David Peterson

This article is about the politician David Peterson. For the linguist, see David J. Peterson ; for other people, see David Petersen .

David Peterson (2005)

David Robert Peterson , PC , O.Ont (born December 29, 1943 in Toronto , Ontario ) is a Canadian politician .

biography

Professional and political career

After attending school, he first studied at the University of Western Ontario and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). He then completed postgraduate studies at the University of Toronto , which he completed with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). After his admission in 1969, he worked as a lawyer .

Peterson began his political career in 1975 as a candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) with the first election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario (Legislative Assembly of Ontario) and was also the financial policy spokesman for his faction . In 1982 he was elected chairman of the OLP to succeed Stuart Smith. Within three months he managed political donations amounting to 350,000 Canadian dollars raise to reduce the debt of the party.

In 1985 he led a methodically planned election campaign that resulted in the OLP increasing the number of its seats from 34 to 48 in the elections of May 2, 1985, while the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PCP-O) 18 of its 70 seats lost and was therefore only with 4 mandates in front of the OLP. After the election, he succeeded in winning the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) pledge to overthrow the minority government led by Frank Miller of the PCP-O .

With the support of the NDP, he himself became Prime Minister of Ontario on June 26, 1985 and thus the first liberal Prime Minister of the province since 1943. He promised the formation of an open and easily accessible government and underscored this promise by being the first Prime Minister of Ontario took his oath of office in a public ceremony.

The elections to the legislative assembly in September 1987 brought landslide-like profits for the OLP, which reached 95 of the 130 seats and was thus able to almost double its seat share, while the PCP-O lost 36 of its seats and only got 16 seats. During his tenure, the SkyDome , the multifunctional sports arena in Toronto, opened on June 3, 1989 .

However, on July 30, 1990, Peterson made the mistake of calling new elections for no apparent reason. At first everything looked like the OLP would win the election again, but the party began to lose favor with the voters, so that in the elections on September 6, 1990 the NDP under Bob Rae achieved a historic victory on October 1 1990 became the first and so far only Prime Minister of the province of the NDP.

One reason for the electoral defeat of the OLP was certainly that voters rejected an early two-year election, on the other hand, the increasing skepticism about the government and against Peterson himself, who of unsuccessful result secret talks to supplement the Constitution of Canada participated in that became known as the Meech Lake Accord .

Peterson himself also suffered an electoral defeat in his London Center constituency , leaving the Legislative Assembly. Successor as party chairman was the former chairman Robert Nixon .

Since 2006 he has been Chancellor of the University of Toronto .

In April 2006 he was asked to act as a mediator in the Caledonia land occupation , a dispute between the Iroquois on the one hand and resource companies and the government of Ontario on the other.

family

David Peterson is married to actress and writer Shelley Peterson. His son Benjamin Peterson is a co-founder and executive director of the international organization Journalists for Human Rights (yr).

His older brother, Jim Peterson, was a longtime MP in the Canadian House of Commons and Minister for International Trade in Prime Minister Paul Martin's cabinet from 2003 to 2006 . His younger brother, Tim Peterson, served on the Ontario Legislative Assembly from 2003 to 2007, while his sister-in-law Deb Matthews has served on the Legislative Assembly since 2003 and Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care since 2009.

Web links

• David Peterson. In: Database of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
• rulers.org