Political Career
Two years into his tenure as mayor of the small town of Point Edward, Ontario, Gallaway took a shot at federal politics. He was first elected to parliament in the 1993 federal election, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent Ken James by over 10,000 votes. He was re-elected by similarly large pluralities in the elections of 1997 and 2000, and defeated Conservative candidate Marcel Beaubien by over 5,000 votes in the 2004 election. He was defeated by Conservative Patricia Davidson by over 4,000 votes in the 2006 election. Soon afterwards, Gallaway blamed the Liberals' ouster from Canadian government on the leadership of Paul Martin, and was the first from within the party to call for Martin's resignation as party leader.
He ran for Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons in 1997, and was eliminated on the second ballot.
Gallaway was occasionally labeled a maverick MP in the Liberal Party, particularly in later years, and was a vocal opponent of the federal gun registry for many years, and unsuccessfully attempted to cut off funding for the program in late 2004. Gallaway has also called for government funding to be withdrawn from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and opposed negative option billing by cable companies in the late 1990s.
He also holds socially conservative views on some issues, although he has not emphasized these as strongly as others within the party, such as Tom Wappel and Rose-Marie Ur. Gallaway was an opponent of same-sex marriage and voted against the Civil Marriage Act, which legalized it, in 2005.
He is a personal friend and was a frequent political ally of Senator Anne Cools, and has worked with her to propose reforms to Canada's divorce laws which would have ensured greater custody rights for fathers. In furtherance of these concerns, Gallaway served as co-chair of the Special Joint Committee on Custody and Access, which recommended shared parenting as the norm in its report, For the Sake of the Children, issued in 1998.
From December 2003 to July 2004, Gallaway served as parliamentary secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, with special emphasis on democratic reform..
Gallaway is also a musician. He formed the band "True Grit" with several Liberal MPs, including Joe Fontana and future prime minister Jean Chrétien (who played trombone). Gallaway has also appeared in performances with Sarnia/Port Huron's International Symphony, and was the narrator of a "Child's Introduction to the Symphony".
Gallaway supported Bob Rae's unsuccessful bid to become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2006 Liberal leadership election.
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