John Rodriguez

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This article is about a politician. For the article on the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder, see John Rodriguez (baseball player).

John Rodriguez (born February 12, 1937 in Georgetown, Guyana) is a Canadian politician, and the current mayor of Greater Sudbury, Ontario. He also represented the riding of Nickel Belt in the Canadian House of Commons from 1972 to 1980, and 1984 to 1993, as a member of the New Democratic Party.

[edit] Federal politics

Before entering politics, Rodriguez worked as a teacher in St. Catharines and Sudbury. He became president of the provincial Catholic teachers' union in 1969, and was elected to Coniston town council in 1970. After Coniston was amalgamated into the town of Nickel Centre, Rodriguez did not pursue election to the amalgamated town council. Instead, he moved to federal politics in the 1972 election, defeating Gaetan Serré of the Liberals. He was re-elected in 1974 and 1979.

He subsequently lost the riding in the 1980 to Liberal candidate Judy Erola, but in the 1984 election, which saw the Liberals reduced to just 40 seats under John Turner, Rodriguez defeated Erola to reclaim the seat.

He was defeated a second time in 1993 by Liberal Raymond Bonin, and retired from federal politics. He subsequently was elected as a school board trustee for the Sudbury Catholic District School Board.

[edit] Mayoralty

In July of 2006, Rodriguez announced his candidacy for mayor of the city in the 2006 municipal election, a campaign that was endorsed by businessman and unsuccessful 2003 mayoral candidate Paul Marleau (husband of Diane Marleau, MP for Sudbury), former mayor Jim Gordon and former city councillor Gerry McIntaggart ^[1]. During his mayoral campaign, Rodriguez was criticized by councillor Janet Gasparini for vowing to eliminate homelessness in the city. Gasparini applauded the goal, but questioned the fact that Rodriguez's plan to accomplish it largely consisted of asking the provincial government for funding, which the province has already repeatedly refused to provide for new homelessness programs. [1]

On November 13, Rodriguez unseated incumbent David Courtemanche with 51.9 percent of the vote. He officially took office on December 6. When he was sworn in, he announced an ambitious "first 100 days" agenda which included the creation of citizen committees to oversee a number of projects, including implementation of Floyd Laughren's report on service improvements in the amalgamated city, reviewing the city's recreational facilities and pursuing the creation of an arts centre, revising the city's corporate taxation base, pursuing economic growth opportunities in the health care sector, and devolving some legislative authority to the existing local Community Action Networks. Rodriguez promised the elimination of fees on the city's TransCab service which offers taxi service to residents of remote areas of the city not served by Greater Sudbury Transit; this fee was eliminated in the 2007 municipal budget. [2]

Rodriguez announced at the beginning of his term that stores in the city would not be permitted to open on Boxing Day and also authorized the Franco-Ontarian flag to be flown at Tom Davies Square. [3] The latter decision invoked polarized opinion, with some praising the mayor for taking authoritative action and others criticizing him for isolating other cultural groups in the community.

[edit] External links

Parliament of Canada
Preceded by Gaetan Serré	Member of Parliament for Nickel Belt 1972-1980	Succeeded by Judy Erola
Preceded by Judy Erola	Member of Parliament for Nickel Belt 1984-1993	Succeeded by Raymond Bonin
Political offices
Preceded by David Courtemanche	Mayor of Greater Sudbury, Ontario 2006-present	Succeeded by incumbent