Kenneth Ross Stevenson is a former politician in Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...

 from 1981 to 1987, and was briefly a cabinet minister in the government of Frank Miller

Frank Miller (politician)

Frank Stuart Miller, was a Canadian politician, who served as the 19th Premier of Ontario for four months in 1985.-Early life and political career:...

. He later served in the Canadian House of Commons

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

 from 1988 to 1993. Stevenson was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party

Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....

.

Stevenson was born in Lindsay

Lindsay, Ontario

Lindsay is a community of 19,361 people on the Scugog River in the Kawartha Lakes region of south-eastern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately west of Peterborough...

, Ontario. He was educated at the University of Guelph

University of Guelph

The University of Guelph, also known as U of G, is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College...

 and Iowa State University

Iowa State University

Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...

, earning a Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

. He worked as a farmer, and was a professor at the University of Guelph before entering provincial politics.

He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1981 provincial election

Ontario general election, 1981

The Ontario general election of 1981 was held on March 19, 1981, to elect members of the 32nd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

, winning an easy victory in Durham—York

Durham—York

Durham—York was a provincial electoral district in northern Durham Region and York Region in Ontario, Canada that elected members to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario...

. For the next four years, he served as a backbench supporter of the provincial Progressive Conservative

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...

 administrations led by Bill Davis

Bill Davis

William Grenville "Bill" Davis, was the 18th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1971 to 1985. Davis was first elected as the MPP for Peel in the 1959 provincial election where he was a backbencher in Leslie Frost's government. Under John Robarts, he was a cabinet minister overseeing the education...

 and Frank Miller. He was re-elected in the 1985 election

Ontario general election, 1985

The Ontario general election of 1985 was held on May 2, 1985, to elect members of the 33rd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada...

, in which the PCs under Miller were reduced to an unstable minority government

Minority government

A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...

. Stevenson was named Minister of Agriculture and Food on May 17, 1985, but accomplished little in this portfolio before Miller's government was defeated in the legislature. He formally resigned from cabinet on June 26.

In opposition, Stevenson served as his party's critic for Agriculture and Food. He was defeated in the 1987 election

Ontario general election, 1987

The Ontario general election of 1987 was held on September 10, 1987, to elect members of the 34th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.The governing Ontario Liberal Party, led by David Peterson, was returned to power with a large majority...

, losing to Liberal Party

Ontario Liberal Party

The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...

 candidate Bill Ballinger

Bill Ballinger

William George Ballinger is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1987 to 1990....

 by 482 votes.

He then turned to federal politics, and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons for Durham

Durham (electoral district)

Durham is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1968, and since 1988....

 in the 1988 federal election

Canadian federal election, 1988

The Canadian federal election of 1988 was held November 21, 1988, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 34th Parliament of Canada. It was an election largely fought on a single issue: the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement ....

. He served as a backbench supporter of the Brian Mulroney

Brian Mulroney

Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...

 and Kim Campbell

Kim Campbell

Avril Phædra Douglas "Kim" Campbell, is a Canadian politician, lawyer, university professor, diplomat, and writer. She served as the 19th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 25, 1993, to November 4, 1993...

 administrations over the next five years. The Progressive Conservatives were badly defeated in the 1993 federal election

Canadian federal election, 1993

The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time...

, and Stevenson finished third in his bid for re-election behind Liberal

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 candidate Alex Shepherd

Alex Shepherd

Alexander James Shepherd was a member of the Canadian House of Commons from 1993 to 2004.Shepherd was a Chartered Accountant based in Port Perry, Ontario when he became the Liberal party candidate for Durham electoral district in the 1993 general election...

.

Stevenson later became director of strategic programs at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. In 2003, he supported the federal Progressive Conservative Party's merger with the Canadian Alliance

Canadian Alliance

The Canadian Alliance , formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance , was a Canadian conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003. The party was the successor to the Reform Party of Canada and inherited its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons and held...

 to create the Conservative Party of Canada

Conservative Party of Canada

The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...

.