Joe Volpe
| Riding | Eglinton-Lawrence |
|---|---|
| Political party: | Liberal |
| First elected: | 1988 election |
| Profession(s): | Educator, school principal, teacher, vice-principal |
This article is about the Canadian Politician named Joe Volpe. For information about the opera manager, see Joseph Volpe (opera)
Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe, PC, MP (born September 21, 1947) is a Canadian politician. He is a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Volpe has served in the Canadian House of Commons since 1988, and was Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Paul Martin's Cabinet.
Background
Volpe was born in Monteleone, Puglia, Italy, and moved to Canada with his family in 1955.[1] He holds Bachelor of Arts (1970), Bachelor of Education (1971) and Master of Education (1980) degrees from the University of Toronto. Volpe was a teacher in Stoney Creek from 1971 to 1974, headed the history department at a secondary school in Etobicoke between 1974 and 1979, and was head of multicultural studies in a college in Weston, Ontario from 1979 to 1982. He worked as a mortgage development officer from 1982 until 1983, and was vice-principal of the J.M. McGuigan Secondary School from 1983 to 1988.[2]
He is married to Mirella and they have four children: Luciano, Flavio, Letizia and Massimo.
Political Career
Early years
Volpe first became involved with the Liberal Party in 1968, when he worked on Charles Caccia's federal campaign in Davenport. He sought election to the Ontario legislature as a candidate of the provincial Liberal Party in 1981, and narrowly lost to New Democratic Party incumbent Odoardo Di Santo in the North York riding of Downsview. He supported David Peterson for the Ontario Liberal Party leadership in 1982.[3]
Volpe increased his public profile in the mid-1980s as a result of his success in recruiting new Liberal Party members from Toronto's Italian community. He helped influence several party nomination contests, including John Nunziata's 1984 victory over Paul Hellyer in York South—Weston.[4] Some questioned Volpe's recruiting methods and alleged that he was manipulating the system by signing up "instant party members", a charge that he denied. He endorsed John Roberts in the 1984 Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, and gave his support to Jean Chrétien on the second ballot when Roberts dropped out.[5]
Volpe ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1985 and 1986, against media speculation that many leading figures in the party opposed his candidacy.[6] Sometimes portrayed as an opponent of federal party leader John Turner, Volpe nevertheless organized a pro-Turner slate for the Liberal Party's 1986 leadership review.[7] In 1987, he emerged as an prominent early opponent of the Meech Lake Accord.[8]
Member of Parliament
Nomination challenge
Volpe successfully challenged incumbent Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Rev. Roland de Corneille to win the Eglinton-Lawrence Liberal nomination in 1988. The nomination contest was extremely divisive, with de Corneille alleging that Volpe was "trying to organize a group for his personal advantage" by recruiting new members from the riding's Italian community.[9] Volpe won the challenge by a significant margin, and de Corneille later endorsed the riding's Progressive Conservative candidate in the general election.[10] Volpe defended his right to challenge for the nomination, arguing that Toronto's Italian residents were seeking to play a more active role in government.[11] He also sought a reconciliation with de Corneille's supporters. many of whom were from the riding's Jewish community (both de Corneille and Volpe are vocal supporters of Israel).[12] Despite concerns that de Corneille's loyalists would abandon the party, Volpe won a convincing victory on election day.[13]
Opposition member, 1988-1993
The Progressive Conservatives won a majority government in the 1988 election. Volpe served as a member of the official opposition for the next five years, and was his party's revenue critic for part of this time.[14] During the constitutional debates of the early 1990s, he proposed that the Canadian parliament assume responsibility for reforming Canadian Confederation. He argued that parliament represented a strong cross-section of Canada's population, and added that parliamentary initiative on constitutional reforms could save millions of dollars on "needless commissions".[15]
Volpe supported Paul Martin in the 1990 federal Liberal leadership contest, which was won by Jean Chrétien.[16] He remained one of Martin's most prominent supporters in the Toronto area for several years, and many political observers believe that this kept him out of cabinet during Chrétien's tenure as prime minister (1993-2003). Volpe opposed some of Chrétien's internal reforms to the Liberal Party, including a constitutional change which gave the leader discretion to appoint candidates in certain ridings. Some of Chrétien's supporters argued that this reform was needed to prevent "instant party members" from taking over the nomination process.[17]
Government backbencher, 1993-2003
The Liberals won a majority government in the 1993 election. Volpe served as a government backbencher, and maintained a relatively low profile during Jean Chrétien's first two years as prime minister.[18] He was elected chair of the Ontario Liberal caucus after the election, but unexpectedly lost the position to Sue Barnes in 1995.[19] He was later appointed parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health in early 1996, and kept the position after the 1997 election. Volpe supported Mel Lastman's bid for Mayor of Toronto in 1997.[20]
When Martin became Prime Minister of Canada on December 12, 2003, he appointed Volpe as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. He held this position until January 2005, when he was named Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, taking over the portfolio from Judy Sgro. Sgro was forced from office following reports that an exotic dancer had been granted a visa from Sgro's department after assisting her campaign. Some in the media have speculated that the two of them had a cool relationship and that Volpe helped to engineer her resignation(National Post, 11 May 2005). Sgro has suggested that Volpe aspired to her job, but he has denied this, noting that he already had a prominent cabinet portfolio (Toronto Star, 29 April 2005). One of Volpe's first acts as Immigration Minister was to close the loophole which had previously allowed exotic dancers to enter the country easily[1].
In the 2006 federal election, Volpe was easily re-elected. As the Liberal Party was defeated, he stepped down as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Volpe announced his candidacy for the Liberal leadership on April 21, 2006. His top priorities will include reinvigorating the party to get it back "on a professional keel." He will aim to "make it a good corporate institution that it's been and the nation-building institution that it has always proved to be." Volpe's main campaign themes are expected to include, making education and training a higher priority and improving the system for accommodating immigrants, planks that draw on his cabinet experience as human-resources minister and immigration minister. He is supported by Liberal MPs Jim Karygiannis, Wajid Khan, Yasmin Ratansi, Joe Comuzzi, Massimo Pacetti, and Lui Temelkovski.[2] Sukh Dhaliwal, who originally supported Volpe, announced that he was withdrawing his support on June 7, 2006.
Controversies
In 2005, Volpe came under criticism for remarks he made comparing the Conservative Party to the Ku Klux Klan. He made the remarks after seeing two Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) posing with a poster from the Western Standard magazine comparing Liberals to the family from the mafia TV show The Sopranos, with the title "The Liberano$". Volpe considered this a slur against Italian-Canadians such as himself, despite the fact that the two key figures in the poster, Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Prime Minister Jean Chretien are not Italian. He subsequently apologized.
In March 2006, Volpe received the conservative Canadian Taxpayers Federation's 8th annual "Teddy" award for federal government overspending. [21][22]
Donations scandal
Volpe's campaign ran into controversy when it was disclosed that the campaign had received 20 separate contributions of $5,400 from five executives of drug manufacturer Apotex Inc. and each of their wives and children. The donations had been made in April 2006. NDP member of Parliament Pat Martin filed an official complaint on May 29, asking elections commissioner Raymond Landry to investigate whether an attempt had been made to circumvent the Elections Act. Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham and party president Steven MacKinnon defended Volpe. Volpe's spokesman claimed that the contributions were legitimate, although Canada's Elections Act forbids donations made on behalf of a third party.
On June 1, 2006, Volpe's campaign announced that five of these donations, including donations from three children between the ages of 11 and 14, would be returned.
Subsequently, a website called "Youth for Volpe" was created to parody these events. The author(s) of this parody site are unknown. The Volpe campaign generated controversy and allegations of censorship by attempting to have this site removed, with Brenden Johnstone from the Volpe campaign quoted in the Globe and Mail as stating "my Office has had the website suspended through CIRA [Canadian Internet Registration Authority] and CDNS [Canadian Domain Name Services] and it will be down as soon as 6 p.m. I think the issue with the website has been dealt with...."[23]
While Michael Geist and the CIRA initially denied this[24], the registrant quoted an e-mail allegedly from the website's domain name registrar (Canadian Domain Name Services) saying that their site was pulled because of complaints about its content.[25] The site has subsequently been mirrored and is accessible in a number of places on the web.
In the aftermath of the controversy, M.P. Sukh Dhaliwal, decided to withdraw support from Volpe's leadership campaign. "This whole affair is not something I am comfortable with. I ask myself if the people of Newton-North Delta elected me to take an interest in all of this. I know their answer." Dhaliwal told the National Post.[3] Several other Liberals feared that the donations would revive memory of the sponsorship scandal and asked Volpe to step out of the race, but he said that it was not an option he was considering[4].
References
- ^ "Luciano Volpe aided son's Commons bid", Toronto Star, 13 May 1989, A8.
- ^ The Federal Election: Riding Profiles, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1997.
- ^ Joe O'Donnell, "Drop support for accord Peterson being urged", Toronto Star, 1 June 1987, A1.
- ^ James Rusk and Ross Howard, "Fleming quits, infighting starts in riding", Globe and Mail, 17 July 1984, P5.
- ^ Richard Cleroux, "Roberts favored by Liberal block", Globe and Mail, 11 May 1984, P5.
- ^ Ross Howard, "Spirits flag as fortunes sag for federal Grits", Globe and Mail, 22 June 1985, P5; Joe O'Donnell, "Ontario Liberals choose lawyer as new president", Toronto Star, 24 May 1986, A15.
- ^ Joe O'Donnell, "Turner wins 6 of 7 delegates in York North", Toronto Star, 22 October 1986, A7.
- ^ Joe O'Donnell, "Trudeau will keep up fight over accord Liberals say", Toronto Star, 7 June 1987, A01.
- ^ Ross Howard, "Liberal MP urges party to protect incumbents", Globe and Mail, 2 December 1987, A3; Dan Smith, "De Corneille in nomination showdown as Liberals fight over Eglinton-Lawrence", Toronto Star, 26 April 1988, A16.
- ^ Dan Smith, "Former Liberal minister seeks Tory nomination", Toronto Star, 6 October 1988, A20.
- ^ Linda McQuaig, "Minorities learn to win numbers game", Globe and Mail, 16 August 1988, A5.
- ^ Murray Campbell, "Nomination scars Liberals in Eglinton-Lawrence", Globe and Mail, 3 November 1988, A15. Volpe's nominator was Les Scheininger, who became president of the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1989. See John Allemang, "New CJC head seeks better relations with Israel", Globe and Mail, 7 April 1989, A13.
- ^ Paul Hoy, "'True Grit' the big winner in battle marred by dissent", Toronto Star, 29 November 1988, N12.
- ^ Sally Ritchie, "Small firm severely harassed owner says", Toronto Star, 18 July 1992, A10.
- ^ Joe Volpe, "How Commons could be used to unify country", Toronto Star, 13 May 1991, A17; Carol Goar, "MP's faith in Parliament not shared by public", Toronto Star, 14 May 1991, A17.
- ^ Colin Vaughan, "The City Grit Expectations", Globe and Mail, 27 April 1990, P21.
- ^ David Vienneau, "Eggleton stands fast in riding flap", Toronto Star, 14 November 1992, A4.
- ^ Tim Harper, "Silent majority GTA backbenchers have been conspicuous by their absence from parliamentary debate", Toronto Star, 30 December 1995, B1.
- ^ David Vienneau, "Ontario backbench revolts", Toronto Star, 22 February 1995, A19.
- ^ Murray Campbell, "How style closed gap in megacity mayoral race", Globe and Mail, 8 November 1997.
- ^ http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060301/teddies_taxpayers_060301/20060301?hub=TopStories
- ^ http://taxpayer.ca/main/news.php?news_id=2223
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060602.LIBERALSWEB02/TPStory/National
- ^ http://michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1277/Itemid,85/nsub,/
- ^ http://www.stephentaylor.ca/archives/000603.html
External links
Official sites
| Preceded by: Roland de Corneille, Liberal |
Member of Parliament from Eglinton-Lawrence (1988-) |
Succeeded by: Incumbent |
Template:Canada Liberal leadership 2006
Electoral record
Template:Canadian federal election, 2006/Electoral District/Eglinton—Lawrence
Template:Canadian federal election, 2004/Electoral District/Eglinton—Lawrence
Template:Canadian federal election, 2000/Electoral District/Eglinton—Lawrence
Template:Canadian federal election, 1997/Electoral District/Eglinton—Lawrence
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Liberal/row| 1993 federal election: Eglinton—Lawrence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Liberal | (x)Joe Volpe | 28,634 | 71.62 | Reform | Charles Van Tuinen | 4,347 | 10.87
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Progressive Conservatives/row |
Progressive Conservative | Marc Monson | 4,262 | 10.66 | New Democratic Party | Gael Hepworth | 2,091 | 5.23 | Natural Law | Debbie Weberg | 384 | 0.96
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Marxist-Leninist/row |
Marxist-Leninist | Jeanne Gatley | 138 | 0.35 | Abolitionist | Linda Kruschel | 124 | 0.31 |
| Total valid votes | 39,980 | 100.00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 480 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 40,460 | 68.28 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Electors on lists | 59,254 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1988 federal election: Eglinton—Lawrence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Liberal | Joe Volpe | 20,446 | 51.02
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Progressive Conservatives/row |
Progressive Conservative | Tony Abbott | 12,400 | 30.94 | New Democratic Party | Vittoria Levi | 6,241 | 15.57 | Libertarian | Sandor L. Hegedus | 538 | 1.34 | Communist | Geoffrey Da Silva | 208 | 0.52 | N/A (Revolutionary Workers League) | Margaret Manwaring | 123 | 0.31 | Commonwealth | James Felicioni | 122 | 0.30 |
| Total valid votes | 40,078 | 100.00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 565 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 40,643 | 74.76 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Electors on lists | 54,362 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1981 provincial election: Downsview | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||||||||
| New Democratic Party | (x)Odoardo Di Santo | 8,644 | 39.10 | Liberal | Joe Volpe | 7,991 | 36.14
Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Progressive Conservatives/row |
Progressive Conservative | Ross Charles | 5,475 | 24.76 |
| Total valid votes | 22,110 | 100.00 | |||||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 185 | ||||||||||
| Turnout | 22,295 | 58.54 | |||||||||
| Electors on lists | 38,086 | ||||||||||