Allan Rock - Ministerial Career

Ministerial Career

In 1993, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Etobicoke-Centre and named Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. In that capacity, he introduced significant improvements to the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and other federal legislation. He became Minister of Health in 1997, where he spearheaded the creation of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and more than doubled annual health research funding on a national scale.

Subsequently, as Minister of Industry and Minister of Infrastructure, he introduced Canada’s innovation strategy, was responsible for Canada’s three granting councils and introduced legislation to create the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation to promote applied research in the social sciences and the humanities.

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, all of the other leadership candidates were unable to affect Paul Martin's commanding lead. In 2003, Rock dropped out of the leadership and announced his support for Martin. He had 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.