James Karygiannis ( ; , ; born May 2, 1955) is a former Canadian politician. He served in the House of Commons of Canada as a Liberal MP from 1988 to 2014, and as member of the Toronto City Council from 2014 until 2020, when his seat was vacated due to campaign spending violations.
Karygiannis served concurrently as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal (2005) and was previously parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport (2003–2005).
In opposition, Karygiannis attracted substantive attention from the media and various ethnic community groups as he took polemical stances on foreign policy issues and as part of his role as multiculturalism critic.
On April 1, 2014, he resigned his seat as a Member of Parliament in order to stand in the Toronto municipal election for Toronto City Councillor in Ward 39, and subsequently was elected to that seat. In November 2019, Karygiannis was removed from office for exceeding election expenses in the 2018 municipal election. He was then reinstated and removed twice during the ensuing legal saga that resulted in his final removal from office on September 24, 2020.
Personal life Karygiannis was born in Athens, Greece. Before entering politics, Karygiannis was a businessman and industrial engineer. He immigrated to Canada in 1966, and has a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto. He also holds a degree of Fellowship of Business Administration from the Canadian School of Management. He is married with five daughters.
Politics Karygiannis has been involved with politics as a Liberal since the late 1980s, first in provincial politics and later as a federal MP. He ran as a candidate of the Ontario Liberal Party for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1987 provincial election. He lost to David Reville of the Ontario New Democratic Party by about 1,500 votes. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons the following year in the federal election, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent W. Paul McCrossan by 858 votes in the newly created riding of Scarborough—Agincourt.
Karygiannis was one of the more socially conservative members of the Liberal caucus, and is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. In June 2005, however, he strongly criticized other socially-conservative Liberals who had threatened to bring down the government on the marriage issue.
In government He won a landslide re-election in the 1993 federal election as the Liberals won a majority government, and was easily re-elected in subsequent federal elections.
Karygiannis was a prominent Toronto organizer for Jean Chrétien in the Liberal Party's 1990 leadership contest, and was credited with delivering considerable support to Chrétien from the city's Greek community.
In 2002, Karygiannis was voted "laziest MP" in a poll of Parliamentary staffers by The Hill Times.Tony L. Hill. Canadian Politics, Riding by Riding: An In-Depth Analysis of Canada's 301 Federal Electoral Districts. Prospect Park Press, 2002. , 9780972343602
Known as a Chrétien loyalist throughout the 1990s, Karygiannis announced in 2002 that he would support Paul Martin in the next Liberal leadership contest. In making his decision, he told an interviewer that it was time for Chrétien to retire "with dignity", rather than risk a potentially divisive leadership review. When Martin became Liberal party leader on December 12, 2003, he appointed Karygiannis as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport.
In April 2004, Karygiannis brought forward a private member's motion which recognized the death of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as a genocide. The motion was approved by parliament 153 to 68, with support among Liberal backbench and opposition MPs, though Prime Minister Martin and his cabinet did not show up for the free vote and insisted that the motion is non-binding. Foreign Minister Bill Graham has defended the government's position that the event constituted a "tragedy" rather than the purposeful extermination of minority Armenians. In response to Martin's assertion that foreign policy rests with the cabinet, Karygiannis said that a clear majority of Parliament saw it differently and urged Martin to live up to his promise to give MPs real clout. The Turkish government was strongly critical of the motion and argued that Canadian MPs were rewriting history, while the Turkish Embassy suggested that relations between the two countries would be harmed as a result."Turkey denounces Armenian genocide vote in Commons", CBC News, April 22, 2004. Retrieved August 1, 2014. Local press has also described his genocide recognition cause as one that "splits cultural communities".Laura Payton. MP Karygiannis Accused of Berating Civil Servants. August 26, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
Karygiannis played a prominent role in organizing Toronto-area support for victims of the December 2004 earthquake in Southeast Asia. He called for cooperation between the city's Tamil and Sinhalese communities for the relief effort in Sri Lanka, and personally travelled to Sri Lanka to witness the tsunami devastation firsthand. He was later criticized by fellow Member of Parliament David Kilgour for traveling to an area of Sri Lanka dominated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers), as the faction was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many countries. Karygiannis defended his decision, saying that his intent was to confirm that disaster aid was reaching the region. Despite Kilgour's concerns, Karygiannis's travels did not provoke a diplomatic incident with Sri Lanka.
In March 2005, Karygiannis travelled to Guyana to witness the damage that recent floods had done in the country. He helped to secure CIDA aid for Guyana of over million Canadian.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in September 2005, Karygiannis was one of the first Canadian parliamentarians to organize a Canadian relief effort.
In opposition Karygiannis was the National Chairman for MP Joe Volpe's campaign to lead the Liberal Party of Canada, but he resigned on July 21, 2006, over disagreements with Volpe's pro-Israeli stance on the conflict in Lebanon.
On July 26, 2006, Karygiannis said that he was considering a run for the Liberal leadership himself because he felt the other candidates were "lacking" on the issue of foreign policy. At the leadership convention, he supported Bob Rae, but then threw his support to Stéphane Dion when Rae was eliminated from the ballot.
In September 2007, the Canadian government announced that it would recognize the country Macedonia as the "Republic of Macedonia" rather than by its previous designation as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." This decision was criticized by the government of Greece, which claims the name Macedonia as its own. Karygiannis also opposed the government's decision and indicated that the Greek-Canadian community would mobilize against it.Alan Freeman, "Canada to recognize Balkan state as Macedonia despite disputed name", The Globe and Mail, September 21, 2007, A18.
In February 2009, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced that he would review and possibly reduce or eliminate federal funding to the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) after its president criticized Kenney's pro-Israel position in the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict. Karygiannis subsequently asked the parliamentary ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson, to investigate whether Kenney was abusing his position., National Post, March 5, 2009.
During his term of services in the 40th Parliament between November 2008 and December 2010, Karygiannis voted 171 times out of a possible 311 possible votes. The Globe and Mail ranked him third in the list of politicians that missed votes.
On February 22, 2011, Jim Karygiannis joined a protest rally of the Armenian Youth Federation by the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Ottawa timed to the anniversary of the Nagorno-Karabakh separatist movement in Azerbaijan. During his four-minute speech, he called for the Azerbaijani ambassador Farid Shafiyev to be stripped of his diplomatic privileges and leave Canada. Shafiyev reacted by saying Karygiannis had "crossed the line of civility and decency and used the language of the level of street hooliganism." Later another Liberal multiculturalism critic Rob Oliphant in a telephone call to Shafiyev expressed his regret about his colleague's statement and added that Karygiannis's words did not represent the attitudes of the Liberal Party.Avinash Gavai. Rebel Politicians Fire up Ethnic Rage . March 9, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
In August 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Committee officers complained of Jim Karygiannis using abusive language and an aggressive tone while speaking to them. Karygiannis stated that the accusations were false and part of a "smear campaign against him."
As a multiculturalism critic, Karygiannis attempted to unite 19 cultural groups in Ottawa on August 27, 2011, to discuss issues they faced. The event was boycotted by the Jewish, Chinese, Turkish, and Macedonian communities. A spokesperson for B'nai Brith Canada said the Liberal Party should consider putting forth a better representative of the party to deal with multiculturalism matters, due to Karygiannis's being "divisive on some issues", instead of bringing communities together. The Council of Turkish Canadians released a statement where it explained its unwillingness to participate in the event by Karygiannis's "past attempts to promote ethnic division and intolerance against Canadians of different national origin", particularly Turks, Azeris and Macedonians.Council of Turkish Canadians Boycotts Community Meeting: Karygiannis Unfit to Facilitate . Council of Turkish Canadians. August 17, 2011
In mid-August 2011, Karygiannis's former Conservative opponent Harry Tsai, among others, signed a collective letter on behalf of the Taiwanese Canadian Association of Toronto, requesting that Bob Rae remove Karygiannis from his multicultural critic's post. The letter cited his poor attendance of the House of Commons and bad treatment of Canada's Turkish and Macedonian community as reasons to be considered unfit. According to Tsai, Karygiannis contacted him by telephone saying he did not care about what they had written and expressing content that the authors of the letter "had been able to write in English". In his public response, Karygiannis denied making such a comment and complained that the letter was signed in part by "Turks and Macedonians, who don't like it, because I am Greek, and they have problems with Greeks." As for Tsai's discontent, Karygiannis explained it by the Conservative candidate's feelings after having got "his butt kicked" during the election.Althia Raj. Jim Karygiannis, Liberal Multiculturalism Critic, Accused Of Racial Slur. The Huffington Post. August 26, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2012.