Bas Balkissoon - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bas Balkissoon is a politician in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. Formerly the Toronto city councillor representing Ward 41 in northeast area of Scarborough

Scarborough, Ontario

Scarborough is a dissolved municipality within the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Geographically, it comprises the eastern part of Toronto. It is bordered on the south by Lake Ontario, on the west by Victoria Park Avenue, on the north by Steeles Avenue East, and on the east by the Rouge River...

, Balkissoon won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...

on November 24, 2005 as the Liberal

Ontario Liberal Party

The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...

Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Scarborough—Rouge River

Scarborough—Rouge River (provincial electoral district)

Scarborough—Rouge River is a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 1999....

.

Born in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

, and of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n descent, Balkissoon rose to prominence as the head of Scarborough Homeowners Alliance For Fair Taxes, an organization that challenged the province's property assessment system. In 1988, he ran for Scarborough city council in what was then Ward 13. With the formation of the new amalgamated city of Toronto, he was elected to Toronto City Council in 1997. As chair of the city's Audit Committee he was credited with uncovering a dubious computer leasing deal between the city and MFP Financial, which eventually led to the formation of the Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry

Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry

The Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry was a judicial inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest, bribery and misappropriation of funds around computer leasing contracts entered into by Toronto, Ontario's municipal government in 1998 and 1999...

. Balkissoon also served for a period on the Police Services Board on which he was critical of then-Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino

Julian Fantino

Julian Fantino is a retired police official and the elected Member of the Parliament of Canada for the riding of Vaughan following a November 29, 2010 by-election...

as well as the Toronto Police Association and its leader at the time, Craig Bromell

Craig Bromell

Craig Bromell is a Canadian radio personality. Prior to his broadcast career, Bromell served as president of the Toronto Police Association from 1997 to 2003. In that position, he was often at odds with the two chiefs of police during his tenure, Julian Fantino and David Boothby...

.

On November 24, 2005 Balkissoon was elected as the Member of Provincial Parliament in the riding of Scarborough—Rouge River, replacing Alvin Curling

Alvin Curling

Alvin Curling is a prominent Black Canadian. He was Canada's envoy to the Dominican Republic from 2005-2006. A former politician in Ontario, Canada, he was Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario until he resigned on August 19, 2005 to accept his diplomatic appointment...

who was appointed as the Canadian ambassador to the Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

. Balkissoon, as the Liberal Party candidate, won with 58% of the vote. Conservative candidate Cynthia Lai received 24% of the vote and the NDP's Sheila White

Sheila White (politician)

Sheila White is a Canadian political activist and a member of the New Democratic Party. She has run for office unsuccessfully five times, to date, in Toronto, Canada....

finished third with 15%. In the Liberal nomination prior to the by-election, the party chose to use a clause in its constitution that declared other candidates invalid, effectively handing the nomination to Balkissoon. This excluded other contenders such as Raymond Cho who considered putting his name forward.

Balkissoon was re-elected on October 10, 2007

Ontario general election, 2007

The Ontario general election of 2007 was held on October 10, 2007 to elect members of the 39th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada. The Liberals under Dalton McGuinty won the election with a majority government, winning 71 out of a possible 107 seats with 42.2% of the popular...

, more than doubling his vote total from the by-election, and defeating his closest opponent by over 17,000 votes. October 30, Balkissoon was named Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care

Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (Ontario)

The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is the Government of Ontario ministry responsible for administering the health care system and providing services to the province of Ontario...

. He is the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly Committee and is a member of the Select Committee for Mental Health and Addictions. Bas served on the Select Committee that developed the Poverty Reduction Strategy in 2008. He was the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Community Safety in 2006/2007.

Electoral record

|-

|Bas Balkissoon
|align="right"|22,362
|align="right"|65.2
|align="right"|+7.6
|-

|Horace Gooden
|align="right"|4,962
|align="right"|14.5
|align="right"|-10.4
|-

|Sheila White

Sheila White (politician)

Sheila White is a Canadian political activist and a member of the New Democratic Party. She has run for office unsuccessfully five times, to date, in Toronto, Canada....

|align="right"|4,646
|align="right"|13.5
|align="right"|-1.4
|-

|Serge Abbat
|align="right"|1,275
|align="right"|3.7
|align="right"|+2.5
|-

|Joseph Carvalho
|align="right"|581
|align="right"|1.7
|align="right"|+1.1
|-

|Alan Mercer
|align="right"|492
|align="right"|1.4
|align="right"|+0.8
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
! colspan="6"|Ontario by-election

By-election

A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

Ontario Liberal Party

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

|Sheila White

Sheila White (politician)

Sheila White is a Canadian political activist and a member of the New Democratic Party. She has run for office unsuccessfully five times, to date, in Toronto, Canada....

Ontario Libertarian Party

The Ontario Libertarian Party is a political party in Ontario, Canada that was founded in 1975 by Bruce Evoy, Vince Miller, and others, inspired by the formation three years earlier of the US Libertarian Party. The Party is guided by adherence to the philosophical ideas of Austrian Economics and...

Family Coalition Party of Ontario

The Family Coalition Party is a small political party in Ontario, Canada that promotes a socially conservative ideology. It was formed in 1987 by members of the pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and has fielded candidates in every provincial election since then...

External links

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