Harry Kopyto

Hersch Harry Kopyto (born 1946) is a Canadian legal advocate, broadcaster, and political activist. Disbarred as a lawyer in 1989, he continued to practise as a paralegal until 2015 and currently works as an unlicensed legal advocate and researcher.

Kopyto was born to a Polish Jewish family in a Displaced Persons' camp in Ulm,West Germany immediately following World War II. His entire family except for his parents and a brother were killed in the Holocaust. His family moved to Israel in 1948 before immigrating to Canada in 1952.

Growing up in Toronto, Kopyto was a high-school radical, protesting against mandatory military cadet training as well as hikes in the price of milk. “I was always a trouble-maker. I’m hopeless," Kopyto told an interviewer when looking back upon his youth.

At university, Kopyto was an anti-war activist and joined the Young Socialists, and later the League for Socialist Action. He was also active in the New Democratic Party and its left-wing faction, The Waffle. He has been a member of the NDP and its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, since 1959.

In the early 1990s, Kopyto was active in the Ontario NDP's Left Caucus in dissenting against the government of Bob Rae for being too moderate. He authored an open letter co-signed by other party dissidents, including three NDP MPPs, opposing Rae's abandonment of left-wing policies such as public auto insurance. Rae responded by saying "Have you ever met Harry Kopyto? I don't think I've done anything in the last 15 years that Harry Kopyto has ever agreed with. Me and about 12 million other people. It's not news that Mr. Kopyto and his friends are critical. It's natural. What's surprising is that it's taken him 2½ years to complain about our government."

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