Tony Ruprecht

Ruprecht was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1981 provincial election, representing the Parkdale constituency. He defeated incumbent New Democratic Party MPP, Jan Dukszta, by nearly 1,000 votes. Ruprecht was re-elected by a much greater margin in the 1985 election.

The Liberals formed government after the election, and on June 26, 1985, Ruprecht was appointed as a minister without portfolio responsible for Disabled Persons and Multiculturalism. He was re-elected by a landslide the 1987 election, but was subsequently dropped from cabinet.[7]

The Liberal government called an early election and were defeated by the New Democratic Party (NDP), who formed the government following the 1990 provincial election. Ruprecht managed to retain Parkdale by 523 votes over NDP candidate Sheena Weir, even though most surrounding constituencies were won by the NDP on September 6, 1990. On June 8, 1995, he was re-elected by a greater margin in the 1995 election, as the NDP lost much of its support throughout the province. The Progressive Conservatives won the provincial election, and Ruprecht remained in opposition serving as critic for Citizenship. During his years on the Opposition bench Ruprecht also served variously as Critic for Tourism, Disabilities and Associate Critic for Labour.[7]

In 1996, Ruprecht was the only Liberal MPP outside of Ottawa to support Dalton McGuinty's bid for party leader prior to the actual leadership convention.[8] McGuinty was chosen leader after five ballots.[9]

Due to Premier Mike Harris' Progressive Conservative government changing Ontario's provincial electoral boundaries to match the federal ones for the 1999 Ontario general election, the Legislature was reduced to 103 seats, from 130.[10] This boundary change meant that the previous constituencies were redistributed into several of the new ones and incumbent MPPs would have to decide where they would stand for re-election as their old constituencies no longer existed.[10] Ruprecht initially planned to run in the newly created Parkdale—High Park constituency in the 1999 provincial election, but stood aside for star candidate Gerard Kennedy. Kennedy was forced to step aside for former leadership rival Joseph Cordiano in the newly created York South–Weston constituency, because Liberal party leader McGuinty's policies dealing with redistribution and sitting MPPs was to give the senior MPP first choice, and Cordiano was the more senior of those two.[11] Instead, Ruprecht ran in the neighbouring Davenport constituency.[12] It contained the eastern portion of his old Parkdale constituency. He was not appointed as the Liberal candidate, as he had to defeat human-rights lawyer Rocco Galati, at a nomination meeting on July 21, 1998, before he could run in the election.[12] There was a controversy over the nomination process, and Galati unsuccessfully sued the Liberal party, the constituency association, and Ruprecht.[13]

Ruprecht's main opponent in the 1999 campaign was another displaced incumbent MPP, the NDP's deputy leader, Tony Silipo.[14] What the Toronto Star dubbed "The battle of the Tonys" was expected to be a very close race between Silipo and Ruprecht.[15][16] Election night, June 3, was anticlimactic, as Ruprecht easily won with a 4,932 vote plurality.[17] The Progressive Conservatives managed to lose all their seats in the old city of Toronto, but nevertheless, won the provincial election, and Ruprecht remained in opposition.[18]

Ruprecht was elected for a seventh time in the 2003 election, defeating NDP candidate Jordan Berger by over 8,000 votes on October 2, 2003. The McGuinty-lead Liberals formed government following this election after having been in Opposition for 13 years. Despite being the only MPP outside of Ottawa to support McGuinty's leadership campaign, Ruprecht was not appointed to cabinet, but he was appointed vice-chair of the legislature's Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills.[1]

In April 2006, Ruprecht was criticized for being absent from the Ontario legislature for extended periods of time while vacationing in Cuba.[19] The MPP acknowledged that since the previous fall he had made four trips to Cuba for a cumulative period of seven weeks.[19] He defended these trips saying he was travelling to the island to receive lessons in Spanish and Portuguese in order to better be able to communicate with his constituents.[19]

In the 2007 provincial election, Ruprecht's margin was reduced to less than 2,000 votes. On July 5, 2011, he announced that he was not running for re-election and would retire.[8] He made this decision, partially because of the unexpected death of fellow Liberal MPP, Bruce Crozier, stating "I have not groomed a successor (in Davenport) simply because Bruce’s death shocked me."[8] The Liberals lost his seat in the ensuing provincial election on October 6, 2011.[20]