Paul Szabo is a Chartered Accountant with a Masters of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science with over 20 years of professional and business experience.
Prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, he served as a Director and Vice-Chair of The Mississauga (Trillium) Hospital, a Director of the Peel Regional Housing Authority, and a Director of Interim Place (shelter for abused women and children). In recognition of his charitable work and extensive volunteer community service, Paul was honoured as one of central Canada’s “Five Outstanding Young Canadians”.
Paul served as the Member of Parliament for Mississauga South from Octber, 1993 to May, 2011. During his career, he was a member of the Health, Finance, Transport, Environment, Scrutiny of Regulations and Government Operations and Estimates Committees. He also held numerous positions as Committee Chair, Committee Vice-Chair and Parliamentary Secretary and was the Chair of the “Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics” Standing Committee, which conducted the Mulroney / Schreiber hearings.
He debated in the House of Commons on over 2,000 occasions and was ranked number one in speaking in the Parliament from 2004 to 2010. He had a 99% attendance record for votes since 1993 and was a recognized expert in Parliamentary practices and procedures. He also introduced over 50 Bills and Motions with emphasis on the areas of taxation, health, families, children, poverty and seniors and authored 6 books related to his parliamentary initiatives.
In May 2009, Mr. Szabo was voted as the “Hardest Working Member of Parliament” for a third consecutive year in the MACLEAN’S Magazine / IPSOS Reid annual survey of all 308 MPs. In July 2009, in recognition of his career achievements and leadership contributions to the community, he was also elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario. The FCA designation is the highest honour conferred by the Chartered Accounting profession.
Paul and his wife Linda have been married for over 40 years and have three children and three grandchildren.