Diane Ablonczy

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**Diane Ablonczy**
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance

Incumbent
Riding	Calgary North (1993-1997); Calgary—Nose Hill (1997-present)
In office since	1993 election
Preceded by	Al Johnson
Born	May 6, 1949 Peoria, USA
Residence	Calgary
Political party	Conservative
Profession(s)	farmer, lawyer, teacher
Spouse	Ron Sauer

Diane Ablonczy (Pronounced A-Blonc-Zee) (born May 6, 1949) is a conservative Canadian politician. She was born in Peoria, Illinois, United States. Ablonczy is a Member of Canada's House of Commons. Ablonczy is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada (since 2003), and a former member of the Canadian Alliance (2000-2003) and the Reform Party (1993-2000). She has been in the House of Commons since 1993, and currently represents the riding of Calgary—Nose Hill (since 1997) and has represented Calgary North (1993-1997). She holds teaching and law degrees from the University of Calgary. Ablonczy is currently the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance. She is a former official opposition critic of Human Resources Development, of Health, and of Chief Citizenship and Immigration. She is a former teacher, grain farm manager, and lawyer. She is married to Ron Sauer, has one daughter, four step-children and two grandsons.

Ablonczy was a member of the Western Canada Concept in the early 1980s.

In 2002, Ablonczy was a candidate in the Canadian Alliance leadership election, placing third.

On November 18, 2002, she posed a question in the Canadian House of Commons concerning Maher Arar, a dual Canadian and Syrian citizen who had recently been deported from the United States of America to Syria as a terror suspect. Ablonczy defended the decision by American authorities to deport Arar, and criticized the Chrétien government for "chastising the U.S. for sending Arar back to Syria". She asked why the Canadian government needed to rely on American organizations to identify "his terrorist links" and "his al-Qaeda links".[1]. Arar was imprisoned for over a year in Syria, and has indicated that he was tortured by Syrian authorities. The RCMP later confirmed that Arar has no ties to any terrorist organizations.

Preceded by Al Johnson	Member of Parliament for Calgary North 1993-1997	Succeeded by The electoral district was abolished in 1996.
Preceded by The electoral district was established in 1996.	Member of Parliament for Calgary—Nose Hill 1997-	Succeeded by Incumbent

	Alberta Caucus serving in the 39th Canadian Parliament.
Senators	Tommy Banks (Lib), Joyce Fairbairn (Lib), Daniel Hays (Lib), Elaine McCoy (PC), Grant Mitchell (Lib), Claudette Tardif (Lib)
Members of Parliament	Diane Ablonczy (Con), Rona Ambrose (Con), Rob Anders (Con), Leon Benoit (Con), Blaine Calkins (Con), Rick Casson (Con), Ken Epp (Con), Peter Goldring (Con), Art Hanger (Con), Stephen Harper (Con), Laurie Hawn (Con), Rahim Jaffer (Con), Brian Jean (Con), Jason Kenney (Con), Mike Lake (Con), Ted Menzies (Con), Rob Merrifield (Con), Bob Mills (Con), Deepak Obhrai (Con), Jim Prentice (Con), James Rajotte (Con), Lee Richardson (Con), Monte Solberg (Con), Kevin Sorenson (Con), Brian Storseth (Con), Myron Thompson (Con), Chris Warkentin (Con), John Williams (Con)