Pat Martin - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Patrick "Pat" Martin (born December 13, 1955 in Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

, Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

) is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

politician. He has been a member of the Canadian House of Commons

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

since 1997, representing the riding

Electoral district (Canada)

An electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...

of Winnipeg Centre

Winnipeg Centre

Winnipeg Centre is a federal electoral district in Manitoba, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1925 and since 1997...

for the New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

Career

Martin graduated from Argyle High School in 1974. He worked as a journeyman carpenter for several years, and was employed in forest service, mines and construction. Martin also served as business manager of the Manitoba Carpenters Union from 1989 to 1997, and was vice-president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour

Manitoba Federation of Labour

The Manitoba Federation of Labour is the Manitoba provincial trade union federation of the Canadian Labour Congress.It was formed in 1956 and has a membership of 90,000 people working in various private sector and public sector fields such as Manufacturing, Government, Retail, Hospitals, Schools,...

for a time. He has been a member of the executive of the Manitoba Building Trades Council, and was part of the Winnipeg 2000 Economic Development Committee.

Martin was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1997 federal election

Canadian federal election, 1997

The Canadian federal election of 1997 was held on June 2, 1997, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 36th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party of Canada won a second majority government...

, defeating Liberal

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

incumbent David Walker

David Walker (Canadian politician)

David Walker is a Canadian politician. He served in the Canadian House of Commons from 1988 to 1997, as a member of the Liberal Party....

by a margin of 10,979 votes to 9,895. His riding of Winnipeg Centre, formerly known as Winnipeg North Centre

Winnipeg North Centre

Winnipeg North Centre was a federal electoral district in Manitoba, Canada, that was represented by a Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons from 1925 to 2004...

, was successively represented from 1921 to 1984 by J.S. Woodsworth and Stanley Knowles

Stanley Knowles

Stanley Howard Knowles, PC, OC was a Canadian parliamentarian. Knowles represented the riding of Winnipeg North Centre from 1942 to 1958 on behalf of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and again from 1962 to 1984 representing the CCF's successor, the New Democratic Party .Knowles was widely...

, two of the most prominent social democratic politicians in Canadian history. Martin's victory over Walker returned the riding to the NDP for the first time since 1988. Martin was re-elected in the 2000 federal election

Canadian federal election, 2000

The 2000 Canadian federal election was held on November 27, 2000, to elect 301 Members of Parliament of the Canadian House of Commons of the 37th Parliament of Canada....

, defeating Liberal Kevin Lamoureux

Kevin Lamoureux

Kevin Lamoureux, MP is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. On November 29, 2010, he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the constituency of Winnipeg North in a by-election. He was re-elected during the 2011 election by 44 votes...

by 11,263 votes to 9,310. He increased his margin of victory in the 2004 election, defeating Liberal candidate David Northcott by about 3,000 votes.

Martin has championed the rights of labour and aboriginal Canadians, and has spoken out against tax loopholes for private corporations. He supported Bill Blaikie

Bill Blaikie

William Alexander "Bill" Blaikie, PC is a Canadian politician. He has been a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba since April 2009, representing the Winnipeg division of Elmwood as a member of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba, and Minister of Conservation and Government House Leader...

for the NDP leadership in 2002-03.

He called for Svend Robinson

Svend Robinson

Svend Robinson is a former Canadian politician. He was a Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons from 1979 to 2004, representing the suburban Vancouver-area constituency of Burnaby for the New Democratic Party...

to be removed from the NDP's foreign affairs portfolio in 2002, after Robinson's controversial visit to the Palestinian Authority.

Martin is an outspoken critic of the monarchy of Canada, both in parliament and in the media, citing the marriage of the Prince of Wales

Charles, Prince of Wales

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...

to the Duchess of Cornwall as a reason to abolish the monarchy.

When Liberal leadership candidate Joe Volpe

Joe Volpe

Giuseppe Joseph "Joe" Volpe, PC, was a Canadian politician. He was a Liberal member of the Canadian House of Commons from 1988 until the 2011 federal election, being surpassed by the conservative member Joe Oliver Joe Oliver, and held two senior positions in Prime Minister Paul Martin's Cabinet...

received donations totalling $108,000 from Apotex

Apotex

Apotex is a Canadian pharmaceutical corporation. Founded in 1974, the company is the largest producer of generic drugs in Canada, with sales exceeding one billion dollars a year...

executives and their wives and children, Martin suggested that these donations had the appearance of fraud. He filed an official complaint on May 29, asking elections commissioner Raymond Landry to investigate whether an attempt had been made to circumvent the Elections Act which banned corporate donations. Volpe responded by promising to return any donations that contravened the letter or spirit of the law.

In June 2008, Martin introduced a motion into the House of Commons calling on the government to amend the coat of arms to incorporate symbols representing Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

In 2010, Martin stated that the social-service organization Youth For Christ were "evangelical fundamentalists" who were "preying on vulnerable kids". This statement was made when he was stating his opposition to funding an $11 million youth center being built on Winnipeg's Main Street by the organization. The Winnipeg Free Press called Martin's comments irrational.

Martin has introduced a private member's bill, C-248, in Parliament to exonerate Louis Riel

Louis Riel

Louis David Riel was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political and spiritual leader of the Métis people of the Canadian prairies. He led two resistance movements against the Canadian government and its first post-Confederation Prime Minister, Sir John A....

On May 5, 2011 at the Royal Ontario Museum

Royal Ontario Museum

The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...

Martin debated Tom Flanagan

Tom Flanagan (political scientist)

Thomas Eugene Flanagan is an American-born political science professor at the University of Calgary, author, and conservative political activist. He also served as an advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper until 2004. Flanagan's scholarship has focused on Native and Metis rights in...

on the topic "Louis Riel deserved to Hang". In a National Post

National Post

The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...

article he argued that Riel was a hero, not a traitor and, in reference to George R. D. Goulet's

George R. D. Goulet

George Richard Donald Goulet is a Canadian Métis best-selling author, historian, public speaker, retired lawyer and prostate cancer survivor.-Life:...

1999 book on Riel, that Riel's execution was a "case of both justice and mercy denied".

On November 17, 2011, Martin received criticism for using profane language on his Twitter account to express his anger over the Conservative government's continued use of closure in limiting debate in the House of Commons, this time on the budget debate. He also used profane language to criticize those on Twitter that had attacked his original tweet.

Electoral record

External links

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