Richard Mahoney

For other people named Richard Mahoney, see Richard Mahoney (disambiguation).
Richard Mahoney

Richard J. Mahoney is a Canadian lawyer. He is a member of the Liberal Party of Canada. Mahoney served as a strategist and adviser to former Prime Minister Paul Martin. He ran two unsuccessful bids as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Ottawa Centre during the 2004 and 2006 Canadian federal elections.

Early life

Raised in Toronto, he attended the Jesuit Brebeuf College School and then received his B.A. in political science in 1982 from the University of Western Ontario. After graduating, he enrolled at the University of Ottawa's law school. While studying to earn his LL.B., he served as the President of the Young Liberals of Canada and worked in the offices of Prime Minister John Turner and Finance Minister Marc Lalonde. He graduated with a law degree in 1985.

Politics and government

A longtime organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada and media commentator, Mahoney is associated with the neoliberal movement under the direction of then Finance Minister Paul Martin. Mahoney was executive assistant to Martin during the latter's unsuccessful 1990 leadership campaign. He was elected president of the Liberal Party of Ontario from 1992 to 1995. After the 1995 provincial election resulted in a Progressive Conservative victory, Mahoney traveled the province on what he "wryly called the Hugh Grant apology tour'".[1]

He returned to full-time legal practice in the early 1990s after serving in numerous capacities within Liberal governments as a strategist, executive member, advisor, and minister's aide. His position as party president led Mahoney to wide media exposure in the Ontario press, and saw him acting as a political commentator for many years on TVO's Studio Two, CTV, CBC, 580 CFRA News Talk Radio, and other television and radio networks. After his term a Liberal Party president expired, he remained a close confidant of many federal and provincial politicians and was an advisor to Martin during his term as Canada's finance minister from 1993-2002. In 2003, the two worked closely on a successful Liberal leadership campaign, ultimately leading to Martin's election as Liberal leader and appointment as Canada's 21st Prime Minister.

After incumbent Liberal MP Mac Harb was appointed to the Senate in 2003, Mahoney garnered the party's nomination in Ottawa-Centre. Expecting to run in a by-election, he and his opponents were thrust into a national election when one was called for the early summer of the following year. The riding was captured by New Democratic Party candidate Ed Broadbent. After a short-lived minority parliament, Mahoney ran as the Liberal candidate again in the election of 2006, but the riding was carried by Broadbent's NDP successor, Paul Dewar.


Partial election results

Canadian federal election, 2006: Ottawa Centre
Party Candidate Votes%∆%
New DemocraticPaul Dewar 24,611 36.93 -4.12
LiberalRichard Mahoney 19,458 29.20 -1.87
ConservativeKeith Fountain 15,126 22.70 +3.67
GreenDavid Chernushenko 6,766 10.15 +2.61
MarijuanaJohn Akpata 386 0.58 -0.14
IndependentAnwar Syed 121 0.18
CommunistStuart Ryan 102 0.15 +0.01
Marxist–LeninistChristian Legeais 68 0.10 -0.02
Total valid votes 66,638100.00
     New Democratic Party hold Swing -1.1
Canadian federal election, 2004: Ottawa Centre
Party Candidate Votes%Expenditures
New DemocraticEd Broadbent 25,734 41.05% $75,600.35
LiberalRichard Mahoney 19,478 31.07% $77,325.72
ConservativeMike Murphy 11,933 19.03% $37,895.42
GreenDavid Chernushenko 4,730 7.54% $24,313.40
MarijuanaMichael Foster 455 0.72% –
IndependentRobert Gauthier 121 0.19% –
CommunistStuart Ryan 90 0.14 $379.63
Canadian ActionCarla Marie Dancey 76 0.12% –
Marxist–LeninistLouis Lang 67 0.10% –
Total valid votes 62,684100.00%
Total rejected ballots 270
Turnout 62,95470.35%

Professional and community interests

Early in his legal career, Mahoney directed much of his energy towards practicing refugee law, in front of the Immigration Refugee Board and the Federal Court of Canada. After his law practice evolved into other areas, he remained involved as a volunteer assisting a number of refugees, including as volunteer counsel to the SOS Viet Phi, Vietnamese refugees who remained stateless in the Philippines until 2005 after fleeing their country in the wake of the Vietnam War. He also worked, for seven years, as a director of the Royal Ottawa Hospital's fundraising foundation.

Mahoney has pursued a number of personal interests at the professional level as both a lawyer, sometime lobbyist and business executive. He was a senior vice president of Borealis Capital, an investment firm owned by the OMERS pension fund. He practised business, public, regulatory and immigration law at Fraser Milner Casgrain, one of Canada's "leading business law firms" [2] and sat on the board of the Canadian-American Business Council. Mahoney has represented numerous clients, including Rogers Cable.[3] He represents corporations from sectors such as "telecommunications, broadcasting, transportation, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, high technology and financial services." [4]

Mahoney plays in an Ottawa-area band called The 20th Century Boys. The seven-member group includes Warren Everson, who had a decade-long career in the Mulroney government, bass player Darrel Reid, deputy director of policy and research for the Prime Minister's Office and Scott Bradley, director of business development at Bell Canada.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Straight Goods - Canada's leading independent online newsmagazine
  2. ↑ Fraser Milner Casgrain (English), (French)
  3. ↑ Ottawa.ca
  4. ↑ Fraser Milner Casgrain (English), (French)
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