Laura Albanese Politi (born September 11, 1957) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2007 to 2018 who represented the Toronto riding of York South—Weston. She served as a cabinet minister in the government of Kathleen Wynne. Prior to being elected, she worked as a news anchor for Italian language news programming on Omni Television working in Italian language programming.
Background
Albanese was born in Taranto, Italy, in 1957. In her youth, she moved back and forth between Canada and Italy. She settled in Canada in 1981 and has lived in York South-Weston ever since with her husband, artist Germinio Pio Politi. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.
Albanese worked in broadcast journalism spanning over two decades, from 1984 to 2007. She worked in Italian language programming at OMNI TV in a number of capacities. She was featured as Co-Anchor of OMNI News: Italian Edition, a one-hour daily Italian language newscast. She co-hosted Incontri with Vincenzo Somma. The show was an evening news show broadcast in the Italian language. Other shows that she worked on included Omni News: Italian Edition, Italianissimo, Telecorriere News, and Girotondo.
Politics
Albanese was nominated as the Liberal candidate for the February 8, 2007 provincial by-election in the riding of York South—Weston. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Joe Cordiano, who resigned his seat for personal reasons. The appointment of Albanese as the Liberal candidate was contested by David-Paul Sip, another potential candidate. Sip said that his candidacy was ignored by the riding association who wanted someone who would appeal to the riding's large Italian-speaking community. Sip launched a lawsuit against the Liberal party but Albanese remained as the Liberal candidate.
Albanese narrowly lost to Paul Ferreira of the New Democratic Party by 358 votes. Ferreira advocated raising the minimum wage from $8 to $10 which was opposed by the Liberal party. Voters were also angered by legislators who had recently given themselves a 25% pay increase. Eight months later Albanese was in a rematch with Ferreira in the 2007 provincial election. This time with a much larger voter turnout, Albanese edged Ferreira by 469 votes.
Albanese was appointed parliamentary assistant (PA) to the Minister of Culture, Aileen Carroll. Here she conducted an extensive Program Review on three specific cultural operating grants for Community Museums, Heritage and Public Libraries to modernize the formulas through which such grants are allocated.
During her first term as MPP, Albanese advocated for funding to build the Jane Street Hub a $6 Million investment toward building a new school for St. John the Evangelist, a major expansion at West Park Healthcare Centre with a push for a Community Benefits Agreement, full-day kindergarten, and introduced a Private Members Motion calling on the Province to embrace electrification and another calling on increased safety of residential neighbourhoods close to volatile fuels operations. She also introduced a Private Members Bill to eliminate the deduction of Old Age Security from workers compensation benefits.
Albanese was re-elected in the 2011 election.
In her second term she was appointed PA to the Minister of Labour where she prepared a report with recommendations to enhance Ontario's health and safety prevention capacity, by augmenting efforts to identify and reduce underground economic activities in the construction sector. This contributed to the implementation of Ontario's Integrated Health and Safety Strategy and the appointment of the province's first Chief Prevention Officer.
In February 2013, Albanese was appointed PA to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, Michael Chan, where she represented the Minister and promoted the ministry at various events, conferences and forums.
In 2013, when Kathleen Wynne took over as Premier, Albanese was appointed as Parliamentary Assistant to the Premier and also made Deputy Government Whip. In March 2014, she was also appointed as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing but this was cut short soon after as the minority government was poised to lose a confidence vote on their budget bill due to not having the support of the NDP “despite including so many spending measures designed to win NDP support”[]. Opting to go straight to the polls instead of waiting to be defeated in the legislature, Wynne triggered an unexpected election period on May 2, with election day set for June 12, 2014.