George J. Dance



George James Dance is a Canadian poet, prose writer, and blogger on poetry and politics.

Youth
Dance was born in Kingston, Ontario, the son of Hilda (Leith) and George Nelson Dance, a sergeant-major in the Army. His mother died when he was too young to remember her.

Dance and his family lived in Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario again in his childhood. He also spent several summers with an uncle and aunt in New Hampshire. He began writing in public school, and became interested in poetry in his first year of high school, 1967, when he was introduced to the poems of Leonard Cohen, that year's winner of the Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama.

Dance's family moved to Newcastle (now Miramichi), New Brunswick, when he was 16, and he took his last year of high school at that town's Harkins Academy, where he studied poetry under Doug Underhill.

After graduating from Harkins with honors, Dance attended Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. In his second year he studied modern English poetry (a third-year course) under John Thompson. That experience motivated him to begin writing poetry, none of which the student newspaper, the Argosy, would print. (The Argosy did, however, publish a short story of his, "The Little Gentleman").

Dance dropped out of university after his second year due to financial difficulties and, unable to find a job, moved in 1973 to Toronto, where he worked at a variety of menial jobs. The following summer he read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which was the beginning of what he has called "a 30-year career detour into politics.."

Libertarian Party activist
Dance has been a member of the Libertarian Party of Canada and the Ontario Libertarian Party since the mid-1970s, and has served as interim leader of both parties.

Dance listed his occupation as stock clerk, layout artist, freelance typesetter and office manager on various occasions between 1979 and 1993. For more than ten years (1987-1998) he edited and published Libertarian Bulletin, the Ontario Libertarian Party's newsletter.

Like many others in his party, Dance has called for increased privatization. He is an opponent of anarchism, and describes himself as a "proper-government libertarian" (i.e., supporting a government that recognizes and respects individual liberties). Dance is also an opponent of restrictions on public smoking.

Dance ran for Leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada in 1990, coming in second to Stanislaw Tyminski. He succeeded to the leadership when Tyminski left Canada in 1991 to run for President of Poland. Dance held the position until May 1993, when Hilliard Cox was chosen to replace him. As Leader, he led the Libertarian Party's opposition to the Charlottetown Accord constitutional amendments. In 1992, Dance indicated that his party might seek an electoral alliance with the Freedom Party of Ontario. The Freedom Party soon rejected this suggestion.

Dance also served as interim leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada from 1995 to 1996.

Dance served on the executive of the Ontario Libertarian Party from 1985 until 2008, for the last 12 of those years as party chairman. He became the party's leader following the resignation of John Shadbolt on June 9, 1995. As party leader, he contested a 1996 by-election in York South. He held the position until Sam Apelbaum was selected at a delegated convention in late 1996. Dance was elected chairman at the same 1996 convention. He retired from the office in 2008.

In January 2009, the Western Standard ranked Dance at #62 in its "Liberty 100" list of "Canadians who have advanced economic and personal liberty" in 2008.

Poetry

 * Looking and Playing in Space Toronto: Principled Press / Baltimore, MD: Lulu Press, 2011.
 * Penny, or Penny's Hat. Toronto: Principled Press / Baltimore, MD: Lulu Press, 2013.''

Prose

 * Toward the Rule of What? (chapbook). Toronto: privately printed, 1984.
 * Ron Paul and his rEVOLution. Toronto: Principled Press / Baltimore, MD: Lulu Press, 2011.