Howard Hampton

Hampton was born in Fort Frances, Ontario to a blue collar family, George (April 17, 1928 - January 2, 2006) and Elsie (b. November 8, 1931) Hampton.

He was a good student, but also athletically gifted and politically active.

He first joined the NDP when he was a teenager.

Hampton took an undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he played varsity hockey for the school's Division I NCAA ice hockey team.

He later obtained a degree in education from the University of Toronto and a law degree from the University of Ottawa.

He worked as a lawyer for the Canadian Labour Congress, and for the provincial NDP government of Allan Blakeney in Saskatchewan.

This tactical voting, commonly called "strategic voting," did not succeed in ousting the Harris government, but nearly decimated the NDP, as they took just nine seats and 12 per cent of the popular vote in their worst election showing since the 1950s.

As Hampton was not judged to have been at fault, he stayed on as leader.

Hampton himself faced a challenging re-election; the Harris government had reduced the number of ridings in Ontario from 130 to 103, and Hampton faced off against Frank Miclash, the Liberal MPP for the adjoining Kenora riding, in the amalgamated riding of Kenora-Rainy River.

Hampton defeated Miclash by 3,000 votes.

Howard George Hampton (born May 17, 1952) is a politician who was a member of Provincial Parliament for the province of Ontario.

Hampton sought election to the Ontario legislature under the NDP banner in the 1977 provincial election, placing third against incumbent Liberal Pat Reid and Progressive Conservative Gordon Armstrong in Rainy River.

He ran for the riding again in the 1985 provincial election, and lost to Progressive Conservative candidate Jack Pierce by 278 votes.

He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Canada, from 1987 to 1999 in the electoral district of Rainy River, and from 1999 to 2011 in the redistributed electoral district of Kenora—Rainy River.

Hampton was elected to Queen's Park on his third attempt, in the provincial election of 1987.

He was re-elected in the 1990 provincial election, in which the NDP won a majority government.

On October 1, 1990, he was appointed Attorney General in the government of Bob Rae.

By all accounts, Hampton and Rae were not cabinet allies.

Hampton disapproved of many of the Rae government's centrist policies; in particular, he opposed Rae's decision to retreat from an election pledge to introduce public automobile insurance in the province.

Journalist Thomas Walkom has argued that Rae deliberately undermined Hampton's control over the Attorney General's office, staffing the ministry with bureaucrats to which he was ideologically incompatible.

However, Walkom has also noted that Hampton supported Rae's decision to impose a Social Contract of wage restraints and cost-saving measures on Ontario public servants.

Following a cabinet shuffle on February 3, 1993, Hampton was demoted to Minister of Natural Resources, responsible for Native Affairs.

Marion Boyd replaced him as Attorney General.

The NDP was defeated in the provincial election of 1995, and Hampton was re-elected over Progressive Conservative Lynn Beyak by only 205 votes.

A member of the Ontario New Democratic Party, he was also the party's leader from 1996 to 2009.

After Rae retired from provincial politics, Hampton became the leader of the NDP on June 22, 1996, beating Frances Lankin, who was seen as a Rae ally and whom many had considered the front-runner, on the third ballot.

Leadership candidate Peter Kormos and his support generally went to Hampton rather than Lankin, which was seen as important to Hampton's victory.

Tony Silipo also ran for the leadership and would become Hampton's Deputy Leader until 1999.

In the 1999 Ontario election, some progressives and union leaders, who had been a crucial source of NDP support before 1995, attempted to defeat Mike Harris, the Progressive Conservative premier, by abandoning the NDP for the Liberals.

Hampton endorsed Bill Blaikie in the latter's unsuccessful bid for the federal New Democratic Party leadership in 2002.

This decision was unpopular with some other members of his caucus, including Deputy Leader Marilyn Churley who was a leading supporter of Jack Layton.

In Harris' second term, the government unveiled plans to privatize the public electricity utility, Ontario Hydro.

Hampton quickly distinguished himself as an advocate of maintaining public ownership of the utility, and published a book on the subject, Public Power, in 2003.

Harris' successor as premier, Ernie Eves, ultimately reached the decision not to sell the hydro utility.

Hampton and the NDP won only seven seats in the 2003 Ontario election, losing official party status for the first time since 1963.

However, Hampton retained his seat and the party increased its share of the popular vote by 2 per cent.

After intense lobbying to lower the minimum number of seats for party status, a compromise was reached which allowed additional funding for the NDP and more inquiry opportunities during Question Period.

Ultimately, this controversy was all for nought as on May 13, 2004, the NDP regained official party status in a by-election in Hamilton East, where city councillor Andrea Horwath was elected to fill the vacancy left by the death of Liberal member Dominic Agostino.

His wife, Shelley Martel, was also an MPP until 2007, representing Nickel Belt.

Hampton retired from the legislature at the 2011 Ontario provincial election and subsequently joined Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP as a member of the law firm's corporate social responsibility and aboriginal affairs groups.