Thomas Leonard Wells
Encyclopedia
Thomas Leonard Wells (May 2, 1930—October 11, 2000) was a politician in Ontario
, Canada
. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
from 1963 to 1985, and was a cabinet minister in the governments of John Robarts
and William Davis
. Wells was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party
.
Wells was born in Toronto
, and educated at Victoria College
and the University of Toronto
. Wells and Davis played on the University of Toronto's football
team at the same time, and were both members of the campus Progressive Conservative association. He worked as advertising manager for the Canadian Medical Association from 1960 to 1967. Wells also served on the Scarborough
Board of Education from 1957 to 1963, was its chair in 1961-62, and held a concurrent position on the Metropolitan Toronto School Board in 1962-63.
He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1963 provincial election
, winning a comfortable victory in Scarborough North. Wells served as a backbencher for three years, and was named a minister without portfolio
on November 24, 1966. He was re-elected with a reduced majority in the 1967 election
, defeating New Democratic Party candidate John Brewin
by 1,527 votes.
Wells was promoted to Minister of Health on August 13, 1969, and was responsible for introducing Medicare
to the province. In 1971, he was the only member of the Robarts cabinet to support Allan Lawrence's bid to succeed Robarts as Progressive Conservative Party leader and premier of Ontario. Lawrence lost to William Davis on the last ballot, by forty-four votes. When Davis succeeded Robarts as Premier of Ontario
on March 1, 1971, he named Wells as his Minister of Social and Family Services.
Wells was re-elected again in the 1971 election
, defeating Brewin for a second time by a greatly increased margin. He was promoted to Minister of Education on February 2, 1972, and retained this position until 1978. Shortly after his appointment, Wells permitted Ontario schoolchildren to watch the final game of the 1972 "Summit Series" ice hockey
tournament between Canada and the Soviet Union
from their classrooms. He defeated Liberal
challenger Gerry Phillips
by 2,677 votes in the 1975 election
, and was returned by a greater majority again in 1977
.
On August 16, 1978, Davis appointed Wells as his Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. He was also appointed as Government House Leader
in 1979. Both Wells and Davis were prominent supporters of Liberal
Prime Minister
Pierre Elliott Trudeau's plans to repatriate the Canadian Constitution, and were active in the negotiations that led to its adoption in 1982. Wells was personally re-elected with the largest plurality of his career in the 1981 election
.
On January 17, 1985, Davis appointed Wells as Ontario's agent-general in London
, UK
. Because of this appointment, he remained neutral in the Progressive Conservative Party's February 1985 leadership convention. He remained as agent-general until 1992, and then returned to Toronto. In 1992, he led Toronto's unsuccessful bid to host Expo '98
.
Wells died of cancer
at Toronto's Toronto's North York General Hospital in October 2000.
On February 23, 2005 the Toronto District School Board passed a motion moved by Scarborough-Rouge River School Trustee Noah Ng supported by the local school community to name the first school constructed by the Toronto District School Board after Thomas Leonard Wells. Thomas L. Wells Public School opened its doors for Junior Kindergarten to Grade Eight students on September 6, 2005. The school itself was honoured with an award in December 2005 by Canadian Architect Magazine.
A street within the Heathwood Community in Scarborugh near the intersection of Birchmount Road and Sanwood Boulevard has been named after Thomas Leonard Wells. Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt City Councillor Mike Del Grande, recommended the name of Tom Wells Crescent for the new housind sub-division which was approved by Scarborough and Toronto City Council. The naming of the street was done after the naming of Thomas L. Wells Public School.
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 1963 to 1985, and was a cabinet minister in the governments of John Robarts
John Robarts
John Parmenter Robarts, PC, CC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and statesman, and the 17th Premier of Ontario.-Early life:...
and William 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...
. Wells was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party
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...
.
Wells was born in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, and educated at Victoria College
Victoria College
Victoria College is or was the name of several institutions of secondary or higher education, including:* [Victoria College, Chulipuram], Sri Lanka* Victoria College, Alexandria, Egypt* Victoria College in Victoria, Texas...
and the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
. Wells and Davis played on the University of Toronto's football
Canadian football
Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...
team at the same time, and were both members of the campus Progressive Conservative association. He worked as advertising manager for the Canadian Medical Association from 1960 to 1967. Wells also served on the Scarborough
Scarborough, Ontario
Scarborough is a dissolved municipality within the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Geographically, it comprises the eastern part of Toronto. It is bordered on the south by Lake Ontario, on the west by Victoria Park Avenue, on the north by Steeles Avenue East, and on the east by the Rouge River...
Board of Education from 1957 to 1963, was its chair in 1961-62, and held a concurrent position on the Metropolitan Toronto School Board in 1962-63.
He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1963 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1963
The Ontario general election of 1963 was held on September 25, 1963, to elect the 108 members of the 27th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, winning a comfortable victory in Scarborough North. Wells served as a backbencher for three years, and was named a minister without portfolio
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...
on November 24, 1966. He was re-elected with a reduced majority in the 1967 election
Ontario general election, 1967
The Ontario general election of 1967 was held on October 17, 1967, to elect the 117 members of the 28th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, defeating New Democratic Party candidate John Brewin
John Brewin
John F. Brewin is a Canadian politician, who served as Member of Parliament for Victoria from 1988 to 1993. He is a member of the New Democratic Party, as was his father Andrew Brewin. He was married to Gretchen Brewin, who served concurrently as mayor of the city of Victoria...
by 1,527 votes.
Wells was promoted to Minister of Health on August 13, 1969, and was responsible for introducing Medicare
Medicare (Canada)
Medicare is the unofficial name for Canada's publicly funded universal health insurance system. The formal terminology for the insurance system is provided by the Canada Health Act and the health insurance legislation of the individual provinces and territories.Under the terms of the Canada Health...
to the province. In 1971, he was the only member of the Robarts cabinet to support Allan Lawrence's bid to succeed Robarts as Progressive Conservative Party leader and premier of Ontario. Lawrence lost to William Davis on the last ballot, by forty-four votes. When Davis succeeded Robarts as Premier of Ontario
Premier of Ontario
The Premier of Ontario is the first Minister of the Crown for the Canadian province of Ontario. The Premier is appointed as the province's head of government by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and presides over the Executive council, or Cabinet. The Executive Council Act The Premier of Ontario...
on March 1, 1971, he named Wells as his Minister of Social and Family Services.
Wells was re-elected again in the 1971 election
Ontario general election, 1971
The Ontario general election of 1971 was held on October 21, 1971, to elect the 117 members of the 29th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, defeating Brewin for a second time by a greatly increased margin. He was promoted to Minister of Education on February 2, 1972, and retained this position until 1978. Shortly after his appointment, Wells permitted Ontario schoolchildren to watch the final game of the 1972 "Summit Series" ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
tournament between Canada and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
from their classrooms. He defeated Liberal
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...
challenger Gerry Phillips
Gerry Phillips
Gerry Phillips was a politician in the riding of Scarborough—Agincourt which is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament, and served as a senior minister in the governments of Premier's Dalton McGuinty and David Peterson.-Early life:Phillips was...
by 2,677 votes in the 1975 election
Ontario general election, 1975
The Ontario general election of 1975 was held on September 18, 1975, to elect the 125 members of the 30th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, and was returned by a greater majority again in 1977
Ontario general election, 1977
The Ontario general election of 1977 was held on June 9, 1977, to elect the 125 members of the 31st Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
.
On August 16, 1978, Davis appointed Wells as his Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. He was also appointed as Government House Leader
Government House Leader (Ontario)
The Ontario Government House Leader is the provincial cabinet minister responsible for planning and managing the government's legislative program in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario...
in 1979. Both Wells and Davis were prominent supporters of 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...
Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
Pierre Elliott Trudeau's plans to repatriate the Canadian Constitution, and were active in the negotiations that led to its adoption in 1982. Wells was personally re-elected with the largest plurality of his career in the 1981 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....
.
On January 17, 1985, Davis appointed Wells as Ontario's agent-general in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Because of this appointment, he remained neutral in the Progressive Conservative Party's February 1985 leadership convention. He remained as agent-general until 1992, and then returned to Toronto. In 1992, he led Toronto's unsuccessful bid to host Expo '98
Expo '98
Expo '98 was an official specialised World's Fair held in Lisbon, Portugal from Friday, May 22 to Wednesday, September 30, 1998. The theme of the fair was "The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future," chosen in part to commemorate 500 years of Portuguese discoveries...
.
Wells died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at Toronto's Toronto's North York General Hospital in October 2000.
On February 23, 2005 the Toronto District School Board passed a motion moved by Scarborough-Rouge River School Trustee Noah Ng supported by the local school community to name the first school constructed by the Toronto District School Board after Thomas Leonard Wells. Thomas L. Wells Public School opened its doors for Junior Kindergarten to Grade Eight students on September 6, 2005. The school itself was honoured with an award in December 2005 by Canadian Architect Magazine.
A street within the Heathwood Community in Scarborugh near the intersection of Birchmount Road and Sanwood Boulevard has been named after Thomas Leonard Wells. Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt City Councillor Mike Del Grande, recommended the name of Tom Wells Crescent for the new housind sub-division which was approved by Scarborough and Toronto City Council. The naming of the street was done after the naming of Thomas L. Wells Public School.