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Bob Speller

Canadian politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ4934050
Source-derived summary

Robert Speller, (February 29, 1956 – December 16, 2021) was a Canadian politician. A member of the Liberal Party of Canada, Speller was elected to the House of Commons of Canada four times from 1988 to 2000. He was defeated in 2004 by a 20,938 to 19,277 margin.

Personal life

Speller was born in Hagersville, Ontario on February 29, 1956. In 1983, he married Joan Mouland, with whom he had a son, Christopher, and a daughter, Victoria. He died on December 16, 2021, at the age of 65 at a care facility near Waterford, Ontario, after an illness.

Career

Speller was first elected in the 1988 Canadian federal election as a member of the Liberal Party, defeating incumbent Bud Bradley by only 209 votes. Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives won the election, however, relegating Speller to opposition Member of Parliament (MP). As an opposition MP, Speller was associate trade critic, youth critic and chair of the Liberal Rural Caucus.

Speller was re-elected in 1993, 1997 and 2000, as a member of the winning party.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bob Speller” as canadian politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 2021, 1988, 2000—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956-02-29. The account is most persuasive where Speller, Canadian and politician can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as canadian politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4934050. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 2021, 1988 and 2000.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “Bob Speller”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bob Speller primary sources, Bob Speller archive and Speller 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 “Bob Speller”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Bob Speller” 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.