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Alan Robinson (Canadian politician)

Canadian politician (1948-2013)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ4707650 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alan M. Robinson (October 21, 1948 – December 6, 2013) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1981 to 1985, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Frank Miller. Robinson was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party.

Background

Robinson was born in Toronto, Ontario, and educated at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. He worked as a broadcaster and newspaperman.

Politics

He was an alderman in Scarborough from 1978 to 1981.

He was elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1981 election, defeating New Democratic Party incumbent David Warner by 1,888 votes in Scarborough—Ellesmere. He served as a backbench supporter of Bill Davis's government for four years. Robinson supported Dennis Timbrell's unsuccessful bid to succeed Davis at the Progressive Conservative Party's January 1985 leadership convention, and was named a minister without portfolio and Chief Government Whip when Frank Miller became Premier of Ontario on February 8, 1985.

The Progressive Conservatives under Miller's leadership were reduced to a minority government in the 1985 election.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alan Robinson (Canadian politician)” is canadian politician (1948-2013). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alan, Robinson and Canadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 2013, 1981, 1985—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1948-10-21. For this dossier, Alan, Robinson and Canadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian politician (1948-2013)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4707650. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1948, 2013, 1981 and 1985.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alan Robinson (Canadian politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alan Robinson (Canadian politician) primary sources, Alan Robinson (Canadian politician) archive and Alan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alan Robinson (Canadian politician)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alan Robinson (Canadian politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.