Stuart L. Smith (born 1938) is a Canadian politician, psychiatrist, academic and public servant. Graduating in medicine from McGill University, Dr. Smith taught for several years at McMaster Medical School in Hamilton, Ontario before being elected to the Ontario legislature in 1975. In the 1965, Smith had run for the Liberal Party of Canada nomination in Mount Royal only to lose to Pierre Trudeau. In January 1976 Smith was elected leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and, in the election of 1977 even though the Liberals lost a seat they were able to edge out the Ontario New Democratic Party (which lost more seats) to retake second place in the legislature and take the role of Leader of the Opposition against William Davis' minority government. As a politician, Smith had a reputation as an intelligent but dry and slightly aloof personality in a province that had grown accustomed to avuncular leaders. His criticism of government spending by Premier William Davis and the Progressive Conservative government and his pessimism about their election promises prompted the Tories to nickname him Dr. No - a label which stuck. The Liberals failed to make any progress in the 1981 election returning again with 34 seats while the Tories regained their majority government and Smith resigned as leader and left the legislature in January 1982 upon the election of his successor as Liberal leader, David Peterson.
From 1982 to 1987 Dr. Smith was chairman of the Science Council of Canada, a government body, and in 1988 he founded RockCliffe Research and Technology Inc., a firm which introduced public-private partnerships into government laboratories.
From 1995 to 2002 he was Chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and from 1994 until June of 1997, Dr. Smith was founding President of Philip Utilities Management Corporation, which became Canada's largest private company in the management of public water and wastewater systems.
