Ontario Liberal Party

Organisation

Ontario Liberal Party

1857-

In 1867, Confederation in Ontario, then known as old Upper Canada, can be credited to John A. Macdonald, a conservative lawyer from Kingston, and George Brown, a liberal publisher of the influential Toronto Globe newspaper. As a result of their cooperation, a Liberal-Conservative coalition government had been installed in the newborn province of Ontario, headed by J. Sandfield Macdonald. Soon the Liberals in the Legislature, dismayed by Tory scandals, gradually began to act as an opposition, at first under the popular Archibald McKellar, and from 1870 under the brilliant Toronto lawyer Edward Blake. After reducing Sandfield Macdonald's majority in the election of 1871, and defeating him on his railway policy later that year, Blake became the first Liberal Premier of Ontario. Over the years, Ontario has been served by many notable Liberal Premiers including Sir Oilver Mowat, the most successful provincial leader in Canadian history, who won six consecutive general elections and served as Premier for 24 years from 1872 until 1896 when he was named Minister of Justice in Wilfrid Laurier's federal cabinet. More recently, David Peterson's Liberals, riding a wave of unprecedented popular support, surged past Frank Miller's Tories in the election of May 1985. During five years in office, the Peterson Liberal government instituted a long-overdue reformist agenda. Later in 1992, at a dramatic party convention, Lyn McLeod, former Minister of Colleges and Universities, became the first woman to lead a provincial political party in Ontario's history. Following the 1995 election which put Mike Harris and the Tory government in Queen's Park, Lyn McLeod stepped down and was succeeded as leader of the Ontario Liberal Party by Ottawa lawyer Dalton McGuinty.

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