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The HonourableKathleen WynneMPP
25th Premier of Ontario
Incumbent
Assumed office February 11, 2013
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Lieutenant Governor	David Onley
Preceded by	Dalton McGuinty
Minister of Agriculture and Food
Incumbent
Assumed office February 11, 2013
Preceded by	Ted McMeekin
Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party
Incumbent
Assumed office January 26, 2013
Preceded by	Dalton McGuinty
Member of the Provincial Parliament for Don Valley West
Incumbent
Assumed office October 2, 2003
Preceded by	David Turnbull
Personal details
Born	Kathleen O'Day Wynne (1953-05-21) May 21, 1953 (age 71) Toronto, Ontario
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	Phil Cowperthwaite ​ ​(m. 1977; div. 1991)​ Jane Rounthwaite ​(m. 2005)​
Domestic partner	Jane Rounthwaite (1991-2005)
Relations	Dr. John B. Wynne (Father), Patsy O'Day (Mother), Dr. C. S. Wynne (Grandfather), Professor Arthur M. Wynne (Great Uncle)
Children	3
Residence(s)	Toronto, Ontario
Alma mater	Queen's University University of Toronto

Kathleen O'Day Wynne (born May 21, 1953) is a politician in Ontario, the 25th and current Premier of Ontario and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing the riding of Don Valley West for the Liberal Party. She is the first premier in Canada to be openly gay and the first female premier of Ontario.

She was Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Aboriginal Affairs until resigning to run as a leadership candidate.

Early life

Kathleen Wynne was born in Toronto to Dr. John B. Wynne and Patsy O'Day, a British subject musician who grew up in the Bahamas before immigrating to Canada.

Wynne grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Queen's University and a Master of Arts degree in linguistics from the University of Toronto. She achieved a Master of Education degree in adult education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto). She was a member of the discipline committee of the Ontario Society of Psychotherapists from 1997 to 2000.

Wynne served as president of the Toronto Institute of Human Relations. In 1996, she helped found Citizens for Local Democracy, which opposed the efforts of Ontario's Progressive Conservative government to amalgamate the City of Toronto. She also founded the Metro Parent Network (now the Toronto Parent Network) which supports improvements in the province's public education system, and has participated in numerous other community endeavours. Wynne helped found MAD for Dancing, a community fundraising group that has donated over $50,000 to organizations that support gay and lesbian youth.

School trustee

Wynne first ran for trustee in 1994 in ward 12 but was defeated by Ann Vanstone. In 2000, she ran again and was elected as a public school trustee in Toronto's ward 8. During the campaign she was labelled an "extremist lesbian" in literature distributed by the "Concerned Citizens of North York and North Toronto". This was the ratepayer group that later supported Karen Stintz in her campaign against local councillor Anne Johnston. She strongly opposed cuts to public education mandated by the Conservative government.

In 2001, she helped pass a measure encouraging public schools to purchase teaching materials reflecting the presence of gay and lesbian parents in modern society. In December 2001, Wynne ran for chair of the school board but was defeated by Donna Cansfield in a 12–10 vote.

Provincial politics

Wynne was elected to the Ontario legislature in the 2003 provincial election, defeating Progressive Conservative cabinet minister David Turnbull by over 5,000 votes. The Liberals won the election, and Wynne was appointed parliamentary assistant to Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Mary Anne Chambers in October 2003. In October 2004, she was appointed parliamentary assistant to Minister of Education Gerard Kennedy. From June 2005 to November 2005 she served as a member of the Select Committee on Electoral Reform, which recommended "that the referendum be binding upon a vote of 50% + 1, and the support of 50% + 1 in at least two-thirds (i.e., 71) of the ridings or any other formula that ensures the result has support from Northern, rural, and urban areas of the Province," although the cabinet subsequently decided on 100.

On September 18, 2006, she was promoted to Minister of Education in a cabinet shuffle occasioned by the resignation of Joe Cordiano from the Legislature. She was the province's first openly lesbian cabinet minister, and only the second openly LGBT cabinet minister after Deputy Premier George Smitherman. On January 18, 2010, she was moved to Minister of Transportation and in 2011 she was appointed Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Aboriginal Affairs.

In the 2007 provincial election, Wynne was challenged by the PC leader John Tory. Tory, who was elected to Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey (former PC leader Ernie Eves' riding) in a by-election, was seeking a seat in a Toronto-area riding. Though it was projected to be a close race, Wynne was re-elected with 50.4 percent of the popular vote, defeating Tory who came in second with 39.7 of the popular vote.

Wynne was also instrumental in establishing the first Minister's Student Advisory Council, a group of sixty students from all parts of the education system and regions of the province to share their ideas and advice with the Minister of Education on how to ensure Ontario's schools remain competitive.

Leadership

Premier McGuinty announced on October 15, 2012, that he would resign as leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario and premier of the province once his successor was chosen. On November 2, 2012, Wynne resigned her cabinet post and three days later launched her bid for the leadership of the party. Wynne was seen as having the strongest on-the-ground organization among the seven candidates, and along with former MPP Sandra Pupatello, and was one of the front runners. She had the most supporters running to be delegates at the convention, with 1,533, and was the only candidate to have supporters in place in all 107 of the province's ridings. Days before members were to begin electing delegates Glen Murray announced he was exiting the leadership race and endorsed Wynne's candidacy. Despite running with the most supporters for delegate positions Wynne placed second, with 468 delegates, behind Pupatello who had 509 delegates. Pupatello was also believed to have the most support among ex-officio delegates, which are MPPs, MPs, defeated candidates and other Liberal insiders, and was expected to increase her lead over Wynne on the first ballot at the convention.

At the convention on January 26, 2013, Wynne surprised many with her strong speech to delegates. In the speech she discussed repairing relations with teachers, working with opposition parties, and took aim at her main rival Pupatello, who does not hold a seat, by saying that she was ready to govern and would recall the legislature on February 19. Wynne also addressed her sexuality saying; "When I ran in 2003, I was told that the people of North Toronto and Thorncliffe Park were not ready to elect a gay woman. Well, apparently they were." She went on to say that "I don't believe the people of Ontario judge their leaders on the basis of race, colour or sexual orientation – I don't believe they hold that prejudice in their hearts."

When the first ballot results were announced Wynne received 597 votes, trailing Pupatello by only two votes. Eric Hoskins received the fewest votes of the six candidates and was therefore eliminated. Hoskins threw his support behind Wynne while fourth place candidate Harinder Takhar announced he was endorsing Pupatello. On the second ballot Pupatello's lead grew to 67 votes over Wynne. Takhar, whose name was left on the second ballot, finished last and was eliminated from the race. Gerard Kennedy and Charles Sousa, who finished third and fourth respectively, withdrew from the race and both endorsed Wynne. With the support of both Kennedy and Sousa, her win was all but guaranteed on the third ballot. When the results of that ballot were announced Wynne received 57 per cent of the votes compared to 43 per cent for Pupatello.

Premiership

Wynne was sworn in as Premier of Ontario on February 11, 2013, becoming the province's first female Premier, and the first premier in Canada to be openly gay. After 4 months prorogation of the legislature, Wynne resumed the house on February 17, 2013.

Gas plant scandal

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After resuming the legislature, Opposition Parties immediately accused Wynne of co-chairing the Liberal campaign that cancelled the gas plants in Mississauga and north east Oakville. Wynne stated publicly she was not in the gas plant meetings and was not involved in cancelling the gas plants. Wynne appointed the Auditor General to investigate the real cost of the cancelled gas plants and after months of investigation the Auditor General released the report on the gas plants and stated the cancellation of both gas plants would cost taxpayers $1.1 billion. After the announcement from the Auditor General, Wynne apologized publicly and stated this will never happen under her watch.

Wynne re-established the legislative committees investigating the gas plants and testified that she did not know about the cost of the gas plants and was extremely disappointed when she found out how expensive the real cost was. At committee, Wynne stated she was blocked from knowing the truth of the cancelled gas plants and the real cost. Also, Wynne stated at committee that former Premier Dalton McGuinty told her that it was not her business to know the truth and the real cost of the cancelled gas plants. On June 6, 2013, the OPP were called by Opposition Parties to start a police investigation into the new allegations of deleted emails regarding the gas plants and the next day on June 7 the OPP launched a criminal investigation into the deletion of the emails after the Privacy Commissioner ruled that the gas plant emails were illegally deleted.

On November 23, 2013, Wynne authorized the OPP anti-rackets division to investigate the Office of the Premier to further their investigation into the deleted gas plant emails. On April 8, 2014, the OPP ruled out Wynne's new Premier's office's involvement in the deletion of the emails and criminal destruction of government information regarding the gas plants. The OPP stated also that Wynne's office itself was not under investigation and that their main suspects are Dalton McGuinty, McGuinty's former chief of staff David Livingston, McGuinty's deputy chief of staff Laura Miller and Peter Faist a computer tech. Wynne stated her office would continue their co-operation with the police investigation and would provide any further documents they need.

On March 24, 2014, Wynne introduced a piece of legislation called the Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act which involved requiring all MPP's, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, opposition leaders, and their respective staff to post their expense information online. The Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act also expanded the powers of the Integrity Commissioner, expanded the powers of the Ontario Ombudsman by introducing a fine of $5,000 for the willful destruction of government records, and prohibited the destruction of records with intent to deny access to records and other accountability measure. This was in response to the previous administration's scandals under Dalton McGuinty's.

2013 budget

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On March 21, 2013, Wynne introduced her government's first budget with measures that including a $295 million investment into a Youth Jobs Strategy to help tackle high youth unemployment rate, reducing auto insurance rates by 15 per cent saving motorists $225 a year, $260 million investment to boost home care health services for 46,000 seniors, $45 million investment into an Ontario Music Fund to help Ontario musicians, a $200 a month earnings exemption for those on Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program, $5 million into First Nations education, eliminated the employers health tax exemption for large companies, cancelled tax cuts for big businesses, extended the capital cost allowance for machinery and equipment, increased the Ontario Child Benefit from $1,100 to $1,310 a year to support low-income families and other economic measures.

Education

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Wynne started immediate new collective bargaining negotiations with Ontario Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario after a year of labour distress of bill 115 that suspended collective bargaining rights, imposed contracts on teachers and suspended the right to strike. April 8, 2014, The Wynne government reached a new bargaining agreement with the teachers union and passed bill 122 the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act that restored the bargaining rights, the right to strike, keeps the wage freeze on teachers, eliminates the retirement gratuity for teachers that resulted in savings of $1 billion, gives the province control over funding for schools and programs and gives the Minister powers to audit School Boards if disclosure of spending is not provided. Wynne established the Premier's Youth Advisory Council to share ideas, advise the Premier on issues facing youth and improve job opportunities for young people.

Economy

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On January 30, 2014, Wynne announced her government was increasing the minimum wage from $10.25 to $11 after four years of freeze on the rate and introduced legislation to ensure future increases to the minimum wage to keep up with the CPI (Consumer Price Index). December 13, 2013, Wynne announced partnership with Cisco Canada and announced that the province would provide up to $190 million that would create 5,000 new jobs. May 2, 2013, Wynne announced tax relief for small businesses by increasing the employers health tax exemption from $400,000 to $450,000.

2014 election

On June 12th, 2014, Kathleen Wynne was re-elected as then Premier of Ontario with a legislative majority with 59 seats.

Personal life

Prior to her coming out as a lesbian at age 37 she was married to Phil Cowperthwaite, with whom she had three children. She now lives with her partner Jane Rounthwaite whom she married in July 2005 at Fairlawn Avenue United Church in Toronto. Wynne is a member of the United Church of Canada.

Electoral record

References

1. "Wynne's political journey marked by connections, not divisions". The Globe and Mail. January 27, 2013. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
2. "University of Toronto Biochemistry - 100th Birthday". University of Toronto Department of Biochemistry. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
3. "Liberal Leadership Candidate Profile: Kathleen Wynne". TVO. January 16, 2013. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
4. "Wynne clears way for Ontario Liberal leadership bid". CBC News. November 2, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2012.
5. "Comparing the candidates: With less than three weeks until the Ontario Liberal leadership convention, the Star's Queen's Park Bureau takes a close look at the contenders". Toronto Star. January 7, 2013. p. A6.
6. ^ Diebel, Linda. "Kathleen Wynne's not-so-ordinary family". Toronto Star. Retrieved January 29, 2014. They married in 2005 but prefer the term 'partner' to 'wife.'
7. "Liberal leadership contender not your average MPP". Sun News Network. August 25, 2013. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
8. "Kathleen Wynne open to non-citizens voting in Toronto". Toronto Star. June 12, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
9. McLean, Adam (May 17, 2011). "New GO Station for Gormley". York Region.
10. English, Kathy (March 23, 2013). "Not quite Ivy League". Toronto Star. p. IN6.
11. "1994 Toronto General Election Results (Former Metropolitan Toronto)". City of Toronto.
12. "Toronto Vote 2000 Election Results: Toronto District School Board Ward 8". City of Toronto.
13. "Ethnic pitch all Greek to Tzekas; Council rivals seeking support from all sides". Toronto Star. November 11, 2000. p. 3.
14. Capannelli, Heather (August 17, 2001). "Union vote on gay texts angers parents' groups; 'Flabbergasted' they were not consulted before decision". Toronto Star. p. A8.
15. Rushowy, Kristin (December 6, 2001). "Cansfield to chair school board ; Rookie trustee wins vice-chair job". Toronto Star. p. B05.
16. "School equity costs money, Wynne told". Xtra!. Pink Triangle Press. September 28, 2006.
17. "Dalton McGuinty resigns and prorogues legislature". CBC News. October 15, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
18. "Wynne poised to announce Ontario Liberal leadership bid". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. November 1, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
19. "Kathleen Wynne launches Ontario Liberal Party leadership bid". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. November 5, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
20. Radwanski, Adam (January 11, 2013). "This weekend determines pecking order in Ontario Liberal leadership race". Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
21. Benzie, Robert (January 8, 2013). "Kathleen Wynne leads Liberal leadership race". The Toronto Star. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
22. Benzie, Robert (January 11, 2013). "Ontario Liberal leadership: Glen Murray drops out to support Kathleen Wynne". The Toronto Star. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
23. Chown Oved, Marco (January 24, 2013). "How the Ontario Liberal leadership convention works: Candidates, delegates, ballots and voting". The Toronto Star. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
24. Diebel, Linda (January 15, 2013). "Ontario Liberal leadership: Sandra Pupatello says politics is in her DNA". The Toronto Star. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
25. Jenkins, Jonathan (January 14, 2013). "Ontario likely to see first female premier in Sandra Pupatello or Kathleen Wynne". The Toronto Sun. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
26. "Kathleen Wynne's Speech At Ontario Liberal Convention". The Huffington Post. January 26, 2013. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
27. Radwanski, Adam (January 27, 2013). "For Ontario Liberals, the convention speeches mattered". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
28. Leslie, Keith (January 27, 2013). "Kathleen Wynne Chosen As Ontario Liberal Leader, Next Premier At Convention". The Huffington Post. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
29. Howlett, Karen (January 27, 2013). "Impassioned speech and help from right-of-centre Sousa win the day". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
30. "Kathleen Wynne – Speech to Liberal Convention Delegates". NetNewsLedger. January 26, 2013. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
31. Lynas, Kathie (January 26, 2013). "Pupatello and Wynne in a virtual tie after first ballot at Ontario Liberal leadership convention". CFRA. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
32. Mohammad, Adam (January 27, 2013). "Liberal leadership: Kathleen Wynne to become next premier of Ontario". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
33. Herhalt, Chris (January 27, 2013). "Kathleen Wynne will be next premier". The Record. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
34. "Kathleen Wynne sworn in as Ontario's first female premier, unveils cabinet". National Post. February 11, 2013. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
35. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/kathleen-wynne-calls-june-12-ontario-election-1.2629948
36. ^ "My Pride: Kathleen Wynne". Metro News. June 24, 2008.
37. Wells, Jennifer (January 25, 2013). "Ontario Liberal leadership: Behind the scenes with Kathleen Wynne". Toronto Star.
38. "Fairlawn Avenue United Church: Community Life (Fall 2007)" (PDF).
39. "Summary of Valid Ballots Cast for each Candidate (2011)" (PDF). Elections Ontario. p. 4. Retrieved November 2, 2012.
40. "Summary of Valid Ballots Cast for each Candidate (2007)" (PDF). Elections Ontario. p. 3. Retrieved November 2, 2012.
41. "Summary of Valid Ballots by Candidate (2003)". Elections Ontario. Retrieved November 2, 2012.

External links

• Official website
• Ontario Legislative Assembly parliamentary history (archived)

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