Sean Conway OOnt (born July 24, 1951) is a former provincial politician in Ontario, Canada and a university professor.
He served for 28 years as a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1975 to 2003 and was a high-profile cabinet minister in the government of David Peterson.
[citation needed] The Progressive Conservatives won a majority government in the 1981 provincial election, although Conway was popular enough in his riding to be re-elected by about 2,000 votes.
[3] On March 9, 1982, he was chosen as Deputy Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party by David Peterson, who had defeated Sheila Copps in a leadership convention the previous month.
In this capacity, he helped bring about a written pact, in which the NDP offered support to the Liberals for two years in return for certain progressive legislative initiatives.
[4] Conway's most controversial responsibility as Education Minister was managing the government's legislation for full funding to Ontario's Roman Catholic separate schools.
Conway's grandfather, Thomas Murray, had championed a similar initiative in the 1930s and was disappointed when Mitchell Hepburn backed away from a previous commitment in the face of Protestant opposition.
On June 17, 1986, Conway was also named Acting Ontario Minister of Government Services, a position which he held until the dissolution of parliament in 1987.
In the 1999 election, he defeated an incumbent MPP, Tory Leo Jordan, in the redistributed riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke.