Elie Martel

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Elie Walter Martel (November 26, 1934—) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1967 to 1987, as a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Martel was born in Capreol, Ontario, and educated at North Bay Teacher's College and Laurentian University. He worked as a teacher and high school principal in private life.

He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1967 election, defeating Progressive Conservative candidate Cecil Fielding by 1,200 votes in the Northern Ontario constituency of Sudbury East. Early in his career, Martel navigated a motion through an NDP provincial convention calling supporting the full funding of Catholic high schools. He was re-elected by comfortable margins in the elections of 1971, 1975, 1977, 1981 and 1985, and served as an opposition member for his entire legislative career. Martel was House Leader of the NDP for a time.

He was on the left-wing of the New Democratic Party, and was strongly supported by its trade-union base. Along with other NDP legislators from the Sudbury area, he frequently called for Inco's nickel mine in the city to be nationalized.

Martel encouraged Bob Rae to seek the provincial NDP leadership in 1981, but began developing his own organization when Rae delayed his entry. He eventually withdrew from the contest to support Rae's candidacy, but his personal and professional relationship with Rae deteriorated when the campaign was over. By some accounts, the two men strongly disliked one another on a personal level.

Martel stood down as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in 1987, and was succeeded in Sudbury East by his daughter Shelley Martel. Shortly after his retirement, Martel was vice-chair of the Environmental Assessment board by Liberal Premier of Ontario David Peterson.

The NDP won their first ever majority government in the 1990 provincial election, and Shelley Martel was subsequently named as a prominent cabinet minister. The journalist Thomas Walkom has argued that Elie Martel pressured Rae to keep his daughter in cabinet, following a scandal in 1991.

Martel ran as a candidate of the federal New Democratic Party in the 1997 federal election, but finished second to Liberal incumbent Ray Bonin in Nickel Belt.

Sudbury East was merged into Nickel Belt in 1999, and Shelley Martel continues to represent that constituency provincially. Elie Martel's wife (and Shelley's mother) is the daughter of Norman Fawcett, who was Nickel Belt's federal Member of Parliament from 1965 to 1968.