Gary Leadston

Gary L. Leadston (June 24, 1941 – December 2, 2013) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 1999.^[1] He was born in 1941 in Guelph.^[2]

Leadston was educated as Ontario Police College and Wilfrid Laurier University. He worked as a police constable in Kitchener, Ontario before entering politics. He served as a councillor in Kitchener from 1979 to 1994, and also served on the Regional Municipality of Waterloo from 1981 to 1994. In 1987, he was named as chair of the Waterloo Regional Police Commission.

Leadston was election to the Ontario legislature in the 1995 provincial election, defeating Liberal Shelley Schlueter by over 7,000 votes (incumbent New Democratic Mike Cooper was third). He served as a backbencher supporter of the government of Mike Harris for the next four years.

In 1996, the Harris government reduced the number of ridings from 130 to 103. This change meant that sitting MPPs had to compete against one another for re-nomination in some ridings. Leadston ran for the Kitchener Centre PC nomination in 1999, but was defeated by Wayne Wettlaufer. In 2000, he sought the federal Canadian Alliance nomination in Lanark—Carleton, but lost to Scott Reid.

Outside of politics, he was also the founding member of the Big Brothers Association in Kitchener Waterloo in the 1970s and served as its President in 1975-1976.

Leadston died at his home on December 2, 2013, from cancer.^[3][4]

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