Joe Spina
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Joe Spina (born September 1, 1946 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2003, representing a Brampton-area riding for the Progressive Conservative Party.
Spina was educated at the University of Windsor, receiving a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1975. He was the owner and President of Amplexus Communications from 1981 to 1995, and served as President of the Brampton Board of Trade in 1989-90. He was also a founding chair of the Brampton and Vaughan Santa Claus Parades.
Spina was elected to the Ontario legislature in the provincial election of 1995, defeating incumbent Liberal Carman McClelland by just over 5,000 votes in the riding of Brampton North. This riding is located in "905 belt", a suburban region which provided the Ontario Tories with their strongest support base in this period. He increased his level of victory in the 1999 provincial election in the redistributed riding of Brampton Centre, defeating Liberal Gurjit Grewal by over 10,000 votes. In 2000, he supported Stockwell Day's bid to lead the Canadian Alliance on the second ballot of the new federal party's leadership vote (Regina Leader Post, 28 June 2000).
Spina was not a prominent figure in the Progressive Conservative Party, and was not appointed to cabinet in the governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves. In 2001, he introduced a Private Member's Bill attempting to increase public awareness of congenital heart defects. He supported Tony Clement for the party's leadership in 2002.
Spina was also known for making boorish statements in the legislature. Once, when New Democratic Party Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Marilyn Churley called for increased funding to children's services, he yelled, "Why don’t you go home and take care of your own kids?" On another occasion, he heckled NDP member Gilles Bisson for speaking in French to commemorate the anniversary of the French Language Services Act.
These comments may have cost him vital support in his riding. In the 2003 provincial election, he was narrowly defeated by Liberal candidate Linda Jeffrey, completing a Liberal sweep of the Brampton-Mississauga region.
In the Canadian federal election of 2004, Spina ran for the Conservative Party of Canada in the riding of Vaughan against high-profile Liberal incumbent Maurizio Bevilacqua. He was resoundingly defeated, losing to Bevilacqua by almost 20,000 votes.
During the 2004 campaign, Spina accused the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of being biased toward the governing Liberals (at one point calling it the "Communist Broadcasting Corporation"), and suggested that its funding should be scrapped.
