CBA 2016: Rick Bartolucci wins Hall of Fame award

It is not an overstatement to say the feisty politician has been involved in every major development and decision in our community in the last quarter century.

Rick Bartolucci has been making headlines since 1979 when he was first elected to Sudbury city council. As a member of provincial parliament for 19 years (from 1995 to 2014), he was a strong advocate for Sudbury and Northern Ontario at Queen’s Park.

“A true community builder,” his role as a ‘champion of Sudbury and Northern Ontario’ will profoundly be felt for many generations to come,” says Kevin McCormick, president of Huntington University, and a friend. McCormick nominated Bartolucci for this prestigious Hall of Fame award.

Bartolucci can been credited with revitalizing the Northern Ontario Heritage Corporation, which continues to create thousands of jobs and ignited the Northern Ontario film industry. He helped to bring $8 billion of provincial money to Sudbury during his time in office: money spent on highway improvements, a new hospital, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, the Vale Hospice, and Laurentian University’s School of Architecture.

Bartolucci has Sudbury in his DNA. He was born in Gatchell and attended Laurentian University and the North Bay Teachers’ College. He worked as a teacher and school principal for 30 years before he started his second career in provincial politics.

After testing the waters in municipal politics, he was first elected as the Liberal MPP in the Sudbury riding in 1995. Bartolucci was a vocal member of the official opposition during two majority Progressive Conservative governments. His one-man band played a symphony of opposition to Mike Harris and Ernie Eves. He launched an intense campaign for Highway 69 improvements during this time that did not cease until final plans to four-lane the northern highway were announced a decade later.

In 2003 the Ontario Liberals won a huge majority with 72 seats at Queen’s Park, and Bartolucci got an opportunity to make decisions not just criticize them. He held three cabinet posts: Northern Development and Mines, Municipal Affairs and Housing, and Community Safety and Correctional Services. He also served a term as chair of cabinet.

Of his many initiatives, we’re told he feels strongly his most enduring legacy is his private member’s bill that created the Highway Memorials for Fallen Officers Act. This gives the legislature authority to name highway bridges and other structures in memory of police officers killed in the line of duty.

As he reached his 70th birthday, Bartolucci announced he would not seek re-election in 2014. He told Sudbury Living magazine last fall, since retiring, “stress suddenly disappeared.”

After a lifetime of public service, he and his wife, Maureen, now holiday in Florida and have time to spend with their children, Angie and Dan, and four grandchildren.

Have we heard the last word from Rick Bartolucci? Don’t bet on it!