The
Liberal Party of Canada fielded a full slate of 282 candidates in the
1979 Canadian federal election
The 1979 Canadian federal election was held on May 22, 1979, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 31st Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of the Liberal Party of Canada after 11 years in power under Prime Mini ...
, and won 114 seats to become the
Official Opposition in parliament. The party had previously been in government since 1963.
Many of the party's candidates have their own biography pages. Information about others may be found here.
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 C ...
Philipp Varelis ( Broadview—Greenwood)
Varelis was born on the island Corfu, Greece, and moved to Canada in October 26, 1968. He worked as an accountant in private life, and first ran for the
House of Commons of Canada in a 1978
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
, in the
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 ...
riding of
Broadview. He won the Liberal nomination with 57% over former candidate Lou Yankou, following an acrimonious nomination meeting that divided the local party organization. Valeris, who was forty-one years old at the time, argued that the country's financial situation was better than it appeared from media reports. He ran 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 ...
'' described as an "old-fashioned Liberal ethnic campaign", arguing that "only an immigrant can understand the problems of an immigrant". He finished third against
Bob Rae, who was then a member of the
New Democratic Party.
Varelis lost to Rae again in the 1979 general election. During this campaign, he indicated his support for the restoration 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 ...
. He planned to run a third time in
1980, but was persuaded to stand aside in favour of
Philippe Gigantès. By way of a compromise, Varelis became Deane Gigantes's campaign chairman.
[Hugh Winsor, "Backroom Diary", ''Globe and Mail'', 24 January 1980, P9.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liberal Party Candidates, 1979 Canadian Federal Election
1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...