position, which had previously been held by Lloyd Axworthy. In this role, she fought to protect Section Twenty-eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a section of the then-proposed Constitution Act, 1982 which guaranteed the gender equality rights of men and women, against attempts by some provinces to quash the provision. She also supported efforts to improve maternity leave pay for women, attempts to toughen federal laws against domestic violence, reforms to the Indian Act which would improve the rights of indigenous women marrying non-indigenous men, reforms to the organizational structure of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and stricter policies against the use of gender stereotypes in government communications. In October 1982, Erola also became the first woman ever appointed to the cabinet's priorities and planning committee, which debates and decides on the direction of government policy. Consumer and Corporate Affairs In August 1983, Erola was shuffled out of the Ministry of Mines and was named Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. She immediately pledged to place a greater emphasis on consumer issues than her predecessor André Ouellet, who had sometimes been criticized for giving those issues short shrift. In this role, some of her most public political battles involved the resistance of some organizations to the continued implementation of the metric system. She also proposed, but later abandoned, legislation to limit corporate mergers in newspaper publishing. After Pierre Trudeau's retirement as Prime Minister, Erola continued to serve as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in the cabinet of John Turner. However, in the 1984 election, which saw the governing Liberals reduced to just 40 seats, Erola was defeated by Rodriguez. Post-political career In 1987, Erola became president of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association of Canada, a position she held until her retirement in 1998. She was succeeded in that role by Murray Elston, a former Member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario. She was an ex officio delegate to the 2006 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election. She has served on the board of Equal Voice, an organization which seeks to assist Canadian women in running for political office. Electoral record References External links 1934 births Living people Canadian television meteorologists Canadian Lutherans Canadian people of Finnish descent Liberal Party of Canada MPs Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada Businesspeople from Greater Sudbury