Frank Sheehan

Frank Sheehan is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 1999.

Sheehan has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Windsor, and also has A.I.I.C. and C.I.B. certification. Before entering politics, he served as the president of Sheehan & Rosie, Investment Brokers and was the chairman and co-founder of the Wayside House and Wayside Community Residential Centre. Sheehan was also a co-founder of the right-wing Taxpayers Coalition of Ontario. In 1970, he was elected as a trustee to the Lincoln County Separate School Board.

Sheehan was elected to the legislature in the 1995 provincial election, defeating Liberal Harry Pelissero by about 8,000 votes in the southern Ontario riding of Lincoln (NDP incumbent Ron Hansen was third). For the next four years, he served as a backbencher support of Mike Harris's government.

In 1996, the Harris government reduced the number of ridings from 130 to 103. This meant that some sitting MPPs had to compete against one another for re-election in the 1999 provincial election. Sheehan faced popular NDP maverick Peter Kormos in the riding Niagara Centre, and lost by over 4,000 votes.

Sheehan was known as an outspoken politician, on the right-wing of his party. In 1997, he introduced a private member's bill to end close-shop unions in Ontario; this was defeated when some other PCs voted against it. After the election, Sheehan was appointed as co-chair of the Harris government's "Red Tape Commission", intended to reduce government waste.