O'Connor was born in Oshawa, Ontario. He worked at General Motors plant as an assembly worker.[3] He was a member of the political action committee of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 in Oshawa. He is married to Christina with whom he has one son.[3]
In 1991, he argued against a proposal to create a garbage dump in the Durham region. He suggested that York region was the only viable option.[7] Later in the year, he defended the NDP's legislation called the Waste Management Act saying that it was a reasonable compromise to handle the problem of finding a place for Toronto's garbage.
O'Connor was elected as a Durham regional councillor in 1997, later becoming chair of the region's Health and Social Services committee and president of the Association of Public Health Agencies (alPHa) in the Durham region.
O'Connor was first elected mayor of Brock Township in the 2006 municipal elections. He was re-elected in the 2010 municipal elections, but his 13-vote margin of victory over former mayor Terry Clayton led to a recount battle.[8] The township used a mail-in voting system in 2010, and when ballots which were postmarked before election day but arrived late were counted, O'Connor's margin of victory was reduced to just three votes.[8] O'Connor voluntarily resigned as mayor on March 28, 2011,[1] and the township council subsequently appointed Clayton as the new mayor.[9]
Federal, 2012
Following the resignation of Bev Oda, the riding of Durham became vacant as of July 31, 2012. On October 23, O'Connor was selected as the federal New Democratic Party candidate in the resulting by-election to be held on November 26.[10]
