Dianne Poole
Social worker, law clerk
Dianne Poole (born June 28, 1949) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She served as a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1987 to 1995.
Background
Poole has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Trent University, and was a law clerk and social worker before entering political life. She also served as chair of the Women's Perspective Advisory Committee, and was a member of the French Immersion Task Force of the Toronto Board of Education.
Politics
Poole ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1985 general election, losing to Progressive Conservative David McFadden by 914 votes in the Toronto constituency of Eglinton. She ran again in the 1987 provincial election, and defeated McFadden by 695 votes amid a landslide victory for the Liberals. In 1989, she was appointed as a parliamentary assistant.
The Liberals were defeated by the New Democratic Party in the 1990 provincial election, and Poole was re-elected by only 173 votes over Progressive Conservative candidate Ann Vanstone. She served as the Liberal critic for Housing from 1990 to 1993, and for the JobsOntario program from 1993 to 1995.
In 1994, Poole was one of only three Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament (MPPs), along with Jean Poirier and Tim Murphy, who supported Bill 167, a bill brought forward by the government of Bob Rae to extend spousal benefits to same-sex couples.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dianne Poole” as social worker, law clerk. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as social worker, law clerk. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5271699. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1987, 1995 and 1985.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. 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
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dianne Poole”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dianne Poole primary sources, Dianne Poole archive and Dianne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dianne Poole”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Dianne Poole” 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.