Moe Amery

Mohammed Amery (né Amiri; September 20, 1954 – October 19, 2023) was a Canadian politician who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. He represented the constituency of Calgary-East as a Progressive Conservative.

Early life Amery was born Mohammed Amiri (he changed his name sometime between 1989 and 1993) in Lala, Beqaa, Lebanon on September 20, 1954, and came to Canada in 1974. He studied at the University of Alberta from 1975 until 1977, after which time he relocated to Calgary to become a realtor until his election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1993. He was more successful in 1993, when he more than doubled Pashak's vote count in the newly formed Calgary-East. The first, a private member's bill, would have made it impossible for individuals in arrears on child support payments to register their vehicles or renew their drivers' licenses. The second, a government bill, included the objectives of the first, but also took other measures, including ending a provision by which money held in a joint bank account could not be drawn upon to satisfy child support payments owed by one of the account-holders. The government bill passed with the support of the Progressive Conservatives and some Liberals, including Sine Chadi and Michael Henry. Other Liberals - including Gary Dickson, Debby Carlson, Bettie Hewes, Mike Percy, Percy Wickman, Ken Nicol, Nicholas Taylor, and Colleen Soetaert - opposed the bill on the grounds that it didn't go far enough in taking measures to recover payments, promoted animosity in an already adversarial process, and was written with insufficient consultation with the recently privatized registries centres. After the government bill passed, the private member's bill was ruled redundant by Speaker Stanley Schumacher.

Amery introduced a number of private member's bills designed to extend primary education to include kindergarten, requiring school boards to provide it and making attendance compulsory. The first two of these - both called the School Amendment Act, sponsored in 1995 and 1997 - failed to reach second reading before the legislature adjourned. Amery's third attempt, the School (Early Childhood Services) Amendment Act, was defeated on second reading. Liberals were unanimous in their support of the bill, pointing to similar bills that had previously been sponsored by Liberal MLAs Grant Mitchell and Michael Henry. Several of Amery's Progressive Conservative colleagues, including Mary O'Neill, a government bill that created a scientific committee to make recommendations on the designation of endangered and threatened species, expanded fish and wildlife agents' abilities to check for infractions of firearms regulations by hunters, and downloaded several government powers that had previously resided with the Lieutenant Governor by Order in Council to the Minister of Environmental Protection. Some Liberals, including Duco Van Binsbergen and Bruce Collingwood, raised concerns that the bill didn't go far enough, but it was passed into law. In 2007 and during the 2008 election campaign, he advocated rent controls to deal with the tight housing market in urban Alberta, although the position of the Ed Stelmach government was that they would be unhelpful. He was charged with doing so in 2004. The charges were ultimately stayed.

Federal politics In December 2017, Amery announced that he would challenge sitting Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai for the nomination in Calgary Forest Lawn.

Personal life and death Amery was married to Maryam Abu Ghosn, and the couple has five children: Mickey, Lila, Leena, Laura, and Malaak. Mickey was elected as the Member of the Alberta Legislature in the 2019 election in the riding of Calgary-Cross.

Moe Amery died on October 19, 2023, at the age of 69.

Election results