Member of Provincial Parliament
Bentley ran for the provincial legislature in the 2003 general election, contesting the riding of London West as a Liberal. He was successful, defeating incumbent Progressive Conservative Bob Wood by over 10,000 votes. The Liberals won the election, and Bentley was appointed Ontario Minister of Labour on October 23, 2003. After a cabinet shuffle on June 29, 2005, he was named as Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.
Bentley was re-elected in the 2007 election and was named Attorney General of Ontario shortly thereafter. In January 2010 he was assigned the additional portfolio of Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.
He retained his seat in the October 2011 provincial election and was named Minister of Energy. Bentley was soon mired in a controversy over the government's decision made during the election campaign to scrap unpopular gas plants being constructed in Mississauga and Oakville - the move was seen as a politically expedient one made to improve the Liberal Party's chances of retaining the 5 ridings it held in the area. The election returned a minority government and the emboldened opposition demanded that Bentley's ministry release all documents related to the decision. Bentley delayed prior to releasing 36,000 pages in September and insisted that all documents had been released. After it became known that there were an additional 20,000 documents Bentley was cited by a rare contempt motion by a legislative committee and was facing a contempt motion of the legislature when McGuinty unexpectedly ended the legislative session by proroguing the legislature on October 15th.
Previously, Bentley had widely been seen as Premier Dalton McGuinty's heir apparent but on October 25, 2012, ten days after McGuinty announced his resignation, Bentley announced that he would not be a candidate in the Liberal Party leadership convention being held to choose McGuinty's successor and that he too would be leaving politics at the next general election expected in the spring of 2013.
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