Don Mazankowski

Donald Frank Mazankowski, PC CC AOE (born July 27, 1935) is a Canadian politician who served as a cabinet minister under Prime Ministers Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. He was also deputy prime minister under Mulroney. He is currently a consultant with the law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. He also serves as a director or trustee for a number of companies, including Weyerhaeuser Co., ATCO Ltd., Shaw Communications Inc., and Power Corporation of Canada.

Mazankowski was born in Viking, Alberta, to parents of Polish descent. He went into business and became the manager of an auto dealership. Long interested in politics, Mazankowski became an important member of the Albertan Progressive Conservative Party, and in the 1968 federal election, he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Vegreville, Alberta.

During the short-lived Clark government, Mazankowski served as Minister of Transport.^[1] When the Tories returned to power under Mulroney in the 1984 election, Mazankowski again became Minister of Transport.^[2] In 1986, he was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister and Government House Leader.^[3] Mazankowski became one of the most widely known public faces of the Tory government. He played an especially important role as an advocate for the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Mulroney government became increasingly unpopular, however, but Mazankowski was less severely affected than others. In 1991, he became Finance Minister, replacing Michael Wilson.

On June 30, 1987, a bill to restore the death penalty was defeated by the House of Commons in a 148–127 vote, in which Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Minister of Justice Ray Hnatyshyn, and Minister of External Affairs Joe Clark opposed the bill, Mazankowski and a majority of Progressive Conservative MPs supported it.^[4][5][6][7]

Mazankowski retired from politics on June 7, 1993.^[8] When Kim Campbell succeeded Mulroney as PC leader and prime minister two weeks later, Mazankowski was replaced as Finance Minister by Gilles Loiselle. Mazankowski did not run in the 1993 election that saw his party reduced to two seats in the House of Commons. Mazankowski returned to the private sector, and served on the boards of several organizations, including the University of Alberta. He declined an offer of a Senate seat made by Brian Mulroney in his final days as Prime Minister.^[8]

In August 2001, then Premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein established the Premier's Advisory Council on Health with Mazankowski as chair, and charged the Council of twelve men with reviewing Alberta's health care system and offering recommendations for health reform.^[9] The Council released their report on January 8, 2002. The Alberta government accepted all of the Advisory Council's recommendations.^[10][11] The report focused on market-consumerism with emphasis on consumer choice and market competition.^[12]

Mazankowski also played an important role in the merger between the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance party in 2003,^[13] and is a strong supporter of the new Conservative Party of Canada.

Mazankowski is one of the few Canadians to be given the title of "The Right Honourable" without having held an office that would entitle him to it automatically, and he was the only living person of such status, until the title was granted to The Right Honourable Herb Gray in 2002.^[14] In 2000, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and he was promoted to Companion in 2013.^[15] He was inducted to the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2003.^[16]

• Don Mazankowski – Parliament of Canada biography
• Order of Canada citation