David Zimmer (born April 7, 1944) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was the Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for Willowdale from 2003 to 2018. He was a member of cabinet in the government of Kathleen Wynne. He was the longest serving minister of aboriginal/indigenous affairs in Ontario history to date. Background Zimmer was born in Kitchener, Ontario. He attended University of Ottawa Law School and was called to the Bar of Ontario. He first sought elected office as an alderman in Kitchener in the 1970s but was not successful. While living in Kitchener, he was active in the Progressive Conservative Party. When the Kitchener—Wilmot provincial electoral district was created in 1975, Zimmer served as the founding president of the local PC riding association, and managed the 1981 campaign for the local PC candidate Alan Barron. He left the PC Party and joined the Liberals in 1985 , citing disenchantment with both federal leader Brian Mulroney and provincial leader Frank Miller. Zimmer served several prominent legal functions in both the federal and provincial Liberal parties prior to his election. He was legal counsel for Maurizio Bevilacqua in the two year saga following his 1988 election, where the close results were extensively contested in court and was eventually voided by the Ontario Supreme Court. He also chaired the federal party's permanent appeal committee, overseeing numerous appeals during the 1990 leadership contest and from nomination contests prior to the party's victory in 1993. From 1982 to 1984 Zimmer was Director of the Humane Society and from 1993 to 1995 was President of the Alzheimer Society of Canada. He also served as an administrative law instructor in the Law Society's Bar Admission Course. In 1994, Zimmer was appointed by the federal government to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada as its assistant deputy chairman heading the Toronto office, and was shortlisted for the national chairmanship in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed chairperson of Toronto's public housing provider, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. Provincial politics In the 2003 Ontario provincial election, Zimmer ran as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Willowdale, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent and sitting Minister of Municipal Affairs David Young by 1,866 votes. The contest, billed in the press as "the battle of the Davids", was considered a key race to watch given Young's profile as a possible future PC leader and Willowdale's