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Jim Karygiannis, PC , MP (born May 2 , 1955 , in a refugee settlement in Athens , Greece ) is a Canadian Liberal Politician . He has served in the Canadian House Of Commons since 1988 , and is currently the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister Of Human Resources And Skills Development and Minister Responsible For Democratic Renewal . He was previously the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister Of Transport . Before entering politics, Karygiannis was a businessman and industrial engineer. He immigrated to Canada in 1966 , and has a Bachelor Of Applied Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University Of Toronto . He also holds a degree of Fellowship of Business Administration from the Canadian School of Management. Karygiannis ran as a candidate of the Ontario Liberal Party for the Legislative Assembly Of Ontario in the 1987 Provincial Election . He lost to David Reville of the Ontario New Democratic Party by about 1,500 votes. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons the following year in the Federal Election , defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent W. Paul McCrossan by 858 votes in the newly-created riding of Scarborough—Agincourt . Karygiannis was a prominent Toronto organizer for Jean Chrétien in the Liberal Party's 1990 leadership contest, and was credited with delivering considerable support to Chrétien from the city's Greek community. He won a landslide re-election in the 1993 Federal Election as the Liberals won a majority government, and was returned by equally large margins in the elections of 1997 , 2000 and 2004 . Known as a Chrétien loyalist throughout the 1990s, Karygiannis announced in , 2003 , he appointed Karygiannis as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport. Karygiannis is one of the more Socially Conservative members of the Liberal caucus, and is opposed to Abortion and Same-sex Marriage . In June 2005, however, he strongly criticized other socially-conservative Liberals who had threatened to bring down the government on the marriage issue. In April 2004, Karygiannis brought forward a private member's motion which recognized the death of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as a genocide. The motion was approved by parliament, although it was not binding on the government. Karygiannis played a prominent role in organizing Toronto-area support for victims of the December 2004 earthquake in Southeast Asia. He called for cooperation between the city's Tamil and Sinhalese communities for the relief effort in David Kilgour for traveling to an area of Sri Lanka dominated by the Liberation Tigers Of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers), but Karygiannis defended his decision, and said his intent was to confirm that disaster aid was reaching the region. {Link without Title} Despite Kilgour's concerns, Karygiannis's travels did not provoke a diplomatic incident with Sri Lanka. In March 2005, Karygiannis travelled to Guyana to witness the damage that recent floods had done in the country. He helped to secure CIDA aid for Guyana of over $2.7 million Canadian. {Link without Title} When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in September 2005 , Karygiannis was one of the first Canadian parliamentarians to organize a Canadian relief effort. {Link without Title} EXTERNAL LINKS
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