Osie F. Villeneuve (June 28, 1906—September 25, 1983) was a longtime politician in
Ontario,
Canada. He served in the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario and the
Canadian House of Commons, and was an elected representative almost continuously from the 1940s until his death.
Villeneuve was born in
Maxville, Ontario, and educated in the area. He worked as a livestock dealer, served on the local school board on council, and was
reeve of the Maxville in 1948.
He first sought election to the Ontario legislature in the
1945 provincial election. He ran for the
Progressive Conservative Party, and lost to
Liberal candidate
Edmund A. MacGillivray by 1,613 votes in
Glengarry. He ran again in the
1948 election, and defeated MacGillivray by 1,788 votes. Villeneuve served as a government
backbencher until
Thomas Laird Kennedy and
Leslie Frost, and won re-election in the Progressive Conservative landslides of
1951 and
1955.
Villeneuve resigned from the provincial legislature in May 1957 to run federally, as a candidate of the
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He was successful, defeating
Liberal incumbent
Raymond Bruneau by 1,580 votes in
Glengarry—Prescott in the
1957 election. He served as a backbench supporter of
John Diefenbaker's minority government for a year, and defeated Bruneau a second time in the Progressive Conservative landslide of
1958.
He was defeated in the
1962 election, losing to Liberal
Viateur Ethier by 2,857 votes. Villeneuve then returned to the Ontario...
Read More