Paul Ferreira

Historically, the York South part of the riding had been a CCF/NDP stronghold from the mid-1950s starting with Donald C. MacDonald to the mid-1990s with Bob Rae.

Paul Ferreira (born in 1973) is a Canadian politician and one of the first openly gay politicians elected to provincial office in Canada.

He also has the distinction of being the very first Azorean-Canadian MPP.

Along with his family, he immigrated to Canada in 1979.

They settled in Brampton, Ontario.

He attended primary and secondary schools in the Brampton area and went on to study and graduate from Ottawa's Carleton University.

Ferreira is an honours graduate of Carleton University's School of Journalism, where he received awards for academic excellence and community involvement.

He speaks English, French and Portuguese.

Ferreira's parents—Gilberto and Filomena—were active trade unionists, and he followed their example by becoming a United Food and Commercial Workers union steward at a local drugstore while still in high school.

His union experience attracted him to the NDP.

Since 1990, Ferreira has held numerous positions in the NDP.

Ferreira got his start as a political activist in 1990 when he joined the New Democratic Party (NDP).

After Rae resigned from the Legislature, the only NDP candidate that even came close to a victory was David Miller (currently Toronto's mayor, at the time a Metro councillor for Ward One), in the 1996 by-election.

He was Vice President of Outreach for the New Democratic Youth of Canada from 1997 to 1999, he served on the Ontario NDP's executive from 2002 to 2004 and he was co-chair of the party's LGBT Committee for a number of years.

He has also been active with numerous community groups.

After completing a journalism degree at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ferreira returned to Brampton and was the federal NDP candidate in the riding of Brampton Centre in the 1997 election.

He finished fourth in the race.

His campaign revived the NDP in York South–Weston and significantly increased the party's share of the vote in the riding to more than 21% (Tom Parkin, the NDP candidate in the 2000 election, received only 3.7% of the vote).

From 2001 to 2004, Ferreira was part of the management team at one of Canada's largest business intelligence firms.

Previously, he was North American manager of public relations for a British-based multinational.

He also spent two years as manager of communications and media relations for the North American Broadcasters Association.

In the spring of 2004, Paul Ferreira became the NDP's federal candidate in the west-end Toronto riding of York South—Weston.

His main opponent was the incumbent Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto chair Alan Tonks.

The main issues in the election, and these were not limited to just York South–Weston, included anger over the governing Liberal party's Sponsorship scandal; Health care; and the first budget by the Dalton McGuinty provincial Liberal government, which included the controversial "Ontario Health Premiums" tax.

Despite the many setbacks that confronted the main Liberal campaign, Tonks won the election.

Ferreira placed a respectable second.

Subsequently, he ran again for the same federal office in the 2006 election.

The election results were basically a repeat of the previous election, with Tonks finishing first and Ferreira in second place.

He was also a candidate for Toronto City Council in the 2006 Toronto municipal election, finishing second in Ward 11.

York-South Weston riding map from Elections Ontario.

The provincial riding of York South—Weston, which corresponds closely to the boundaries of the federal riding, at the time of the by-election was considered a Liberal stronghold.

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) in the February 8, 2007 York South–Weston by-election, but was narrowly defeated in the 2007 general election.

The February 2007 by-election was necessitated by the resignation of former Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament Joe Cordiano, who resigned his seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the fall of 2006 to spend more time with his family.

He subsequently served as chief of staff to party leader Howard Hampton until Hampton's retirement from that position in 2009.

He later worked as a special assistant to leader Andrea Horwath.

On Feb. 8, 2011, Ferreira was acclaimed as the Ontario NDP's candidate in York South-Weston in the 2011 provincial election.

Paul Ferreira was born in the Azores.

Ferreira left the NDP in 2016 stating that the party had become "fundamentally dishonest" and that "the party has "lost its way" by erecting "reactionary" roadblocks against highway tolls."

Professionally, Ferreira served as the manager of member relations with the Canadian Society for Training and Development.

He also co-edited the society's national magazine, the Canadian Learning Journal.