Peter North (politician)
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Peter John North (born August 23, 1960 in St. Thomas, Ontario) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was elected to serve two terms in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and was a member of that body between 1990 and 1999.
North graduated from high school in 1979, and worked as a building contractor. He was first elected to the legislature in the 1990 Ontario election as the New Democratic Party Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Elgin, defeating incumbent Liberal Marietta Roberts by over 4,000 votes. As one of the few NDP MPPs to represent a rural constituency in southern Ontario, North was appointed to Bob Rae's cabinet as Minister of Tourism and Recreation on October 1, 1990.
On November 13, 1992, North was forced to resign in after a near-sex scandal in which he reportedly had a non-sexual affair with a female employee of the Loose Moose tavern, and offered her a government job. Some political observers criticized Rae for forcing North to resign before the full details of the alleged scandal were known. A subsequent investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police cleared North of any wrongdoing. He was not re-appointed to cabinet, but became a parliamentary secretary on February 24, 1993.
North resigned from the NDP in late August 1993, and declared his intention to join the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party at a press conference announcing the change. He did not discuss this with the Progressive Conservatives in advance, however, and was rejected by that party. North then sat as an Independent MPP.
North was re-elected in the 1995 provincial election, narrowly defeating Progressive Conservative candidate Jim Williams, thereby becoming the first MPP in the province to be elected as an independent candidate since 1934. He had no formal legislative responsibilities from 1995 to 1997, and made only minor contributions to legislative debate.
North did not run in the 1999 election, clearing the way for PC incumbent Bruce Smith to run (unsuccessfully) in the redistributed riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London. North was later given a patronage position by the Tory government as community sport development coordinator.