Ian Deans (August 16, 1937 – May 3, 2016) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1967 to 1979 and was a member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1980 to 1986. Background Deans was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland. He moved to Canada as a youth and found work as a firefighter. He met his wife, Diane, when she was a staffer on Parliament Hill. He helped her launch her own political career as an Ottawa-area city councillor. The couple were married for 22 years before divorcing. Afterwards, Deans moved back to the Hamilton area. Deans died in Hamilton, Ontario on May 3, 2016, at the age of 78. Politics Provincial He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a New Democratic Member in the 1967 provincial election representing the Hamilton area riding of Wentworth. In 1970, he favoured a resolution that would force The Waffle, a radical left-wing group within the party, to be expelled. Deans objected to the organization because it recruited its own members, raised its own funds, and created its own policy, called 'The Manifesto'. He said, "You then become a political organization unto yourself." The resolution passed at an NDP convention in 1972. In 1970, Deans broke with most of his colleagues by expressing support for Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's implementation of the War Measures Act during the FLQ Crisis. In 1978, he ran in the Ontario NDP leadership convention to succeed Stephen Lewis. Deans' earlier support for the War Measures Act became a point of contention and he recanted his position saying he was wrong and had regretted it ever since. Initially projected to be the front runner, he lost by less than 200 votes to Michael Cassidy. Deans resigned from the legislature the next year. Federal Deans moved to federal politics and won a seat in the House of Commons of Canada during the 1980 federal election representing Hamilton Mountain. He served as House Leader for the New Democratic Party during the illness of Stanley Knowles, and became official House Leader following the 1984 federal election. In the fall of 1986, he surprised colleagues by resigning from parliament to accept an appointment by Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as head of the Public Service Staff Relations Board, a position Deans went on to hold for 10