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Stephen Owen
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Early careerDuring the 1980s, Owen worked for the government of British Columbia as a non-partisan official. He served as that province's ombudsman from 1986 to 1992, and as Commissioner for the ground-breaking Commission on Resources and Environment, which pioneered the province's multi-stakeholder land use planning approach from 1992 to 1995. Subsequently Owen was the Deputy Attorney General for B.C. and, then, the David Lam Professor of Law & Public Policy, and Director, Institute for Dispute Resolution, University of Victoria (1997-2000) He is also the past commissioner and vice-president of the Law Commission of Canada. His cousin, Philip Owen, is a former mayor of Vancouver.
Federal politicsOwen was first elected to the House of Commons in the 2000 federal election. He was appointed to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's cabinet on January 15, 2002, serving as Secretary of State for both Western Economic Diversification and Indian Affairs and Northern Development. On December 12, 2003, he was promoted by newly-appointed Martin to Minister of Public Works and Government Services. In this capacity, he was a frequent target of opposition questions on the "sponsorship scandal". During his tenure, Owen also managed the largest recovery of misappropriated public funds in Canadian history. Hewlett Packard paid $146 million to the government of Canada, and both parties continue to jointly pursue companies who may also have been involved.
Owen defeated former provincial cabinet minister Stephen Rogers in the federal election of 2004, winning by a much greater margin than most observers anticipated. He was named Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State for Sport on July 20, 2004. Under normal circumstances, this would have been considered a demotion, but the shuffle placed Owen in a powerful managerial position for preparation for the upcoming Olympic Games in British Columbia.
During the federal election of 2006, held to elect the 39th Parliament, Owen managed to again defeat Rogers and maintain his seat in Vancouver Quadra.
Following the election, Owen was one of the early supporters of Michael Ignatieff for the Liberal Party Leadership, and is credited with moving other prominent British Columbians to support Ignatieff, such as Philip Owen, the former Mayor of Vancouver. On July 5 he announced that he would be resigning his seat as of July 27, 2007, to accept a position at the University of British Columbia
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