Michael Breaugh

Breaugh was one of four sons of Thomas Breaugh and Marion Rush; his brothers were Harold, Patrick, and Tom. He was educated at Peterborough Teachers' College, Queen's University, and the University of Toronto. A teacher by training, he served as an executive of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association.

He was first elected to public office in the 1975 Ontario election.{{cite news |title=Table of vote results for all Ontario ridings |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=September 19, 1975 |page=C12}} A New Democrat, he won an easy victory in the working-class riding of Oshawa, while the NDP became the principal legislative opposition to the long-established Progressive Conservative government. He was re-elected in the 1977 election.{{cite news |title=Ontario provincial election results riding by riding |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=June 10, 1977 |page=D9}}

The NDP had seemed poised for an electoral breakthrough in 1977, but instead fell from second to third-place status in the legislature. When Stephen Lewis stepped down as Ontario NDP leader in 1978, Breaugh ran to succeed him. He received 499 votes at the 1978 NDP leadership convention, finishing a strong third in a field of three candidates. Most of his supporters went to Michael Cassidy rather than presumed frontrunner Ian Deans on the second ballot, giving Cassidy a narrow victory.{{cite news |title=Late-peaking momentum overcomes Deans Cassidy succeeds Lewis as Ontario NDP leader |last=Johnson |first=Arthur |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=February 6, 1978 |page=P1}}

Breaugh was re-elected in the 1981 election, though by a narrower margin than before.{{cite news|author=Canadian Press |title=Winds of change, sea of security |newspaper=The Windsor Star |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0NtYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QlIMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1444%2C1388326 |date=1981-03-20 |location=Windsor, Ontario |page=22 |accessdate=2014-04-01}}

Breaugh had a poor relationship with Bob Rae, who succeeded Cassidy as party leader in 1982. The NDP experienced a modest recovery under Rae in the 1985 provincial election, and Breaugh was again re-elected by a significant margin in Oshawa.{{cite news |title=Results of vote in Ontario election |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=May 3, 1985 |page=13}} In the 1987 election, he defeated Liberal candidate Cathy O'Flynn by the reduced margin of 2,916 votes as the Liberals won a landslide provincial majority.{{cite news |title=Results from individual ridings |newspaper=The Windsor Star |date=September 11, 1987 |page=F2}}

Breaugh often clashed with Rae in the 1980s, criticising his leadership. In 1990, he left Queen's Park and ran for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, in a by-election called in the federal Oshawa riding to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of former federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Breaugh again defeated O'Flynn, now running for the Liberal Party of Canada, to win the by-election, which was held on August 13, a month before the 1990 Ontario election that brought Rae's NDP to power.{{cite news |title=NDP easily retains Ed Broadbent's seat |first=Mike |last=Trickey |newspaper=Edmonton Journal |date=August 14, 1990 |page=A3}}

Rae's government was largely responsible for Breaugh's defeat at the polls in 1993. The provincial NDP had by this time lost much of its support from organized labour, through austerity legislation known as the Social Contract. This had a detrimental effect on the federal NDP, which lost all ten of its Ontario seats in the 1993 federal election. Breaugh was unseated being reduced to a fourth-place finish in Oshawa, where the local branch of the Canadian Auto Workers had previously disaffiliated from the NDP.{{cite news |title=Results may be more complete than as published Riding-by-riding results from across Canada Ontario Algoma |newspaper=Toronto Star |date=October 26, 1993 |page=B10}}

He supported Howard Hampton as leader of the Ontario NDP in 1996.{{cite news |title=Workers need voice on pensions, MPP says |last=Lee |first=Prokaska |newspaper=The Spectator |location=Hamilton, Ont |date=June 21, 1996 |page=A9}}

Breaugh died on November 22, 2019.{{cite web|url=https://www.durhamradionews.com/archives/123024 |title=Longtime Oshawa MP and MPP Michael Breaugh dead at 78 |publisher=Durham Radio News |date= |accessdate=2019-11-26}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Ontario MPP biography|id=michael-james-breaugh}}
• {{Canadian Parliament links|ID=8940}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breaugh, Michael}}

Category:1942 births

Category:2019 deaths

Category:Canadian Roman Catholics

Category:Canadian schoolteachers

Category:Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario

Category:New Democratic Party MPs

Category:Ontario New Democratic Party MPPs

Category:Oshawa city councillors

Category:Politicians from Kingston, Ontario

Category:University of Toronto alumni

Category:20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada

Category:20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario