Federal Politics
He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2000 election as the Liberal MP for York South—Weston defeating Independent MP (and former Liberal) John Nunziata by 1,497 votes. In 2003 he served as a parliamentary secretary to the Minister for the Environment. He was re-elected by a much greater margin in the federal elections held in 2004. Since the 2006 election he has been a member of the official opposition.
Tonks served as the Vice Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources from 2007 until 2011.
Read more about this topic: Alan Tonks
Famous quotes containing the words federal and/or politics:
“Newsmen believe that news is a tacitly acknowledged fourth branch of the federal system. This is why most news about government sounds as if it were federally mandated—serious, bulky and blandly worthwhile, like a high-fiber diet set in type.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement, and meanwhile the debt accumulates.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)