Jim Prentice

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Jim Prentice (2014)

Peter Eric James "Jim" Prentice , PC , QC (born July 20, 1956 in South Porcupine , Ontario , † October 13, 2016 in Kelowna , British Columbia ) was a Canadian politician . As a member of the Conservative Party , he was a Member of the House of Commons from 2004 and represented the Calgary Center-North constituency. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed him to his cabinet in 2006 . From 2007 Prentice served as Minister of Industry and from 2008 Minister of Environment. In November 2010 he gave up his mandates at the federal level. Almost four years later he was elected chairman of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and ruled the province of Alberta as prime minister from September 15, 2014 . In an early election on May 5, 2015, his party suffered a heavy electoral defeat, ending the 44-year reign of the progressive conservatives in Alberta.

biography

Education, job and entry into politics

Prentice was born in South Porcupine, a town near Timmins in the province of Ontario. A few years later the family moved to Alberta. Both his father Eric and his uncle Dean played ice hockey in the National Hockey League . Jim Prentice studied law at the University of Alberta at Edmonton (where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta Association ) and at Dalhousie University in Halifax . He financed his education by working in a coal mine near the Crowsnest Pass during the summer months . As a lawyer he dealt in particular with cases in the areas of resettlement, environmental protection and the use of protected areas. He was also a member of the federal commission that deals with land claims by the indigenous peoples.

In 1976 Prentice joined the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and was its treasurer from 1991 to 1995. He ran for the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta (federal and provincial parties are usually separate in Canada) in May 1986 in the election for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and was subject to the NDP candidate in the Calgary-Mountain View constituency . In May 2003 he ran for leadership of the progressive conservatives at the federal level and was defeated by Peter MacKay in the fourth ballot . He advocated the merger with the Canadian Alliance of Stephen Harper to form the new Conservative Party , which came about half a year later.

Member of the House of Commons and Federal Minister

In the 2004 general election , Prentice won the Calgary Center-North constituency with 54.2% of the vote. After being sworn in as a member of parliament on July 16, 2004, Harper appointed him to the shadow cabinet , where he acted as a spokesman for the opposition in the field of Indian affairs and northern development . In this role he strongly advocated the construction of a pipeline in the Mackenzie Valley . Within his party, he had various disputes with representatives of the socially conservative wing, as he advocated the right to abortion and approved the law introducing same-sex marriage .

After the general election in 2006 , the Conservatives formed a minority government. The new Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Prentice Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development on February 6, 2006. In the autumn of the same year, Phil Fontaine , chairman of the First Nations Assembly, complained that the government was not providing funding for the implementation of the Kelowna Agreement and made Prentice, as the responsible minister, jointly responsible for it.

As part of a cabinet reshuffle, Prentice took over the management of the Ministry of Industry on August 14, 2007. A little over a year later, on October 30, 2008, there was another restructuring and Prentice was now Environment Minister. He caused a controversy in January 2010 when he did not renew the subsidies from the Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research , which in Canada led to a noticeable drain of talent in this area. On November 4, 2010, he announced his immediate resignation as minister, ten days later he also gave up his mandate in the lower house. The reason for this was his appointment as vice-chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce .

Provincial politics

The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta was in a serious crisis early in 2014 after Alberta's party leader and Prime Minister Alison Redford was embroiled in an expense scandal. Two months after Dave Hancock took over these offices on an interim basis, Prentice announced on May 15, 2014 that he would run for party leadership. He was considered the most promising candidate from the start and prevailed at the party congress on September 6, receiving 76% of the votes in the first ballot. He took office on September 15. With a victory in a by-election on October 27, 2014, he moved for the constituency of Calgary-Foothills in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta ; on the same day, his party won three more by-elections.

Jim Prentice at a campaign rally in Edmonton (April 2015)

After two members of the Wildrose Party had already switched to the progressive conservatives in November 2014 , nine other Wildrose members of parliament followed suit on December 17, including the party leader Danielle Smith. As a result, Prentice's party had 70 out of 87 MPs. Inspired by this apparent success, he dissolved parliament on April 7, 2015 and called for an early election . During the election campaign he made several blunders. When asked who was responsible for the province's poor financial situation, he urged voters to “look in the mirror”. In doing so, he gave the impression that he blamed the population for the misery. In the opinion polls, the progressive conservatives fell behind more and more, in the election on May 5 they suffered a historic defeat: They lost 60 seats and were only the third strongest force behind the social democratic Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Wildrose Party . This ended the 44-year reign of the progressive conservatives. Prentice himself was elected in Calgary-Foothills, but declared his resignation as party chairman that same evening in view of the difficult election failure. He also renounced his parliamentary mandate. The handover of the office of Prime Minister to the NDP leader Rachel Notley took place on May 24th.

On October 13, 2016, Prentice and three other people were killed in a crash of his Cessna in British Columbia , around 18 kilometers north of Kelowna .

Web links

Commons : Jim Prentice  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Famous Fijis. Phi Gamma Delta, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  2. ^ Jim Prentice: From the coal mine to Alberta's top political office. CBC News, September 7, 2014, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  3. ^ A b Alberta premier hopeful Jim Prentice made a name in dealing with difficult files. Calgary Sun, May 24, 2014; accessed March 6, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Jim Prentice. everything2.com, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  5. ↑ 244 Calgary North Center. CBC News, June 29, 2004, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  6. ^ Undoing the Kelowna agreement. CBC News, November 21, 2006, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Les cerveaux du climat désertent le Canada. La Presse, January 11, 2010, accessed March 6, 2015 (French).
  8. ^ Prentice quits cabinet, 'closes door on political life'. The Globe and Mail, November 4, 2010, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Prentice enters Alberta PC Party Leadership race. CTV News, May 15, 2014, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  10. ^ Alberta PC leadership vote: Jim Prentice wins on 1st ballot. CBC News, September 6, 2014, accessed March 6, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Alberta byelections swept by Jim Prentice's Progressive Conservative Party. CBC News, October 27, 2014, accessed May 12, 2015 .
  12. ↑ I want this premier to succeed '- Wildrose leader Danielle Smith, eight other MLAs join PCs. (No longer available online.) MetroNews, December 18, 2014, archived from the original on June 1, 2015 ; accessed on May 12, 2015 .
  13. ↑ mirrors and miscalculations: Five Alberta election moments to remember. The Globe and Mail, May 5, 2015, accessed May 12, 2015 .
  14. ^ Alberta PC Leader Jim Prentice resigns after winning seat in Calgary-Foothills. Global News, May 6, 2015, accessed May 12, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Orange crush: NDP stomps out 44-year PC dynasty, Jim Prentice resigns. Global News, May 5, 2015, accessed May 12, 2015 .
  16. ↑ Former Alberta Premier Jim Prentice dies in plane crash in southern BC The Globe and Mail, October 14, 2016, accessed October 14, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Prentice, Jim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prentice, Peter Eric James (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH South Porcupine , Ontario
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 2016
Place of death near Kelowna , British Columbia