Patrick Boyer


J. Patrick Boyer, Q.C., a journalist, author, and book publisher, was a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament from 1984 to 1993.
He holds an honours degree in economics and political science from Carleton University, a Master's degree in Canadian history from University of Toronto and a Doctor of Laws degree, also from University of Toronto. Boyer studied French-Canadian literature at University of Montreal, and international law at the Academy of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
He was a partner in the Toronto firm law firm Fraser & Beatty, specializing in communications and electoral law, and also practised law in the Western Arctic as a member of the Northwest Territories Bar. He was a founder and contributing columnist of Lawyer's Weekly newspaper. He wrote six legal texts on Canadian election law at federal, provincial, territorial, band council, and municipal levels.

Career

Politics

Patrick Boyer worked on Parliament Hill in the 1960s for Quebec MP Heward Grafftey and for Opposition Leader Robert Stanfield. In the early 1970s he was executive assistant to Ontario Attorney General Arthur Wishart. In 1983, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau named him executive director of the federal Task Force on Conflict of Interest, which produced the 1984 report Ethical Conduct in the Public Sector.
That year he was elected to Parliament, representing Toronto's Etobicoke—Lakeshore riding as a Progressive Conservative. He chaired parliamentary committees on election law reform, equality rights, and the status of disabled persons. In 1989 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed him parliamentary secretary to External Affairs Minister Joe Clark. In 1991 he became parliamentary secretary to Minister of National Defence Marcel Masse.
In 1993 Boyer ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives, following Mulroney's announced retirement. He published his policies in the book Hands-On Democracy, in French La democratie pour tous. In the 1993 general election, when just two Progressive Conservatives in all Canada were elected, Boyer was not one of them.
In 2001, he unsuccessfully sought the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario provincial nomination in the riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka for a by-election to replace retiring MPP Ernie Eves.
In March 2007, Boyer was again nominated as the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for the riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore. He ran in the 2008 federal election but lost to Michael Ignatieff by 5,783 votes.
During the 2007 Ontario electoral reform referendum Patrick Boyer was a leading member, along with Senators Hugh Segal and Nancy Ruth, Hon. Janet Ecker, and Rick Anderson, of Conservatives for the proposed reform of Ontario's electoral system from "first-past-the-post" to "mixed-member proportional."

Academics

Following Boyer's departure from politics, he taught "The Law of Canadian Democracy" at the University of Toronto. In 1999 and 2000 he taught courses in Canadian Constitutional Law at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. As a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at University of Guelph, Ontario, he also taught courses on politics, accountability, democracy, and ethics. He also was executive director of the university's Centre for Leadership Studies.

Public policy

Boyer is a past president of the Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs, past chair of Pugwash Thinkers' Lodge in Nova Scotia, and a member of Canadian Pugwash Group, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, The Writers' Union of Canada, and the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians.
An advocate of proportional representation, Boyer is a member of the National Advisory Board of Fair Vote Canada. Also an advocate for women's wellbeing, he founded the Corinne Boyer Fund for Ovarian Cancer Research and Treatment, which continues today as Ovarian Cancer Canada.
With strong interest in democracy, he is founding president of Breakout Educational Network, a not-for-profit public policy organization addressing Canadian fiscal and foreign policy from the perspective of citizens though television documentaries, books, public forums, and classroom teaching. Boyer has worked overseas on democratic development projects in Cambodia, Iraq, Vietnam, Thailand, Ukraine, and Bulgaria.

Writer and publisher

J. Patrick Boyer is author of more than twenty books, dozens of feature articles, and hundreds of newspaper columns.
Boyer also owns and operates publishing houses "Muskoka Books" and "Blue Butterfly Books." In 2010 he consolidated Blue Butterfly's publishing operations with those of Dundurn Press.

Personal life

Patrick Boyer married Corinne Mudde of The Netherlands on August 15, 1970. She had worked in the foreign service of The Netherlands. She was an ardent advocate for women's rights, endangered species, and the environment. She was an investigator in the Ontario Ombudsman's Office, and chaired the Parliamentary Spouses Committee on Soviet Jewry. In 1995, Corinne Boyer succumbed to ovarian cancer, after surviving two prior battles with cancer, a malignant melanoma in 1979 and a breast tumor in 1991. In the years before she died, and largely because of her own experiences with cancers afflicting females, she fought for increased funding for women's health research. In 1997, Patrick Boyer founded the Corinne Boyer Fund which was dedicated to advancing research into ovarian cancer, improving detection and treatment, and raising awareness of the disease in Canada. In 1998, the Corinne Boyer Fund and the University of Ottawa established the Corinne Boyer Chair in Ovarian Cancer Research and Treatment, within the Faculty of Medicine. In 1999, the organization's name was changed to National Ovarian Cancer Association, now Ovarian Cancer Canada. In June 2014, at a ceremony in Vancouver, Patrick received the Virginia Greene Award for Leadership on Ovarian Cancer.
On March 15, 2013, Patrick eloped with Elise Marie Bélanger in Vancouver. From Timmins, Ontario, Elise had been Ontario Hydro's first female forester. She owns and operates the VERANDA furniture and furnishings retail operations in Muskoka. She is also an officer of Muskoka Books in charge of book retailing.

Works