Nationality Canada Occupation venture fund manager | Other names Mark R. McQueen Other name Mark R. McQueen | |
Known for appointed to influential offices | ||
Mark McQueen is a Canadian director of a venture fund, who has been appointed to high-profile positions of public trust related to transport. In 2009 he was appointed chair of the Toronto Port Authority, and in 2014 he was appointed the chair of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority.
In 1982, when McQueen was just 16, Time magazine published a photo he took of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, when they were on an official visit to Ottawa.
In a 2009 profile in the Toronto Star, Linda Diebel noted that comments 21 year old McQueen made from the floor during the 1986 convention that chose Brian Mulroney as the leader of Progressive Conservative Party had triggered an admiring reply from Mulroney, and had triggered coverage of McQueen in a column by Dalton Camp.
When Mulroney became Prime Minister McQueen worked in the Prime Minister's Office, as Chief of Staff Hugh Segal's executive assistant.
After leaving the PMO in 1993, Matthew Barrett, then the chair of the Bank of Montreal encouraged him to go into banking. McQueen worked briefly as a teller, before joining the bank's fund management department. In 2000 he founded his own investment fund, Wellington Financial.
In 2008 McQueen was appointed to the Toronto Port Authority.
On July 30, 2014, Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport, appointed McQueen the chair of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, together with two other directors, and the authority's President and CEO. While noting that McQueen and the other three appointees did have significant financial expertise, they noted that none of the appointees had ties to the Windsor region. Tom Mulcair, leader of the opposition in the Canadian Parliament, noted that three of the first four appointees were donors to the Conservative Party of Canada.
Ed Arditti, of the online news site Windsor Square suggested McQueen's appointment was linked to the Mulroney administration's struggles with Matty Moroun, who owned the Ambassador Bridge, the original bridge over the Detroit River.
McQueen was replaced as chair of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority by former Liberal MPP Dwight Duncan on January 1, 2016.