Reza Moridi was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2007 to 2018 who represented the riding of Richmond Hill.
24 Facts About Reza Moridi
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Reza Moridi served as a cabinet minister in the government of Kathleen Wynne.
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Reza Moridi was the first Iranian-Canadian elected to legislature and appointed as a Cabinet minister in Canada.
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Reza Moridi grew up in Urmia, attended Alborz High School in Tehran and graduated from Tehran University with BSc and MSc degrees in Physics.
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Reza Moridi continued his education in the UK and obtained MTech and PhD degrees from Brunel University in London.
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Reza Moridi received an Honorary Doctorate from Odlar Yurdu University, Baku, Azerbaijan.
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Reza Moridi has received numerous awards and recognitions for his extensive community and humanitarian work.
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Reza Moridi worked for 17 years at the Radiation Safety Institute of Canada where he was the Vice-President and Chief Scientist.
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Reza Moridi worked in the electrical industry as an executive and in academia as a professor and administrator.
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Reza Moridi ran as the Liberal candidate in the 2007 provincial election in the riding of Richmond Hill.
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Reza Moridi defeated Progressive Conservative Alex Yuan by 5,329 votes.
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Reza Moridi was defeated in the 2018 Provincial Election by Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament Daisy Wai.
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Reza Moridi intended to contest his former seat as a Member of Provincial Parliament for Richmond Hill in four years in 2018.
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Reza Moridi served as Chair of the Cabinet Committee on Education, Skills and Economy.
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In 2015, Reza Moridi launched modernization of the Ontario Students Assistance Program by making tuition free for students from low and middle income families and helped establish York University campus in Markham, e-Campus in Toronto and initiated the process of modernizing the university funding formula and the first ever stand-alone French language university in Ontario.
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Reza Moridi signed MOUs with countries such as China, Germany, Czech Republic, UK, Korea, Israel, Denmark, Turkey and Jordan.
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Since he left politics, Reza Moridi has been serving on the following volunteer positions:.
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In 2007, Reza Moridi "found himself stuck" in a $200,000 "slush fund" scandal that was dominating Ontario politics at the time.
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In January 2016, Reza Moridi was criticized for allowing two Ontario colleges to open satellite campuses in Saudi Arabia that only accepted male students.
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Reza Moridi said that administration of such places are up to each college's board of governors.
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In 2018, in a rally against the Iranian regime's crack down of protests in 95 cities in Iran, Reza Moridi quoted the Iranian people who had called death to the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani.
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Reza Moridi has been active in support of human rights in his homeland Iran.
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Reza Moridi advocated for the passing of the legislation in the House of Commons of Canada on June 5,2013, that proclaimed massacre of political prisoner in Iran by the order of Ayatollah Khomeini during the summer of 1988, was a crime against humanity.
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Reza Moridi introduced a petition that asked the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs to intervene on Saeed Malekpour's behalf and appeal to the government of Iran to free him.