View source for Michael Forrestall

{{Short description|Canadian politician}}
{{Use Canadian English|date=January 2023}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix = [[The Honourable]]
| honorific-suffix = [[Queen's Privy Council for Canada|PC]]
| image            = John Michael William Curphey Forrestall.jpg
| riding           = [[Halifax (federal electoral district)|Halifax]]
| parliament       = Canadian
| term_start       = 1965
| term_end         = 1968
| predecessor      = [[Gerald Regan]]
| successor        = ''Riding dissolved''
| riding1          = [[Dartmouth—Cole Harbour]]
| parliament1      = Canadian
| term_start1      = 1968
| term_end1        = 1988
| predecessor1     = ''Riding created''
| successor1       = [[Ron MacDonald (politician)|Ron MacDonald]]
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1932|9|23}}
| birth_place      = [[Deep Brook, Nova Scotia|Deep Brook]], [[Nova Scotia]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|2006|6|8|1932|9|23}}
| death_place      = [[Halifax, Nova Scotia|Halifax]], Nova Scotia
| party            = [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]]
| profession       = Journalist, businessman
| spouse           = 
| residence        = 
}}
'''John Michael William Curphey Forrestall''' (September 23, 1932 &ndash; June 8, 2006) was a [[Canadians|Canadian]] politician. Forrestall served in both the [[Senate of Canada]] and [[House of Commons of Canada]].

==Political career==
A [[Nova Scotia]] journalist and businessman, Forrestall was first elected to the [[House of Commons of Canada]] in the [[1965 Canadian federal election|1965 federal election]] as the [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]] [[Member of Parliament (Canada)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Halifax (federal electoral district)|Halifax, Nova Scotia]]. He was elected the MP for [[Dartmouth—Halifax East]] in the [[1968 Canadian federal election|1968 election]], and remained in the House for a total of twenty-three years.

During the [[Brian Mulroney]] government, Forrestall served as a [[parliamentary secretary]] to a succession of ministers until he was defeated in what was by then the [[Riding (division)|riding]] of [[Dartmouth (electoral district)|Dartmouth]] in the [[1988 Canadian federal election|1988 federal election]]. In November 1990, [[Prime Minister of Canada|Prime Minister]] Mulroney appointed Forrestall to the [[Senate of Canada]], where he sat as a Progressive Conservative until February 2004, when he and most of the Tory [[caucus]] joined the new [[Conservative Party of Canada]]. Forrestall was active on a number of causes, including benefits for Canadian Merchant Navy veterans and the protection of lighthouses.

In 2000, he introduced a Private Members Bill in the Senate [[Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act]], a bill which was also supported by Senator Pat Carney who championed it after Forrestall's death and which is close to passing in the House of Commons in 2007.<ref>"Lighthouse Bill Protecting Our Lighthouses - The Icons of Canada's Maritime Heritage",
''Canadian Heritage Foundation Featured Heritage Buildings'' by Douglas Franklin [http://www.heritagecanada.org/eng/featured/current.html '''here'''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513182532/http://www.heritagecanada.org/eng/featured/current.html |date=2008-05-13 }}</ref> Forrestall's brother is the Canadian realist painter, [[Tom Forrestall]]; their sister Katherine was the mother of singer-songwriter [[Matthew Grimson]].<ref>[https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/matthew-grimson-obituary?pid=189356305 "Matthew George Grimson: Mar 9, 1968 – Jun 19, 2018"]. ''[[Legacy.com]]''.</ref>

==Death==
Forrestall died on June 8, 2006, at age 73;<ref name="parlbio">{{Canadian Parliament links|ID=7613|nolist=yes}}</ref> he had been admitted to a Halifax-area hospital with serious breathing problems five days earlier.<ref name=hospital>{{cite web|url=http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3b7bd40e-9d7a-4e7d-b263-1cd164a1b0b8|title=Senator in hospital|publisher=[[The Gazette (Montreal)|Montreal Gazette]]|accessdate=2006-06-09|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121013073512/http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3b7bd40e-9d7a-4e7d-b263-1cd164a1b0b8|archivedate=2012-10-13}}</ref>

== Electoral history ==
{{1988 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1984 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1980 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1979 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1974 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1972 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1968 Canadian federal election/Dartmouth—Cole Harbour}}
{{1965 Canadian federal election/Halifax}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forrestall, Michael}}
[[Category:1932 births]]
[[Category:2006 deaths]]
[[Category:Canadian people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Conservative Party of Canada senators]]
[[Category:Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Nova Scotia]]
[[Category:Canadian senators from Nova Scotia]]
[[Category:Progressive Conservative Party of Canada MPs]]
[[Category:Progressive Conservative Party of Canada senators]]
[[Category:People from Annapolis County, Nova Scotia]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing]]
[[Category:20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada]]
[[Category:20th-century members of the Senate of Canada]]
[[Category:21st-century members of the Senate of Canada]]