Richard Butson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr. Richard Butson GC (born 1922 in Hankow, China) is a retired medical officer and politician in Ontario, Canada. He was the sole candidate of the Confederation of Regions Party of Ontario in the 2003 provincial election.
Butson's father moved from the UK to China in the early 1920s, and ran a civil engineering firm. Richard was sent to Britain for an education at age ten.
Butson studied for his medical degree in the UK, firstly at Cambridge University and then University College Hospital in London. From 1946 to 1948, he was involved in an expedition to map the eastern coastline of Antarctica, which was the last 1,600 kilometres of uncharted coastline left on the planet at the time. On one occasion, he rescued a member of an American-Finnish team who had fallen thirty metres into a glacial crevasse. He received the George Cross for this effort.
He moved to Canada in 1952, eventually settling in Hamilton, Ontario. He taught at McMaster University, and worked at St. Joseph's College. He also joined the Canadian Forces Reserve as a medical officer in 1957, and reached the rank of Colonel. He now works as a beef cattle farmer in Ancaster, Ontario.[1]
In 2003, Butson was the sole provincial candidate of the leaderless Confederation of Regions Party, which is often regarded as anti-French and culturally intolerant. He stood Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, on a platform of individual freedom of responsibility, an affirmation of British heritage, and a public referendum on bilingualism. He also opposed the forced amalgamation of Hamilton.
As his party's sole candidate, Butson was interviewed by the CBC's Avril Benoit during the campaign. He received only 293 votes, finishing last in a field of six candidates.
