Tony Martin (politician)
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Tony_martin_anna_celetti.jpg
Anthony (Tony) Martin (born August 31, 1948 in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland) is a Canadian politician. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 2003, representing the riding of Sault Ste. Marie for the Ontario New Democratic Party. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the federal NDP in 2004, again representing the Sault Ste. Marie riding.
Tony Martin was raised in Wawa, Ontario, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Laurentian University in Thunder Bay in 1974. Later in the same year, he received a Diploma in Recreational Leadership from Confederation College in the same city.
Martin entered politics through social work, helping the homeless, drug addicts and the mentally disabled through a variety of programs in Wawa, Elliot Lake and Sault Ste. Marie. He was the founder of the Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen, and was for some time the owner and General Manager of Transcend Homes, a local workers' cooperative. A devout Roman Catholic, Martin also served as a trustee on the Northern District Catholic School Board, and was a pastoral assistant at the Blessed Sacrament Parish in Sault Ste. Marie from 1981 to 1990.
Martin first ran for the Ontario legislature in the provincial election of 1990, when Karl Morin-Strom, the sitting Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Sault Ste. Marie, announced his retirement. He faced a difficult challenge in retaining the seat for his party; the Liberals ran a strong candidate in Don MacGregor, while the upstart anti-bilingualism Confederation of Regions Party made strong inroads among the riding's anglophone working-class population, which had traditionally supported the NDP. Martin ultimately won the seat by only 697 votes over MacGregor; elsewhere in the province, the NDP won several historical breakthroughs en route to forming government for the first time in its history.
Martin was not appointed to the cabinet of Bob Rae, and served as a government backbencher for the next five years. The Rae government provided financial support to Algoma Steel in Martin's riding during the early 1990s, which probably contributed to his retaining Sault Ste. Marie in the 1995 election with an increased majority, even as the NDP suffered major losses in most other parts of the province. Martin defeated Carmen Provenzano of the Liberal Party by almost 4000 votes, and so became one of only 17 New Democrats to return to the legislature.
Martin again retained his seat in the 1999 election, and was appointed as one of the legislature's Deputy Speakers on October 25, 1999. He dramatically resigned from this position while in the legislature on December 19, 2000, to protest the Mike Harris government's inactivity on poverty issues. Following this, he chaired a number of "People's Parliament of Poverty" meetings. In 2003, Martin supported Bill Blaikie's campaign for leader of the federal NDP.
Martin was expected to retain the Sault Ste. Marie riding in the 2003 election, but fell victim to a late surge in Liberal support and lost to David Orazietti by a significant margin. Shortly after this loss, he was nominated as the federal NDP's candidate for the general election of 2004.
Sault Ste. Marie's vulnerable industrial economy, strong union base, and the NDP's traditional populist strength in Northern Ontario made it a prime target for the party. Martin won the riding by almost 1,000 votes, once again defeating incumbent Liberal Carmen Provenzano, who had taken the seat in 1997.
In the NDP's shadow cabinet, Martin is critic for Social Policy, Childcare, Human Resources and Skills Development and the FedNor agency.
Tony Martin is married to Anna Celetti. They have four children.
| Preceded by: Carmen Provenzano | Member of Parliament for Sault Ste. Marie 2004-present | Succeeded by: incumbent
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