Werner Schmidt

Werner Schmidt (born January 18, 1932) is a Canadian former politician, a teacher and school principal.

Werner Schmidt
Member of Parliament for Kelowna
In office
1997–2006
Preceded bynew district
Succeeded byRon Cannan
Member of Parliament for Okanagan Centre
In office
1993–1997
Preceded byAl Horning
Succeeded bydistrict abolished
Leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party
In office
1973–1975
Preceded byHarry Strom
Succeeded byRobert Curtis Clark
Personal details
Born (1932-01-18) January 18, 1932
Coaldale, Alberta, Canada
Political partyConservative (2004–present)
Other political
affiliations		Reform (1993–2004)

Political career

Schmidt was vice-president of Lethbridge Community College when he was chosen to succeed Harry Strom as leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party following the defeat of Strom's government in 1971 despite the fact that Schmidt had never held a seat in the Alberta legislature. Schmidt defeated former Highways Minister Gordon Taylor, former Education Minister Robert Curtis Clark in an upset victory at the 1973 Alberta Social Credit leadership convention. After his leadership election, Schmidt ran in the electoral district of Calgary-Foothills in a by-election held on June 25, 1973 but was defeated by Stewart McCrae.[1]

Under his leadership the party only won four seats in the 1975 provincial election and Schmidt, failing to win his own seat, returned to private life.

Schmidt left Alberta and moved to British Columbia joining the Reform Party of Canada at its inception and was a member of its first Executive Council. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1988 federal election before winning a seat in the 1993 election representing Okanagan Centre. He was re-elected in 1997 representing Kelowna. He won election again in 2000 as a Canadian Alliance MP with 60% of the vote and won his fourth straight victory in the 2004, this time as a Conservative.

As a Member of Parliament, Schmidt served as Critic for Industry, Critic for Public Works and Government Services and Critic for Seniors. He has also been a member of several Standing Committees including the Standing Committee on Industry, the Standing Committee on Finance, and the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

He served as Caucus Chair of the Canadian Alliance and Caucus Vice Chair when the party became the Conservative Party of Canada.

Schmidt retired from politics with the dissolution of parliament for the 2006 federal election.

gollark: With a compiled binary, you have to ship *tons* of logic which is probably pretty similar in a lot of applications, but with a web interface the browser can do it for you!
gollark: WRONG.
gollark: Binaries are bloat. Web interfaces are superior.
gollark: Anyway, see, while node programs don't *need* compilation, this is going into a browser so it needs to:- have libraries bundled with it- have my stylesheet compiled to base CSS- have my JS code be compiled to JS supported by older browsers- have the JS be minified
gollark: The only way to save JS is to rewrite it in RPNcalc.

References
  1. "By-elections 1905-1973". Elections Alberta. Archived from the original on June 7, 2009. Retrieved November 22, 2009.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.