Here's a look back at Jim Flaherty's life and the key moments that have made him one of Canada's most esteemed politicians. He died last week at age 64.
Overview
Born: James Michael (Jim) Flaherty, in Lachine, Que. on Dec. 30, 1949.
Education: Bishop Whelan High School and Loyola High School in Montreal; BA from Princeton University; law degree from York University's Osgoode Hall Law School.
Private Career: Founding partner in the law firm Flaherty Dow Elliott.
Public life provincial: Loses bid for Ontario legislature seat 1990; elected to legislature as member for Whitby-Ajax 1995; enters Mike Harris cabinet as labour minister 1997; later serves as serves as attorney general, finance minister, enterprise minister and deputy premier under Harris and his successor Ernie Eves; loses bids for Conservative leadership 2002 and 2004.
Public life federal: Wins federal riding of Whitby-Oshawa, 2006; enters Harper cabinet as finance minister, 2006; delivers every federal budget through 2014; steers country through world recession of 2008-09 with deficit spending; aims for balanced budget by 2015
Private Life: Marries fellow lawyer Christine Elliott in 1986; triplet sons Quinn, Galen and John born 1991; dies at his Ottawa home, April 10, 2014.
Key moments
1995: Flaherty wins the Whitby-Ajax seat in the Ontario legislature.
1997: He joins the Mike Harris cabinet as minister of labour and later serves as attorney general, finance minister, enterprise minister and deputy premier under Harris and his successor, Ernie Eves.
2002: Flaherty runs unsuccessfully to succeed Harris as Ontario Conservative leader, losing to Eves.
2004: Runs unsuccessfully to succeed Eves, loses to John Tory.
2006: Flaherty wins the federal riding of Whitby-Oshawa and becomes the finance minister of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new Conservative minority government.
2006-2008: He institutes a series of tax cuts, including shaving two percentage points off the GST to fulfil a campaign promise. He brings in a registered disability savings plan to help Canadians with disabilities and their families and introduces tax-free savings accounts, which allow people to earn tax-free investment income.
January 2009: Flaherty's first budget after the global economic crisis contains a $40-billion stimulus package, as Canada plunges into deficit.
March 2012: Flaherty's budget kills the penny, which he said took 1.6 cents to produce.
January 2013: Flaherty addresses months of speculation about his health by acknowledging publicly that he is taking steroids for a skin condition.
July 2013: Flaherty takes ill during a G20 conference in Russia, and misses two days of meetings.
Feb. 11, 2014: Flaherty tables his final budget which underlines his pledge to erase the country's deficit by 2015. He comes close to balance by presenting a budget that carried a $2.9-billion deficit with a $3-billion contingency fund.
March 18, 2014: Flaherty abruptly resigns as finance minister. He declares that he is "on the road to a full recovery" and that his decision to leave politics was not related to his health.
April 10, 2014: Flaherty dies suddenly, and in the words of his family "peacefully," at his Ottawa home.
April 16, 2014: Gov.-Gen. David Johnston and the country's top political leaders join hundreds of other mourners to remember Flaherty at a state funeral in downtown Toronto.
