Thomas Rideout

Thomas Gerard Rideout (born June 25, 1948 in Fleur de Lys , Newfoundland ) is a former Canadian politician of the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party . He was Prime Minister of Newfoundland and Labrador for 44 days in 1989 .

Life

Rideout began his political career in 1975 when he was first elected to the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Representatives as a candidate for the Liberal Party for the constituency of Baie Verte-White Bay . In 1979 he was re-elected as a Liberal in that constituency, but joined the Progressive Conservative Party in 1980 because he did not believe the Liberal Party was strong on the issue of provincial ownership of coastal resources.

In the provincial elections in 1982 and 1985 he was re-elected as a member of the House of Representatives and was also Parliamentary Assistant to Prime Minister Brian Peckford from 1982 to 1984 . In 1984 he was seen as a potential successor to Peckford and was appointed Minister for Culture, Recreation and Youth in his cabinet. After a cabinet reshuffle, he took over the influential Ministry of Fisheries between 1985 and 1989.

After Peckford resigned as chairman of the Progressive Conservative Party in January 1989, he applied for his successor and was elected chairman at a party convention in St. John's shortly afterwards .

On March 22, 1989 he was also Peckford's successor as Prime Minister of Newfoundland and Labrador, although his term of office lasted only 44 days. In the general elections on April 20, 1989, the Liberal Party, under the also new chairman Clyde Wells, received 31 of the 52 seats in the House of Representatives and thus a broad absolute majority . Wells was sworn in as the new Prime Minister on May 5, 1989.

Rideout then became the leader of the opposition . While some observers believed that Rideout was losing in the hastily called new elections, others saw the reason for the defeat in the fact that after more than 17 years of government of the Progressive Conservative Party it was time for a change of government. As opposition leader, he led political forces in January 1990 to review the so-called Meech Lake Accord , an ultimately failed amendment to the Canadian constitution .

On January 17, 1991, he announced his resignation as chairman of the Progressive Conservative Party and finally in September 1991 officially resigned from his positions as party chairman, opposition leader and MP for the constituency of Baie Verte-White Bay . He was succeeded by Len Simms , whom he narrowly defeated in the 1989 election as party chairman.

After he unsuccessfully applied for a return to politics in 1993, he was finally re-elected to the House of Representatives in 1999, initially representing the Lewisporte constituency until 2007 and then the Baie Verte-Springdale constituency until 2008 .

After completing a next completed studies in law he received in 1998 admitted to the lawyer .

After the election victory of the Progressive Conservative Party in November 2003, the new Prime Minister Danny Williams appointed him Minister for Issues of Indigenous Peoples and for Public Works, Services and Transport. In addition to these ministerial posts, he was also acting minister for health and community services from September to October 2004.

After a cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Williams appointed him Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Fisheries on November 8, 2005. After a dispute with the Prime Minister over the construction of roads in his constituency, he finally resigned from his cabinet positions on June 30, 2008 and also resigned from his parliamentary mandate.

Web links

• rulers.org