John Godfrey

The Hon. John Ferguson Godfrey PC (born December 12 1949) is a Canadian politician.

He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as the Liberal MP for the Toronto area riding of Don Valley West in the 1993 Canadian election and has been re-elected in each subsequent vote. From 1996 to 2004 he served as a Parliamentary Secretary and, following the 2004 Canadian election he was elevated to the Canadian Cabinet as Minister of State for Infrastructure and Communities.

Prior to entering politics he was an economist, historian and journalist. From 1987 to 1991 he was editor of the Financial Post.

Godfrey was president of the University of King's College in Halifax from 1977-87, overseeing a period of strong growth at the small liberal arts school.

Godfrey has a cottage in Kingsburg, Nova Scotia.

In 1996 he and fellow Liberal MP Peter Milliken introduced the Godfrey-Milliken Bill a parody attacking the American Helms-Burton Act.

Rear Admiral John Godfrey was head of British Department of Naval Intelligence during World War II. Future James Bond author Ian Fleming worked for him during the war.

Captain John Godfrey was the author of a fencing manual:

"A Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence, Connecting the Small and Back-Sword, and shewing the affinity between them : likewise endeavouring to weed the art of those superfluous, unmeaning practices which over-run it [...] : with some observations upon boxing, and the characters of the most able boxers within the author's time. London: printed for the author by T. Gardner, in 1747."