Ontario Model Parliament

The Ontario Model Parliament (OMP) was a model parliament for high school students in Ontario, Canada. The OMP was founded in 1986, much through the efforts of Dr. Paul Bennett, a former history master at Upper Canada College in Toronto. The OMP is not affiliated with any political party. OMP ended in 2015 after security and decorum demands from Queen’s Park proved too difficult to manage.

Contents

• Dates
• Governance
• References

More than 200 students participate in the OMP each year. The annual OMP commences with an "Elections Day", in which the "government" and "opposition" are established. The delegates then prepare their "legislation" for the legislative sessions held in the spring. The students convene at Queen's Park, the legislative building for Ontario. The students debate their bills as if they were real Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). In addition, the delegates hear from keynote speakers. In the past, such speakers have included The Hon. Elizabeth Dowdeswell (Lieutenant Governor of Ontario) in 2015, Kathleen Wynne (Premier of Ontario) in 2014, John Tory (formerly the Leader of the Opposition for Ontario and currently Mayor of Toronto), James Bartleman (formerly the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario) and Rex Murphy (political commentator and host of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Cross Country Checkup). Ontario Model Parliament celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2011.