Heward Grafftey - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

Grafftey was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1958 general election that elected John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative Party in a landslide victory. A resident of the Eastern Townships, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Brome—Missisquoi from 1958 to 1968. From 1962 to 1963, Grafftey served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. Due to his relatively short stature and impish looks, Grafftey earned the nickname of "The Gnome from Brome," during his twenty years in politics.

In the 1964 Great Flag Debate, he was one of a handful of Conservative MPs who broke with leader John Diefenbaker to support the adoption of the Maple Leaf flag. Grafftey sat as a Tory MP until losing his seat in the 1968 Trudeau landslide. During this period, he called for radical reforms to Canada's housing policies.

Grafftey returned to Parliament in the 1972 election, and was a candidate at the 1976 Progressive Conservative leadership convention, in which he placed last, with 33 delegate votes. Like many of the other challengers in the race who were knocked off in the early ballots, Grafftey supported the eventual leadership race winner Joe Clark.

He served as Minister of State for Social Programs and Minister of State for Science and Technology in the short lived 1979-1980 government of Joe Clark before losing his seat in the 1980 election. Grafftey supported Clark in the 1983 PC leadership convention, and was largely shut out of Quebec PC circles during the Mulroney years.