Maureen McTeer

Maureen Anne McTeer (born February 27, 1952) is a Canadian author and a lawyer, and the wife of Joe Clark, the 16th Prime Minister of Canada.

Life and career

McTeer was born in Cumberland, Ontario and raised in Ottawa, and worked as a staffer in Clark's office before marrying him in 1973. She earned an undergraduate degree in 1973 and a law degree in 1976, both from the University of Ottawa. McTeer was later awarded an MA in biotechnology, law and ethics from the University of Sheffield, and in 2008 she received an honorary LL.D. from that institution.

When Clark became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 1976, McTeer became controversial — feminism still being a relatively new social phenomenon at that time — for keeping her own surname and maintaining her own career.^[1] McTeer did play a significant role in the 1975-76 Tory leadership race, assisting her husband's campaign. She later created some controversy by not accompanying Clark during his electoral campaigns, and she did not undertake the hosting duties that other Prime Minister's wives have traditionally done.

In 1982, McTeer and athlete Abby Hoffman were among the organizers of the Esso Women's Nationals championship tournament for women's ice hockey. One of the tournament's trophies, the Maureen McTeer Trophy, is named for her.

In the 1988 federal election, McTeer ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Carleton—Gloucester, hoping to get elected alongside her husband. Despite the party's re-election victory, McTeer was not elected in her riding. As of 2008, however, she remains the only spouse of a former Canadian Prime Minister to have run for political office herself.

McTeer is a specialist in medical law, and for a while was a member of the Royal Commission on Reproductive and Genetic Technologies (1989–1993).

McTeer and Clark have one daughter, Catherine, who became a public figure in her own right when Clark returned to the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives in 1998.

McTeer promoted Frances Itani's novel Deafening in Canada Reads 2006. She promoted its French-language translation, Une coquille de silence, in Le combat des livres 2006.

She received the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case in 2008.^[2]

Bibliography

• Residences: Homes of Canada's Leaders (1982)
• Tangled Womb: The Politics of Human Reproduction (1992)
• Parliament (1995) — translated into French as Le petit guide du système parlementaire canadien
• Tough Choices: Living and Dying in the 21st Century (1999) — translated into French as Vivre et mourir au 21e siècle: choix et enjeux
• In My Own Name: A Memoir (2003)

Electoral record

References