It started with a promise made by Renweber to his wife in 2010. Her long battle with cancer is over.
They fell in love in the mid-1980s when they were varsity athletes at Red Deer College in central Alberta.
Heather MacDonald Webber was 47 years old and the couple had been married for 23 years.
“She shed tears when she learned she couldn’t donate her organs,” said Weber, a member of the council.
“I told her it was okay. I’ll do what I can.”
That promise turned into an effort to combine the two life certainties: death and tax.
Weber announced his retirement from politics last month after 10 years as a member of Alberta’s progressive, conservative council and 11 years later as a Conservative MP for the Calgary Union.
“I’m not a spring chicken. I’m 65 this year. If I go to the round one more time, I’ll be 69, 70,” Weber said.
“It’s time to go now.”
As he prepares to leave politics, one of Webber’s clear legacy will be his advocacy of increasing Canadian organ donation rates by providing consent options on tax forms.
The lack of organ transplants remains a fatal problem. The Canadian Institute of Health Information says a third of Canadians on the transplant list were removed in 2023 after they died while waiting.
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As an Alberta MLA, Weber introduced a private membership bill to establish one institution to coordinate organ and tissue donations and establish a state organ donor registration.
In 2015, with a narrow victory over the federal government, he marched in introducing a bill that added questions to his tax forms and showing interest in becoming a donor of organs and tissues. Those who wish to become donors will be contacted by the state for registration details.
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A few years later, the bill passed unanimously through the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate to receive royal consent.
However, in 2019, the election was called, and the Senate forced the matter and Weber to return to the starting line.
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“It was an incredibly disappointing thing because it took me years to get where it was,” he said.
Weber returned for another shot after being re-elected in 2019. His name was first drawn from the lottery, which, as he remembers, decided on “priority” to consider the bills of private members.
“This was an indication that it was meant to pass,” he said.
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Again, the bill was passed by a unanimous party vote and received royal consent in June 2021.
As the state is responsible for organ donations, many have yet to agree to add a checkbox to their tax forms. Ontario and Nunavut first committed in 2022. Alberta is working on adding boxes, and BC said it added this year.
“I’ve been lobbying all of them,” Weber said.
In 2023, about 2.5 million Ontario taxpayers showed interest in becoming organ donors. At Nunavut, 3,900 taxpayers tick the box.
“Hopefully, I’ve saved someone’s life because of this,” Weber said.
Weber is also remembered for causing a rebellion against former Alberta Prime Minister Alison Redford in 2014, as a controversy over her travel expenses and ultimately ending her leadership.
“She’s not a really nice woman,” Weber famously said the day he resigned from the Caucus to sit as an independent.
Redford resigned six days later.
“Some people give me a putt for that,” Weber recalls. “Sometimes, you just need to do the right thing. I saw negativity over and over again from that leadership, so I couldn’t be part of it.”
His retirement is likely to be a competitive race for the Calgary Union. The polls suggest that they broadly suggest riding with a long history of sending conservatives to Ottawa, but this is a throwback between liberals and conservatives.
About six months before his wife passed away, Weber traveled to Hawaii with her and was able to see the three people who ran in the Honolulu Marathon. After her death he ran it three times in her honor.
Whether he’s running the marathon again is debate. He didn’t say what would come next.
“I feel selfish that I live and she’s not,” he said. “Now I need to live for both of us.”
& Copy 2025 Canada Report
