Scott, a law student at the time, defeated 22-year incumbent Thomas Alexander Murphy when he was elected to the Ontario legislature as the MPP for Beaches in the 1948 provincial election. At age 21, he set the record for youngest MPP ever elected which remained unbroken until the election of 19 year old Sam Oosterhoff in a 2016 by-election.\n', '

Scott ran for federal office in the 1962 election and was elected as the NDP candidate for Danforth. While an MP, he played a role in the "Great Flag Debate". Serving on the all-party committee charged with recommending a new flag, Scott successfully lobbied Social Credit and Créditiste MPs to back the Maple Leaf flag as it did not have "symbols of the past". His efforts secured a majority on the committee in favour of what became the new flag of Canada. Reid was the last surviving member of the Parliamentary Committee that selected the design of the new flag.\n', '

After leaving federal politics, Scott served as a Toronto City Councillor from 1969 to 1976. In the early 1970s, as chair of the Metro Public Works Committee, he proposed turning part of Yonge Street into a pedestrian mall. The experiment was conducted for a week in 1971 attracting 50,000 people a day and then for longer periods during the summers of 1972 and 1973 but was ended due to mounting complaints by businesses about shoplifting and vagrancy.\n', '

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