Carl DeFaria

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Carl DeFaria
In office
June 26, 1995 – October 22, 2003
Preceded by John Sola
Succeeded by Peter Fonseca
Political party Progressive Conservative
Occupation lawyer

Carl DeFaria is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2003, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Ernie Eves.

DeFaria has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto and a law degree from Osgoode Hall. He worked in criminal and constitutional law before entering political life. DeFaria was also an instructor of the Bar Admission Course for the Law Society of Upper Canada.

He first ran for the Ontario legislature in the provincial election of 1990, as the Tory candidate in the working-class riding of Cambridge. He finished a distant third, behind prominent New Democrat Mike Farnan and a Liberal candidate.

DeFaria also ran for the federal Progressive Conservative Party in the federal election of 1993 in Mississauga East, but again placed a distant third, this time behind Liberal Albina Guarnieri and a Reform Party candidate.

He was elected in Mississauga East by more than 6,000 votes over his Liberal opponent in the provincial election of 1995, amid a Tory sweep of the Mississauga region. A moderate, DeFaria was not promoted to cabinet in the right-wing Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris.

DeFaria was re-elected in the provincial election of 1999, defeating his Liberal opponent by more than 4,000 votes. He supported Ernie Eves to succeed Harris as party leader in 2002, and was named Minister of Citizenship with responsibility for Seniors on April 15, 2002. His tenure in office was largely free of controversy.

In late 2002, he was criticized by some for issuing a pamphlet of Christmas songs entitled "Sing Along With Carl". One of the works was a Stephen Foster song from 1851, which referred to blacks as "darkies". DeFaria quickly apologized, claiming that he had not scrutinized the pamphlet carefully enough before its release.

In the provincial election of 2003, he lost to Liberal candidate Peter Fonseca (a well-known Olympic athlete) by about 3,000 votes, amid a general regional decline in Tory support.

In the 2007 federal election, DeFaria ran for the Conservative Party of Canada, but lost to Liberal Albina Guarnieri, a Liberal incumbent since 1988.

His wife, Riina DeFaria, has also campaigned for the Canadian House of Commons on two occasions.