James Fitzgerald McGuigan (November 9, 1923 – March 5, 1998) was a

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

in Ontario,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. He was a

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

member of the

Legislative Assembly of Ontario The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (OLA; ) is the legislative chamber of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its elected members are known as Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly are given royal as ...

from 1977 to 1990.

Background

McGuigan was educated at

Ontario Agricultural College The Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) originated at the agricultural laboratories of the Toronto Normal School, and was officially founded in 1874 as an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto. Since 1964, it has become affil ...

, and worked as a farmer. He served as the president of several farming organizations, including the Kent County Vegetable Growers Association, the Kent County Federation of Agriculture and the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association. He also served as chair of the Raleigh-Harwich Public School Board, and was an executive member of the

Ontario Federation of Agriculture The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) is one of three general farm organizations in the province of Ontario that represent the agricultural sector to government, stakeholders and the public. OFA is headquartered in Guelph, Ontario. Gover ...

from 1973 to 1977. McGuigan was known as an agricultural innovator. He pioneered the use of plastic greenhouses for

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

production. He also experimented with the production, pre-cooling and shipment of strawberries to markets in Ontario and Quebec. Together with his wife Mona, they raised four children on their farm in Cedar Springs,

Chatham-Kent Chatham-Kent (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 103,988) is a Census divisions of Ontario#Single-tier municipalities, single-tier municipality in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is mostly rural, and its population centres are Chatham, Wallac ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Politics

He was elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1977 provincial election, defeating Progressive Conservative Don Luckham by 641 votes in the southwestern Ontario riding of Kent—Elgin. In the 1981 election, he defeated PC challenger Wes Thompson by 337 votes. The Liberal Party made an electoral breakthrough in the 1985 provincial election, and McGuigan was re-elected by a significant margin. Following the election, the Liberals were able to form a

minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in ...

with support from the

Ontario New Democratic Party The Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP; , NPD) is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. The party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. It is Ontario’s provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. The ...

. During the next five years he was appointed as

parliamentary assistant In British politics and some Commonwealth nations, a parliamentary assistant is an unelected partisan staff member employed by a Member of Parliament (MP) to assist them with their parliamentary duties. Parliamentary assistants usually work ...

to several ministers including the Energy, Natural Resources, Transportation and Agriculture. Ontario's electoral map was redistributed before the 1987 election, and McGuigan was forced to face NDP incumbent

Pat Hayes Patrick John Hayes (born 21 August 1944) is a British computer scientist who lives and works in the United States. He is a Senior Research Scientist Emeritus at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida. Educa ...

in the new riding of

Essex—Kent Essex—Kent was a federal electoral district in Ontario that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1979 to 1997. It was created in 1976 from parts of Essex—Windsor, Kent—Essex and Lambton—Kent ridings, and initially ...

. McGuigan won by 1,063 votes, as the Liberal Party won a landslide majority across the province. The NDP defeated the Liberals in the 1990 provincial election, and Hayes defeated McGuigan by almost 6,000 votes. He retired from politics after his defeat.

After politics

In 1992, he was inducted into the Kent Agricultural Hall of Fame. He died at Chatham Public General Hospital in 1998.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McGuigan, Jim 1923 births 1998 deaths Ontario Agricultural College alumni Ontario Liberal Party MPPs Politicians from Chatham-Kent 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario