John Keith Riddell (born December 10, 1931 in London, Ontario) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1973 to 1990, and served as a cabinet minister in the government of David Peterson.[1]
Riddell was educated at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario, and worked as a high-school teacher and a livestock sales owner and operator-auctioneer. He is a prominent member of the Agricultural Institute of Canada.
He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in a by-election on January 29, 1973, defeating Progressive Conservative candidate Don Southcott by a significant margin in the constituency of Huron. He was re-elected by somewhat narrower margins in the elections of 1975, 1977 and 1981, in the redistributed constituency of Huron—Middlesex.
Riddell was on the traditionalist right-wing of the Liberal Party, and represented agricultural interests in the legislature. He brought forward a private "right-to-farm" bill in the 1980s, attempting to protect farmers against urban incursion and related matters.
The Liberal party formed a minority government following the 1985 provincial election, after having been out of power for 42 years. Riddell, re-elected without difficulty, was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Food on June 26, 1985. Easily re-elected again in the 1987 provincial election, Riddell remained Agriculture Minister until August 2, 1989. He did not run for re-election in 1990.
Riddell was president of the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame Association in 2003-04, and has served as president of the Ontario Institute of Agrologists. He is also a prominent member of Heartland Community Credit Union Ltd.