Canada

New Conservative leader Stephen Harper
has selected Peter MacKay as the new
deputy leader of the party.

Harper Picks MacKay

by Kelly Hayes - Story: 323
Mar 22, 2004 / 9:31 am

In his first address to the Conservative caucus since winning the party's leadership race on Saturday, Stephen Harper appointed Peter MacKay the new deputy leader of the party. MacKay, the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, will replace deputy leader Elsie Wayne, who has decided not to run in the next election. Harper, who was joined at the caucus meeting by Stronach and Clement, didn't specify roles for his leadership rivals, only saying they would be two of many Ontarians joining the Conservative caucus after the election.
Prime Minister Paul Martin announced an aid package Monday worth almost $1 billion, mainly to cover losses caused by a case of mad cow disease discovered last year.
Health Canada is preparing to make government-certified marijuana available in pharmacies later this year. British Columbia will be the location of a pilot program modelled on a year-old program in the Netherlands. It would allow medical users to buy marijuana at their local drugstore.
Pierre Sévigny, a war hero and Conservative associate defence minister who was at the centre of Canada's first political sex scandal, died over the weekend in a Montreal hospital.Sévigny, 86, became a household name thanks to his three-year relationship with East German spy and prostitute Gerda Munsinger.