Royal Galipeau

Royal N. Galipeau Member of Parliament
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Ottawa—Orléans
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 January 2006
Preceded by	Marc Godbout
Personal details
Born	January 5, 1947 (1947-01-05) St-Isidore Ontario
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Anne Pallascio
Children	Louis, Paul, Claude & Mimi
Residence	Ottawa
Profession	Advisor, businessman, corporate director

Royal Galipeau (born January 5, 1947 in St-Isidore, Ontario) is a Member of Parliament for the Ottawa—Orléans federal constituency. He was the successful Conservative Party candidate in the Canadian federal elections of 2006 and 2008. He was one of the Deputy Speakers of the House of Commons, and served two terms as a director of TVOntario during which he became one of the founders of TFO.

City Councillor

In 1982, he was elected to Gloucester City Council, unseating an incumbent. On city council, he helped introduce equal opportunity hiring policies and unsuccessfully pushed to replace the term "alderman" with a gender-neutral term. In 1985, he ran for mayor of Gloucester, finishing third behind fellow councillor Harry Allen and interim mayor Mitch Owens.

Community involvement

Galipeau was appointed in 2001 by the Council of the newly amalgamated city of Ottawa as Trustee of the Ottawa Public Library, where he helped introduce content-filtered Internet access to city public libraries to protect from Internet pornography on library computers. In 2004, he was the only Trustee of the previous term to be reappointed by City Council. He was twice elected as vice-chair of the Board.

Furthermore, he served on the Ottawa-Carleton Regional District Health Council, helping prepare a policy for the delivery of minority language health services. In 2005, Galipeau was involved in the East-West Light Rail Transit Corridor Environmental Assessment Committee, studying implementation of a rapid transit system across Ottawa.

One of the less known contributions by Galipeau is the addition of a stone block under the arm of a statue of the Famous Five, located on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. When asked about this stone, he stated he was concerned for the safety of tourists, who might walk into the outstretched arm after dark.

Federal politics

Galipeau was long a Liberal and served as campaign manager for the unsuccessful Liberal candidate in Carleton in the 1995 Ontario provincial election and as assistant to MP Mauril Belanger and Eugene Bellemare. However, in May 2005, he decided to run for the Conservatives. The riding of Ottawa—Orléans was a Conservative target. In the 2004 federal election, Walter Robinson, the high profile head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, failed to capture the seat, losing to Liberal newcomer Marc Godbout by 2,800 votes. He is now the first Conservative Member of Parliament to be re-elected in Ottawa-Orleans in 136 years.

On January 23, 2006, Galipeau was elected to the House of Commons with a margin of 1,231 votes over his closest opponent. He also received 1,800 more votes than the Conservative candidate had won in the previous general election. Galipeau was re-elected on October 14, 2008, this time increasing his vote total and defeating his closest opponent by almost 4000 votes.

Electoral history

Canadian federal election, 2011
Party		Candidate	Votes	% of total	±pp change	Expenditures
	Conservative	Royal Galipeau	28,584	44.55	-0.29	–
	Liberal	David Bertschi	24,649	38.42	-0.32	–
	New Democrat	Martine Cenatus	9,086	14.16	+4.06	–
	Green	Paul Maillet	1,839	2.87	-3.45	–
Total valid votes/Expense limit			64,158	100.00
Total rejected ballots			235	0.36	–
Turnout			64,393	72.76	–
Eligible voters			88,502	–	–

Canadian federal election, 2008
Party		Candidate	Votes	% of total	±pp change
	Conservative	Royal Galipeau	27,244	44.9	+3.84
	Liberal	Marc Godbout	23,549	38.8	-0.27
	New Democrat	Amy O'Dell	6,025	9.9	-5.19
	Green	Paul Maillet	3,845	6.3	+2.47
Total rejected ballots			305	0.5%
Turnout			60,968	72.3%	-2.77

Canadian federal election, 2006
Party		Candidate	Votes	% of total	±pp change
	Conservative	Royal Galipeau	25,455	41.06
	Liberal	Marc Godbout	24,224	39.07
	New Democrat	Mark Leahy	9,354	15.09
	Green	Sarah Samplonius	2,377	3.83
	Independent	Alain Saint-Yves	578	0.93
Total rejected ballots			238	0.38%
Turnout			62,226	75.07%

External links

• Federal Parliamentary Profile
• Campaign Website

Parliament of Canada
Preceded by Marc Godbout, Liberal	Member of Parliament from Ottawa—Orléans 2006-present	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Marcel Proulx, Liberal	House of Commons Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole House 2006-2008	Succeeded by Denise Savoie, NDP