, defeating rival candidate Linda Asper by only five votes on the third ballot of what proved to be a divisive contest.

Reg Alcock won a convincing victory over incumbent Progressive Conservative incumbent Dorothy Dobbie in the 1993 federal election and entered the House as a government backbencher.

Reg Alcock soon developed a reputation as one of the most technologically savvy members of parliament.

Reg Alcock was appointed to the House's standing committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 1995, and was named chair of the standing committee on Transport in 1997.

When Chretien called the election anyway, Reg Alcock transformed his campaign office into a volunteer relief centre.

Reg Alcock was personally involved in sandbagging and evacuation efforts and did not actively campaign in the first period of the election.

Reg Alcock increased his public profile in 2003, after chairing a committee which forced privacy commissioner George Radwanski to resign from office after revelations of lax spending habits.

Reg Alcock was named to the government's priorities and planning committee, described as the "inner circle" of cabinet, and was appointed chair of a cabinet committee that conducted a comprehensive review of government spending.

Reg Alcock played a leading role in coordinating the Martin government's response to the federal sponsorship scandal, in which some bureaucrats and advertising agents in Quebec with ties to the Liberal Party had misappropriated public monies.

Reg Alcock announced a new appointment process for Crown corporation executives in 2004, and the following year he issued a new policy of management control for government agencies.

Reg Alcock argued that these reforms would prevent similar scandals from occurring in the future.

In total, Reg Alcock brought forward 158 separate reforms for the public service in late 2005, and promised that another eighty would follow.

Critics considered this to be excessive and some suggested that Reg Alcock was micro-managing his department.

Reg Alcock argued that his reforms would reduce delays for patent drug approval and avoid the duplication of existing foreign research without compromising safety standards.

Reg Alcock took personal responsibility for the loss and acknowledged that he did not spend enough time campaigning in his own riding.

Reg Alcock said that being the government's point person for the sponsorship scandal did not help his electoral prospects, though he ultimately defended his government's actions.

In March 2006, Reg Alcock announced that he would support Belinda Stronach if she entered the contest to succeed Paul Martin as Liberal leader.

In January 2007, Alcock was appointed to the faculty of the University of Manitoba as an executive in residence at the I H Asper School of Business.

Reg Alcock was appointed as a research affiliate with the Leadership Network at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Reg Alcock died on October 14,2011, after suffering an apparent heart attack at James Richardson International Airport in Winnipeg.