Allan Rock

This article is about the Canadian statesman. For the similarly-named places in Massachusetts, see Allen Rock.

The Honourable Allan Michael Rock PC LLB BA
Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations
In office 2004–2006
Preceded by	Paul Heinbecker
Succeeded by	John McNee
Personal details
Born	(1947-08-30) August 30, 1947 Ottawa, Ontario
Political party	Liberal
Profession	Lawyer

Allan Michael Rock, PC (born August 30, 1947) is a lawyer, former Canadian politician, diplomat and now the President of University of Ottawa. He was Canada's ambassador to the United Nations (2004-2006) and had previously served in the Cabinet of Jean Chrétien, most notably as Justice Minister (1993-1997) and Health Minister (1997-2002).

Rock was appointed President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ottawa by the Board of Governors of the university on June 3, 2008. His term as the President of University of Ottawa began on July 15, 2008.

Early life

Allan Rock was born and raised in Ottawa. His secondary school studies were completed in Ottawa. He studied for a B.A. and an LL.B. at the University of Ottawa and began his career as a trial lawyer.

As a student leader in 1970 he met John Lennon and drove him around Ottawa while he was hosting him for a "peace conference" he was holding. He had invited Lennon to Ottawa after his famous "bed-in" in Montreal. He tried to introduce Lennon to Pierre Trudeau, but the prime minister was not at home when they dropped by.

Ministerial career

In 2002, Rock became the Minister of Industry for Canada following five years in the post of Minister of Health. Prior to this he was the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

In his role as Minister of Justice, Rock was heavily involved in bringing about the Canadian gun registry. This program was and still is plagued by massive cost overruns, and is rumoured to be one of the reasons for the failure of Rock's abortive leadership bid. However, Rock's tenure as a federal cabinet minister was in general characterized by controversy ranging from the handling of compensation for victims of tainted blood donations to actions of his department in the Airbus affair (which ended in a public apology and $2.1 million settlement to Brian Mulroney).

Rock initially declared he would run in the Liberal Party of Canada leadership race to replace the retiring Jean Chrétien, raising more money and polling higher numbers than John Manley and Sheila Copps. However, former Finance Minister Paul Martin had a stranglehold on the party machinery and all of the other leadership candidates were unable to affect his commanding lead. In 2003, Rock dropped out of the leadership and announced his support for Martin, though one of Martin's staff said that that move would not be sufficient to guarantee Rock continuing in cabinet.

Federal health minister

In an embarrassing mix-up in 2001, Health Canada under Allan Rock made its taxpayers pay twice for a supply of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (marketed as Cipro) that it ordered to protect Canadians in case they are faced with an outbreak of anthrax, as has happened in the United States. The federal health department broke its own drug patent rules when it ordered the drug from a generic drug manufacturer, Apotex. The patent, held by Bayer AG, did not expire until 2004. After a meeting of officials from the health department and both companies, the government announced it would still pay the generic firm the amount of its contract— $C1.3m (£580 000; $824 000)—and would buy another 900 000 tablets from Bayer. Bayer's price is said to be $C2.50 a tablet ($2.25m), compared with Apotex's $C1.50. Health department officials said the generic drugs were ordered after Bayer was unable to supply the amount demanded, but Bayer officials deny this. When questioned, Allan Rock said that there were different versions of the events but maintained his primary responsibility was to protect Canadians by ordering the drug. Under the patent act, the government could have obtained authorisation to have a non-patented version of Cipro on a non-commercial basis, but it failed to ask for this. Joe Clark, who heads the Progressive Conservative party, charged in a parliamentary debate that Rock had lost control of his department, while Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day said Canadians didn't know who was telling the truth. Speculation arose as to whether Apotex would sue if its contract was broken or Bayer would demand compensation for a breach of its patent. The issue reflects the Canadian government's long standing problem of trying to encourage pharmaceutical companies to produce new drugs by means of a strong patent law, while simultaneously trying to ensure that Canadians can obtain the drugs they need at a reasonable cost.

Ambassador to United Nations

On December 12, 2003, Queen Elizabeth II, on the advice of Paul Martin, appointed Rock as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations. Rock resigned his seat in the House of Commons and took office in early 2004. As Canada's ambassador to the UN, Rock spoke to the UN General Assembly on April 13, 2004, encouraging participation of the member nations of the United Nations on the matter of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.

Certain Catholic groups have called for Rock's excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church due to his support for abortion rights. Rock was also a strong supporter of gay rights, and specifically gay marriage, long before it became Liberal Party policy.

With the election of the Conservative Party of Canada, it had been speculated that Rock would be replaced in his role as Ambassador. He had also been mentioned as a potential candidate to replace the departing Prime Minister Paul Martin as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada but on February 3, 2006, Rock announced that he would not run for leadership of the Liberal Party. He later endorsed Stéphane Dion's successful bid to lead the party.

Rock tendered his resignation in February and on February 16, 2006, the newly elected Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the appointment of Rock's replacement, John McNee Rock remained in office until June 30, 2006 at Harper's request. Upon his departure, he called for an overhaul of the UN. Rock submitted a report about child soldiers in Sri Lanka on 15 January 2007 to the UN.

Leaves public life

Rock announced earlier in June, 2006, that he would be moving to Windsor, Ontario to resume his legal career with Harvey Thomas Strosberg at Sutts, Strosberg LLP.

Rock appeared as a witness before the Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee on February 5, 2008. The Committee is examining the Mulroney Airbus settlement of $2.1 million, which Rock, as Justice Minister in 1997, negotiated to close the file of Brian Mulroney's libel lawsuit against the federal government. But Karlheinz Schreiber's very large cash payments to Brian Mulroney from 1993 and 1994 were unknown at that time, since Mulroney denied under oath during his lawsuit that he had had any significant dealings with Schreiber after leaving office as PM. Rock stated for the Committee that had he known about those payments during the trial, he would likely not have settled the case for $2.1 million. These matters were examined in a public inquiry called by Prime Minister Harper, which held hearings in 2008 and 2009.

University of Ottawa President

It was announced in May 2008 that Rock would be appointed the next president of the University of Ottawa. Rock was a student at the university and graduated in 1970 with a law degree.

Solidarity with student activists

At his time at the University of Ottawa, Rock was a former President of the SFUO (the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa). After the announcement of Rock's appointment to President of the University of Ottawa, The Ottawa Citizen wrote:

At a time when the university, like other Canadian campuses, is experiencing a resurgence in student activism, Mr. Rock would bring a sensitivity to student issues, said Mr. Mitchell. "This is something that Allan Rock is particularly qualified for, being a former student leader himself."

Opposition to student activism

On November 12, 2008, Talk Ottawa of the Rogers TV network ran an interview with live call-in. Student Marc Kelly called in and the network ran the voice recording from the internet of a November 3, 2008, incident in which Rock repeatedly yelled at Kelly in the president's office. Student Kelly was eventually de-registered and barred from campus by the Rock administration in the winter 2010 semester, thereby barring him from his candidacy for president of the student federation, despite an on-line poll with the French-language student newspaper placing him first.

On December 11, 2009, student Joseph Hickey was handcuffed and removed from Rock's office while trying to make an appointment to discuss a trespass order barring the student from his courses, graduate research, and teacher assistant work; after both the graduate student association and the teacher assistant union had protested in writing to Rock to remove the trespass order. On January 11, 2010, the Rock administration unconditionally revoked its trespass notice against the student. During the conflict the student addressed all his communications to Rock.

On February 2, 2010, the Student Federation University of Ottawa (SFUO) president Seamus Wolfe (a position that Rock once held) was arrested on the criminal charge of disturbing the peace by swearing while trying to convince police, rental contract in hand, that they needed a warrant to enter SFUO offices to arrest student Marc Kelly for trespass. Kelly was in the Student Appeal Centre to discuss a University Senate appeal of his deregistration by the University. Kelly is a well known student whose political activism has put him in direct conflict with President Allan Rock. Both Kelly and Wolfe were handcuffed and taken away. Following the incident involving Kelly and Wolfe, on March 1, 2010, the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO), the Graduate Student Association des Étudiant(e)s Diplomé(e)s (GSAÉD), and the union of students employed at the University of Ottawa (CUPE Local 2626) wrote a letter to Allan Rock protesting his administration's use of the Ontario Trespass Act to remove students from premises occupied by their respective associations.

Neutrality of Wikipedia page

The most frequent contributors to Rock's Wikipedia biography since 2008 have been Denis G. Rancourt and Marc Kelly, both of whom have ongoing personal, professional, and academic conflicts with Rock (see the edit history for this page). Consequently, the neutrality of the page is questionable.

References

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