[2] Her husband was Doug Finley, a Senator from Ontario and former campaign manager and director of political operations for the Conservative Party of Canada.

[4] In 2006, Finley announced that she has Graves' disease, a non-life-threatening thyroid condition that causes increased sensitivity to bright lights and forces her to wear tinted glasses.

[5] Long involved in politics of the Conservative Party and its predecessors, Finley first ran for public office in the 2004 federal election in the riding of Haldimand—Norfolk.

The following year, Finley allegedly received threats from sex industry officials in relation to her support of Bill C-17, which sought to allow immigration officers to deny temporary visas to prospective strippers if they were suspected to be sex trafficking victims.

[6] Finley was re-elected in the 2008 election and resumed her former post as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development.

In March 2015, a parliamentary ethics report on an affair linked to disgraced prime ministerial aide Nigel Wright found that Finley had breached conflict of interest rules in her capacity as minister by diverting funding to a favoured project in Markham whose promoter had close ties to the Conservative Party.

[8] After winning her seat once more in the 2015 federal election, Finley announced that she would be running for the position of interim leader of the Conservative Party, after Stephen Harper's resignation from the post.