1. Tony Peter Clement is a Canadian former politician in the federal and Ontario governments.
59 Facts About Tony Clement
1. 2.
Tony Clement was Member of Parliament for Parry Sound-Muskoka and a federal cabinet minister in the Conservative Party under prime minister Stephen Harper.
3.
Tony Clement was a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada after its formation from the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties in 2003.
4.
Tony Clement won the seat of Parry Sound-Muskoka in the 2006 federal election, defeating incumbent Liberal cabinet minister Andy Mitchell.
5.
The Conservatives formed government in that election and Tony Clement was appointed Minister of Health and Minister for FedNor.
6.
Tony Clement later served as President of the Treasury Board.
7.
Tony Clement was re-elected despite the Conservative defeat in the 2015 election.
8.
Tony Clement's father was a Greek Cypriot and his mother was Jewish.
9.
Tony Clement emigrated to Canada in childhood with his parents when he was four years old.
10.
Tony Clement's parents divorced and his mother married Ontario politician John Clement, with Tony adopting his stepfather's surname soon after.
11.
Tony Clement first attracted the attention of the media in 1986, when he created a new society to invite the South African ambassador to Canada, Glenn Babb, to speak after the International Law Society had withdrawn its invitation, deeming it too controversial because of the issue of apartheid.
12.
Tony Clement argued in favour of inviting Babb on the grounds of free speech.
13.
Tony Clement was called to the Ontario Bar in 1988.
14.
Tony Clement is married to Lynne Golding, a partner and Chair of the Health Law Practice at the international law firm, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin.
15.
Tony Clement became president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in 1990 and was a close ally of then-party leader Mike Harris.
16.
Tony Clement ran, unsuccessfully, for Metro Toronto Council in 1994, losing to future mayor David Miller in the ward of Parkdale-High Park.
17.
Tony Clement served as Harris's assistant principal secretary from 1992 to 1995 and played a leading role in drafting policy directives for the Common Sense Revolution.
18.
In November 2019, Tony Clement started the "And Another Thing" podcast with Jodie Jenkins which features a weekly interview with a public figure, and the discussion between Tony Clement and Jenkins.
19.
Tony Clement was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the provincial election of 1995, defeating incumbent Liberal Bob Callahan by over 6,000 votes in the riding of Brampton South.
20.
Tony Clement represented the Progressive Conservative government on a variety of televised discussion panels, gaining the reputation of a rising star in the party.
21.
Tony Clement was promoted to Minister of the Environment on June 17,1999, and served in this capacity until May 3,2000.
22.
Tony Clement was appointed Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on October 25,1999, and held this position until February 8,2001.
23.
On February 8,2001, Tony Clement was appointed Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.
24.
Tony Clement initiated primary care reform, oversaw the implementation of Telehealth Ontario and expanded Ontario's hospitals system.
25.
Tony Clement entered into a public-private partnership for a hospital redevelopment in Brampton.
26.
Tony Clement ran for leadership in the 2002 Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership election and finished third on the first ballot.
27.
Tony Clement then placed his support behind victorious candidate Ernie Eves on the second ballot.
28.
Tony Clement was especially prominent when Toronto suffered an outbreak of SARS in the summer of 2003, travelling to Geneva in a successful bid to urge the World Health Organization to lift a travel ban to Canada's largest city.
29.
The Eves government was defeated in the 2003 provincial election, and Tony Clement was defeated by Vic Dhillon by about 2,500 votes in a rematch of 1999.
30.
Tony Clement afterwards worked as a counsel for Bennett Jones LLP.
31.
Tony Clement was a small business owner and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
32.
Tony Clement first became prominent in federal politics in 2000, sitting on the steering committee for the United Alternative.
33.
Tony Clement placed third in the party's leadership vote, while Stephen Harper emerged as the winner.
34.
Tony Clement then sought election as the Conservative Party candidate in Brampton West in the 2004 federal election, but lost to Liberal incumbent Colleen Beaumier by about 3,500 votes.
35.
On February 6,2006, Tony Clement was appointed as Minister of Health by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
36.
Tony Clement pledged to extend an existing measure to require disclosure of meetings by only registered lobbyists with lower-level government officials who have decision-making power.
37.
Some of Tony Clement's initiatives included announcing a national strategy on autism, working towards establishing Canada's first Patient Wait Times Guarantees, and investing in faster, more effective and safer health information systems across Canada for Canadians.
38.
Tony Clement played a key role in launching the Chemical Management Plan, which the Conservative government claimed "made Canada a world leader in chemical management".
39.
Tony Clement stated that governments in Canada have been sending the wrong message about drug use, and he wanted to clear up the mixed messages going out on illicit drugs.
40.
Also in 2007, Tony Clement launched the new Canada's Food Guide, the first update in 15 years incorporating the most up-to-date information based on current nutritional science and a new interactive web section.
41.
On October 30,2008, Tony Clement was sworn into the office of Industry Minister.
42.
Shortly after becoming Industry Minister, Tony Clement launched the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, a two-year $2-billion measure that supported infrastructure enhancement at post-secondary institutions across Canada.
43.
In conjunction with the US and Ontario governments, Tony Clement worked closely on the restructuring of GM and Chrysler.
44.
At a news conference following the withdrawal, Tony Clement explained that of the six Investment Canada Act guidelines that determine if an investment has a "net benefit", he said BHP's bid failed to meet three of them.
45.
Tony Clement said the Government felt the takeover would not have a beneficial effect on Canada's competitiveness in world markets.
46.
In January 2011, Tony Clement spoke out against a ruling of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission which allowed usage-based billing for wholesale clients and smaller internet service providers.
47.
Tony Clement later admitted that this process was not subject to the oversight that it should have been.
48.
Shortly after the May 2,2011 election, Tony Clement was appointed as the President of the Treasury Board, a position of wide-ranging authority and oversight.
49.
Consistent with the Conservative Party of Canada's election platform, Tony Clement has been tasked with leading a government-wide spending review, with the goal of finding ways to contain government spending.
50.
On November 2,2013, Tony Clement backed a motion at the Conservative Party national convention that advocated clawing back public-sector pay and benefits.
51.
On December 22,2014, Tony Clement was quoted by the Canadian Press as saying that government deliberately withholds public data because people using the information might "create havoc" by altering the contents.
52.
On February 6,2006, in addition to being appointed Minister of Health, Tony Clement was appointed Minister responsible for FedNor.
53.
Tony Clement retained his seat in the 2015 general election that defeated the Conservative government.
54.
Tony Clement stepped down from the Shadow Cabinet on July 12,2016, in order to launch his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
55.
Tony Clement ended his campaign on October 12,2016, due to not meeting fundraising goals he had set for his campaign.
56.
In early November 2018, Tony Clement resigned his House of Commons committee assignments and his role as Conservative Shadow Minister for Justice.
57.
The resignation was filed after he admitted having shared "sexually explicit images and a video of [himself]" with an individual or party that he "believed was a consenting female recipient" but was actually a person that Tony Clement claimed had targeted him for extortion.
58.
Tony Clement did so and continued to sit as an independent MP.
59.
Tony Clement has stated that there are circumstances where the death penalty is warranted.