Clare Westcott
Clare Westcott (born 1924) was a long-time political aide to Ontario Premier Bill Davis and subsequently served as chairman of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission.
Biography
Westcott grew up in Seaforth, Ontario where his father struggled to make money as a watch repairman.[1]
Westscott left school in grade 11 to join the Canadian Army but was rejected as unfit. He got a job working as a lineman with Ontario Hydro and worked for them for a decade until an accident in 1946 resulted in his seeking a new line of work.
"I struck a bolt with a hammer, causing a sliver of steel to fly into my left eye", blinding him in that eye, recalled Westcott decades later.[1] It was not until 1995 that an operation restored his sight in that eye.[2]
Having previously worked for the weekly Seaforth News, he got a job with the Toronto Telegram but was fired after two days when he informed his boss he wouldn't work weekends so that he could return to Seaforth, Ontario with his wife and baby son.
He got a job with a brokerage firm and got into political organizing for premier Leslie Frost. He was eventually hired by energy minister, Robert Macaulay becoming his executive assistant.[1]
In the 1960s he was appointed to the Board of Governors of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.
He worked for Bill Davis in the 1960s when he was Education Minister and helped him set up the Ontario community college system and the Ontario Science Centre. When Davis became Premier of Ontario in 1971, Westcott moved with him becoming Executive Assistant to the Premier, a position he held until 1985 when Davis retired.[1][2]
In 1985, he was appointed to the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission becoming its chairman but was fired by Liberal Premier David Peterson in 1989 who replaced him with a Liberal. During his term he helped set up the Crime Stoppers program.[2]
Westcott then was appointed to the National Parole Board for several years before becoming special assistant to federal Minister of International Trade Michael Wilson until 1993 when he was appointed a citizenship court judge in Scarborough, remaining in the position until 1998.[2]
In the 1980s and 1990s he also returned to the Huron Expositor in Seaforth to write a weekly column.
References
| Preceded by Philip Givens 1977–1985 |
Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission Chairman 1985–1988 |
Succeeded by June Rowlands 1988–1991 |