Rick Bartolucci
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Rick Bartolucci (born October 10, 1943 in Sudbury, Ontario) is a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario representing the Sudbury riding. He has been a member of the assembly since 1995, and is currently a cabinet minister in the government of Dalton McGuinty.
Bartolucci was educated at North Bay Teacher's College and Laurentian University, and worked as a teacher and school principal for thirty years before entering elected politics. He was successively a Sudbury alderman and regional councillor in the years 1979-1982 and 1985-1991, and also served as the deputy mayor of Sudbury.
He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the provincial election of 1995, defeating incumbent New Democrat Sharon Murdock by close to 4,000 votes. He increased his margin of victory in the 1999 election, and in the 2003 election was reelected with the largest margin of victory in the entire province (almost 70 per cent of the vote). On October 23, 2003, he was appointed Minister of Northern Development and Mines.
In opposition, Bartolucci was known as one of the most prominent defenders of northern interests in the provincial legislature. Since the election, Bartolucci has been criticized at times for not moving sufficiently fast on issues important to his riding, such as completion of the Sudbury Regional Hospital and the extension of Highway 400 to Sudbury.