1. Gerard Kennedy served as Ontario's minister of Education from 2003 to 2006, when he resigned to make an unsuccessful bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.
46 Facts About Gerard Kennedy
1. 2.
Gerard Kennedy lost the 2013 Ontario Liberal leadership race, placing third.
3.
Gerard Kennedy was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as an Ontario Liberal Party Member of Provincial Parliament in a 1996 by-election to replace former premier Bob Rae in the York South constituency.
4.
Gerard Kennedy became the province's Minister of Education in 2003, serving in McGuinty's first government.
5.
Gerard Kennedy finished third in delegate selection meetings, but at the leadership convention, he placed fourth on both the first and second ballot before withdrawing to support the eventual winner, Stephane Dion.
6.
Gerard Kennedy ran for re-election in the 2011 federal election, but lost to former MP, Peggy Nash.
7.
Gerard Kennedy is one of six children born to Jack and Caroline Gerard Kennedy.
8.
At age 14, Gerard Kennedy moved to Winnipeg to attend St John's-Ravenscourt School on a hockey scholarship.
9.
When Trent's hockey program was cancelled, Gerard Kennedy switched education institutions and attended the University of Alberta to continue his undergraduate studies, but left in his fourth year, without completing his degree.
10.
Gerard Kennedy then worked as a historical researcher for the Government of Alberta in the early 1980s.
11.
Gerard Kennedy began his social activism career when he directed the volunteer program at an Edmonton Food Bank in 1983.
12.
Gerard Kennedy was named in Toronto Life Magazine's list of fifty influential people in 1992, and was named newsmaker of the year by the Toronto Star in 1993.
13.
Gerard Kennedy is married to Jeanette Arsenault-Gerard Kennedy, a daycare professional and Acadian from Prince Edward Island.
14.
Gerard Kennedy entered political life in May 1996, running in a by-election for the Ontario legislature in Toronto's York South constituency, which was vacated by former Ontario New Democratic Party leader Bob Rae.
15.
On May 23, Gerard Kennedy was the first candidate not from the NDP or its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, to win the seat since 1955.
16.
Gerard Kennedy received 7774 votes; his nearest opponent was the NDP's David Miller, at the time, a Toronto city councillor, who received 6656 votes.
17.
Gerard Kennedy finished first on the first, second, third and fourth ballots, but was defeated on the fifth ballot by Dalton McGuinty.
18.
Gerard Kennedy served as the party's Health Critic during McGuinty's first opposition term.
19.
Gerard Kennedy faced an interesting challenge from Annamarie Castrilli, another former Liberal leadership challenger who had defected to the governing Progressive Conservatives on the last sitting day of the legislature.
20.
Gerard Kennedy won his seat with large plurality, with his closest rival, Castrilli, about 10,000 votes behind.
21.
Gerard Kennedy became opposition critic for the high-profile Education portfolio.
22.
The Liberals won a majority in the 2003 Ontario provincial election, and Gerard Kennedy was re-elected in Parkdale-High Park with about 58 percent of the vote.
23.
Gerard Kennedy was appointed Minister of Education on October 23,2003.
24.
Premier McGuinty, who admitted that finding a replacement was difficult, was reported to have set that day as a deadline for Gerard Kennedy to make a decision in order to prevent the leadership speculation from overshadowing the Ontario government's agenda.
25.
Gerard Kennedy formally declared his candidacy in front of the House of Commons in Ottawa, on April 27,2006.
26.
Gerard Kennedy's resignation came after several weeks of criticism over drawing an MPP's salary, despite his absence from the legislature and his stated intention to live for part of the summer in Quebec.
27.
Gerard Kennedy responded saying that he intended to resign his seat "sooner rather than later," but first wanted to finish some local projects he'd been working on.
28.
The Toronto Star reported that Gerard Kennedy appeared to have signed up more new members than any other candidate during the member recruitment period.
29.
The article stated that it had been "conventional wisdom" that Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae were the leaders in the race but Gerard Kennedy's numbers indicated that it was a wide-open race.
30.
Gerard Kennedy was joined in that position later that day by fellow candidates Ken Dryden and Joe Volpe.
31.
Gerard Kennedy chose to leave the ballot before he would have been forced to, and supported Dion.
32.
Gerard Kennedy said that his duties as election readiness adviser ended in the summer of 2007, but he continued as a special adviser to Stephane Dion, appeared regularly as a strategist for the Liberals on television and was often quoted as a Liberal spokesman in newspapers.
33.
In late August 2007, Gerard Kennedy entered the academic world accepting a position at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University.
34.
Gerard Kennedy served a one-year term as a Distinguished Visiting Professor until September 2008.
35.
In late September 2007, Gerard Kennedy was part of a group observing Ukraine's parliamentary elections in the Mariupol electoral commission.
36.
Gerard Kennedy reported back to the Canadian media that the group he was a party to was confronted by Ukrainian police who stripped passports and observer statuses.
37.
Gerard Kennedy said that the police were interfering in the process, and the observer group felt intimidated by the police who carried weapons and followed the group around for a day.
38.
Gerard Kennedy concluded that there were major flaws in the voting process, as the group was witness to extra ballots being distributed.
39.
Gerard Kennedy won the nomination by acclamation on April 24,2007.
40.
On March 31,2008, although he was not a member of the House of Commons of Canada, Gerard Kennedy was appointed to the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet by leader Stephane Dion.
41.
Gerard Kennedy served as Intergovernmental Affairs critic, which gave him responsibility to speak on behalf of the Liberal Party on matters of federal-provincial relations.
42.
On September 17,2009, Gerard Kennedy tabled a private member's bill in the House of Commons.
43.
On November 12,2012, Gerard Kennedy announced that he was seeking the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party to replace Dalton McGuinty.
44.
At his campaign launch in London, Gerard Kennedy criticized the government's Bill 115 to ban teacher's strikes and freeze wages.
45.
Gerard Kennedy has gained the support of MPP's Bob Delaney, and Shafiq Qaadri.
46.
Gerard Kennedy had previously served as a consultant to the company while serving as a Member of Parliament.