Gord Hunter

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Gordon Hunter (born January 20, 1946, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is an Ottawa City Councillor.

Hunter was born into a military family and moved frequently during his childhood. He attended Lakefield College School, Dalhousie University, and University of Toronto, graduating in 1968. He moved to Nepean in 1968 to become a teacher at Confederation High School, and taught physical education there for thirty-one years until the school closed in 1999. He was also a national champion at orienteering.

He ran for the federal Liberal Party in the 1980 federal election, but lost to Progressive Conservative Walter Baker by more than 12,000 votes. He ran again in the 1984 federal election, and lost by almost 21,000 votes. (This was the election where the Progressive Conservatives swept to power with a majority government.)

Hunter entered municipal politics in 1980 when he was elected to the Nepean City Council as well as to the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton Council. He was easily reelected in every election thereafter. In 1994, as a result of local government reorganization, he moved to the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton Council. A Liberal, he ran for the party in the 1999 provincial election in the riding of Nepean—Carleton, but lost to Tory incumbent John Baird. He is, however, regarded as one of the more fiscally conservative councillors.

With the creation of the new city of Ottawa, in 2000, Hunter ran to represent the Knoxdale-Merivale ward, and easily won election against an anti-development activist. In the 2003 municipal election, he was re-elected with 84% of the vote.

Hunter was opposed to the city's light-rail expansion which would have linked Barrhaven South to downtown in 2009, before it was cancelled by City Council on December 14, 2006. Hunter expressed concerns about high costs on the project as well as the ridership. On December 8, 2006, Hunter voted against a plan that would have truncated only the downtown segment of the proposal and later introduced another vote to topple the complete project which failed. On December 14, 2006, after Mayor Larry O'Brien decided to vote against the project, Hunter voted for the cancellation of the project. [1] [2] [3] Meanwhile, on Feb. 22, 2007, on CFRA's "The Lunch Bunch", Hunter said he may have accepted a campaign contribution from the Siemens/PCL consortium (Ottawa LRT Corporation).^{[citation needed]}