Sinclair McKnight Stevens is a Canadian parliamentarian. First elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1972 general election as a Progressive Conservative, Stevens ran as a candidate in the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention finishing seventh on the first ballot after which he withdrew in favour of the eventual victor Joe Clark. He served as President of the Treasury Board in the short lived (1979-1980) Clark government.
Stevens turned against Clark and was an early supporter of Brian Mulroney's leadership bid which culminated in victory at the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. After the 1984 Canadian election resulted in a Tory landslide, Stevens became Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion but was forced to resign in 1986 over conflict of interest allegations. In December 1987 a special commission of inquiry ruled he had violated conflict of interest allegations on fourteen counts. Stevens lost the party nomination in his riding in a bitter fight and left parliament in 1988.
Stevens has returned to prominence as a bitter opponent of the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives into the Conservative Party of Canada backing a lawsuit to try to block the merger.
