Joe Swan

Joseph B. Swan is an ex-politician from London, Ontario, Canada. He was born in Scotland but moved to London with his family at an early age.

After graduating with a degree in business and political science from the University of Western Ontario in 1985, Swan was elected to London City Council in 1988. In addition to being the executive director of Information London, he spent four, three-year terms as a city councillor representing Ward Two, and a fifth term on London's Board of Control (2000-2003).

Swan announced his retirement from municipal politics prior to the November, 2003, civic election, working as the executive director of the Unity Project until the late summer of 2005.

On March 30, 2004, he won the federal New Democratic Party nomination for the riding of London North Centre, but was defeated by Liberal candidate Joe Fontana in the 2004 election. Swan previously worked with NDP leader Jack Layton through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

In September 2005, Swan announced that he would be travelling overseas with his wife and two children on September 12, 2005, to assist Third World countries in east Africa and southeast Asia recover from the devastating tsunami on Boxing Day of 2004, where approximately 300,000 people lost their lives.

Swan returned to London, Ontario, with his wife and children in September 2006. Since January 2007, Swan has been working with Bell New Venutres Inc., a division of BCE, on the development of LocaLoop.ca, a marketing-based website for the London community. If the model proves successful, Bell New Ventures plans to roll out the concept in other Canadian centres in 2008.

In late 2007, however, LocaLoop.ca was shut down after BCE and CTVglobemedia's majority shares were purchased by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.