Thomas Graham (Canadian politician)

Thomas Graham (1914 – April 21, 1988) was a Canadian politician.

Graham worked as a provincial court judge in Toronto and had previously served as a Toronto police officer, municipal councillor, and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario (1955-1959). He served as a member of the Ontario Police Commission from 1960 until 1980, the last two years as the commission's chairman.^[1][2]

Graham was born in Toronto in 1914,^[3] where he attended Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute and St. Michael's College School. After working briefly as a milkman, he joined the Toronto Police Service in 1937, in the traffic division. He took a leave of absence during World War II to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1941 to 1944.^[4] After returning to the police force, he resigned in 1947 in order to manage a hardware store and engineering supply firm.^[1]

In 1953, he was elected to North York municipal council and served as a deputy reeve until 1955 when he was elected to the Ontario legislature as the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario MPP for York Centre.^[3][1][4] In the 1959 general election, he was defeated by Liberal Party of Ontario candidate Vernon Singer.^[1][4]

He was appointed to the three-person Ontario Police Commission in 1960, and in 1964, Graham was made a magistrate (later a provincial court judge) after Judge Herbert Sparling retired in order to fulfill the commission's requirement that at least one of its members be a judge.^[4] He was one of the last two non-lawyers to be appointed to the provincial court. After retiring from the Ontario Police Commission in 1980, he was active as a provincial court judge at the Old City Hall (Toronto) law courts.^[1]