Michel Cogger
Canadian politician
Michel Benoit Cogger, (March 21, 1939 – January 27, 2025) was a Canadian businessman, lawyer and politician in Quebec who served in the Senate of Canada.
Cogger was a senior political advisor to and fundraiser for Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and helped run the party's campaigns in Quebec in the 1984 and 1988 federal elections in which the Tories swept the province.
Early life
Cogger attended law school at Laval University in the 1960s, where he became friends with Mulroney. The two were among a group of students who organized the Congrès des affaires canadiennes.
Career
Cogger was campaign manager during Mulroney's bid to win the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention as well as the successful campaign which forced Joe Clark to call a 1983 leadership convention.
In 1986, Muroney named Cogger to the Senate. In 1991, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police laid influence peddling charges alleging that Cogger had taken payments from businessman Guy Montpetit in exchange for the use of Cogger's influence to win government grants and contacts. Cogger was acquitted in 1993 but in 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial which led to Cogger's conviction in 1998. He was fined $3,000, put on 12 months' probation and ordered to do 120 hours of community service. Cogger successfully appealed the sentence which was substituted by an absolute discharge in 2001.
The public source identifies “Michel Cogger” as canadian politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michel, Cogger and Canadian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6836342. VIAF identifies the subject as 105155144. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2025, 1984 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michel Cogger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.