Bette Stephenson

Politics Stephenson was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1975 provincial election, representing the constituency of York Mills in North York. She was appointed to Bill Davis' cabinet as Minister of Labour on October 7, 1975. She won a convincing re-election victory over Liberal candidate Wilfred Caplan in the 1977 election.

On August 18, 1978, she was named Minister of Education and Minister of Colleges and Universities. As Minister, she ordered Toronto schools to use the Lord's Prayer during opening or closing exercise instead of silent meditation. She was returned to the legislature with the largest majority of her career in the 1981 provincial election.

Stephenson was a driving force behind the ICON computer project, in which a thin client networked computer was designed and built to Ontario specifications for classroom use. Introduced in 1984, the ICON was controversial and was eventually orphaned with support discontinued in 1994.

Stephenson was not informed of Davis's decision in 1984 to extend full funding to Catholic high schools until the policy had already been decided, and was privately opposed but did not resign from cabinet in protest due to her loyalty to Davis.

Under Miller's leadership, the Progressive Conservatives were reduced to a tenuous minority government in the 1985 provincial election. Stephenson was personally re-elected without difficulty, and was named as Ontario's first female Treasurer and Deputy Premier on May 17. She accomplished little in these roles. Before having the chance as Treasurer to present a budget, the Miller government was defeated by a motion of non-confidence in June 1985, after the Liberals reached an agreement allowing them to form government with the support of the Ontario New Democratic Party. In opposition, she served as her party's Critic for Health. She retired from politics at the 1987 provincial election. post2preceded = Larry Grossman post2 = Treasurer post2years = 1985 (May–June) post2note = post2followed = Robert Nixon post1preceded = George McCague post1 = Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet post1years = 1985 (February–May) post1note = post1followed = George Ashe

After politics In the 1990s, Stephenson was appointed as a board member on the province's new Education Quality and Accountability Office, which monitors and reports to the public on the performance of the education system. From 1997 to 2005, she was chair of the Learning Opportunities Task Force. and was involved with the Gwillimbury Foundation in its attempt to build a university in Queensville, Ontario. She is a founding member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and also served on the boards of the Ontario Innovation Trust and the police services board overseeing the Ontario Provincial Police. In 1999, she was awarded the Order of Ontario and the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case. The Bette Stephenson Centre for Learning, a York Region District School Board school in Richmond Hill offering adult education programs, was named after her. In 2013, she was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Stephenson died in Richmond Hill on August 19, 2019, at the age of 95.