1. Jerahmiel Samson "Jerry" Grafstein was born on January 2,1935 and is a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and retied politician who served as a Canadian senator from Ontario from 1984 to 2010.
60 Facts About Jerry Grafstein
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Jerry Grafstein served as co-chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group and as a senior officer of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly for over a decade.
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Jerry Grafstein is a former partner of Minden Gross LLP, a business law firm in Toronto, Ontario.
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Jerry Grafstein is known as one of the founders of CityTV, MTV-Multilingual, YTV, and a series of other media companies in Canada, the United States, South America, and Europe.
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Jerry Grafstein served on the board of several enterprises, including Petro-Canada.
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Jerry Grafstein holds numerous awards, including honorary chief of the New York City Fire Department and honorary commandant of the US Marine Corps by the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group.
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Jerry Grafstein was named one of Canada's 100 most important "public intellectuals" in 2005 by the National Post.
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Jerry Grafstein's father came to Canada in 1927 after he had served in the Polish Army during the First World War and then the Polish-Soviet War.
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Jerry Grafstein married in 1930 in Toronto and settled in London that year.
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Jerry Grafstein was raised in London and attended public primary and high schools.
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Jerry Grafstein was active in sports, school governance, and acting and served as an officer in the Army Cadets.
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Jerry Grafstein completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario in 1955, where was active in debates and acted in local theatre and musicals.
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Jerry Grafstein graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1955 and from the University of Toronto Law School in 1958.
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Jerry Grafstein was admitted to the Bar of Ontario in 1960.
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Jerry Grafstein was a member of the Bar of North West Territories for almost a decade in the 1970s and early 1980s.
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Jerry Grafstein lectured in commercial law and later instructed in the Bar Admissions Course at Osgoode Hall Law School.
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Jerry Grafstein has given lectures to law students on the role of lawyers in civil society.
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Jerry Grafstein is a former partner of Minden Gross LLP, a business law firm in Toronto in communications law, corporate financing and administrative law.
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Jerry Grafstein served as chairman of the Media and Communications Law subsection of the Canadian and Ontario Bar Associations.
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Jerry Grafstein was appointed Queen's Counsel by the province of Ontario in 1972.
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Jerry Grafstein was active in federal, provincial, and municipal elections for over four decades.
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Jerry Grafstein has taken a leading role in mayoralty elections in Toronto since 1960.
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Jerry Grafstein served as advisor to the Ministry of Transport and the Canadian International Development Agency of the Department of External Affairs and as a member of the Department of Justice Advisory Committee.
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Jerry Grafstein was elected vice-chair of the Toronto Liberal Caucus and served for over two decades.
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Jerry Grafstein was the longest serving member of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, served on the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, and served from time to time on all Senate committees, including Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
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Jerry Grafstein was a chairman of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce.
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Jerry Grafstein initiated the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce special studies on hedge funds and Canada's interprovincial trade barriers.
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Jerry Grafstein was a member of the Special Joint Senate and Commons Committee on a Review of Canada's Foreign Policy.
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Jerry Grafstein has long advocated national standards for clean drinking water and introduced numerous private member's bills on mapping and safeguarding Canada's fresh water resources.
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Jerry Grafstein was the longest serving co-chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group for 15 years.
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Jerry Grafstein introduced numerous resolutions and a private member's bill to establish a national portrait gallery in Ottawa, co-sponsored a private member's bill in the Senate establishing Holocaust Memorial Day in Canada in 1998, and introduced a private member's bill that established the Parliamentary Poet Laureate in 2001.
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Jerry Grafstein introduced a private member's bill to amend the Criminal Code for the explicit inclusion of "suicide bombing" as a definition of terrorism, which became part of the Canadian Criminal Code in 2011.
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In July 2007, Jerry Grafstein was elected vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the world's largest parliamentary organization dedicated to human rights, democratic rights, economic security and co-operation, and served as president of the Liberal, Democratic Reform Group there for a decade.
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Jerry Grafstein served as vice chair and chair of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and the Environment.
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Jerry Grafstein co-chaired Middle East Economic Partnership forums held throughout Europe and across the Mediterranean.
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Jerry Grafstein served on many Parliamentary Friendship Groups in Europe, Asia, North Africa and South America.
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Jerry Grafstein served as a member of the International Political Committee for Co-existence between Muslims and Jews.
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Jerry Grafstein co-sponsored numerous successful resolutions at the OSCE PA meetings across Western and Eastern Europe against racism and antisemitism.
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Jerry Grafstein is currently first vice-president of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians.
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Jerry Grafstein had wide-ranging legal and business experience in all aspects of media, including television, cable, radio, telephony, telecommunications microwave, high speed wireless data transmission, advertising, production, distribution, publishing, and financing.
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Jerry Grafstein co-founded one of the longest private microwave companies in Canada that ran from Windsor to Toronto to mid-Northern Ontario, Canbras Communications Corporation, ; and Multivision Communications Corp.
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Jerry Grafstein served on the board of Ukraine Enterprise Corporation, which made early investments in Ukraine.
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Jerry Grafstein was a lead director of Toronto Life Publishing Company Limited, which published Toronto Life and Toronto Life Fashion, two of Canada's leading lifestyle and fashion magazines, and co-founded Toronto Life Fashion File, which is seen on television around the world.
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Jerry Grafstein served on the board of the Shaw Festival, the planning committee of the Stratford Festival, and the Festival of Festivals.
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For over a decade, Jerry Grafstein served on the Board of the League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith and the Joint Community Relations Committee of Toronto in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Jerry Grafstein served as co-chairman of Toronto Committee for the Group of Seven Economic Summit in Toronto in 1988.
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Jerry Grafstein served as a member of the executive for the Toronto 1996 and 2008 Olympic Bid Committees.
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The Jerry Grafstein Lecture is hosted by the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the Faculty of Law.
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In 2001, Jerry Grafstein was given the War Chief's tomahawk of the Northern Peigan Tribe of Alberta for advancing the cause of clean drinking water on First Nations' Reserves across Canada.
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In December 2004, Jerry Grafstein co-organized "Canada for Asia", a three-hour broadcast telethon in aid of relief for tsunami victims that raised over $15,000,000.
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In 1992, Jerry Grafstein was the recipient of the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal.
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In 2002, Jerry Grafstein was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.
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In 2003, Jerry Grafstein was honoured by the Canadian Society of New York for his dedication to strengthening ties between Canada and the United States.
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On July 7,2014, Jerry Grafstein was honoured by Chief Ron Cooper of the Mohawk Nation and presented with a handcrafted lacrosse stick.
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Jerry Grafstein is the president and chairman of the National Board for the Canadian Friends of the Tel Aviv University and a governor of Tel Aviv University.
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Jerry Grafstein has written numerous articles and delivered papers on broadcasting regulations; communications; computers; travel; international relations; technology; transportation, politics; international trade; and constitutional matters in Canada, the United States, and Europe.
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Jerry Grafstein has written articles on key aspects of the public life of Winston Churchill.
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Jerry Grafstein co-authored his third book, The Passage Through Parliament to Establish Holocaust Memorial Day, in Canada in 2004.
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Jerry Grafstein is married to Carole, a community activist, a volunteer leader, a leading fundraiser for cancer research across Canada, and a member of the Order of Canada.
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Laurence Jerry Grafstein was a Rhodes Scholar and president of the Oxford Union and is a New York investment banker married to Rebecca from Winnipeg, a member of the Ontario and New York Bars.