[1] He was born in Montreal, Quebec, and was educated at the Université de Montréal and the University of Waterloo.
A high school teacher He ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1971 provincial election, and lost to Progressive Conservative Fernand Guindon in Stormont.
At the time of Samis's retirement, the Progressive Conservative party had governed Ontario without interruption for forty-two years.
Samis argued in March 1985 that the NDP would be unable to remove the Progressive Conservatives from office unless it formed an alliance with the Ontario Liberal Party.
In the 1999 provincial election, he endorsed Liberal candidate John Cleary in Stormont—Dundas—Charlottenburgh, a successor riding to Cornwall.