David Young was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.
Young was educated at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto, and practiced law after his graduation. He worked at the firm of Benson McMurtry from 1981 to 1987, and has been a partner in Benson Percival Brown since 1987. Young has also served as a Director of the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, and was for ten years an Executive Member of the Ratepayer's Association.
He began his political career as a school trustee, serving on the North York Public School Board from 1991 to 1997. In the provincial election of 1999, he was elected to the Ontario legislature for the north Toronto riding of Willowdale, defeating Liberal candidate Fahimeh Mortazavi by about 3,500 votes.
Young was named Attorney General and Minister responsible for Native Affairs in the government of Mike Harris on February 8, 2001. He was generally regarded as one of the more centrist figures in Harris's government, and supported Ernie Eves to replace Harris as Premier in 2002. When Eves was sworn into office on April 15, 2002, he kept Young in the Attorney-General's portfolio.
In 2002, Young introduced the Legal Aid Services Amendment Act (Bill 181), which permitted Legal Aid Ontario to hire staff lawyers and contract with individual lawyers and law firms. Many criticized this intermingling of the private and public sectors, and suggested that the bill would lead to the introduction of a two-tier legal system in Ontario. Young also increased the hourly payment rates of Legal Aid Ontario workers by 5% an hour.
After a cabinet shuffle on February 25, 2003, Young became the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
Many expected that Young would be re-elected in the provincial election of 2003, despite a general decline in Tory support throughout Toronto. Young's performance in cabinet was generally respected, and he was sometimes described as a possible successor to Eves as party leader. The provincial trend, however, was too much to overcome: the Tories were defeated in all of their Toronto seats, and Young lost the Willowdale riding to Liberal candidate David Zimmer by 1,866 votes.
In 2004, Young supported John Tory's successful bid to replace Eves as leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party.
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