Charles L. Caccia,PC (April 28, 1930 – May 3, 2008) was aCanadian politician. Caccia was aLiberal member of theHouse of Commons of Canada. He represented theTorontoriding ofDavenport between 1968 and 2004.

Caccia was born in 1930 in Milan,Italy. He became a professor offorestry at theUniversity of Toronto, and was a co-founder ofCOSTI in Toronto. Caccia's first wife, Mildred, was a candidate for theOntario Liberal Party in a provincial election in the 1970s. They had two children, Nicolette and John, and were divorced. Caccia was survived by second wife Iva.

Caccia was best known for his strong pro-environment views on the left of the Liberal party. He served at various times during the ministries ofPierre Trudeau andJohn Turner asMinister of Labour,Minister of the Environment,Parliamentary Secretary to theSolicitor General of Canada, Parliamentary Secretary to thePresident of the Treasury Board, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. He most recently was the Chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and of the subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Caccia was one of only three cabinet members to endorseJean Chrétien in the1984 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election, along withDavid Collenette andRoméo LeBlanc.^[1] He was the Liberals' Environment critic from 1984 to 1989, and spent most of the rest of his career on the backbench.

One of the most left-leaning LiberalMembers of Parliament (MPs) of the time, he was known for his stances on environmental issues and his staunch opposition to the2003 invasion of Iraq, he was one of the few Liberal MPs to backSheila Copps in the Liberal Party's2003 leadership election. His left-leaning politics and support of Copps ended his political career when the more right-leaningPaul Martin became Liberal leader andprime minister in 2004. Martin backed former Toronto city councillorMario Silva for the Liberal Party nomination in Davenport. With Martin's support, Silva signed up enough new members until it was obvious he would defeat Caccia for the nomination. Caccia pulled out of the race, and after some talk, chose to retire from politics rather than run as an independent or Green in the2004 election.

In 1964, he was labelled as a communist by East York MayorTrue Davidson for suggesting that Toronto city run day cares accept children from mothers in two parent working families. At the time, they only accepted children from single working mothers.^[2]

Note: Canadian Alliance vote is compared to the Reform vote in 1997 election.

Archives at
Location City of Toronto Archives  Identifiers Fonds 1315 Source Charles Caccia fonds
How to use archival material

• COSTI. A History in Progress by Adriana Suppa
• Charles Caccia – Parliament of Canada biography

• 1930 births
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