Arnold Peters

Who was Arnold Peters?

William Arnold Peters was a Canadian politician. He represented the riding of Timiskaming in the Canadian House of Commons from 1957 to 1980. He was originally elected as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which became the New Democratic Party in 1961.

Peters, a hard rock miner and union organizer, served in the 124th Ferry Squadron in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. He also ran in the 1953 election against Karl Eyre in the Timmins riding, but was not elected.

In Parliament, Peters and his caucus colleague Frank Howard were responsible for reforming Canada's divorce laws. In many provinces, divorce proceedings once had to be presented to Parliament for approval; Peters and Howard tried to show the ridiculousness of this by reading each divorce petition into the Commons record in great detail. Peters was also active in prison reform, and regularly lobbied for fairer treatment of non-unionized government employees.

In the 1980 election, Peters was defeated by Liberal candidate Bruce Lonsdale. Lonsdale died in office just two years later; Peters ran again in the resulting by-election, but was not re-elected.