Joe Volpe
| Riding | Eglinton—Lawrence |
|---|---|
| Political party: | Liberal |
| First elected: | 1988 election |
| Profession(s): | Educator, school principal, teacher, vice-principal |
This article is about Joe Volpe, the Canadian Politician. For information about Joseph Volpe, opera manager, see Joseph Volpe (opera)
Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe, PC, MP (born September 21, 1947) is a Canadian politician. He has served in the Canadian House of Commons since 1988, and was Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Paul Martin's Cabinet.
Background
Born in Monteleone, Puglia, Italy, he graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts (1970), a Bachelor of Education (1971) and a Master of Education (1980). From 1971 to 1974, he was a teacher in Stoney Creek. From 1974 to 1979, he was head of the history department at a secondary school in Etobicoke. From 1979 to 1982, he was head of multicultural studies in a college in Weston, Ontario. He was then a mortgage development officer from 1982 until 1983, when he became vice-principal and co-founder of the J.M. McGuigan Secondary School. He held this position until 1988.
He is married to Mirella and they have four children: Luciano, Flavio, Letizia and Massimo.
Political Career
He ran for the seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1981 Ontario provincial election, but lost to New Democratic Party incumbent Odoardo Di Santo in Downsview. He also ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of Ontario Liberal Party in 1985.
In 1988, Volpe successfully challenged incumbent Liberal MP Rev. Roland de Corneille in a bitter Liberal nomination battle in Eglinton—Lawrence.
He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1988 federal election. He was easily re-elected in the 1993, 1997, 2000, and 2004 elections.
Volpe supported Paul Martin's bid for the Liberal Party leadership in 1990, and was for many years a leading Martin supporter in Toronto. Many believe he was kept out of Jean Chrétien's cabinet for this reason.
When Martin became Prime Minister of Canada on December 12, 2003, he appointed Volpe as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. He held this position until January 2005, when he was named Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, taking over the portfolio from Judy Sgro. Sgro was forced from office following reports that an exotic dancer had been granted a visa from Sgro's department after assisting her campaign. Some in the media have speculated that Volpe helped to engineer her resignation (National Post, 11 May 2005). Sgro has suggested that Volpe aspired to her job, but he has denied this, noting that he already had a prominent cabinet portfolio (Toronto Star, 29 April 2005). One of Volpe's first acts as Immigration Minister was to close the loophole which had previously allowed exotic dancers to enter the country easily[1].
Controversies
In 2005, Volpe came under criticism for remarks he made comparing the Conservative Party to the Ku Klux Klan. He made the remarks after seeing two Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) posing with a poster from the Western Standard magazine comparing Liberals to the family from the mafia TV show The Sopranos, with the title "The Liberano$". Volpe considered this a slur against Italian-Canadians such as himself, despite the fact that the two key figures in the poster, Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien are not Italian. He subsequently apologized.
Volpe also racked up $60,000 in travel and hospitality expenses during several months in 2005. The conservative Canadian Taxpayers Federation awarded Volpe the first "Teddy" award as the worst offender in government overspending[2].
In the 2006 federal election, Volpe was easily re-elected. However, as the Liberal Party was defeated, he was forced to step down as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Volpe announced his candidacy for the Liberal leadership on April 21, 2006. His top priorities will include reinvigorating the party to get it back "on a professional keel." He will aim to "make it a good corporate institution that it's been and the nation-building institution that it has always proved to be." Volpe's main campaign themes are expected to include, making education and training a higher priority and improving the system for accommodating immigrants, planks that draw on his cabinet experience as human-resources minister and immigration minister. He is supported by Liberal MPs Jim Karygiannis, Wajid Khan, Yasmin Ratansi, Sukh Dhaliwal, Joe Comuzzi, Massimo Pacetti, and Lui Temelkovski.[3]
Volpe's campaign ran into controversy when it was disclosed that the campaign had received 20 separate contributions of $5,400 from five executives of drug manufacturer Apotex Inc. and each of their wives and children. The donations had been made in April 2006. NDP member of Parliament Pat Martin filed an official complaint on May 29, asking elections commissioner Raymond Landry to investigate whether an attempt had been made to circumvent the Elections Act. Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham and party president Steven MacKinnon defended Volpe, while Volpe's spokesman claimed that the contributions were legitimate and called Martin's allegations "slanderous and libellous"[4]. On June 1, 2006, Volpe's campaign announced that five of these donations, including donations from three children between the ages of 11 and 14, would be returned. A website was created to parody these events, and it was alleged by a Globe and Mail article that Mr Volpe's office shut it down. While Michael Geist and the CIRA have denied this, the site recieved an e-mail from their domain name registrar (Canadian Domain Name Services) saying that thir site was pulled because of it's content.[5]. The site is being mirrored[6].
External links
| Preceded by: Roland de Corneille, Liberal |
Member of Parliament from Eglinton—Lawrence (1988-) |
Succeeded by: Incumbent |