Michel Cogger

Michel Benoit Cogger (born March 21, 1939) is a Quebec businessman, lawyer and former Canadian Senator.^[1]

Cogger was a senior political advisor to and fundraiser for Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and helped run the party's campaigns in Quebec in the 1984 and 1988 federal elections in which the Tories swept the province.^[2]

Mulroney and Cogger had been friends since the 1960s when the two attended law school at Laval University together. Cogger ran Mulroney's bid to win the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention as well as the successful campaign against Joe Clark which forced him to call a 1983 leadership convention.^[2]

In 1986, Muroney named Cogger to the Senate. In 1991 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police laid influence peddling charges alleging that Cogger had taken payments from businessman Guy Montpetit in exchange for the use of Cogger's influence to win government grants and contacts. Cogger was acquitted in 1993 but in 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial which led to Cogger's conviction in 1998.^[2] He was fined $3,000, put on 12 months' probation and ordered to do 120 hours of community service.^[3] Cogger successfully appealed the sentence which was substituted by an absolute discharge in 2001.^[4]

In September 2000, Cogger resigned from the Senate. He had been largely absent from the upper house during his legal battles and was fined a total of $23,250 for missing sessions.^[3]

Further reading

• Mulroney: The Politics of Ambition, by John Sawatsky, 1991.
• On The Take, by Stevie Cameron, 1994.

References

1. ^ Parliamentary biography
2. ^ ^{a b c} John Demont and Luke Fisher, "Cogger Convicted of Influence Peddling", Maclean's, June 15, 1998
3. ^ ^{a b} Canadian Press, "Cogger quits Senate seat, leaving Tories with 35 in Red Chamber", Globe and Mail, September 8, 2000
4. ^ "Quebec: Cogger wins discharge", National Post, May 18, 2001

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Name	Cogger, Michel
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Date of birth	March 21, 1939
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