Civic Issues: Will Toronto elect a woman as its Mayor? (Part-1)

Will Toronto elect a woman as its mayor for the remainder part of the current term? If it is, she will be the third woman mayor of this business capital and otherwise the biggest city of Canada.

Olivia Chow, a high-profile politician and widow of NDP leader Jack Leyton, has been waiting for this moment. A former MP and two-time mayoral candidate, she is leading the polls in a race to fill the seat Toronto’s former mayor John Tory vacated four months after the last Municipal election. His abrupt departure, after admitting to a lengthy affair with a former staffer, created an unexpected opening for long time mayoral hopefuls who put their aspirations on hold while Tory dominated the rough-and-tumble world of big-city politics. It is why the number of aspirants for top civic post in the country has gone up more than three times since the October 2022 polls.

And one of the candidates, Toby Heaps,  claims that he is contesting the Mayoral polls on behalf of his dog, Molly.

Early this week, when a leading news magazine, The Economist, came out with this sustainability survey, it put Toronto  in its list of top 10 Most Liveable cities. Interestingly, two other Canadian cities – Vancouver and Calgary – finish a little higher than Toronto in the Most Liveable cities survey.

Toronto is one of the most populous cities in North America, as well as the most populous city in Canada. Though Ottawa is the capital of the country, Toronto is the undisputed business capital of Canada.

It is a multicultural and multi ethnic city and has among strong runners for the coveted post of Mayor, a woman of Asian origin. Till now, Toronto has never elected any South Asian as its Mayor.

Among the top runners for the post are Olivia Chow, Anthony Perruzza, a sitting councillor; Chloe Brown, who finished third in the last mayoral election; Anthony Furey, a former Toronto Sun columnist; Mark Saunders, former Police chief of Toronto; Brad Bradford, a sitting councillor; and Josh Matlow, also a sitting councillor; besides Ana Bailao, a former councillor and Deputy Mayor, and Mitzie Hunter  who resigned as an Ontario Liberal MPP to enter the race.

Ana Bailão has endorsements from councillors Jennifer McKelvie, Paul Ainslie, Shelley Carroll, Vince Crisanti, Frances Nunziata, Nick Mantas, Chris Moise and James Pasternak.

Olivia Chow has been endorsed by councillors Alejandra Bravo, Ausma Malik, Amber Morley, Jamaal Myers and Gord Perks.

Mark Saunders has been endorsed by  councillor Stephen Holyday.

Councillors Brad Bradford, Josh Matlow and Anthony Perruzza are running for mayor but have no endorsements from fellow councillors.

Since the city is a hub for business, the arts, and finance, it is no surprise that it is one of the safest cities in the world. Homicides, snatchings, sexual assaults, thefts and robberies do take place in this “mini world” but they rarely hawk media headlines. Perturbed over the increase in incidents of assaults, snatchings and heinous crime on board the public transit system, one of candidates, Mark Saunders,  a former police chief of Toronto, has promised more policemen to make local travel very safe.

Incidentally, June Rowlands (née Pendock; May 14, 1924 – December 21, 2017) was a Canadian politician who was the 60th mayor of Toronto from 1991 to 1994. She was the first woman to serve as Toronto’s mayor.

Toronto’s first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie   was appointed in 1834 after his Reform coalition won the new City of Toronto’s first election, and Mackenzie was chosen by the Reformers.

The city has been experimenting with different systems in choosing, appointing or even electing its Mayor. From 1834 to 1857, and again from 1867 to 1873, Toronto mayors were not elected directly by the public. Instead, after each annual election of aldermen and councilmen, the assembled council would elect one of their members as mayor.

For all other years, mayors were directly elected by popular vote, except in rare cases where a mayor was appointed by council to fill an unexpired term of office. Prior to 1834, Toronto municipal leadership was governed by the Chairman of the General Quarter Session of Peace of the Home District Council.

Till 1955 the term of office for the mayor and council was one year; it then varied between two and three years until a four-year term was adopted starting in 2006.

The “City of Toronto” has changed substantially over the years: the city annexed or amalgamated with neighbouring communities or areas 49 times from in 1883 to 1967. The most sweeping change was in 1998, when the six municipalities comprising Metropolitan Toronto—East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York, and the former city of Toronto–and its regional government were amalgamated into a single City of Toronto (colloquially dubbed the “megacity”) by an act of the provincial government. The newly created position of mayor for the resulting single-tier mega-city replaced all of the mayors of the former Metro municipalities. It also abolished the office of the Metro Chairman, which had formerly been the most senior political figure in the Metro government before amalgamation.

According to Victor Loring Russell, author of Mayors of Toronto Volume I, 14 out of the first 29 mayors were lawyers. According to Mark Maloney who is writing The History of the Mayors of Toronto, 59 of Toronto’s 65 mayors have been Protestant, white, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, property-owning males. There have been two women (Hall and Rowlands) and three Jewish mayors (Phillips, Givens, and Lastman).

John Tory and Art Eggleton have been the longest-serving mayors of Toronto. While John Tory served from 2014 till February 2023, Art Eggleton  served from 1980 until 1991. Eggleton later served in federal politics from 1993 until 2004, and was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2005. David Breakenridge Read held the post of mayor of Toronto for the shortest period. Read was mayor for only fifty days in 1858.

No Toronto mayor has been removed from office. Toronto’s 64th mayor, Rob Ford, lost a conflict of interest trial in 2012, and was ordered to vacate his position; but the ruling was stayed pending an appeal, which Ford won to remain in office. Due to his substance abuse admission and controversy in 2013, Council stripped him of many powers on November 15, transferring them to the Deputy Mayor. From May until July, 2014, Ford took a leave of absence from the mayoralty to enter drug rehabilitation.

From March 27 1834 to December 31 1858, the following Mayors were appointed by the Council: William Lyon Mackenzie (27 March 1834 to 14 January 1835); Robert Baldwin Sullivan (1835 to 1836); Thomas David Morrison (1836 to 1837); George Gurnett (1837 to 1838); John Powell (1838 to 1841); George Monro (1841 to 1842); Henry Sherwood (1842 to 1845); William Henry Boulton (1845 to 1848); George Gurnett (2nd time) (1848 to 1851); John George Bowes (1851 to 1854); Joshua George Beard (1854 to 1855); George William Allan (1855 to 1856); John Beverley Robinson (1856 to 1857); John Hutchison (1856 to 1857); William Henry Boulton (2nd time) (1858 to 8 November 1858); and David Breakenridge Read (11 November 1858 to 31 December 1858).

Between 1859 and 1867, Sir Adam Wilson (1859 to 1861); John George Bowes (2nd time) (1861 to 1864); and Francis Henry Medcalf (1864 to 1867) were elected directly by the public.

Again, between 1867 and 1874, Mayors were appointed by the Council. James Edward Smith (1867 to 1869); Samuel Bickerton Harman (1869 to 1871); Joseph Sheard (1871 to 1873); and  Alexander Manning (1873 to 1874) were the appointees.

And since 1874, the election of Mayor is directly by the public. Francis Henry Medcalf (2nd time) (1874 to 1875); Angus Morrison (1876 to 1878); James Beaty, Jr. (1879 to 1880); William Barclay McMurrich (1881 to 1882); Arthur Radcliffe Boswell (1883 to 1884); Alexander Manning (2nd time) (1885 to 1885); William Holmes Howland (1886 to 1887); Edward Frederick Clarke (1888 to 1891); Robert John Fleming (1892 to 1893); Warring Kennedy (1894 to 1895); Robert John Fleming (2nd time) (1896 to 5 August 1897); John Shaw (6 August 1897 to 1899); Ernest A. Macdonald (1900 to 1900); Oliver Aiken Howland (1901 to 1902); Thomas Urquhart (1903 to 1905); Emerson Coatsworth (1906 to 1907); Joseph Oliver (1908 to 1909); George Reginald Geary (1910 to 21 October 1912); Horatio Clarence Hocken (1912 to 1914); Thomas Langton Church (1915 to 1921); Charles A. Maguire (1922 to 1923); William Wesley “Bill” Hiltz (1924 to 1925); Thomas Foster (1925 to 1927); Sam McBride (1928 to 1929); Bert Sterling Wemp (1930 to 1930); William James Stewart (1931 to 1934); James Simpson (1935 to 1935); Sam McBride (2nd time) (1936 to 10 November 1936); William D. Robbins (18 November 1936 to 1937); Ralph Day (1938 to 1940); Frederick J. Conboy (1941 to 1944); Robert Hood Saunders (1945 to 23 February 1948); Hiram E. McCallum (1948 to 1951)

The Metro Toronto era (1953 to 1997) : Allan A. Lamport (1 January 1951 to 28 June 1954); Leslie Howard Saunders (28 June 1954 to 31 December 1954); Nathan Phillips (1 January 1955 to 31 December 1962); Donald Dean Summerville (1 January 1963 to 19 November 1963); Philip Givens (19 November 1963 to 31 December 1966); William Dennison (1 January 1967 to 31 December 1972); David Crombie (1 January 1973 to 31 August 1978); Fred Beavis (1 September 1978 to 30 November 1978); John Sewell (1 December 1978 to 30 November 1980); Art Eggleton (1 December 1980 to 30 November 1991); June Rowlands (1 December 1991 to 30 November 1994);and Barbara Hall (1 December 1994 to 31 December 1997)

Post-amalgamation era: Mel Lastman (1 January 1998 to 30 November 2003); David Miller (1 December 2003 to 30 November 2010); Rob Ford (1 December 2010 to 30 November 2014); and John Tory (1 December 2014 to February 2023).

-To be concluded

Prabhjot Singh