Richard Allen (politician)

Richard Alexander Allen (born February 10, 1929 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is an historian and former politician in Ontario, Canada. He sat as a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1982 to 1995, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae.

Allen has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto, a Master's Degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. from Duke University. He was a professor at the University of Regina from 1964 to 1974, and at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario from 1974 to 1987.

Prior to entering political life, Allen was best known as an historian of Christian socialism within Canada. In 1971, he published a work entitled "The Social Passion", chronicling the history of the Canadian social gospel in the early twentieth century. This work focused primarily on western Canada, and contained detailed assessments of Canada's Labour Church movement as well as the political careers of socialist ministers such as J.S. Woodsworth, William Ivens and William Irvine.

Allen's most significant argument in "The Social Passion" is that the 1918 statement of Canada's Methodist General Conference (which called for a "new social order", opposed profiteering in industry, and advised direct state investment) was the most radical document released by a major social movement in Canada before the Regina Manifesto of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in 1933. As of 2005, "The Social Passion" is still considered the most comprehensive overview of the social gospel within Canada.

In addition to "The Social Passion", Allen has published "Region of the Mind: Interpreting the Western Canadian Plains" (1973), "Religion and society in the prairie west" (1975) and "Man and Nature on the Prairie" (1976), and was the editor of a collection entitled "The Social Gospel in Canada" (1975). He has also written several articles on Salem Bland, a prominent Canadian Christian socialist from the early twentieth century.

Allen was first elected to the Ontario legislature in a by-election held on June 17, 1982, replacing former Liberal leader Stuart Smith as the Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Hamilton West. He was re-elected over Liberal Paul Hanover by 450 votes in the 1985 provincial election, and defeated Liberal Mary Kiss by 1,096 votes in the provincial election of 1987.

In 1983, Allen introduced a private member's bill which would have made Ontario a nuclear-free zone. A member of l'Association interparlementaire de langue francaise, Allen was also a vocal supporter of the Meech Lake Accord, and criticized Elijah Harper for his role in the Accord's 1990 defeat.

The NDP unexpectedly won the provincial election of 1990. Given his academic background, Allen was appointed Minister of Colleges and Universities and Minister of Skills Development on October 1, 1990. He did not play a major role in cabinet, and was demoted to minister without portfolio responsible for Economic Development and International Trade on February 3, 1993. On August 22, 1994, he was re-appointed to a full cabinet position as Minister of Housing.

The NDP were defeated in the provincial election of 1995, and Allen lost the Hamilton West riding to Progressive Conservative Lillian Ross by over 4,000 votes.

In 2002-2003, Allen supported Bill Blaikie for the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party.

Publications

*"The Social Passion", 1971
*"Region of the Mind: Interpreting the Western Canadian Plains", 1973
*"Religion and society in the prairie west", 1975
*"Man and Nature on the Prairie", 1976
*"The Social Gospel in Canada" (editor), 1975