Ross Harvey is a Canadian politician and former member of 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.

Biography

Harvey's background is in information and research. Prior to entering into a career in politics, he became a member of Spiny Norman's Whoopee Band in Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 while a university student there. Fellow bandmate and local celebrity Holger Petersen

Holger Petersen

Holger Petersen, CM is a Canadian businessman, record producer and radio broadcaster. He owns and operates the independent roots music label Stony Plain Records, and hosts the programs Saturday Night Blues on CBC Radio One and Natch'l Blues on the CKUA Radio Network. Petersen was a founder of the...

 called the band a "Monty Python

Monty Python

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

/Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

 kind of thing."

He worked as executive assistant to Alberta NDP leaders Grant Notley

Grant Notley

Walter Grant Notley was a provincial politician in Alberta, Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1971 to 1984 and also served as leader of the Alberta NDP from 1968 to 1984....

 and Ray Martin

Ray Martin (politician)

Raymond Martin is a politician in Alberta, Canada and former member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.Born in 1941 in Delia, Alberta, Martin attended the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity...

 between 1979 and 1986, and as caucus coordinator and research director for the 16-member NDP Official Opposition caucus elected to the Alberta Legislature in 1986.

He was elected 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 ....

 at the Edmonton East

Edmonton East

Edmonton East is a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1917.The district includes a portion of the city of Edmonton.-Geography:...

 electoral district

Electoral district

An electoral district is a distinct territorial subdivision for holding a separate election for one or more seats in a legislative body...

 for the New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

. He served in the 34th Canadian Parliament

34th Canadian Parliament

The 34th Canadian Parliament was in session from December 12, 1988 until September 8, 1993. The membership was set by the 1988 federal election on November 21, 1988, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was dissolved prior to the 1993 election.It was...

 but lost to Judy Bethel

Judy Bethel

Judith Claire Bethel was a member of the Canadian House of Commons for the Edmonton East electoral district from 1993 to 1997. Her career was in education and finance....

 of the Liberal Party

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...

 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...

. Among the issues he championed in the House of Commons were renewable energies and justice for the Lubicon Lake Cree nation. Until Linda Duncan

Linda Duncan

Linda Francis Duncan is a Canadian lawyer and politician, currently serving as a Member of Parliament for the riding of Edmonton—Strathcona in Alberta. She is a member of the New Democratic Party and, since 2008, she has been the only MP from an Alberta riding not a member of the Conservative Party...

's victory in the 2008 federal election

Canadian federal election, 2008

The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008...

, Harvey was the only member of the CCF or NDP ever elected to the Canadian House of Commons from Alberta.

After his 1993 defeat, he was elected leader of the Alberta New Democrats in February 1994, a position he resigned in September 1996.

He and his family (common-law spouse Deb Bowers and son Isaac Harvey) moved to British Columbia that same month, first spending nine months in Castlegar

Castlegar, British Columbia

Castlegar is the second largest city in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada. It is located within the Selkirk Mountains at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers. It is a regional trade and transportation centre, with a local economy fueled by forestry, mining and tourism...

, then moving permanently to Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. They re-located to Mission

Mission, British Columbia

Mission, the core of which was formerly known as Mission City, is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is situated on the north bank of the Fraser River overlooking the City of Abbotsford and with that city is part of the Central Fraser Valley. Mission is the...

, east of Vancouver, in 2007.

He has worked since July 1997 as executive director of the BC Persons With AIDS Society (renamed the Positive Living Society of British Columbia in March 2011). According to his entry for Who's Who 2008, he is a self-described socialist whose religion is physics.

External links