Preceded by New riding Occupation Business manager Residence Bowmanville, Canada Constituency Durham East | Preceded by Gord Mills Education University of Toronto Succeeded by Granville Anderson | |
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Political party Progressive Conservative Party Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario | ||
John O'Toole (born c. 1944) is a retired politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2014, representing the riding of Durham for the Progressive Conservative Party.
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Meet john o toole
Background
O'Toole's ancestors arrived in Canada in 1845, fleeing the Irish potato famine. He was born in Peterborough, Ontario, and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto. After graduation he worked in a variety of positions for General Motors in Ontario and Quebec. His son Erin O'Toole was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in a by-election on November 26, 2012, to represent the federal riding of Durham.
Politics
He was elected as a school trustee in the Peterborough-Victoria-Northumberland district in 1982, and in the Newcastle district in 1988. In 1991, O'Toole was elected as a municipal councillor in Bowmanville, Ontario and in 1994, he was elected as councillor for Durham Region.
O'Toole scored a significant victory over incumbent New Democrat Gord Mills in the provincial election of 1995, scoring 62% of the popular vote. He was re-elected in the 1999 election, again without difficulty. He was appointed as parliamentary assistant to a several ministers including Consumer and Commercial Relations, Finance, and Health and Long-Term Care.
The Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 2003 provincial election, although O'Toole managed to retain his own riding. In 2004, O'Toole endorsed John Tory's successful bid to lead the Progressive Conservative party (even though his riding is adjacent to that of Tory's main rival, Jim Flaherty).
In January 2014, he announced that he wouldn't be running for re-election. He said, "This has not been an easy decision... Nevertheless, I feel this is the right time to open a new chapter in my life."
In September 2014, O'Toole announced his intentions to run for mayor of Clarington in the 2014 municipal election. He officially filed his papers just before the deadline on September 2, 2014. On October 27, he was defeated by incumbent mayor Adrian Foster by 1,362 votes.