The Honourable Pat Carney PC CM
President of the Treasury Board
In office March 31, 1988 – December 7, 1988
Prime Minister	Brian Mulroney
Preceded by	Don Mazankowski
Succeeded by	Doug Lewis (acting)
Minister for International Trade
In office June 30, 1986 – March 30, 1988
Prime Minister	Brian Mulroney
Preceded by	James Kelleher
Succeeded by	John Crosbie
Minister of Energy, Mines, and Resources
In office September 17, 1984 – June 29, 1986
Prime Minister	Brian Mulroney
Preceded by	Gerald Regan
Succeeded by	Marcel Masse
Parliamentary constituencies Member of Parliament forVancouver Centre In office April 14, 1980 – October 1, 1988 Preceded by Art Phillips Succeeded by Kim Campbell Senator fromBritish Columbia In office August 30, 1990 – January 31, 2008 Nominated by Brian Mulroney Appointed by Ray Hnatyshyn Preceded by Nancy Bell (1989)
Personal details
Born	Patricia Dora Carney (1935-05-26)May 26, 1935 Shanghai, China
Died	July 25, 2023(2023-07-25) (aged 88) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Party	Conservative (2003–2023)
Other political affiliations	Progressive Conservative (1979–2003)
Profession	Politician, journalist
Committees	Chair, Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources (1994–1996)

Patricia Dora Carney^[1]PC CM (May 26, 1935 – July 25, 2023) was a Canadian politician who served as amember of parliament from 1980 to 1988 and as aSenator from 1990 to 2008.

A member of theProgressive Conservative Party of Canada, she first ran for theHouse of Commons of Canada during the1979 Canadian federal election, but was defeated. She ran again in theelection the following year and won, representing the district ofVancouver Centre. After winning a second term in the1984 elections, she held three cabinet positions under Prime MinisterBrian Mulroney:minister of Energy, Mines and Resources from 1984 to 1986,minister of International Trade from 1986 to 1988 andPresident of the Treasury Board for eight months in 1988. She was the first woman named to each of these three major economic cabinet positions.^[2] She did not seek a third term during the next federal election in1988, and was succeeded by future prime ministerKim Campbell. In 1990, Mulroney appointed her to the Senate, where she served until her resignation in 2008.

Carney was born inShanghai,Republic of China to parentsDora May Sanders and John James Carney, aFirst World War veteran^[3] fromBritish Columbia, Canada who relocated to Shanghai and worked as a public health inspector and police officer for over twenty years.^[4][5][6] Carney had three siblings, a brother named Thomas (Tom), a twin brother named John James (Jim) and a younger sister, Norah (Nora).^[1][3] Following increasing violence as a result ofJapanese occupation of Shanghai and her father's interest in pursuing veterinarian medicine at the age of 51, the family relocated to the small town of Morriston,Ontario in 1940 just before Japanese forces began tointer foreign residents.^[3][7] As a result of her father's studies and subsequent work as a veterinarian, the family moved toGuelph in 1944 and then toVictoria, British Columbia a year later. They moved again in 1949 toNelson in British Columbia'sKootenay Region.^[3]

Carney's brother recalled that she demonstrated a keen interest in organizing various events for her family and neighbours by the time she was ten years old, including plays, which she frequently wrote and starred in.^[3] Although Carney's mother was proud of her creative inclinations, her father "was equally sure it was all God-damned foolishness, and that [she'd] starve to death".^[3] The reason for the family's move to Nelson was, in part, so Carney and her siblings could work on a farm and learn basic homesteading skills.^[3]

In the early 1950s, Carney left the family farm forVancouver, British Columbia where she worked as a freelance journalist for theVancouver Sun andThe Province.^[8] In 1956 when Carney was twenty-one years old, Carney married the Vancouver Province's rewrite chief, Gordon Dickson.^[8] He was fifteen years older than her and had a daughter from a previous marriage. Carney kept her maiden name and continued to work as a freelance journalist to support Dickson while he finished law school, which was unusual for women of the time.^[8] Carney and Dickson had a son together but would ultimately divorce in the late 1960s.^[9]

Carney attended theUniversity of British Columbia and graduated in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in economics and political science.^[9] Alongside her twin brother Jim, Carney joined the university's student-run newspaper, theUbyssey.^[9] Carney later recalled that the Ubyssey was where the siblings "pushed open the door and entered the rest of [their] lives."^[7] Jim pursued a career in radio and television and in 1965, Carney became a business columnist for the Vancouver Sun.^[8] Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Carney continued to freelance for newspapers within Canada and even globally, writing for theToronto Star,Maclean's, theFinancial Post,The New York Times, and theTimes of London about financial news and economic developments, particularly those in northern Canada.^[8] She also wrote television specials for theCBC andCTV on finance and economics.^[8]

In 1970, a strike at the Vancouver Sun left Carney, who was recently divorced and a single mother, unemployed.^[8][7] After struggling to make ends meet as a freelance journalist, Carney went north to the city ofWhitehorse,Yukon and started a consulting firm with her brother Jim.^[8][7] Trading under the name of Gemini North, Ltd., the firm worked on a number of projects related to the development of lumber and gas and oil industries in Yukon and theNorthwest Territories (NWT).^[8] Gemini North also produced a number of studies on the potential social and economic impacts of such projects on local residents andIndigenous people in northern Canada.^[8]

Following the 1970 Centennial Royal Tour of the NWT, Carney, at the invitation of the NWT Commissioner, Stuart Hodgson, produced a book about the tour.^[10] Carney became a close friend of Stuart Hodgson and accompanied the Commissioner and his party in the 1971 Canadian North Pole expedition an aborted attempt to reach the Pole by Twin Otter in a bid to establish the route for tourist adventurers. Carney was joined by her brother during the flight in and out of the Polar Basin.

In the early 1970s, Gemini North was commissioned to conduct a survey of local opinion about the installation of a gas pipeline along the Mackenzie River Valley. Carney organised an information tour of the valley with stops at all the river settlements where the fly-in pipeliners conducted workshops explaining to the local people details about the pipeline project. The pipeline's tour was shadowed by the president of the Northwest Territories Indian Brotherhood, James Wah-shee, and was seen in native rights circles as a demonstration of the Brotherhood's aim to be consulted before any pipeline work started. Shortly after this tour the Brotherhood applied for a development caveat to stop all development on treaty land. This caveat eventually led to the pipeline inquiry which resulted in the project being shelved.

A fictionalized account of these events was published in 2008.^[11]

Carney first ran for theHouse of Commons of Canada as aProgressive Conservative candidate in the1979 election and was defeated. She was elected in the1980 election as the Member of Parliament (MP) fromVancouver Centre.

When the Tories formed government under Prime MinisterBrian Mulroney as a result of the1984 election, Carney was appointed to Cabinet asMinister of Energy, Mines and Resources, and was responsible for dismantling the previous Canadian government's unpopular National Energy Program.^[2]

In 1986, she was namedMinister of International Trade and, as such, was involved in negotiating theCanada-US Free Trade Agreement.^[2]

Carney did not run for re-election in the1988 election due to continuing pain from arthritis.^[2]

In 1990, she was appointed to the Canadian Senate byGovernor GeneralRay Hnatyshyn. In January 1991, Carney—apro-choice advocate of women's rights to abortion^[12]—voted against the restrictive, anti-abortion Bill C-43 proposed by her successor as MP forVancouver Centre and fellow Conservative party member,Kim Campbell. Despite "heavy, heavy pressure" from Campbell and other party members,^[12] Carney maintained her opposition and the bill failed in the Senate with a tie vote, the first legislation to do so in 30 years.^[13] In 2023, Carney recalled that "Conservative senators were not expected to vote down their own government's bill. We had the option to simply abstain."^[12] Several male senators planned to abstain as they felt abortion was a "women's issue" but when they saw Carney vote no, it spurred them to similarly oppose the bill and contribute to its defeat.^[12]

In 1997, Carney suggested thatBritish Columbia might benefit from separating from Canada.^[14]

In 2000, Carney acted on concerns that landmark lighthouses on both Canadian coasts were being neglected by teaming up with SenatorMike Forrestall from Nova Scotia to introduce theHeritage Lighthouse Protection Act, a private members bill which enjoyed consistent multi-party support in subsequent minority Parliaments and which receivedroyal assent in 2008.^[15]

On October 11, 2007, thePrime Minister's Office announced that Senator Carney intended to resign, two years in advance of themandatory retirement age of 75 years.^[16] She officially resigned on January 31, 2008. In 2011, she was made a Member of theOrder of Canada "for her public service as a journalist, politician and senator."^[17]

There are Patricia Carneyfonds atLibrary and Archives Canada^[18] and theUniversity of British Columbia.^[19]

Carney died on July 25, 2023, at the age of 88.^[20]

• Senator Pat Carney personal site
• Pat Carney – Parliament of Canada biography

• 1935 births
• 2023 deaths
• Canadian senators from British Columbia
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• Women members of the House of Commons of Canada
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• Members of the 24th Canadian Ministry
• 21st-century members of the Senate of Canada
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