Succeeded by Garry Breitkreuz Name Lorne Nystrom Preceded by Simon De Jong Role Member of Parliament | Succeeded by Andrew Scheer Party New Democratic Party | |
Preceded by District created in 1966 Full Name Lorne Edmund Nystrom Born April 26, 1946 (age 78)
Wynyard, Saskatchewan ( 1946-04-26 ) Education University of Saskatchewan Books Just Making Change: The 100 Percent Honest to Goodness Truth about Our Financial System and How to Escape It | ||
Political party New Democratic Party | ||
Lorne Edmund Nystrom, PC (born April 26, 1946) a Canadian politician, was a member of the Canadian House of Commons from 1968 to 1993 when he lost his reelection bid. He returned to parliament in 1997 and served until 2004. He is a member of the New Democratic Party. At the time of his first victory he was the youngest Canadian ever elected to Parliament.
Life and career
Born in Wynyard, Saskatchewan, he was first elected for Yorkton-Melville in 1968. At the age of 22 years and three months, he was the youngest MP in Canadian history—a record he held until Claude-André Lachance was elected at the age of 20 years, 96 days in 1974. He was reelected without serious difficulty until losing to Reform challenger Garry Breitkreuz in 1993 in a contest that saw him pushed into third place.
He returned in 1997 in Qu'Appelle, succeeding fellow NDPer Simon de Jong. He was reelected from this riding, renamed Regina-Qu'Appelle, in 2000.
He ran for the leadership of the federal NDP three times. He placed third at the 1975 leadership convention, losing to Ed Broadbent.
In 1992, he was appointed to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
In 1995, Nystrom was considered a leading contender for the leadership during the campaign, finishing first in the one-member, one-vote primary system. But at the delegated convention he finished third on the first ballot, behind Svend Robinson and Alexa McDonough, and was dropped. Although Robinson had finished first on that ballot, he conceded to McDonough before the second ballot as he felt that Nystrom's support would have gone almost entirely to McDonough, giving her the victory. (Reportedly, a number of Nystrom's labour delegates voted for McDonough, fearing a Robinson victory and reasoning that McDonough would be better placed than Nystrom to defeat Robinson on the final ballot.)
Nystrom ran for the NDP leadership again in the 2003 leadership election, placing third. He was defeated in the 2004 election by Conservative candidate Andrew Scheer, a former staffer for Stockwell Day and Larry Spencer. Nystrom lost by a margin of 861 votes. Again the NDP nominee in 2005, he was defeated again by Scheer in the 2006 election, this time by margin of 2,740 votes.
As of 2012, Nystrom is a board member of Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and contributed to Thomas Mulcair’s campaign for leadership of the federal NDP. Also since 2012 Nystrom has been involved with Brightenview Development International Inc. as the VP of Government Relations and also Nystrom is the CEO of Brightenvantage International Business Consulting Inc., a subsidiary of Brightenview.