Robert Philip "Bob" Kaplan, (born December 27, 1936) is a former Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 Cabinet minister and lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

.

Born 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....

, Kaplan received a Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in 1958 and an LL.B

Bachelor of Laws

The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...

 in 1961 from the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

. In 1963, he was called to the Ontario Bar.

He was first elected as a Liberal

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 Member of Parliament

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

 for the Toronto riding of Don Valley in 1968

Canadian federal election, 1968

The Canadian federal election of 1968 was held on June 25, 1968, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 28th Parliament of Canada...

, beating the Progressive Conservative

Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....

 candidate, Dalton Camp

Dalton Camp

Dalton Kingsley Camp, PC, OC was a Canadian journalist, politician, political strategist and commentator and supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. Despite having never been elected to a seat in the House of Commons, he was a prominent and influential politician and a popular...

. He lost to the PC candidate, Jim Gillies, in the 1972 election

Canadian federal election, 1972

The Canadian federal election of 1972 was held on October 30, 1972 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 29th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in a slim victory for the governing Liberal Party, which won 109 seats, compared to 107 seats for the opposition Progressive...

. For the 1974 election

Canadian federal election, 1974

The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term...

, he switched ridings to York Centre

York Centre

York Centre is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1917 and since 1953....

 and won by over 16,000 votes. In 1978, he failed to implement Bill C-215, which would have stripped Canadians of their citizenship if they had been convicted of war crimes.

He was re-elected in the 1979

Canadian federal election, 1979

The Canadian federal election of 1979 was held on May 22, 1979 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 31st Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of Liberal Party of Canada after 11 years in power under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Joe Clark led the Progressive...

, 1980

Canadian federal election, 1980

The Canadian federal election of 1980 was held on February 18, 1980 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 32nd Parliament of Canada...

, 1984

Canadian federal election, 1984

The Canadian federal election of 1984 was held on September 4 of that year to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 33rd Parliament of Canada...

 and 1988 elections

Canadian federal election, 1988

The Canadian federal election of 1988 was held November 21, 1988, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 34th Parliament of Canada. It was an election largely fought on a single issue: the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement ....

. He was the Solicitor General of Canada

Solicitor General of Canada

The Solicitor General of Canada was a position in the Canadian ministry from 1892 to 2005. The position was based on the Solicitor General in the British system and was originally designated as an officer to assist the Minister of Justice...

 from 1980 to 1984.

Since leaving politics, he was the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

 for Canada, and was awarded the Order of Kazakhstan by its president in recognition of his service to the Republic. He was a director of PetroKazakhstan Inc., Platexco Inc., and Rex Diamond Mining Corp. In 2004, he joined the Board of Directors of European Goldfields, a Canadian-based resource company involved in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 and the Balkans.

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