Stephen Greene

Stephen Greene (born December 8, 1949) is a Canadian politician and a former independent member of the Senate of Canada. He was appointed on the advice of Stephen Harper to the Senate on January 2, 2009, and sat as a Conservative Senator until May 2017, when Senate Leader Larry Smith removed him for his support for Senate reform proposals put forth by the governing Liberal Party. Greene then decided to sit as an "Independent Reform" Senator. He retired from the Senate on December 8, 2024 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Early life and career Greene was born in Montreal, Quebec.

Greene served as Chief of Staff in the office of Reform Party of Canada leader Preston Manning for four years. He encouraged future Prime Minister Stephen Harper to run for the leadership of the Reform party's successor party, the Canadian Alliance.

He was an unsuccessful Reform Party candidate in Halifax in the 1993 and 1997 federal elections. In June 2012, the Senate Transport committee on which he was deputy chair issued "The Future of Canadian Air Travel: Toll Booth or Spark Plug?", a report which called on the government to stop requiring Canadian airports to pay rent, which was making them uncompetitive for Canadian flyers compared to American airports south of the border.

In December 2012, Greene, along with Senators Mike Duffy from Prince Edward Island and John D. Wallace from New Brunswick, promoted the idea of Maritime Union, a proposal which would require amending the Constitution of Canada. In a speech to the Halifax West Conservative Riding Association, Greene argued that Maritime Union would reduce the inefficiencies in having multiple provincial governments and bureaucracies for a population one seventh the size of Ontario. Greene also argued that despite the similarities and shared history of the Maritimes, the "artificial" provincial barriers inhibit growth by competing for private sector money and imposing trade barriers on each other.

On September 13, 2013, Greene left his position as Vice Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and became Deputy Government Whip again. After the 2015 federal election, Greene became the only Conservative to sponsor a government bill during the 42nd Canadian Parliament, sponsoring Bill S-4, which implemented double taxation deals with Taiwan and Israel, which was functionally similar to a bill Greene said he had sponsored during the Harper government. and as of May 2017, was the Nova Scotia chair of his leadership campaign. Greene became Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate on March 7, 2016.

In March 2017, Greene unsuccessfully ran to succeed Claude Carignan as leader of the Senate Conservatives, losing to Larry Smith. A few days after his defeat, Greene was no longer the Deputy Opposition Whip.

Electoral record