Floyd Laughren

Floyd Laughren (born October 3, 1935 in Shawville, Quebec) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He sat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1971 to 1998 as a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party, and served as Finance Minister and Deputy Premier in the government of Bob Rae.

Laughren's childhood was far removed from the corridors of financial power. His hometown of Shawville was low-income and culturally isolated, rigidly anglophone and Protestant working-class in a francophone region. Laughren's father, a farm labourer, was said to have been illiterate.

Laughren was educated at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and York University. Before entering politics, he taught Economics at Cambrian College in Sudbury.

Laughren was first elected to the Ontario legislature in the provincial election of 1971, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent Gaston Demers by just under 2,000 votes in the Sudbury-area riding of Nickel Belt. He was re-elected without difficulty in the elections of 1975, 1977, 1981, 1985, 1987 and 1990.

Laughren was from left-wing of the party, and supported Richard Johnston for the party's leadership in 1982. He was not initially an ally of Bob Rae, and was also a frequent rival of fellow Northern Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Bud Wildman for key shadow cabinet postings.

According to journalist Thomas Walkom, Laughren was planning to retire from politics before the 1990 campaign, and only ran again because the election was called before he could coordinate his departure. The NDP unexpectedly won a majority government, and Laughren was sworn in as Finance Minister and Deputy Premier on October 1, 1990.

As Finance Minister, Laughren was frequently criticized for presiding over a series of budget deficits (his 1991 budget proclaimed a deficit of almost ten billion dollars) without significant job creation. Laughren's defenders have noted that much of North America was mired in a significant recession during this period, and that the outgoing Liberal government of David Peterson significantly under-estimated expenditure costs in 1990. It has also been noted that Laughren's budgets after 1991 were generally focused on deficit-cutting measures.

Despite his previous reputation for being on the left-wing of the party, Laughren emerged as a proponent of austerity measures and generally centrist policies during his time in government. He also became known as Bob Rae's closest ally in cabinet, notwithstanding their previous differences. Along with Rae, he supported the party's withdrawal from an earlier pledge to introduce public automobile insurance in the province in 1991. He also approved the introduction of casinos to the province, and was a leading proponent of the Social Contract in 1993.

As the province's first socialist Finance Minister, Laughren was nicknamed "Pink Floyd" by the right-wing Sun Media tabloid newspapers. When Liberal Robert Nixon retired from the legislature in 1992, Laughren became its longest-serving member.

The NDP government was defeated in the 1995 provincial election, although Laughren was able to retain Nickel Belt with a somewhat reduced majority. In 1996, he was the only New Democratic MPP from northern Ontario to support Frances Lankin's unsuccessful bid to replace Rae as party leader.

He retired in 1998, accepting an appointment from the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris to chair the Ontario Energy Board. In the byelection that followed Laughren's departure from the legislature, Blain Morin retained Nickel Belt for the NDP.

Laughren now sits on the Board of Governors for Laurentian University. In 2001, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from that institution. In 2006, he was appointed by Greater Sudbury mayor David Courtemanche to chair an advisory committee to review and recommend improvements to city services in the five-year-old amalgamated city.