John A. Gamble

Who was John A. Gamble?

John Albert Gamble was a far-right Canadian politician. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative in the 1979 federal election and re-elected in the 1980 election representing the riding of York North.

He was a candidate at the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention, but won only 17 votes. Gamble was known for his extreme anti-communist views. He became so unpopular that he was one of only two Progressive Conservative Members of Parliament to lose their seat in the 1984 general election, which produced a Progressive Conservative landslide, the largest majority in the history of the Canadian House of Commons. Bill Clarke of Vancouver Quadra was the other but he lost to Prime Minister John Turner who needed a seat in the House. Gamble was defeated by independent candidate Tony Roman, who was supported by Liberals dissatisfied with their candidate and Tories who wanted to defeat Gamble.

After failing to win a nomination as a Progressive Conservative candidate for the riding of Markham, Gamble ran as an independent in the 1988 election, winning less than five percent of the vote. On May 31, 1993, Gamble won the Reform Party's nomination in Don Valley West for the 1993 federal election, but was expelled by the party prior to the election because of his links to far-right extremists such as Paul Fromm, Ron Gostick, Wolfgang Droege and the Heritage Front.