Joe Volpe
Giuseppe "Joe" Volpe is a Canadian politician. He represented the Ontario riding of Eglinton-Lawrence as a member of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 until 2011, when he lost his seat to Conservative candidate Joe Oliver. Volpe held two senior positions in Prime Minister Paul Martin's Cabinet from 2003 to 2006, and served as transportation critic when his party became the Official Opposition. In 2006, he ran unsuccessfully for the Liberal Party leadership.
Background
Volpe was born in Monteleone di Puglia, in southern Italy, and migrated to Canada with his family in 1955. As a teacher, he taught in Stoney Creek from 1971 to 1974, headed the history department of a secondary school in Etobicoke from 1974 to 1979, and was head of multicultural studies in a college in Weston, Ontario between 1979 and 1982. He worked as a mortgage development officer in 1982–83, and was vice-principal of the James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School between 1983 and 1988.He is married to Mirella and they have four children.
Early political career
Volpe first became involved with the Liberal Party in the 1968 federal election, when he worked on Charles Caccia's campaign in Davenport. He ran for the North York Board of Education in the 1974 municipal election as a separate school representative, but was defeated. He later ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1981 provincial election and narrowly lost to New Democratic Party incumbent Odoardo Di Santo in Downsview. The following year, he supported David Peterson for the Ontario Liberal Party leadership.Volpe subsequently chaired the sponsoring group of an immigrant counseling agency called Alliance Community Services, which received a controversial $500,000 grant from the federal government in January 1984. Local municipal politicians Howard Moscoe and Maria Rizzo charged that the ACS was a partisan organization and that the grant was political patronage; Volpe and others rejected this charge. Maria Minna, the president of COSTI-IIAS Immigrant Services, opposed the grant on the grounds that the new organization would duplicate the work of her organization. Employment and Immigration Minister John Roberts retracted the grant following criticism, but later reversed himself and allowed it to proceed. The ACS dissolved in early 1985.
Volpe increased his profile in the mid-1980s by recruiting many new Liberal Party members from Toronto's Italian community. He helped influence several party nomination contests, including John Nunziata's 1984 victory over Paul Hellyer in York South—Weston. Some questioned Volpe's methods and suggested that he was manipulating the system by signing up "instant party members", a charge that he denied. He endorsed John Roberts in the 1984 federal Liberal leadership convention, and threw his support to Jean Chrétien on the second ballot after Roberts withdrew from the contest. The winning candidate was John Turner, who led the Liberal Party to defeat in the 1984 federal election.
Volpe unsuccessfully campaigned for the presidency of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1985 and 1986, against media speculation that leading figures in the party opposed his candidacy. Despite Volpe's earlier support for Chrétien, he organized a pro-Turner slate for the Liberal Party's 1986 leadership review. Turner, who was faced with public and backroom challenges since 1984, received the necessary support to consolidate his leadership. Volpe spoke out against the Meech Lake Accord the following year, while most of the Liberal leadership supported it.
Member of Parliament
Nomination challenge
Volpe successfully challenged sitting Liberal Member of Parliament Rev. Roland de Corneille to win the party's nomination for Eglinton—Lawrence in the 1988 election. The contest was extremely divisive, with de Corneille alleging that Volpe was "trying to organize a group for his personal advantage" in recruiting new members from the riding's Italian community.After losing the nomination, de Corneille endorsed Progressive Conservative candidate Tony Abbott, who was himself a former Liberal cabinet minister. Volpe defended his right to seek the nomination, arguing that Toronto's Italian residents were seeking to play a more active role in government. He also sought a reconciliation with de Corneille's supporters, many of whom were from the riding's Jewish community. Despite the divisions engendered by his nomination, Volpe won a convincing victory on election day.
Opposition member, 1988–1993
The Progressive Conservatives were re-elected with a majority government in the 1988 election and Volpe sat as a member of the official opposition for the next five years, serving as his party's revenue critic for part of this time. During the constitutional debates of the early 1990s, he suggested that the Parliament of Canada should assume responsibility for reformulating the terms of Canadian Confederation. He argued that parliament represented a strong cross-section of Canada's population, saying that parliamentary initiative on constitutional reform could save millions of dollars on "needless commissions".Volpe supported Paul Martin in the 1990 federal Liberal leadership convention, which was won by Jean Chrétien. He subsequently opposed some of Chrétien's reforms to the Liberal Party constitution, including a change that allowed the leader to appoint candidates in selected ridings. Several Chrétien supporters defended this as necessary to prevent "instant party members" from taking over the party nomination process; many believe the change was directed against both Volpe and the Liberals for Life group affiliated with MP Tom Wappel.
Volpe remained one of Martin's most prominent Toronto-area supporters after 1990. Many political observers believe this association kept him out of cabinet during Chrétien's tenure as prime minister, from 1993 to 2003.
Government backbencher
The Liberals won a majority government in the 1993 election, and Volpe sat as a government backbencher in the parliament that followed. He was elected chair of the Ontario Liberal caucus following the election, but unexpectedly lost the position to a challenge from Sue Barnes in 1995. On 23 February 1996, he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The ministry was renamed on 12 July 1996, and Volpe's position was restyled as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health, a position he held until 15 July 1998.Volpe was easily re-elected to parliament in the 1997 election. His closest opponent was Progressive Conservative candidate David Rotenberg, a former minister in the provincial government of Frank Miller. Volpe later endorsed Mel Lastman's bid to become Mayor of Toronto in 1997 municipal election.
Volpe served as chair of the all-party Commons Health Committee after the 1997 election. He brought forward a report in late 1998 encouraging the sale of herbal medicines in Canada, and advocating their regulation in a category separate from foods and drugs. The following year, his committee produced a series of recommendations for improving Canada's organ donation system.
Volpe was also given responsibility for overseeing Canada's investigation of a controversial vitamin-hormone cancer treatment run by Luigi di Bella in Italy. Some of Di Bella's supporters believed that his treatments actually cured cancer, and requested that their government investigate the possibility of assisting his research. Volpe led a delegation of Canadian doctors to Italy, arguing that they would either expose Di Bella as a fraud or establish the terms for assistance: they concluded there was no evidence to support the validity of his work. Volpe initially recommended that further research be conducted, arguing the doctor's treatment could lead to an improved quality of life for cancer patients even if it did not actually cure the disease.
In 1999, Volpe argued that the government's proposed Citizenship Act was too restrictive and arbitrary, saying that it could result in reduced immigration to Canada. He and fellow MP Andrew Telegdi were particularly critical of a section of the bill which allowed cabinet ministers to override the judicial system in rejecting applications from immigrants. He voted against the bill on its final reading in May 2000.
Volpe was not promoted to cabinet in the August 1999 cabinet shuffle. He served as chair of the Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources in 2000, and developed a report for improving Canada's national highway system. He also collaborated with Toronto-area MPs Derek Lee and John McKay to create a job placement and training program for at-risk youth in Toronto, called Workplace Connections. He described as "unfortunate" Canada's decision to support a United Nations resolution critical of Israel in October 2000, and later argued that Canada should have abstained. During the 2000 campaign, Volpe advocated tax breaks for parents who send their children to private religious schools. He was re-elected without difficulty.
Volpe sought re-appointment as chair of the Natural Resources committee in 2001, but did not receive the position. He became increasingly critical of the Chrétien government during the next two years, and made no secret of his support for Paul Martin to replace Chrétien as party leader. Volpe criticized the Chrétien government for moving too slowly to replace Canada's aging Sea King helicopters, and encouraged the government to purchase the EH-101 Cormorant helicopters recommended by the previous Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. In November 2002, he called for the government to provide compensation for all victims of Hepatitis C who were infected through the national blood supply system, and criticized the Chrétien government's more restrictive settlement. He also expressed skepticism about the Chrétien government's plans to decriminalize cannabis, saying "I believe it's a gateway drug. It's going to be a pretty convincing argument to get me to vote for it." He was an opponent of the government's plans to legalize same-sex marriage during this period, and voted to retain the traditional definition of marriage in 2003.
Volpe worked openly for Paul Martin's bid to replace Chrétien as Liberal Party leader after June 2002, when Martin left Chrétien's cabinet under disputed circumstances. In June 2002, Volpe became one of the first sixteen Liberal MPs to publicly call for Chrétien to resign as prime minister. During the same year, he became a founding member of the group Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel.