About Andrew >> Re-Elect Andrew

Andrew's Bio

Andrew Telegdi is the Member of Parliament for the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. He was first elected in 1993, then re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2004, and 2006.

Telegdi is known for his honesty, outspokenness, and courage on all political issues, but especially civil liberties, citizenship, and immigration, the priorities of his parliamentary career. “Civil rights and civil liberties are like your health,” he often says, “you take them for granted until they’re lost.” He has stated in the House of Commons “that in times of political and social stress such as the threat of terrorism, civil liberties and human rights must not be discarded. It is during times of crisis that they are most needed.”

Andrew has been a member of the House Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration since 1998. He was elected Chair in 2004 and 2005, and has served as Vice-Chair during the 39th Parliament of 2006-2008. Through this committee, he successfully advocated for legislation introduced in the fall of 2007, to restore citizenship to thousands of “Lost Canadians” – children of citizens denied their birthright through no fault of their own.

In 2004, during the 37th Parliament, Andrew was a member of the House Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development, and Natural Resources. He was also Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with special emphasis on Aboriginal Affairs.

On July 16, 1998, during the 36th Parliament, Andrew was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, but he resigned this position on May 18, 2000, because he could not support certain provisions of the government’s proposed Citizenship Act. He was particularly concerned with a clause that gave Parliament the right to remove a person's citizenship. “My citizenship comes before my party,” Andrew said, and he remains adamant that no political body should be allowed to revoke anyone’s Canadian citizenship.

Andrew has also served as Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. He was the co-founder of the Post-Secondary Education Caucus. As member of the Liberal Caucus Task Force on the Future of Financial Services, he penned the chapter on insurance and served as Chair of the Liberal Caucus on Insurance. He has also been a member of the Standing Committees on Justice, Canadian Heritage, the Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament, and Auto Caucus.

Throughout his time in Parliament, Andrew has represented the needs of Waterloo Region to the federal government, especially through facilitating the growth of this region as a centre of high-tech industry, in close relation to its colleges and universities. In 1996, Andrew helped found Communitech, the umbrella group that has spearheaded the region’s prosperity through promotion of the technology sector. Communitech awarded Andrew an honourary lifetime membership in 1998.

For more than two decades prior to his election to Parliament, Andrew served Kitchener-Waterloo in elected positions at the local and regional level as well as in community organizations and grass-roots initiatives. He was a member of the Waterloo City Council from 1985 to 1993, and was twice elected a member of Waterloo Regional Council (1988-1993).

Crime prevention and public safety are among Andrew’s longstanding priorities. In 1976, he was the founding Executive Director of Youth in Conflict with the Law, an organization that supervises and counsels people who are before the courts. Andrew was a founder also of the Waterloo Region Community Safety and Crime Prevention Council, and he was the founding coordinator of Justice Week in Waterloo Region. Andrew believes that close cooperation among the police, the courts, and the community is the most effective means of developing programs that serve justice and public safety. Andrew is proud that Waterloo Region is a leader in crime prevention and community safety in Canada.

Andrew has also been active in the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre, the Waterloo Uptown Business Association, the Business Education Committee of the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber of Commerce, the Working Centre, St. John's Kitchen, the Catholic Family Counseling Centre and the Family Violence Committee. He has served as a Member of the Board of Governors of Wilfrid Laurier University (1990-93) and as chair of a community advisory board for Conestoga College.

Andrew is a graduate of the University of Waterloo. In his final undergraduate years, 1973-1975, he served back-to-back terms as President of the Federation of Students. He was a member of the University Senate from 1974 to 1976. It was during his student years that he began his campaign, ongoing ever since, for more funding to higher education. Andrew helped found the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG), the daycare in Klemmer Farmhouse (now named for Hildegaard Marsden), and Waterloo Cooperative Residence Inc. (WCRI).

Andrew’s priorities on civil rights and liberties reflect his birth and early upbringing in Budapest, Hungary, a country at that time under Soviet-imposed communist rule. The Telegdi family fled Hungary in 1957, when Andrew was eleven years old, and arrived in Canada as refugees. On an official visit to Budapest in 2006, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, Andrew addressed the Hungarian Parliament: “It speaks a lot about Canada that you can actually arrive as a refugee, and 50 years later you are coming back to your native country representing the Parliament of Canada".

Andrew is married to Nancy Curtin-Telegdi. They have one daughter, Erin. In his spare time, Andrew enjoys reading, fishing, golf and chess.

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