David Peterson

David Peterson secured the first Liberal Party majority government in Ontario in over forty years during the 1987 provincial election. He took office as Premier in 1985 after negotiating a landmark accord with the New Democratic Party, ending forty-two years of Progressive Conservative rule. His government from 1985 to 1990 enacted 122 bills, including pioneering pay equity legislation, expanding public health care, and establishing the Legal Aid Ontario system. Peterson championed constitutional reform as a principal in the 1987 Meech Lake Accord negotiations. His tenure is often narrowly remembered for its abrupt end in 1990; the broader legacy is a modernized, socially progressive statute book. Peterson shifted Ontario's political center and institutionalized reforms in human rights and access to justice. His model of accord politics continues to influence Canadian minority governments.