Leonard Braithwaite

Background Braithwaite was born in Toronto, Ontario, to a Barbadian father and a Jamaican mother. Leonard served overseas with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto in 1950. He then received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School in 1952, and graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1958.

Braithwaite helped to revoke a section of the Ontario Separate Schools act that had allowed for racial segregation in public schools, when he asked the Legislature to "get rid of the old race law" during his maiden speech at Queen's Park on February 4, 1964. He also called for the admission of female legislative pages in 1966. He was re-elected in 1967 and 1971, and served as the Liberal Party Critic for Labour and Welfare.

He was defeated in the 1975 election, losing to New Democratic Party candidate Ed Philip by 1,256 votes in the redistributed electoral district. He was elected a city controller on the Etobicoke City Council in 1982. He attempted a return to the provincial legislature during the 1985 election; significantly closer than his constituency association originally expected, as they thought Leluk would win by a massive rout. Braithwaite did not run again, and neither did Leluk in the next election, two-years later.

Post-political career and awards Braithwaite became a bencher of the Governing Council of The Law Society of Upper Canada in 1999. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1997, and invested into the order on February 4, 1998. He was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2004. Braithwaite died in Toronto on March 28, 2012, at the age of 88.

In 2012, the City of Toronto a park in the Etobicoke electoral district he represented to Len Braithwaite Park in his honour.