Dr. Colin Carrie DC MP is the proud son of a career Royal Canadian Navy officer. His family settled in Oshawa when Colin was 15 years old. A graduate of RS McLaughlin CVI, Colin earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Waterloo and graduated from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College as a Doctor of Chiropractic in 1989. After graduation, Colin returned to Oshawa where he established his practice and raised his family. Colin and his wife Elizabeth have three children.
Colin has always been deeply involved in the communities of Oshawa and Durham Region, having served as a member of the Durham Chiropractic Society and volunteer with several other organizations. Before entering Parliament, he co-owned and operated one of Durham Region’s leading chiropractic and wellness clinics.
Colin was elected to represent Oshawa for the first time on June 28, 2004, winning a hard-fought battle in Canada's most competitive and exciting three-way race. He was successfully re-elected in six tough general elections, many of which were fought against well-known Canadian public/private sector union leaders and well-funded special interest groups: January 2006, October 2008, May 2011, October 2015, October 2019 and most recently, in September 2021 -- tying former MP and federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent's record of seven consecutive federal wins in the riding.
Growing up in Oshawa meant spending his summers working in Oshawa's General Motors plants. This experience, coupled with his dedication to our community, lead Colin to create the Conservative Automotive Caucus shortly after being elected. During our former Conservative government's minority (2006-08) and majority (2011-15) governments, Colin had the privilege of serving as a Parliamentary Secretary in three busy portfolios: Industry, Health and Environment. He was a pivotal part of the process that lead to the creation of the Rouge National Urban Park, the first National Park to be established inside a Canadian municipality.
In recent years, Colin has served as the Conservative Party's Shadow Minister for Canada-U.S. Relations and the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. In the 42nd Parliament he served as the Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Canada-U.S. Relations. He continues to be deeply involved in all aspects of our national and international industrial, trade and regulatory issues. He has remained a tireless supporter of our local and national manufacturing industries since his election to Parliament and is a long-time advocate for several important health-related issues including autism, obesity, natural health products, Hepatitis-C victims, and families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
In the 42nd Parliament, Colin worked very closely with several brave Oshawa-based survivors of human trafficking to advocate for new measures to stop its scourge in the Oshawa and Durham areas (and farther afield in Canada) by introducing Bill C-461, An act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (trafficking in persons). C-461, which Colin reintroduced in the 42nd Parliament, proposed to amend Canada's Criminal Code to clarify what constitutes exploitation for the purpose of establishing whether a person has committed the offence of trafficking in persons. In addition to amending Canada's Judges Act to ensure that training provided for the continuing education of judges include seminars on trafficking in persons, C-461 would have aligned Canada's laws with the United Nations-adopted Palermo protocols (2000) on the prevention, suppression and punishment of individuals trafficking in persons (especially women and children). C-461 also proposed to remove any requirement for a Crown Attorney to prove that a victim of human trafficking feared the accused in order to obtain a conviction. Regrettably, this Bill died on the Commons' Order Paper when Parliament was dissolved ahead of the 2019 federal general election.
On the closely-related matter of victim's rights, Colin has, for the past several years, worked closely with several Oshawa and Durham-based criminal justice and victims rights advocates, including Oshawa's own Lisa Freeman, whose father was murdered in Oshawa in the early 1990s, to push for stronger measures to ensure that victims of crime and their families are not adversely impacted by Canada's troubled corrections and parole systems.
In the 44th Parliament, Colin co-sponsored Bill S-224, which aimed to achieve similar objectives to Bill C-461. Unfortunately, failed at the Report Stage in the House of Commons owing to a lack of support from Liberal MPs. His Private Member's Bill, C-320, which seeks to protect victim's rights through disclosure of potential eligibility for parole or release dates and how these dates were determined was adopted by the House of Commons with rare all-party support in February 2024 and will soon receive the Consideration of the Senate's Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
On April 24, 2024, at the Oshawa Conservative Association's 20th Annual General Meeting, Colin announced that he will not seek re-election in Canada's 45th general election, expected in 2025. He remains on duty and will continue to serve as Oshawa’s MP until that time.
Read Colin's news release here.