Vernon Milton Singer (March 26, 1919 – September 20, 2003) was a politician in

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, Canada. He was a

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member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1959 to 1977 who represented the North York ridings of

York Centre York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a m ...

Downsview Downsview is a neighbourhood in the north end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. The area takes its name from the Downs View farm established around 1842 near the present-day intersection of Keele Street and Wils ...

and Wilson Heights.

Background

Singer was born in

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, the son of lawyer and politician Joseph Singer who was the first Jewish-Canadian to be elected to the

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. After serving in

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with the

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, Singer returned to Canada and became president of the Young Liberals in 1947. He worked for a while as a lawyer before entering politics. He and his wife Elaine had three children.

Politics

He became a councillor in

North York, Ontario North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...

eventually becoming reeve from 1957 to 1958. He ran for the leadership of the

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at the 1958 Ontario Liberal leadership convention, placing fourth. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1959 provincial election. Singer became deputy leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and, as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP), pushed for reforms to municipal law,

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and electoral laws as well as for the establishment of a provincial ombudsman. He served as Liberal

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in the 1970s and, in 1973, sued fellow Liberal MPP Eddie Sargent for libel after Sargent made remarks about Singer's retainer fee from a developer while he was appearing before a legislative committee to explain how he obtained the contract to build Ontario Hydro's new headquarters in Toronto. Singer was deputy leader of the Liberals from 1966 until 1973, when he was asked to step down by leader Robert Nixon, after he filed the lawsuit but was allowed to remain in the shadow cabinet. Singer was re-elected to the legislature on four successive occasions before retiring in 1977. His retirement was controversial as he announced it on the eve of that year's election campaign without giving his Liberal colleagues advance notice. The Progressive Conservatives won Singer's previously safe seat in the election and, the next year, the government appointed Singer to the first of five two-year terms on the

Ontario Municipal Board The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) was an independent administrative board, operated as an adjudicative tribunal, in the province of Ontario, Canada. It heard applications and appeals on municipal and planning disputes, as well as other matters sp ...

including several years as its chairman. The incident resulted in accusations by

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MPP Ed Ziemba that the government had bought Singer's seat, and that of fellow Liberal Phil Givens who left in similar circumstances, through political patronage.

Later life

Following his retirement from the Ontario Municipal Board in 1989, Singer won election to North York's committee of adjustment filling a seat vacated by Patti Starr when she was forced to resign as the result of a wider political scandal.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Singer, Vernon 1919 births 2003 deaths Mayors of North York Ontario Liberal Party MPPs Jewish mayors of places in Canada Metropolitan Toronto councillors Canadian Army personnel of World War II The Royal Canadian Dragoons soldiers