Judy Sgro

Judy Sgro, PC, MP (born December 16, 1944) is a Canadian politician. A member of the Liberal Party of Canada, she currently represents the electoral district of York West in the Canadian House of Commons.

Politics

Councillor

Sgro was introduced to politics when she was elected to North York City Council in 1987. In 1994 she was acclaimed as a Metro councillor for North York.^[1] In 1998 she became a Toronto city councillor in the newly amalgamated city where she served a brief term as vice-chair of the Toronto Police Services Board.^[2]

Federal politics

In 1997 Sgro's first attempt at Federal politics came up short when she tried to get elected in the riding of York South—Weston. She lost to John Nunziata who was running as an independent by 4,431 votes. In 1999 she won a by-election in York West to replace Sergio Marchi who had accepted an ambassadorial position. She has since been re-elected by substantial pluralities.

In 2001, she was named chairperson of the Prime Minister's "Caucus Task Force on Urban Issues". In 2003 her group released an interim report recommending increased Federal support to recognize their economic and social value.^[3]

On December 12, 2003, she was made Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in the government of Paul Martin.

Political favouritism issues

In November 2004, controversy began to surround Sgro as questions arose surrounding her activities during the June election earlier that year. Several members of her ministerial staff had filed expense claims to travel to and work in her riding throughout the campaign ending on election day. More serious claims were also raised when Opposition Conservative MPs claimed she had given a special immigration permit to a campaign supporter — specifically Alina Balaican, a Romanian who had initially been admitted to the country to work as a stripper. New Democratic Party MP Pat Martin also accused Sgro's aides of making threats to deny ministerial permits to his constituents if he criticized her on the stripper controversy.^[4] The press dubbed the issue "Strippergate".

On January 14, 2005, Sgro resigned from cabinet after further allegations that she had offered to intervene in the immigration hearing of Harjit Singh, a Brampton pizzeria owner, in exchange for free pizza for her campaign staff.^[5] The following day, the Toronto Star revealed that Singh had previously committed credit card fraud.^[6]

On January 31, 2005, Sgro filed a lawsuit against Singh for $750,000 in damages. On May 10, 2005, Sgro was cleared of all wrong-doing from the Strippergate debacle when it was found that Sgro didn't know that two staffers had put her in a position of conflict of interest. The ethics commissioner also concluded that Sgro had never met the woman or even knew that she had volunteered on her re-election campaign. Also the same day, Singh retracted his allegations.

Sgro was the first member of Cabinet to resign from Paul Martin's government. There was some speculation in the media that fellow minister Joe Volpe helped to engineer her resignation given that they had a cool relationship.^[7] Sgro suggested that Volpe aspired to her job but he has denied this noting that he already had a prominent cabinet portfolio.^[8] One of Volpe's first acts was to close the loophole which had previously allowed exotic dancers to easily enter the country.^[9]

Opposition

Sgro is now the Opposition Critic for Seniors & Pensions for the Liberals.^[10] On October 1, 2010, Sgro released a White paper providing recommendations for retirement income security followed by a Pension Income Bill of Rights.

Election results

References

External links

• Judy Sgro
• Judy Sgro - Parliament of Canada biography