John Paul Manley, a Canadian lawyer and politician, was born on January 5, 1950 in Ottawa.

Manley is a graduate of the University of Ottawa Law School and has also studied at Carleton University and the University of Lausanne. He articled as a law clerk to the Bora Laskin, Chief Justice of Canada, and was called to the Ontario bar in 1978. Manley's early career was in tax law.

He was a Liberal Member of Parliament for Ottawa South from 1988 to 2004 and a Cabinet Minister from 1993 to 2003. When the Liberals came to power under Jean Chrétien following the 1993 election he became Minister of Industry. He was shuffled to Minister of Foreign Affairs on the eve of the 2000 election and in January 2002 he was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and given special responsibilty for security in response to 9/11. In May 2002 he added Minister of Finance to his responsibilities, thus making him, undisputedly, the most powerful member of the cabinet.

With former finance minister Paul Martin and heritage minister Sheila Copps, Manley was one of three candidates in the 2003 Liberal Party leadership race to succeed Chrétien. Manley's campaign proved disappointing, and on July 22, 2003 he withdrew from the race, conceding defeat to frontrunner Martin and offering him his backing.

Upon Martin's victory on November 14, 2003 political commentators wondered whether someone so closely linked to Chrétien would avoid a potentially embarrassing demotion in Martin's new cabinet. On November 28th, Manley announced his retirement from politics. Martin offered him a role as Ambassador to the United States, a prestigious posting Manley said he would seriously consider. Several days after Prime Minister Martin was sworn in, Manley declined the ambassadorial appointment, mostly because it would take him out of the country and "out of the loop" for fundraising and other political activities with a long-term view towards his own eventual bid for the Liberal leadership someday. Shortly thereafter, Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario and close friend of Manley, appointed him to chair a royal commission on the energy system of Ontario in the wake of the eastern North American blackout of 2003.

On May 26, 2004, Manley was named to the Nortel Networks board of directors. On January 27, 2005, he was nominated as a member of the CIBC Board of Directors.

In an interview with La Presse published on January 24, 2005, he openly declared his ongoing interest in the Liberal leadership. In what was seen by political followers as an unusually frank admission, Manley said he would be a candidate to replace Paul Martin if he steps down in the next three to four years and is maintaining a cross-country organizational network for this purpose. Although he denied the existence of a formal pact with former cabinet-mate Martin Cauchon, he indicated that in a later leadership race he would probably throw his support to the younger man. He is chair of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, a project of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. In March 2005, the Task Force released a report that advocated deep integration or assimilation between Canada, Mexico and the United States. [1]

Manley is known as a republican and an advocate of the abolition of the Canadian monarchy. He is an accomplished marathoner.