The Montreal branch of the Canadian International Council, in partnership with the United States Consulate General in Montreal, is pleased to invite you to a timely discussion on the upcoming United States presidential election with two former members of the U.S. Congress:

Congressman Martin Lancaster (Democrat)
Martin Lancaster served in the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 1995 representing North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District.

Congressman Steven K. Kuykendall (Republican)
Steven T. Kuykendall served in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2001 representing California’s 36th Congressional District.

Moderated by Guillaume Lavoie
Montreal City Councillor and the Official Opposition’s spokesperson for finance, government relations and international relations.

Event Partner
U.S. Consulate General in Montreal

Date and Time
Tuesday September 27, 2016
5:30pm to 8:00pm

Venue
University Club
2047 Rue Mansfield
Montreal, QC  H3A 1Y7

Registration
Please register online by clicking the button below.
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Event Contact
Arnav Manchanda | montreal@thecic.org

Speakers’ Biographies
Steven T. Kuykendall served in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2001 representing California’s 36th Congressional District. Congressman Kuykendall served on the Armed Services, the Science and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committees of the House.
In his first year in Congress, Congressman Kuykendall helped craft a plan to pay down the national debt while still providing a tax cut and protecting Social Security. He secured funds to help clean up Santa Monica Bay and dredge the Marina del Rey Harbor entrance. Congressman Kuykendall also authored a provision in the defense authorization bill that allowed active duty military bases to swap surplus land for new structures on the sites they retain, making them better stewards of their assets.

Before his election to Congress, Mr. Kuykendall served two terms in the California State Assembly, from 1994 to 1998. During his first term in the state legislature, he served as Republican Whip. He also served on the Banking and Finance, Labor and Employment, Higher Education, and Utilities and Commerce Committees. Mr. Kuykendall demanded a full accounting of legislative spending and oversaw the Assembly’s first “clean” fiscal audit in ten years. In addition, he co-authored California’s “Megan’s Law” and wrote the “Tyler Jaeger Act” to protect children from abuse and child molesters.

Mr. Kuykendall began his public service as councilman and mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes. He has also served as president and trustee of the Peninsula Education Foundation, regional commissioner for AYSO Youth Soccer, trustee of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, chairman of the Palos Verdes Regional Law Enforcement Committee and vice-chairman of the Los Angeles County Emergency Preparedness Commission.
Commissioned as a Marine Corps Second Lieutenant in 1968, Mr. Kuykendall served two tours of duty in Vietnam, participating in the effort to stop the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive in 1972. He rose to the rank of Captain and retired in 1973 after a permanent shoulder injury.

In 1973, Mr. Kuykendall became a businessman working in the commercial and mortgage-banking field until 1994. During that time, he founded and served as president of Lockheed Mortgage Corporation, a subsidiary of Lockheed Corporation. He was also a principal with David Buxton Financial Corporation from 1984-1994. Since leaving Congress, he is engaged in local, state and federal government relations and management consulting as proprietor of Steven T. Kuykendall & Associates. In 2013 Mr. Kuykendall became the volunteer president and CEO of Fisher House Southern California, Inc., a 501(c)3 charity, dedicated to raising funds for the construction of a Fisher House on the Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center campus.
Congressman Kuykendall holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Oklahoma City University (1968) and a Masters of Business Administration from San Diego State University (1974). He is a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars, First Marine Division Association, Military Officers Association of America, Rotary International and the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress. He and his wife, Jan, live in Long Beach, California and have three grown children – Kerry, a pilot in the U.S. Navy; Brent, a public school administrator; and Craig, a Los Angeles fire fighter.

Born and raised on a tobacco farm in rural Eastern North Carolina, Martin Lancaster spent his early years working in the fields, attending a small rural school (excelling in academics and student leadership positions, particularly the 4-H Club), and participating in local church youth activities.

In 1957, he served as a Page in the North Carolina House of Representatives and in 1959, as Chief Page.
In 1961, Lancaster began his university studies at the University of North Carolina, again holding numerous student leadership positions. He entered the law school at UNC after his junior year in college as a Law Alumni Scholar, graduating in 1967.

Graduating from law school at the height of Vietnam, Lancaster became a Judge Advocate in the Navy, serving on active duty for three years, eighteen months of which were spent on the USS HANCOCK (CVA-19) off the coast of Vietnam. He continued as an active reservist, retiring as a Navy Captain in 1993.

Lancaster returned to his hometown after military service and entered the private practice of law with a college and law school classmate. Between then and his leaving the firm upon his election to Congress in 1986, the firm grew to seven lawyers. Lancaster engaged in the general practice of law which included representing farmers, small businesses and small towns in every kind of case. Active in professional organizations, he was elected to the Board of Governors of the North Carolina Bar Association.

Civic leadership positions came early, with Lancaster serving as president or chairman of many community endeavors with emphasis on cultural organizations. In 1977 the Governor appointed him Chairman of the North Carolina Arts Council, a position he held for four years. This community involvement led naturally to elective office, first to the North Carolina House of Representatives and ultimately to the U. S. Congress.

Lancaster quickly established himself as an effective legislator, serving as a committee chairman in his second term. In his third and fourth terms, he served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and was ranked both sessions as the fifth most effective member by the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research.
Lancaster was noted especially for effective floor action and championed many issues in the fields of education, mental health, the arts and the legal system. Two of his most noteworthy initiatives were authoring and seeing to the enactment of North Carolina’s crackdown on drunk drivers and establishing the guardian ad litem program to give children who find themselves in court a friend to see them through the experience.

In Congress, Lancaster served on the Armed Services, Small Business, Agriculture, and Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committees. His major committee was Armed Services where he became a real champion of the service members and their families. As Chairman of the Morale, Welfare and Recreation panel, he led efforts to improve commissary benefits by merging the three service systems into one of the largest grocery “companies” in the country, to expand and improve the quality of retail shopping in the exchange systems, to enhance child care services, and in general to improve the quality of life for all. In essence, he served as Chairman of the Board of a huge grocery chain and three large retail chains at a time of major upheaval.

The merger of the commissary systems required merging and harmonizing three personnel systems, three computer systems, three buying programs, three marketing strategies and three sets of policies of various kinds while keeping more than two million customers and thousands of suppliers happy. The exchange systems went from a practice of significant Congressional subsidy to self-sufficiency during Lancaster’s tenure.
Readiness of the forces and acquisition reform were other interests. As an active Navy reservist and a representative of many constituents who were active duty, reservists or National Guardsmen, Lancaster played a leading role in issues important to those personnel.

Lancaster represented the House for six years at the Chemical Weapons Convention negotiations in Geneva. This required his presence in Geneva on a regular basis, as well as his active efforts in Washington to educate his colleagues, the administration and the public on the on going negotiations and ultimately to educate them on the provisions as finalized.

Active in the Congressional Study Group on Germany from the first days of his tenure in Congress, Lancaster became Chairman of the Group in 1994. In this capacity he worked closely with Members of Congress and the German Bundestag (that country’s parliament) interested in the German-U.S. relationship, becoming friends with Members of the Bundestag and traveling frequently to Germany. As a delegate to the North Atlantic Assembly (the parliamentary arm of NATO), Lancaster also worked with parliamentarians from other NATO countries on policy and political issues of the region. After 1990, parliamentarians from former Warsaw Pact countries began meeting with NAA delegates at their twice yearly meetings, giving Lancaster and other delegates insight into the problems of those countries and the expansion of NATO.

In 1995, Lancaster chaired the National Prayer Breakfast which brings people of all faiths and from more than 160 countries to Washington each year to join prayer for our country and theirs. As an outgrowth of that experience, for two years he hosted on an ad hoc basis a fellowship luncheon for Ambassadors from the Commonwealth of Independent States (the former Soviet Union).

As the son of a tobacco farmer and as the person representing more tobacco farmers than any other Member, Lancaster found himself in the position of defending those farmers and their way of life as tobacco came under increasing attacks. He became sensitized to environmental concerns on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee and championed small business concerns from his position on the Small Business Committee.

Defeated in the Republican sweep of North Carolina and the country in 1994, Lancaster worked briefly for Governor Jim Hunt handling federal issues. However, with his family in the Washington area, when the President asked that he assist him with the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, he eagerly accepted. Anticipating ratification in the fall of 1995, the president nominated Lancaster to become Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, a position for which the Senate confirmed him in January of 1996. In this capacity, Lancaster was primarily responsible for policy development and advocacy for the Army Corps of Engineers before the Office of Management and Budget, the White House, and the Congress. As the civilian head of the Corps, he gave policy guidance and oversight to the operation of the Corps, an organization of 27,000 employees deployed across the globe in 38 district offices and 11 divisions. Their mission is to plan, design, build and maintain the nation& #039;s infrastructure for navigation (harbors, channels, inland waterways, locks, etc.), flood control (dams, levees, stream improvements, etc.), hydroelectric power generation (a by-product of the flood control structures), and environmental regulation and restoration.

Lancaster had provided leadership to the North Carolina Community College System, one of the largest and best systems in the country. His major initiatives were to increase funding and private support for upgrading the equipment and technology of the colleges; improve salaries of faculty and staff so the system can continue to attract and retain the high quality of personnel for which it is known; and to make the system a major player in economic development in North Carolina through its major mission of work forced preparation. As President he served on numerous boards and commissions, most of which are focused on education, economic development, and work force issues. For his work with the government of Northern Ireland to restructure their system of two year post secondary education, Queen Elizabeth made him an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Retirement
Upon retiring from the Community College position, he practiced law for five years with the Raleigh firm of Smith Anderson. He retired from that position in 2013 and now lives in Falls Church, VA where he near his grandchildren. He is a counselor of the Association of Former Members of Congress.
Guillaume Lavoie is a Montreal City Councillor and the Official Opposition’s spokesperson for finance, government relations and international relations. He is also Vice President of the Finance and Administration Committee at City Hall. He is particularly interested in accountability measures, mobility, bikenomics, the sharing economy and the role of urban art.

Before entering politics, Guillaume Lavoie worked in public diplomacy, public policies and international relations. Having lived and worked on abroad continents and visited more than 30 countries, he has been a consultant for the public, private and associative sector in Canada and overseas.

A lecturer at the National School of Public Administration (Énap), a member of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair and an international observer, Guillaume has been a frequent commentator and analyst in the media on international current events and American politics. An innovative social entrepreneur, he is the founder and former executive director of Mission Leadership Québec and co-founder of the Collège néo-classique.

Guillaume holds a Masters in international public administration (Énap) and a B.A. in industrial relations and certificates in administration and law (Université Laval). A Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C, Guillaume is also a Fellow of the Forum of federations, Action Canada, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, the Jeanne-Sauvé Foundation and Next City. Guillaume is fluent in French, English and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Catalan. A proud son of the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region, Guillaume has a young family and has been living in Montréal for close to a decade.