McLean, Walter F, 1936- : Cabinet Minister
Walter McLean was born in Leamington, Ontario, on 26 April 1936. He studied at the Universities of British Columbia, Toronto and Edinburgh. While at Toronto, he was president of the Toronto Student Council, as well as the Canadian Union of Students (1961-1962). He was co-founder of C.U.S.O. and its Nigeria Coordinator in 1962-1967, during which period he also served as Presbyterian Missionary and Chaplain to the University of Nigeria. He was Associate Director, International Program for Canada's Centennial, in 1967, and Director of the Manitoba Centennial Corporation in 1969-1971. While minister at the Waterloo Knox Presbyterian Church (1971-1979), he continued to serve on various committees (World Concerns Committee which he chaired of the Canadian Council of Churches, and the Rotary Club). In 1979, he stood for election from the riding of Waterloo, and was elected to the House of Commons, and re-elected in all later general elections which he contested (1980, 1984 and 1988).
In the first Mulroney cabinet, McLean was named Secretary of State and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women (1984) and Minister of State for Immigration (1985). He also served on several Standing Committees of the House -- on Communications and Culture, on Human Rights and on Disabled Persons. He also served in various offices and on various committees connected with Canadian foreign policy as it concerned aid to developing nations, and associated critical global issues such as human rights, economic development, apartheid, peace, security, disarmament, north-south split, world debt crisis of the Third World and so on.
These committees and offices were as follows: member, Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade; chairman, Sub-committee on International Debt and Sub-Committee on Human Rights and Development. He was also Special Representative on South Africa and Commonwealth Affairs, and the Canadian Delegate to the U.N. General Assembly's 41st, 42nd and 43 rd sessions (1986, 1987, 1989)). He was Canada's delegate to the South African Development Co-ordination Conference meetings, as well as to the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers' Conference in 1987, 1988 and 1989. He was Canada's member at the U.N. Pledging Conference on Mozambique Emergency in Geneva, to the African Development Bank in Cairo, to the Commonwealth Conference in Vancouver and to the Economic Committee on Africa in 1987.
He did not stand for re-election in the general election of 1993.
