Arthur Jacob "Jake" Epp, (born September 1, 1939) is a Canadian executive and former politician. Life and career Born into a Mennonite family in Manitoba, Epp was a high school history teacher in Steinbach, Manitoba before entering politics. Jake Epp was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in the 1972 election for the riding of Provencher, which was the home of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's Whiteshell Laboratories. In the wake of the 1977 murder of Emanuel Jaques, Epp wrote to the National Gay Rights Coalition: "I would like to see what kind of support you have now after what has taken place in Toronto. What is needed is not protection for homosexuals, but for Canadians who are not deviant." After the 1979 election, he served in the short-lived Cabinet of Joe Clark as Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. As minister, he wrote the Epp letter, which instructed the Commissioner of the Yukon to abandon some of her powers and established responsible government in the Yukon. He retained his seat in the 1980 election despite the defeat of the Clark government and returned to the Opposition bench. When Brian Mulroney led the Conservatives back to power in the 1984 election, he appointed Epp as his Minister of National Health and Welfare. At the Cabinet table, he was a vocal proponent that life begins at conception. In the spring of 1988, the activist organization AIDS Action NOW! burned an effigy of Epp at Toronto City Hall to draw attention to his neglect of the AIDS epidemic. In 1989, Epp became Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Epp retired at the 1993 election, and returned to private life. From 1993 until 2000, he was Senior Vice President and Vice President at TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. Epp was one of the Tories who joined the Canadian Alliance when it was created in an attempt to attract Progressive Conservatives to the former Reform Party of Canada. The Tory Mike Harris government appointed Epp to head a review of the ongoing cost over-runs and delays that plagued Ontario Power Generation's restart of the four "A" reactors at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. The two other panel members were Peter Barnes and Dr. Robin Jeffrey. The review's report was released on December 4, 2003 and attributed to blame for the project to management problems.