www.northernlife.on.ca/News/LocalNews/2007/03-09-07-flo -
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Published on: 3/9/2007
Last Visited: 3/9/2007
Floyd Laughren inducted into Hall of Fame
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Floyd Laughren is one of the "players" who steered the community from a one-industry town dependent on mining into a diversified regional capital and centre for post-secondary education and health care in northeastern Ontario.
Laughren has served Greater Sudbury as an educator, a politician at Queen's Park for 27 years, a champion at times of unpopular causes, such as occupational health and safety, and as a community leader.
Once the second most powerful politician in Ontario, Laughren is humble and unassuming.Ask him about his career, which includes being deputy premier and finance minister from 1991 to 1995, and he delivers a curriculum vitae of just a few hundred words.
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In his 1996 book, from Protest to Power, Rae writes, "My choice was Floyd Laughren and this proved to be wise…He had a steady hand and always displayed a marvellous sense of humour.
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We had not always seen eye-to-eye on all issues-in the seventies Floyd had been a voice on the left of the party-but since my becoming leader he became a tremendous source of quiet support.He had an enormously difficult job in government, and he never wavered or flinched."
Characteristically, Laughren gives most of the credit to his staff and advisers at the time.
One of Laughren's first tastes of government responsiblity was on a trip to Japan where he represented the provincial government at Toronto's bid for the 1996 Olympics.The trip took place only days after the election."Pink Floyd" declared it would be the first Olympics with a social conscience by creating non-profit housing.Toronto lost the bid to Atlanta.
His former constituency assistant, Ian Wood, remembers, "On more than one occasion, Floyd was in New York or Paris one day, and sitting at a kitchen table in Chelmsford or Levack the next."
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Laughren says he remains disappointed that union leaders and their members could not understand the need for cost-reduction to save jobs during this difficult time.
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It is hard to go from power to a voice in the wilderness, but Laughren continued to serve his constituents in Nickel Belt for another term.
He retired in 1998, on the eve of another provincial election, moving aside for Valley East MPP Shelley Martel to run in Nickel Belt.Due to redistribution of electoral boundaries, Valley East and Nickel Belt became one riding.
During his last term, Laughren met a difficult foe with the same determination he used to tackle political opponents.He survived prostate cancer.
Continues to serve
He retired from politics, but not public service.Laughren was asked in 1998 to chair the Ontario Energy Board, the Crown corporation responsible for regulating natural gas and electricity utilities in Ontario.He served a three-year term.
Laughren has continued to serve people of the Sudbury Basin.He serves on the Laurentian University board of governors, is a director with the Community Savings Credit Union of Sudbury, and is a member of the advisory committee for the Sudbury Community Foundation.
In 2005, he chaired the United Way campaign, which raised more than $1.5 million, a record since the agency began in 1982.
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Most recently, Laughren was asked to serve his community again, and he said yes.He chaired the Greater Sudbury Community Solutions Team to find out and report on why citizens are unhappy about the amalgamation.
In 2001, Laughren received an honorary doctorate of laws from Laurentian University in recognition of his political service to the province.In 2002, he received Cambrian College's Fred Sheridan Award for his contributions to the community.
The Cambrian Foundation has established the Floyd Laughren Bursary for accounting and business students, and the Floyd Laughren/Justin Eves Foundation Special Needs Bursary.
Laughren and his wife, Jeanette, have three children to whom they have passed on their principles and beliefs in social activism.
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Recently Laughren told a reporter for Northern Ontario Business that he accomplished more in his career than he ever thought he would.
His colleague at Queen's Park, Jim Bradley, then MPP for St. Catharines, caught the true measure of the man when speaking in the legislature in 1996 to celebrate Laughren's 25th anniversary as an MPP, "There are no pretensions with Floyd Laughren; what you see is what you get."
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Laughren was finance minister with the NDP and almost bankrupted the province.His idea of spending our way out of a recession took years to fix under the Harris government.The fact is that other provinces out performed Ontario during his tenure as Finance minister.Regardless of the excuse of a recession.Lets not forget how Laughren, Martel, and Murdock were our representatives and drove Sunthetic out of our city.Killing 100's of high paying industrial jobs.And spin-off employment.
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Floyd Laughren inducted into Hall of Fame
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