David Richard Caplan was a Canadian politician in Ontario, Canada.
30 Facts About David Caplan
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David Caplan was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario who represented the ridings of Oriole and Don Valley East from 1997 to 2011 and a cabinet minister in the government of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty from 2003 to 2009.
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David Caplan worked as a commercial real estate agent with the firm of Ernest Goodman Ltd.
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David Caplan was elected as a trustee to the North York Board of Education in 1991 and served in this capacity for six years, becoming the board's vice-chair in 1993.
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David Caplan served on the Metropolitan Toronto School Board from 1994 to 1997, becoming its vice-chair shortly before his departure for higher office.
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David Caplan was the son of Elinor David Caplan, who served as a cabinet minister at the federal and provincial levels.
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David Caplan was married to Leigh and had two sons, Benjamin and Jacob.
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In 1997, Elinor David Caplan resigned her seat in the Ontario legislature to seek election to the House of Commons of Canada.
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David Caplan contested his mother's former riding of Oriole in the subsequent by-election, and defeated his Progressive Conservative opponent, former federal Member of Parliament Barbara Greene, by a significant margin.
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David Caplan subsequently served as the Liberal critic for Youth and Training.
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In one of the most closely watched races of the campaign, David Caplan defeated Johnson on election night by just over 3,000 votes.
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David Caplan did not join with several other politicians from this community to support provincial funding for non-Catholic religious schools in 2001.
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David Caplan was easily re-elected in Don Valley East in the provincial election of 2003, defeating his Progressive Conservative opponent, former city councillor Paul Sutherland, by over 9200 votes.
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The Liberals won the general election, and David Caplan was appointed to Cabinet on October 23,2003, as Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal.
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David Caplan was responsible for leading the modernization of the province's infrastructure and planning for future population and economic growth.
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David Caplan released a long-term $30 billion plus infrastructure investment strategy called ReNew Ontario, which used a private financing model expanding and building new hospitals, schools, colleges and universities, and transit and transportation systems.
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David Caplan was responsible for the Places to Grow Act, 2005, which allows for a better way of accommodating growth across the province through the development of growth plans.
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Minister David Caplan had responsibility for several major government agencies managing public assets, including: The Ontario Realty Corporation, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Infrastructure Ontario and the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation.
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David Caplan came under heavy criticism after the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation was mired in a scandal which saw retailers were winning a disproportionate number of jackpots.
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David Caplan stayed on despite opposition calls for his resignation.
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On June 20,2008, Premier Dalton McGuity announced a cabinet shuffle that saw David Caplan swapping portfolios with George Smitherman.
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David Caplan was appointed Minister of Health, while Smitherman was appointed both the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal and the Minister of Energy.
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McGuinty and David Caplan said that it was tough to recruit top experts to build a provincewide electronic health records system.
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On October 6,2009, David Caplan resigned his post as Health Minister in advance of a report detailing irregularities in spending and expense accounts related to eHealth Ontario, a government agency tasked with the creation of electronic health records.
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David Caplan announced on July 14,2011, that he would not be a candidate in the October 6,2011 provincial election.
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David Caplan served as vice-chair of public affairs firm Global Public Affairs in Toronto.
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David Caplan was attempting to unseat long-time incumbent Denzil Minnan-Wong who has been referred to as council's "staunchest conservative".
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At the time of his death, David Caplan was seeking the federal Liberal nomination in Don Valley North for the 2019 Canadian federal election.
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David Caplan was married to Leigh with two children, Benjamin and Jacob.
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David Caplan died at his home in Toronto on July 24,2019, at the age of 54, after a "fire accident", according to his family.