Tony Ruprecht (born December 12, 1942) is a former
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
politician. His first elected position was as an
alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members t ...
in the old
Toronto City Council
Toronto City Council is the governing body of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario. Meeting at Toronto City Hall, it comprises 25 city councillors and the mayor of Toronto. The current term began on November 15, 2022.
Structure
The c ...
, in the late 1970s. He became a member of the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1981, and served in premier
David Peterson
David Robert Peterson (born December 28, 1943) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who served as the 20th premier of Ontario from 1985 to 1990. He was the first Liberal officeholder in 42 years, ending the so-called Tory dynasty.
Backgr ...
's cabinet as
minister without portfolio from 1985 to 1987. Ruprecht represented
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
's
Parkdale and then
Davenport constituencies for the
Liberal Party of Ontario
The Ontario Liberal Party (OLP; french: Parti libéral de l'Ontario, PLO) is a political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. The party has been led by interim leader John Fraser (Ontario MPP), John Fraser since August 2022.
The party esp ...
for 30 years. On July 5, 2011, he announced that he was leaving politics and would not seek re-election in the
October 2011 provincial election.
Background
Ruprecht moved to Canada with his family in 1949 after attending school in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
.
[ He was educated at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario (receiving a ]Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
degree in 1969), Wichita State University
Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...
(1971) and Miami University
Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the ...
, doing Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
work at the latter institution from 1971 to 1973. He taught in the Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
department at York University
York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...
, teaching public administration and municipal governance.
He has authored two books: ''The Graduate School Game'' (1976) and ''Toronto's Many Faces'' (1990) now in its 5th edition. The latter book being an overview of Toronto's multicultural communities. Ruprecht is also a member of the Knights of Malta. He has received a number of honours from Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
and the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
.
Toronto alderman
Ruprecht made his foray into politics by seeking the Liberal Party of Canada's nomination in the federal Parkdale electoral district, for the October 16, 1978 by-election.[
] He lost the nomination to future Toronto mayor, Art Eggleton
Arthur C. Eggleton (born September 29, 1943) is a retired Canadian politician who served as the 59th and longest-serving mayor of Toronto from 1980 to 1991. He was elected to Parliament in 1993, running as a Liberal in York Centre and served a ...
. He began his political career at the municipal level, when alderman Tony O'Donohue
Anthony "Tony" Edward O'Donohue (March 22, 1933 – February 20, 2022) was a former municipal politician in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Early life
Born in The Burren, County Clare, Ireland (then Irish Free State), O'Donohue graduated as a civil eng ...
decided to run for mayor in the 1978 Toronto municipal election
The Toronto municipal election of 1978 held on Monday, November 13, 1978, was the first seriously contested mayoralty race in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since David Crombie took office in the 1972 election. Crombie left municipal politics earlier ...
. His mayoral campaign meant that he would not seek re-election in his Ward 2 seat, in the Parkdale and Brockton part of Toronto's west-end. Ruprecht decided to run for the vacant alderman position in August. On November 13, 1978, he was elected as one of the Ward's two alderman from a field of ten candidates.[
] By receiving the most votes, he became the senior alderman for Ward 2 on Toronto City Council and Metropolitan Toronto Council
The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was an upper-tier level of municipal government in Ontario, Canada, from 1953 to 1998. It was made up of the old city of Toronto and numerous townships, towns and villages that surrounded Toronto, whic ...
. He won re-election as the senior alderman in the November 10, 1980 Toronto municipal election
The 1980 Toronto municipal election was held on November 10, 1980 in Metropolitan Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Mayors, controllers, city councillors and school board trustees were elected in the municipalities of Toronto, York, Toronto, York, East Yo ...
.[
]
Provincial politics
Parkdale constituency (1981–1999)
Ruprecht was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1981 provincial election, representing the Parkdale constituency. He defeated incumbent New Democratic Party MPP, Jan Dukszta, by nearly 1,000 votes. Ruprecht was re-elected by a much greater margin in the 1985 election.
The Liberals formed government after the election, and on June 26, 1985, Ruprecht was appointed as a minister without portfolio responsible for Disabled Persons and Multiculturalism. He was re-elected by a landslide the 1987 election, but was subsequently dropped from cabinet.[
The Liberal government called an early election and were defeated by the New Democratic Party (NDP), who formed the government following the 1990 provincial election. Ruprecht managed to retain Parkdale by 523 votes over NDP candidate Sheena Weir, even though most surrounding constituencies were won by the NDP on September 6, 1990. On June 8, 1995, he was re-elected by a greater margin in the 1995 election, as the NDP lost much of its support throughout the province. The Progressive Conservatives won the provincial election, and Ruprecht remained in opposition serving as critic for Citizenship. During his years on the Opposition bench Ruprecht also served variously as Critic for Tourism, Disabilities and Associate Critic for Labour.][Tony Ruprecht Parliamentary History]
Ontario Legislative Assembly
In 1996, Ruprecht was the only Liberal MPP outside of Ottawa to support Dalton McGuinty
Dalton James Patrick McGuinty Jr. (born July 19, 1955) is a former Canadian politician who served as the 24th premier of Ontario from 2003 to 2013. He was the first Liberal leader to win two majority governments since Mitchell Hepburn nea ...
's bid for party leader prior to the actual leadership convention {{Politics of Canada
In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader.
Overview
In Canada, leaders of a party generally rem ...
.[ McGuinty was chosen leader after five ballots.][
]
Davenport constituency (1999–2011)
Due to Premier Mike Harris
Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. During his time ...
' Progressive Conservative government changing Ontario's provincial electoral boundaries to match the federal ones for the 1999 Ontario general election
The 1999 Ontario general election was held on June 3, 1999 to elect members of the 37th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.
The governing Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, led by Premier Mike Harris, was re-elected ...
, the Legislature was reduced to 103 seats, from 130.[
] This boundary change meant that the previous constituencies were redistributed into several of the new ones and incumbent MPPs would have to decide where they would stand for re-election as their old constituencies no longer existed.[ Ruprecht initially planned to run in the newly created ]Parkdale—High Park
Parkdale—High Park is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 1979. It was created during the 1976 electoral boundaries redistribution from parts of Parkdale, Hig ...
constituency in the 1999 provincial election, but stood aside for star candidate Gerard Kennedy
Gerard Michael Kennedy (born July 24, 1960) is a Canadian politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as Ontario's minister of Education from 2003 to 2006, when he resigned to make an unsuccessful bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Ca ...
. Kennedy was forced to step aside for former leadership rival Joseph Cordiano in the newly created York South–Weston constituency, because Liberal party leader McGuinty's policies dealing with redistribution and sitting MPPs was to give the senior MPP first choice, and Cordiano was the more senior of those two.[
] Instead, Ruprecht ran in the neighbouring Davenport constituency.[
] It contained the eastern portion of his old Parkdale constituency. He was not appointed as the Liberal candidate, as he had to defeat human-rights lawyer Rocco Galati
Rocco Galati (born 1959) is an Italian-born Canadians, Canadian lawyer who specializes in cases involving constitutional law.
Early life and education
Galati was born in Calabria, Italy and his family immigrated to Canada in 1965. He graduated fr ...
, at a nomination meeting on July 21, 1998, before he could run in the election.[ There was a controversy over the nomination process, and Galati unsuccessfully sued the Liberal party, the constituency association, and Ruprecht.][
]
Ruprecht's main opponent in the 1999 campaign was another displaced incumbent MPP, the NDP's deputy leader, Tony Silipo
Tony Silipo (August 10, 1957 – March 10, 2012) was a Canadian politician. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1999 representing the New Democratic Party in the downtown Toronto riding of Dovercourt. In 1999 he was ...
.[
] What the ''Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...
'' dubbed "The battle of the Tonys" was expected to be a very close race between Silipo and Ruprecht.[
][
] Election night, June 3, was anticlimactic, as Ruprecht easily won with a 4,932 vote plurality.[
] The Progressive Conservatives managed to lose all their seats in the old city of Toronto, but nevertheless, won the provincial election, and Ruprecht remained in opposition.[
]
Ruprecht was elected for a seventh time in the 2003 election, defeating NDP candidate Jordan Berger by over 8,000 votes on October 2, 2003. The McGuinty-lead Liberals formed government following this election after having been in Opposition for 13 years. Despite being the only MPP outside of Ottawa to support McGuinty's leadership campaign, Ruprecht was not appointed to cabinet, but he was appointed vice-chair of the legislature's Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills.[
In April 2006, Ruprecht was criticized for being absent from the Ontario legislature for extended periods of time while vacationing in ]Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
.[
] The MPP acknowledged that since the previous fall he had made four trips to Cuba for a cumulative period of seven weeks. He defended these trips saying he was travelling to the island to receive lessons in Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
in order to better be able to communicate with his constituents.
In the 2007 provincial election, Ruprecht's margin was reduced to less than 2,000 votes. On July 5, 2011, he announced that he was not running for re-election and would retire.[
] He made this decision, partially because of the unexpected death of fellow Liberal MPP, Bruce Crozier
Bruce Crozier (June 26, 1938 – June 3, 2011) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing the ridings of Essex South and Essex for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background
Crozier ...
, stating "I have not groomed a successor (in Davenport) simply because Bruce’s death shocked me."[ The Liberals lost his seat in the ensuing provincial election on October 6, 2011.]
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruprecht, Tony
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
1942 births
Living people
Laurentian University alumni
Miami University alumni
Toronto city councillors
Wichita State University faculty
York University faculty
Carleton University faculty
21st-century Canadian politicians
Members of the Executive Council of Ontario