PEI·NewGail Shea is being remembered for both her kindness and her fierceness by those who worked with her, after the former federal minister and Conservative MP from P.E.I. died Thursday at the age of 66. ‘Without a doubt, she made Prince Edward Island a better place,’ says a former premierMarilee Devries · CBC News · Posted: Aug 22, 2025 2:17 PM EDT | Last Updated: 13 minutes agoA political powerhouse from a fishing family in western P.E.I., Gail Shea has died at age 66Gail Shea began her political journey back in 1996, determined to represent the people and issues in her community, and make changes she said were desperately needed. As CBC’s Sheehan Desjardins reports, that journey took her to Parliament Hill and eventually the federal cabinet table. Gail Shea is being remembered for both her kindness and her fierceness by those who worked with her, after the former federal minister and Conservative MP from P.E.I. died Thursday at the age of 66. Among her biggest fans? Liberal politicians. “I don’t think people really understand the impact she had,” said Robert Ghiz, the former Liberal premier of P.E.I. from 2007 to 2015. “Without a doubt, she made Prince Edward Island a better place.”Then there’s former Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who often found himself sitting next to her on flights to and from Ottawa: “She’d always talk about her family, and what was going on in Tignish… She never, ever forgot where she came from.”Former P.E.I. premier Robert Ghiz, second from right, said working in conjunction with Gail Shea (at left with former prime minister Stephen Harper) ‘was a privilege.’ (The Canadian Press)Shea spent seven years as the Progressive Conservative MLA for District 27, Tignish-DeBlois, and served as P.E.I.’s first female transportation minister, which was among several portfolios she held under then-premier Pat Binns. “She lit up a room. If we had a cabinet meeting and she wasn’t there, it wasn’t quite as much fun as it would be if Gail was there,” Binns said Friday.”But you knew she’d get the work done too.”‘She was bubbly, friendly and she could move a mountain,’ former P.E.I. premier Pat Binns said of Gail Shea. (Ken Linton/CBC)Shea turned her eye toward federal politics in 2008.She was elected as the Conservative MP for P.E.I.’s Egmont riding, spending seven years in the seat and making history as the first P.E.I. woman ever named to federal cabinet, when Stephen Harper was prime minister.On Friday, Harper said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of Shea’s death, writing in a statement on X that “Gail embodied the spirit of the Maritimes, hard-working, collegial with an innate sense of duty and commitment to her community, province, and Canada.”Stephen Harper, shown walking in New Brunswick with Shea in 2013, said he was ‘deeply saddened’ to hear about the death of his former cabinet minister. (The Canadian Press)Harper first appointed Shea minister of fisheries and oceans in 2008, and she resumed the post in 2013 after a time as minister of national revenue. Easter, the former MP for Malpeque, said holding that job was a big deal for Shea. “It is one of the toughest portfolios there is because you’ve got competing interests,” he said. “But that was a highlight of her career, to be minister of fisheries and oceans, because she came from a fisheries family.”‘I think her legacy is that she was a constituency politician,’ former Liberal MP Wayne Easter said of Shea. ‘She really worked for constituents within the riding, Egmont, and for all of Prince Edward Island.’ (Sheehan Desjardins/CBC)Family came first Shea was a mother of five and, by the time of her death, a grandmother of 17. “Her family was everything and she just loved the community,” said Pat Mella, who worked with Shea as a Progressive Conservative MLA and is one of PEI’s Famous Five.”She just reflected West Prince. That was kind of valuable. For somebody who had so many big assignments, you could [often] kind of leave that to one side, but she never did.”Pat Mella, a former MLA who led the P.E.I. PC Party from 1990 to 1996, says Shea was a ‘dear friend’ as well as a colleague. (Sheehan Desjardins/CBC)Ernie Hudson, P.E.I.’s P.C. minister of transportation and infrastructure, said in a statement Friday that he was deeply saddened by the passing of his “close friend and mentor.” He highlighted Shea’s accomplishments, including convincing the federal government to add Route 2 to the National Highway System and creating the license buyback program to stabilize and increase lobster stocks. She dedicated her life to making life better for all of us.— Ernie Hudson”She dedicated her life to making life better for all of us,” wrote Hudson, who served as Shea’s constituency manager in Egmont.Lisa Raitt was one of Shea’s Conservative caucus colleagues from 2008 to 2015. “Gail Shea was probably one of the fiercest political operators that I’ve met,” the former federal Conservative cabinet minister told CBC News in an interview from Milton, Ont. Raitt recalled how formidable Shea was in her understanding of “the politics, the partisanship, but as well bringing it home for her own people.”Lisa Raitt served with Gail Shea from 2008 to 2015 under former prime minister Stephen Harper. Raitt is seen wearing white in the back row, fourth from left, standing beside the much shorter Shea, third from left, in a photo of Harper’s cabinet taken in Ottawa on Oct. 30, 2008. (The Canadian Press)Raitt said that for her, Shea represented the kind of politician she wanted to be. “As a woman, what I saw from Gail was she was a mom, she was a grandmother, she was a wife, but she was a fierce politician,” she said. “She did it and had the respect of not only the people that were on her side, but as well the people on the other side of the aisle.”It wasn’t about her name being on something. It was about the community having something — and that’s a dying breed of politician.”ABOUT THE AUTHORMarilee Devries is a journalist with CBC P.E.I. She has a journalism degree from Toronto Metropolitan University. She can be reached at marilee.devries@cbc.caWith files from Island Morning, Sheehan Desjardins, and Kerry Campbell
‘She never, ever forgot where she came from’: Former colleagues remember Gail Shea
