Frank Charles McGee, (3 March 1926 – 4 April 1999) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

businessman,

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

, and, briefly, a

Cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, � ...

in the government of Prime Minister

John Diefenbaker John George Diefenbaker ( ; September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an electio ...

. McGee had a family history of public service. Both of his grandfathers held positions;

John Joseph McGee John Joseph McGee (August 6, 1845 – April 10, 1927) was Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada from May 20, 1882 to May 5, 1907 and is the longest-serving occupant of the position. Born in Wexford, Ireland, McGee immigrated to Canada in 1863 ...

as Clerk of the Privy Council from 1882 to 1907, and his maternal grandfather,

Charles McCool Charles Arthur McCool (February 27, 1853 – March 19, 1926) was a Canadian politician. He represented the riding of Nipissing in the House of Commons of Canada from 1900 to 1908. He was a member of the Liberal Party The Liberal Party i ...

, served as an MP. Frank McGee was also a grand-nephew of

Father of Confederation The Fathers of Confederation are the 36 people who attended at least one of the Charlottetown Conference of 1864 (23 attendees), the Quebec Conference of 1864 (33 attendees), and the London Conference of 1866 (16 attendees), preceding Canadian ...

and member of parliament,

D'arcy McGee Thomas D'Arcy McGee (13 April 18257 April 1868) was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was an Irish Catholic who opposed British rule in Ireland, and was ...

Background

McGee studied journalism at what was then

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

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. In 1943, he enlisted in the

Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...

at the age of 17 and served until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1945. He settled in

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after the war where he worked as a purchase manager for Sears.

Federal politics

A Progressive Conservative, McGee was first elected to the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The House of Common ...

as the MP for York-Scarborough in the 1957 general election that saw the Tories form a minority government under John George Diefenbaker. McGee was re-elected in 1958 when the Conservatives formed a majority government and 1962 when they were reduced again to a minority. He became Parliamentary Secretary to the

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration The minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship (french: Ministre de l'immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté) is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet. The minister is responsible for Immigration, Refugees and Citi ...

in 1962 and held the position until Diefenbaker appointed him to Cabinet as

Minister without Portfolio A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister who does not head a particular ministry. The sinecure is particularly common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet w ...

in March 1963, weeks before the April 1963 election in which the Conservatives lost power and McGee lost his seat. McGee was unsuccessful in his attempt to regain his York-Scarborough seat in the 1965 election. He ran again in the 1972 election and was initially thought to have been elected, an accomplishment that would have made the Progressive Conservatives under

Robert Stanfield Robert Lorne Stanfield (April 11, 1914 – December 16, 2003) was a Canadian politician who served as the 17th premier of Nova Scotia from 1956 to 1967 and the leader of the Official Opposition and leader of the federal Progressive Conservative ...

the largest party in the House of Commons which may have resulted in a Tory minority government. However, a judicial recount determined that McGee had lost the election by four votes. As an MP, McGee was a strong opponent of

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, and in 1960 he introduced a private members bill to abolish the practice. His stance was initially unpopular and led to death threats against himself and his family. Though his bill did not pass his initiative led to amendments to the Criminal Code abolishing capital punishment for several crimes. The movement for abolition led to capital punishment being halted in practice in 1962 with the practice being formally abolished in 1976. McGee also worked to remove corporal punishments from the Criminal Code of Canada such as use of the cat-o'-nine-tails. He also advocated liberalization of Canada's divorce laws and legal reforms to improve the status of women.

After politics

Following his departure from parliament, McGee worked as a political reporter for the

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

and was also host of the

CBC television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

program The Sixties. In 1984, he was appointed to the Security Intelligence Review Committee for a five-year term. In 1990 he was appointed a Citizenship Judge.

External links

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Frank McGee on set, picture
{{DEFAULTSORT:McGee, Frank Charles 1926 births 1999 deaths Progressive Conservative Party of Canada MPs Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario Journalists from Ontario Canadian citizenship judges Carleton University alumni Canadian people of Irish descent McGee family