61 Facts About Kathleen Wynne

Kathleen O'Day Wynne is a Canadian former politician who served as the 25th premier of Ontario and leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from 2013 to 2018.

Kathleen Wynne was member of provincial parliament for Don Valley West from 2003 to 2022.

Kathleen Wynne was first elected to public office as a trustee for the Toronto District School Board in 2000.

Kathleen Wynne subsequently was elected to the Ontario Legislature in 2003.

Kathleen Wynne replaced McGuinty as premier and leader of the Liberal Party upon her victory of the leadership, and subsequently led the party to a majority government victory in the 2014 Ontario provincial election.

Kathleen Wynne sought another mandate in the 2018 provincial election she conceded midway into the election and acknowledged her party would not form government again.

Kathleen Wynne subsequently resigned as Liberal leader on election night and was succeeded by Ottawa South MPP John Fraser as interim party leader.

Kathleen Wynne held her seat in the Legislative Assembly and continued to sit as an MPP until 2022, when she did not contest the provincial election and retired from politics.

Kathleen O'Day Wynne was born on May 21,1953, in Richmond Hill, to Dr John B Wynne and Patsy O'Day.

Kathleen Wynne's mother was a musician who grew up in Nassau in the Bahamas before immigrating to Canada.

Kathleen Wynne earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Queen's University and a Master of Arts degree in linguistics from the University of Toronto.

Kathleen Wynne achieved a Master of Education degree in adult education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Kathleen Wynne was a member of the discipline committee of the Ontario Society of Psychotherapists from 1997 to 2000.

Kathleen Wynne served as president of the Toronto Institute of Human Relations.

Kathleen Wynne founded the Metro Parent Network which supports improvements in the province's public education system and has participated in numerous other community endeavours.

Kathleen Wynne first ran for trustee in 1994 in ward 12 but was defeated by Ann Vanstone.

Kathleen Wynne strongly opposed cuts to public education mandated by the Progressive Conservative government.

In 2001, Kathleen Wynne helped pass a measure encouraging public schools to purchase teaching materials reflecting the presence of gay and lesbian parents in modern society.

Kathleen Wynne was a co-founder with John Sewell of Citizens for Local Democracy, a grassroots group that opposed the 1999 amalgamation of the old City of Toronto with the rest of Metropolitan Toronto.

Kathleen Wynne attempted to enter provincial politics on the strength of her grassroots work and sought the Liberal nomination in St Paul's for the 1999 provincial election but was defeated for the party nomination by Michael Bryant by a margin of 328 votes to 143.

Kathleen Wynne was elected to the school board the following year, and in 2003, became the Liberal nominee in Don Valley West.

The Liberals won the election, and Kathleen Wynne was appointed parliamentary assistant to Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Mary Anne Chambers, in October 2003.

Kathleen Wynne was the province's first openly lesbian cabinet minister and only the second openly LGBT cabinet minister after Deputy Premier George Smitherman.

On November 2,2012, Kathleen Wynne resigned her cabinet post and three days later launched her bid for the leadership of the party.

Kathleen Wynne was seen as having the strongest on-the-ground organization among the seven candidates, and along with former MPP Sandra Pupatello, and was one of the front runners.

Kathleen Wynne had the most supporters running to be delegates at the convention, with 1,533, and was the only candidate to have supporters in place in all 107 of the province's ridings.

Kathleen Wynne was sworn in as premier of Ontario on February 11,2013, becoming the province's first female premier, and the first premier in Canada to be openly gay.

Opposition parties accused Kathleen Wynne of having a role in the McGuinty government's costly decision to cancel the construction of gas plants in Mississauga and North-East Oakville in 2011, when she was co-chair of the Liberal campaign.

Kathleen Wynne denied that she was involved in the gas plant meetings or in the decision to cancel the plants, and asked the auditor general to investigate the cost of cancelling the plants.

Kathleen Wynne apologized, vowing to ensure that "this doesn't happen again".

Kathleen Wynne called for the release of all documents related to the decision to the legislature's Justice Committee, and agreed to testify before the committee, while continuing to deny that she was involved in the decision to cancel the plants.

On March 24,2014, Kathleen Wynne introduced a piece of legislation called the Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act, which implemented a wide range of new measures designed to increase government accountability and transparency.

In 2016, Kathleen Wynne decided to sell 30 percent of Hydro One, an electric utility Crown corporation, to private owners.

Kathleen Wynne used approximately four billion dollars of the nine billion dollars which the shares were sold for to pay off government debt before the next election, and the other five billion dollars to the Trillium Trust to improve transit lines and to build infrastructure.

Kathleen Wynne faced major backlash for the privatization of Hydro One.

Kathleen Wynne immediately started new collective bargaining negotiations with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario after a year of labour distress that had culminated in the Putting Students First Act, 2012, which had suspended collective bargaining rights, imposed contracts on teachers and suspended the right to strike.

Kathleen Wynne established the Premier's Youth Advisory Council to advise the premier on issues facing youth.

On January 30,2014, Kathleen Wynne announced her government increased the minimum wage from $10.25 to $11 after four years of freeze on the rate and introduced legislation to ensure future increases to the minimum wage to keep up with the CPI.

Kathleen Wynne announced a partnership with Cisco Canada that would create 1,700 new jobs.

Between late October and early November 2014, Kathleen Wynne went on a trade mission to China along with other provincial premiers.

On May 1,2014, the Kathleen Wynne government handed down its budget, which was described as "NDP-friendly" by many pundits.

The day after the budget was read, Kathleen Wynne went to the lieutenant governor to dissolve the Legislature and trigger an election, rather than wait for her budget to be voted down on the floor of the Legislature.

The NDP's slow start and public internal rift over the party's decision to reject Kathleen Wynne's budget coupled with the unpopularity of Hudak's 100,000 job cut pledge helped Kathleen Wynne throughout the campaign.

Kathleen Wynne began to eat away at the NDP's traditional left-wing support, especially in and around Toronto, and the controversies over some of Hudak's economic policies hurt him among centrist voters across the province.

Furthermore, Kathleen Wynne ran hard near the end of the campaign on the premise that in a close election, the Liberals were the only party who were in a position to defeat the PCs.

Kathleen Wynne's Liberals were only endorsed by one major newspaper, the Toronto Star, while most other news organizations endorsed the Hudak PCs.

On election day, Kathleen Wynne's Liberals led province-wide all night as they captured a fourth term in office, and moved from minority to majority government.

Kathleen Wynne put transit expansion front and centre in the budget.

On May 26,2015, Kathleen Wynne announced that the provincial government would fund 100 percent of the costs to build a LRT system in Hamilton.

Kathleen Wynne announced that $1 billion would be allocated for the project, with construction slated to get underway in 2019.

Kathleen Wynne announced the extension of the Lakeshore GO Line from downtown Hamilton to a new station at Centennial Parkway in Stoney Creek.

Kathleen Wynne's Liberals enjoyed 25 percent support, slightly ahead of the provincial New Democrats at 23 percent.

Kathleen Wynne has faced negativity on social media outlets, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Kathleen Wynne accepted his apology via an interview with the Toronto Star.

In March 2018, Kathleen Wynne's government cancelled incentives for electric vehicles costing more than $75,000.

Kathleen Wynne planned to increase the minimum wage to $15 the following year.

Also from January 1,2018, Kathleen Wynne made prescription drugs free for people aged 24 and under.

Kathleen Wynne's Liberals headed into the 2018 provincial election campaign trailing far behind the PCs, led by former Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford.

Towards the end of the election, Kathleen Wynne pledged to recall the legislature in order to legislate striking graduate students at York University back to work, which NDP leader Andrea Horwath stated was a violation of the students' constitutional rights.

Kathleen Wynne announced her resignation as Liberal Party leader on election night.

On October 20,2020, Kathleen Wynne announced that she will not be a candidate in the 43rd Ontario general election scheduled for 2022.