Diane Ablonczy

Diane Ablonczy (née Broadway; ; born May 6, 1949) is a former Canadian Member of Parliament who served in the House of Commons of Canada.

Diane Broadway was born in 1949 in Peoria, Illinois, United States, as the oldest of six children.

A year later the family moved to Three Hills, Alberta, and Ablonczy grew up in a variety of places in rural Alberta.

She married Tom Ablonczy, a well site engineer and refugee of the 1956 Hungarian revolution.

They had one daughter.

In 1967 she graduated from high school in Lac La Biche.

In 1973 she received her Education degree from the University of Calgary and subsequently taught English, creative writing, and other subjects.

They ran a barley-growing operation, and in 1980 Diane earned her law degree from the University of Calgary.

The family moved to Calgary where she had her general law practice from 1981–1991.

Ablonczy's first political involvement was in 1982, when she briefly belonged to the Western Canada Concept party, but left to join the Provincial Rights Association (PRA) a few months later.

Since the PRA was formed too late to gain official political party status, she ran as an independent candidate in Calgary-Mountain View in the 1982 Alberta provincial election.

She was widowed in 1984 and is now married to Ron Sauer.

She has one daughter, four stepchildren, and eight grandchildren.

In early 1987, Ablonczy joined the Reform Association of Canada, and later that year became a founding member of the Reform Party of Canada.

She was elected as the first Party Chairman and served two terms in this role.

As Chair she was active in developing the Party's organization, administration, and communications structure, acting as a senior Party spokesperson and encouraging the growth of the Party's membership.

In 1991, she set aside her law practice and went on staff for the Party as a special assistant to Reform Party Leader Preston Manning, with responsibility for Party communications and strategic planning.

Ablonczy represented Calgary ridings from 1993 to 2015, sitting first with the Reform Party of Canada, then with the Canadian Alliance, and finally with the Conservative Party of Canada.

Ablonczy was first elected to the House of Commons in 1993 as the Reform Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Calgary North.

In the 1993 federal election, Ablonczy was elected to Parliament as the Reform Party candidate for the federal riding of Calgary North.

In the following years, she continued to participate in Party affairs as a member of the Reform Party Strategy Committee.

She also was a member of the Reform Party Expansion Committee, and she chaired the Reform Party Task Force on the Reform of Social Programs.

In the riding redistribution of 1996, the riding of Calgary North ceased to exist and Ablonczy was re-elected as MP for Calgary—Nose Hill in 1997 (Reform Party), 2000 (Canadian Alliance), 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2011 (Conservative Party).

In 1998 and 1999, Ablonczy promoted the United Alternative process to create a new federal political party on the political right.

As co-chair of the UA policy committee, she took part in developing a comprehensive draft policy document and guiding it through a series of public consultations across the country.

The resulting Declaration of Policy was approved as official Party Policy by members at the Founding Convention of the Canadian Alliance on March 25, 2000.

The Reform Party was dissolved, and the Canadian Alliance was created.

Ablonczy was re-elected under the new party's banner in the 2000 federal election.

In December 2001, Ablonczy entered the 2002 Canadian Alliance leadership contest on a platform of promoting "a process to combine the Canadian Alliance, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and other interested partners into an effective, unified opposition party before the next election."

She placed third with 3.8% of the vote.

On November 18, 2002, Ablonczy posed a question in the House of Commons concerning the government's system of "screening and security checks" as related to Maher Arar, a dual Canadian and Syrian citizen who had recently been deported from the United States to Syria as a terror suspect.

Based on newly released information Ablonczy asked what the government "is doing to protect Canadian security" and why "the U.S. could uncover this man's background so quickly" when the Canadian government failed to find what she described as "his al-Qaeda links".

Ablonczy also criticized the Chrétien government for "chastising the U.S. for sending Arar back to Syria where he is also a citizen".

Arar was imprisoned for over a year in Syria and was repeatedly tortured by Syrian authorities.

In late 2003, the Progressive Conservative Party merged with the Canadian Alliance to create the new Conservative Party of Canada.

She held the position of Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism) from October 30, 2008, Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism) from August 14, 2007, and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance from February 2006.

Previously, Ablonczy served as Chief Opposition Critic for Citizenship and Immigration, Health, and Human Resources Development.

She was previously appointed Minister of State (Seniors) on January 19, 2010.

She served as the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Americas and Consular Affairs) from January 4, 2011 to July 15, 2013.

On July 4, 2013, Ablonczy announced she would not seek re-election in the 2015 federal election.