Wong was also an avid curler, and played second for the Northern Ontario team at the 1973 Macdonald Brier, on a team skipped by Don Harry. The rink went 3-7 at the event.[1]
After losing his job with the city in a round of austerity measures incumbent mayor Maurice Lamoureux had implemented in early 1982, Wong successfully challenged Lamoureux for the mayoralty in that year's municipal election.[4] He was the city's first non-European mayor, as well as the first Chinese Canadian mayor of a major Canadian city and only the third Chinese Canadian mayor ever elected in any municipality.[5]
In 1989, Peter and Lynn Wong attended a parade in Sudbury, Massachusetts, as special guests on the occasion of that town's 350th anniversary.[10]
In the 1991 municipal elections, former mayor Jim Gordon sought a return to office, and Wong was defeated.[11]
He subsequently served on several municipal and provincial boards and commissions, including as a vice-chair of the Ontario Highway Transport Board and as chair of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund,[3] as a chair of the local United Way, and as a board member of the Sudbury Regional Hospital.[3]
Regional chair
In the 1997 municipal elections, the provincial government reformed the structure of the regional municipality, making the position of regional council chair a generally elected position for the first time. The position had previously been filled by a vote within council. Wong stood as a candidate and won over challenger Frank Mazzuca, becoming the municipality's first elected regional chair.[3]
Mazzuca, Wong's challenger in the 1997 election, won the by-election following Wong's death, and was the final chair of the regional municipality before its amalgamation into the current city of Greater Sudbury.
