William Henry Domm (July 24, 1930 – January 8, 2000) was a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) in the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The House of Common ...

from 1979 to 1993. He was best known for his crusades against the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...

and in favour of

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

. Domm represented the riding of

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

from the 1979 federal election until his defeat in the 1993 election. Born in St. Catharines,

, Domm was the son of a

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada (french: link=no, Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholi ...

minister. He was educated at the

Ryerson Institute of Technology Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU or Toronto Met) is a public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, although it also operates facilities elsewhere in Toro ...

and became a radio broadcaster in

. Domm's campaign against Metric conversion in Canada was most vocal during the final

Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau ( , ; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada The prime mini ...

government of 1980 to 1984. In 1983, he and other Tory MPs illegally pumped gas using Imperial measurements at their "Freedom to Measure" gas station. The station was leased by the MPs in hopes of provoking the government into laying charges and thus allowing a legal challenge to mandatory use of metric. The government ignored the station and it closed after a year. When the Progressive Conservatives formed government following the 1984 federal election, Domm became parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the government minister responsible for the metrification program. However, while the Metric Commission was disbanded and rules on enforcing metric were loosened, the "metrification" of the country was not reversed. Domm's lobbying for the death penalty resulted in a

free vote A conscience vote or free vote is a type of vote in a legislative body where legislators are allowed to vote according to their own personal conscience rather than according to an official line set down by their political party. In a parliamentary ...

being held in the House of Commons in 1988, however the motion to restore capital punishment was defeated. He was more successful in his campaign for the restoration of

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

service on the Toronto-Peterborough-Havelock line. Domm also took stands against

bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

and

gun control Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians. Most countries have a restrictive firearm guiding policy, with on ...

voting against his party on several occasions.

Electoral record

References

Sources

Canadian Archival Information Network
biography of Domm * {{DEFAULTSORT:Domm, Bill 1930 births 2000 deaths Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario Members of the United Church of Canada People from Peterborough, Ontario Politicians from St. Catharines Progressive Conservative Party of Canada MPs

Electoral record

Archives

References

Sources