O’Toole, Erin (1973-…), served as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and of the official opposition, from 2020 to 2022. The official opposition is the party with the second most seats in Canada’s House of Commons. O’Toole also served as a Conservative member of Parliament (MP) in the House from 2012 to 2023.
Erin O’Toole was born in Montreal, Quebec, on Jan. 22, 1973. His family soon moved to Ontario, where he grew up in Port Perry and Bowmanville. In 1991, after graduating from high school, O’Toole joined the Canadian Armed Forces and enrolled at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. In 1995, he received a B.A. degree in history and political science and was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. During his time in the Air Force, O’Toole became a helicopter navigator and rose to the rank of captain.
In 2000, O’Toole left active military service and transferred to the reserves, where he served for three years. During this time, O’Toole also studied law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, receiving an LL.B. degree in 2003. He then worked as a corporate lawyer in Ontario for a number of years. In 2009, O’Toole helped found the True Patriot Love Foundation to assist military veterans and their families.
O’Toole was first elected as a federal member of Parliament in a 2012 by-election (special election to fill a vacant seat). From 2012 to 2023, he represented the riding (electoral district) of Durham, Ontario, in the Greater Toronto Area. His father, John O’Toole, represented Durham East, and then Durham, in Ontario’s Legislative Assembly from 1995 to 2014. From late 2013 to early 2015, Erin O’Toole served as parliamentary secretary to Canada’s minister of international trade in the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He then served as minister of veterans affairs for most of 2015, until the Conservative government was replaced by a Liberal one that November.
In 2017, O’Toole ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party, placing third. The winner, Andrew Scheer, made O’Toole shadow minister of foreign affairs. Shadow ministers are members of the official opposition who are assigned as critics of government ministers. In 2019, the Conservatives again placed second to the Liberals in a federal general election. Scheer then announced that he would resign as Conservative Party leader. O’Toole ran again for the leadership, and in August 2020 party members chose him to succeed Scheer. The Conservatives lost another general election in 2021. O’Toole continued to served as party leader until February 2022, when Conservative members of Parliament voted to remove him from that role. In 2023, O’Toole resigned from Parliament to work in private business.
