john douglas reynolds pc born january 19 1942 was the member of parliament for the riding of west vancouversunshine coastsea to sky country in the canadian house of commons from 1997 to 2006 he had also been an mp in the 1970s as well as a provincial politician in british columbia in the 1980s and 1990s he was first elected to parliament as a candidate of the progressive conservatives in 1972 and was reelected in 1974 he resigned in 1977 after disagreeing with joe clarks red tory policiesbeginning in 1983 he was active in the social credit party of british columbia and served as speaker of the british columbia legislative assembly and as a cabinet minister in 1986 he was a candidate at the social credit leadership convention coming in fifth he remained in provincial politics until 1991 when he was defeated in his bid for reelectionreynolds returned to parliament in 1997 as a reform mp and served as chief opposition whip he remained in this role when the reform party was folded into the canadian alliance when stockwell day faced a revolt in his caucus in 2001 and chuck strahl resigned as house leader reynolds was named in his place when day resigned as alliance leader reynolds was chosen as interim party leader and leader of the opposition and served until stephen harper was elected the new party leaderreynolds resigned as house leader on january 24 2005 but continued as mp for his riding until his retirement at the 2006 federal election he was the coordinator of the conservative campaign in british columbia on the day after the election which resulted in a conservative minority government harper asked reynolds to approach liberal minister david emerson about crossing the floor and serving as a minister in harpers government emerson eventually accepted the offer which triggered a firestorm of criticism however reynolds who had strongly criticized belinda stronachs switch from the conservatives to the liberals told a suburban vancouver newspaper that he was very happy that emerson was a conservative and claimed that the people of emersons leftleaning vancouver riding got the better end of the bargain instead of having someone in opposition he said they have someone who is a cabinet minister of a new government