Karen Haslam

Karen Haslam (born April 19, 1946 in St. Catharines, Ontario) is a politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, and served as a junior minister in the government of Bob Rae. Later, she became the mayor of Stratford, Ontario.

Haslam was a teacher and librarian before entering public life. She was elected as a Rate Payer's trustee in Beaverbank, Nova Scotia in 1984, and as a school board trustee in Stratford in 1987.

She first ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1990 provincial election, and was elected over her Liberal opponent by almost 3,000 votes in the southwestern Ontario riding of Perth. The NDP under Rae won an unexpected majority government in this election, and Haslam was initially appointed as a Deputy Speaker. On July 31, 1991, she was promoted to cabinet as Minister of Culture and Communications.

Haslam's cabinet performance was criticized in some circles, particularly for her controversial management of the Art Gallery of Ontario. On February 3, 1993 she was demoted to the junior cabinet position of minister without portfolio responsible for Health, serving as an assistant to Minister of Health Ruth Grier.

She subsequently emerged as a prominent opponent of the Rae government's "Social Contract" austerity legislation, which revised labour contracts and mandated unpaid leave days for many provincial workers. After the government decided to move forward with the legislation, Haslam resigned her cabinet position on June 14, 1993. She was the only cabinet minister in the Rae government to resign on principle over this matter. Later, she joined with maverick NDP MPPs Peter Kormos and Mark Morrow and former New Democrat Dennis Drainville to vote against the legislation.

Haslam's decision won her the respect of many dissidents within the party. The NDP were defeated in the 1995 provincial election, and Haslam lost her own seat to Progressive Conservative Bert Johnson, but she managed a credible second-place finish in a riding where the NDP had little historical support. She has not sought re-election to the provincial legislature since this time.

In 1999, Haslam led Canadian Union of Public Employees workers in Stratford through a protracted strike in the city. The following year, she scored an upset victory over incumbent Dave Hunt for mayor of the city, winning by 6305 votes to 4228. She was resoundingly defeated in 2003 in her bid for re-election, however, winning only 12% of the popular vote against two other prominent opponents. (This does not appear to have been a backlash against the NDP, given that Sam Dinicol, a federal New Democratic Party candidate in 2003, topped the city's at-large poll for councillors.)

In October 2005, Haslam took on the position of Provincial Secretary of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party. She subsequently resigned in March 2006.