Hugh Segal

Hugh Segal was president of the IRPP between 1999 and 2006. In 2006 he was summoned to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Paul Martin. In the Senate he chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Special Committee on Anti-Terrorism. In 2011 he was appointed to the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Committee on Reform and Modernization, and in 2012 he was appointed Canada’s special envoy to the Commonwealth by the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. Before joining the IRPP, he served as chief of staff to the prime minister, associate cabinet secretary in Ontario, and a senior negotiator on the repatriation of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the early 1980s. He was a candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, placing second on the first ballot in 1998. A graduate in history from the University of Ottawa, Hugh Segal holds honorary doctorates from Royal Military College and the University of Ottawa. He is an honorary captain in the Royal Canadian Navy, chair of the Atlantic Council-NATO Association of Canada, and a distinguished senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs. In 2013 he was elected master of Massey College, University of Toronto. He was awarded an Order of Canada in 2003 and the Order of Ontario in 2016.