He was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the
1981 provincial election as a
Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for
Leeds in eastern Ontario. He was returned in each subsequent provincial election, and later represented the riding of
Leeds—Grenville.
Miller cabinet Runciman served as
Minister of Government Services from February 8 to May 17, 1985, and as
Minister of Consumer Relations from May 17 to June 26, 1985, in the short-lived
cabinet of
Ontario Premier Frank Miller.
Opposition With the defeat of Miller's government on a
vote of confidence, Runciman joined his party on the
opposition benches. He was nearly defeated by
Liberal Jim Jordan in the
1987 election, winning by only 198 votes. On all other occasions, he has been re-elected without difficulty. Despite being on the right wing of the party, Runciman endorsed
Red Tory Larry Grossman for the party leadership in November 1985.
Harris and Eves cabinet When the
Tories returned to power in the
1995 election, Runciman became
Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services in the government of
Mike Harris, holding the position from June 26, 1995, to June 17, 1999. During this period, he championed privately owned prisons, and was criticized on one occasion for revealing the name of a young offender in the legislature. On June 17, 1999, he was moved to the portfolio of
Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, and on February 8, 2001, was named
Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Runciman supported
Ernie Eves's successful bid to succeed Harris as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 2002. On April 15, 2002, Eves re-appointed Runciman to the position of
Minister of Public Safety and Security (as the position of Solicitor General became known in the period following the
September 11 attacks). On August 6, 2003, Runciman made controversial comments in the wake of tensions between
Toronto's
black community and the city's police. "I think some people make a living off this," Runciman said. "People who don't accept any degree of responsibility to solve the challenges and misunderstandings." After confirming that he was referring to members of the black community, he went on to say that "some folks here appear to have, in my view, a vested interest in seeing this kind of tension continue to exist." His comments were later condemned by the Canadian Race Relations foundation and several other opposition
MPP's.
Return to opposition Runciman returned to the opposition benches with the defeat of the Eves government in the
2003 election. He supported
John Tory in the
leadership election to succeed Eves. Tory won the contest, and, not having a seat in the legislature, named Runciman to the position of
interim Leader of the Opposition in September 2004. Although Runciman holds strongly conservative views on matters such as criminal justice, he was not regarded as one of the more ideological members of his caucus. In recent years, he has played a significant role in his party's leadership transitions. Runciman resumed the position of opposition leader following the
2007 provincial election in which
John Tory failed to win a seat in the Legislature, losing to Liberal Minister Kathleen Wynne. Tory stayed on as Party Leader until March 2009 when he lost a subsequent bid to get elected in a by-election and resigned. Following Tory's resignation as Party Leader in March 2009, members of the PC Caucus selected Runciman as interim Party Leader until
Tim Hudak was elected to the position in June 2009. ==Federal politics==