Dennis Drainville - Ontario Politics

Ontario Politics

He first ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1977 provincial election. Drainville was a member of the Liberal Party at the time, and campaigned in the downtown Toronto riding of Riverdale. He finished a distant third against the winner, Jim Renwick of the New Democratic Party.

Drainville himself later joined the NDP, and in 1989 was arrested for protesting the province's clearcutting practices in the Northern Ontario forests around Temagami. He also stood with Chief Gary Potts and the Teme-Augami-Anishinabai people in their 60 year legal battle to claim their lands in Temagami. He was fined and sent to jail in North Bay for a week in March 1991. Drainville was NDP candidate in the riding of Victoria—Haliburton in the 1990 provincial election. This east-central Ontario seat was not regarded as winnable – indeed, no NDP candidate in the riding had ever finished higher than third place, behind the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. However, the NDP under Bob Rae won an unexpected majority government in the election, and Drainville won the riding by 6,520 votes over his nearest opponent.

Drainville served as a parliamentary assistant from 1990 to 1992, and as a Deputy Speaker from 1992 to 1993. Drainville's most high profile role in the NDP Government was as Chair of the Select Committee on Ontario in Confederation. He oversaw a massive constitutional consultation process during the Charlottetown Accord negotiations. Eventually his loyalty to the Rae government became increasingly tenuous. Drainville emerged as an ally of Peter Kormos in the NDP caucus, and frequently opposed the policies of the Rae government from a left-wing perspective. On April 28, 1993, he resigned from NDP caucus to protest the Rae government's decision to bring casinos into the province. He continued to sit in the legislature as an independent. Later in the year, he voted against the Rae government's Social Contract legislation.