Chris Stockwell

Chris Stockwell (born March 9, 1957) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 2003, and served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves. Before entering provincial politics, he had been a member of Toronto city council. Stockwell's father, Bill Stockwell, was also a prominent municipal politician.

Politics

Municipal

Stockwell was elected as a city of Etobicoke controller in 1982, and held the position until his election to the Metropolitan Toronto council in November 1988. He represented Lakeshore-Queensway, in the Etobicoke region, and also served as chair of the Metro O’Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts during this period.

Provincial

Stockwell was elected to the Ontario provincial legislature in the 1990 provincial election, defeating incumbent Liberal Linda LeBourdais by about 4,000 votes in Etobicoke West. Almost immediately after the election, he accepted a generous payout from city council in lieu of time served. ^{[citation needed]} The New Democratic Party won the election, and Stockwell sat on the opposition benches for the next five years.

Shortly after being elected to the legislature, Stockwell applied for severance for his past municipal service. He was eligible for $10,817 in severance pay. He said he was just trying to show how stupid the municipal severance plan was and he claimed that he was just going to donate the money to charity. He said, "My rationale for filing was to prove what a fraud this thing is. Now it looks like I am a greedy bastard. Every one of those suckers are getting it. I'm no oinker. I have always kept my spending down, but now it looks like I was caught red-handed."^[1]

The Tories won a majority in the provincial election of 1995, and Stockwell was easily elected in his own riding. Despite his experience, he was not appointed to cabinet by the new Premier, Mike Harris. He soon developed a reputation as a maverick, representing centrist conservative views in a party dominated by right-wingers.^{[citation needed]}

Stockwell was elected Speaker of the Assembly on October 3, 1996, after Al McLean was forced to resign from the position.^{[citation needed]} He was not Mike Harris's preferred choice for the position (the Premier supported Margaret Marland)^{[citation needed]} but won with support from members in all three parties. Stockwell won a reputation for independence in the Speaker's chair, and was not afraid to criticize members of his own party.

Stockwell played a key role in the anti-megacity filibuster of 1997, where the Opposition parties proposed thousands of amendments identical except for a few words. He ruled against the government when they moved that the legislature did not need to vote on each amendment, but in their favor when they suggested that the identical text did not need to be read aloud each time.

In the provincial election of 1999, Stockwell's personal popularity was such that he was able to win an easy re-election in the redistributed riding of Etobicoke Centre, despite his party's losses in other Toronto ridings.^{[citation needed]} On June 17, 1999, he was appointed to cabinet as Minister of Labour.

Despite Stockwell's reputation as a Red Tory^{[citation needed]}, he implemented a number of right-wing policy directives as Labour Minister. He was largely credited with shepherding through the legislature a bill to increase the maximum work-week to 60 hours, and also promoted the Harris government's "Workplace Democracy Act", which made union organization more difficult. In addition to the Labour portfolio, Stockwell also served as Commissioner of the Board of Internal Economy for a few months in 2001.

Stockwell was a candidate to succeed Mike Harris in the 2002 PC leadership campaign. During this campaign, he claimed that the right-wing initiatives of Harris's "Common Sense Revolution" were necessary in 1995, but no longer made sense in 2003.^{[citation needed]} He won little support from party insiders, and placed last with four per cent of the vote. He supported Ernie Eves, the winning candidate, on the second ballot.

On April 15, 2002, Eves appointed Stockwell as Government House Leader and Minister of Environment and Energy. The Energy and Environment portfolios were broken up on August 22, 2002, with Stockwell keeping Environment.

On June 17, 2003, he resigned from cabinet in the wake of a controversy concerning the misuse of expenses.^[2] An inquiry under Justice Osborne found that Stockwell had breached the Members Integrity Act with expenses claimed on a trip to Europe. His riding association had paid for his family to accompany him, using tax-deductible political donations; it was also alleged that Stockwell charged $10,000 to Ontario Power Generation as part of the trip. Previously, he had claimed $3,000 in bar bills for himself and his staff as government expenses.^[2]

On July 25, 2003, Stockwell announced that he would not run in the 2003 election.^[3]

He is currently employed as a political consultant.

Candidacy for Toronto City Council

In 2013, Stockwell was one of several candidates for appointment to Toronto City Council to replace Doug Holyday in Ward 3.^[4] The Etobicoke Community Council recommended him to the city council as its preferred candidate for the appointment;^[4] however, October 10, 2013 the final city council vote selected Peter Leon.^[5]

Electoral record (partial)

References

External links

• Ontario Legislative Assembly Parliamentarian History

• Environment Voters: Chris Stockwell profile