Ted Hsu

Early life and career

Ted Hsu was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1964 to James and Marjorie. When he was six months old the family moved to Kingston, Ontario where his father joined Queen’s University as a professor of chemical engineering. He has two younger brothers, Bob and Leon. Hsu is of Chinese descent and is fluent in the French and Mandarin languages. He graduated in 1980 from Loyalist Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Kingston, at age 16. Hsu was a talented chess player in his youth, eventually reaching Class A strength. In 1984, he graduated from Queen’s University with a B.Sc. Hons. in Physics, and then obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University in 1989. He did post-doctoral research in Chalk River, Vancouver, and France.

Hsu has worked as a researcher and trader in Paris and Philadelphia for Banque Nationale de Paris, and as an executive director in the Tokyo office of Morgan Stanley. He was also the executive director of SWITCH, a Kingston-based not-for-profit association that promotes job creation and investment in sustainable energy.

Politics

He served for four years as the treasurer of the Kingston and the Islands Federal Liberal Association, and was an active member of its Policy Committee. He worked in the 2007 and 2008 provincial and federal Liberal campaigns for John Gerretsen MPP and Peter Milliken MP. Following Milliken's announcement in summer 2010 that he would not run again, a nomination contest was set up, and in November, Hsu won the Liberal nomination for the next federal election. He defeated four other contenders: former Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen, Queen's University Law Dean Bill Flanagan, former Kingston City Councillor Bittu George, and law professor Philip Osanic.

In the federal election held on May 2, 2011, Hsu defeated Conservative candidate Alicia Gordon by less than 3,000 votes. The election was the Liberal Party's worst showing in its history and Hsu was one of only two new Liberals elected in the country.

On June 1, 2011, interim Liberal leader Bob Rae announced that Hsu would serve in the Liberal Party shadow cabinet as the Critic for Science and Technology, and for the Federal Economic Development Agency of both Southern and Northern Ontario. On November 21, 2011, Hsu was the first runner-up to Conservative MP Chris Alexander as Rookie of the Year, in Maclean's annual Parliamentarians of the Year awards.

In June 2012, Hsu was named Chair of the Ontario federal Liberal Caucus. On November 21, 2012, Hsu was the first runner-up for the Rising Star award, in Maclean's annual Parliamentarians of the Year awards.

In August 2013, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau appointed Hsu as the Liberal Party's critic for Science and Technology, Post-Secondary Education, Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, and Federal Economic Development Initiative in Northern Ontario.

In November 2013, Hsu was the winner of a Maclean's Parliamentarian of the Year Award. He was voted by parliamentarians from all parties as the MP who "Best Represents Constituents".

In August 2014, Hsu announced that he would not run for re-election in the upcoming 2015 federal election citing the burdens of political life on his young family.

In September, 2014, he introduced private member's bill, "Bill C-626, An Act to amend the Statistics Act" with the intention appointing a Chief Statistician and reinstatement of the long-form census which had been abandoned by Canada in 2011. (See Canada 2011 Census)

Electoral record

Source: 2Z3 Elections Canada