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The 1997 Toronto municipal election was the first election held for offices in the amalgamated "megacity" of Toronto, Canada. The elections were administered by the old City of Toronto and its five suburbs within Metropolitan Toronto, but the winning candidates took office on January 1, 1998, the day of the amalgamation.
The election resulted in a showdown between the one-term Mayor of the old city of Toronto, Barbara Hall and Mel Lastman who had been mayor of the former Toronto suburb of North York for 25 years.
Election for Mayor, City of Toronto, 1926 of 1926 Polls Reporting
| Candidate |
Total votes |
| Mel Lastman |
387,848 |
| Barbara Hall |
346,452 |
| Don Andrews |
1,985 |
| Ben Kerr |
1,670 |
| William Burrill |
1,421 |
| Steven Markel |
1,244 |
| C. Edwards |
1,214 |
| Munyonzwe Hamalengwa |
1,124 |
| Hazel Jackson |
1,062 |
| Alan Heisey, Sr. |
994 |
| Alan Heisey Sr |
869 |
| Karl Hille |
695 |
| Santa Cuda |
647 |
| Laurence M. Honickman |
610 |
| Joanne Pritchard |
552 |
| George Dowar |
462 |
| Jeffery Sharpe |
379 |
| Ernest Michaud |
281 |
| Michael Houlton-Charette |
211 |
| Duri Naimji |
177 |
[edit] Council
Note: Electors could vote for two candidates. The percentages are determined in relation to the total number of votes.
[edit] Ward Seven
- Anna Stella is a longtime community activist in the Black Creek area of Toronto. She applied to replace Anthony Perruzza as North York's fifth ward councillor in 1990, after Perruzza was elected to the provincial legislature and council decided to nominate an interim replacement rather than hold a by-election. She was turned down in favour of Claudio Polsinelli.[1] Stella was later elected to the Metro Toronto Separate School Board in the 1994 municipal election, easily defeating four other candidates in Ward Twelve. She supported greater parental involvement in school affairs and a zero-tolerance policy toward violence, although she opposed Scarborough's policy of expulsion.[2] In the 1997 election, she was endorsed by Art Eggleton and Annamarie Castrilli.[3]
- Jeanelle Julien was a first-time candidate.
[edit] Ward Eight
- Henry Braverman was a first-time candidate.
- Nickeisha Hudson was a student trustee in 1997, and was awarded a Harry Jerome Award for leadership.[4] She was a first-time candidate. In 1999, she was a youth events coordinator in Hamilton.[5]
- Dzeko is a businessman in Toronto.[6] He was a first-time candidate.
[edit] Ward Nineteen
1997 Toronto municipal election, Councillor, Ward Nineteen (two members elected)edit
| Candidate |
Total votes |
% of total votes |
| (x)David Miller |
13,665 |
27.64 |
| (x)Chris Korwin-Kuczynski |
13,115 |
26.53 |
| Connie Dejak |
8,267 |
16.72 |
| (x)David Hutcheon |
7,437 |
15.04 |
| Alex Chumak |
3,931 |
7.95 |
| Ed Hooven |
1,336 |
2.70 |
| Walter Melnyk |
1,085 |
2.19 |
| Jorge Van Schouwen |
599 |
1.21 |
| Total valid votes |
49,435 |
100.00 |
- Connie Dejak is a longtime administrator at Runnymede Chronic Care Hospital. As of 2006, she is the hospital's president and Chief Executive Officer.[7] When a reviewing committee appointed by the Mike Harris provincial government decided to close Runnymede in 1997, she organized the hospital's successful challenge against the decision.[8] Dejak is also a community activist, and has served on a police liaison commitee for her neighbourhood.[9] She and David Miller were endorsed by the Toronto Star newspaper in the 1997 campaign.[10] She later sought an appointment to the Toronto Police Serves Board in 1999, but was passed over in favour of Alan Heisey.[11] In the 2003 mayoral contest, she supported John Nunziata.[12] Dejak is a member of the Liberal Party, and there are reports that she considered running for the party in a 2006 provincial by-election in Parkdale—High Park.[13]
- Ed Hooven is an academic and right-wing political activist. He has a Ph.D in Sociology, and is currently an assistant professor at York University. His formal biographical sketch indicates that his past works have focused on European integration, the post-war Japanese economy and North American free trade agreements. His current work focused on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and "judicial activism".[14] He has contributed a chapter to "Canada and the New Economic Order", entitled "The New World Order: In a New Millennium".[15] Hooven has called for governments to distinguish between the "deserving" and "undeserving" when determining policies on social assistance.[16] He has written against multiculturalism and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as leading to "creeping moral relativism", and has also criticized the powers of the Canadian judiciary.[17] He has accused feminists of seeking to destroy the nuclear family.[18] Hooven has been active with the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and was research director for the Republican candidate for Governor in the 1998 New Hampshire state elections.[19] He is a member of Republicans Abroad Canada.[20] He also plays guitar in the Mississauga Big Band Ensemble.[21]
- Walter Melnyk was a teacher in Peel, and later worked in sales.[22] He was a member of the Metro Toronto Separate School Board from 1980 to 1988. He was first elected in the 1980 municipal election, defeating incumbent trustee Edward Boehler in the city's first ward. During this campaign, he called for better services for graduating elementary students entering the public school system.[23] In 1984, he brought forward a motion to provide medical services for students afflicted by poor environmental conditions in Toronto's Junction Triangle.[24] Melnyk also promoted mandatory physical education programs.[25] In January 1988, he brought forward a motion criticizing existing practices on the Separate School Board, suggesting that the board consider breaking itself up into regional bodies.[26] He argued that the board was dominated by a secretive "old guard", who often reduced other trustees to the role of passive spectators. The board rejected his motion.[27] Melnyk also called for non-Catholics to be allowed into Catholic schools.[28] He was defeated by Barbara Poplowski in the 1988 municipal election; a newspaper article from the campaign lists him as thirty-nine years old.[29] After the election, he was appointed as a school representative on the Toronto Board of Health.[30] He campaigned for a seat on the Toronto City Council in 1991, promising to introduce a taxpayers' bill of rights.[31] He narrowly lost to New Democratic Party incumbent Rob Maxwell in the eleventh ward. Melnyk was later banned from running in the 1994 municipal election, after failing to file a financial statement for his 1991 campaign.[32] He worked as the campaign manager for city council candidate Alex Chumak, but was forced to leave this campaign amid controversy. Chumak informed the media that Melnyk had offered a rival candidate a position on the Toronto Board of Health in return for leaving the race; Melnyk said that he did nothing wrong.[33] Melnyk ran for a position on the new City of Council in 1997, and was defeated. He tried to return to the Separate School Board (now renamed as the Toronto Catholic District School Board) in 2000, but lost to Barbara Poplowski for a second time.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Stan Josey, "Ex-North York councillors join race for vacant seat", Toronto Star, 14 October 1990, A3.
- ^ Nicolaas Van Rijn and Colleen Pollreis, "Trustees -Separate School Board", Toronto Star, 10 November 1994, E8.
- ^ Paul Moloney and Bruce DeMara, "Megacity race a game of musical chairs", Toronto Star, 1 September 1997, A6.
- ^ Young citizens to be polled on megacity, The Varsity, 25 February 1997; Nicolaas Van Rijn, "Ballerina knows what it's like to be different", Toronto Star, 30 March 1997, A7.
- ^ Hamida Ghafour, "Racial harmony rocks at street kids' music fest", Hamilton Spectator, 16 August 1999, A5.
- ^ City of Toronto, Minutes of the Meeting of the North York Community Council, 14 September 1999; City of Toronto, Consolidated Clause in Toronto North Community Council Report 5, considered June 22, 23 and 24, 2004.
- ^ Stasia Evasuk, "Runneymede hospital home to 114", Toronto Star, 12 August 1989, F6; "Converted school turned hospital hosting reunion" [press release], Canada NewsWire, 12 October 1990, 12:57 report; "McGuinty Government's Infrastructure Investments Building Opportunity For Ontarians" [press release], Canada NewsWire, 10 October 2006, 10:09 report.
- ^ Nicolaas Van Rijn, "Chiefs, staff 'devastated' as axe falls", Toronto Star, 7 March 1997, A10; Theresa Boyle and Rita Daly, "Witmer gives reprieve to 3 Toronto hospitals", Toronto Star, 16 December 1999, 1.
- ^ Leslie Ferenc, "Liquor licences fuelling trendy west-end boom", Toronto Star, 18 July 1994, E1.
- ^ "High Park", Toronto Star, 1 November 1997, 1.
- ^ John Duncanson, "Hot race for police board spot", Toronto Star, 16 January 2001, 1.
- ^ Vanessa Lu, "Women won't get this vote", Toronto Star, 7 October 2003, A1.
- ^ Robert Benzie, "Kennedy departure may spark shuffle", Toronto Star, 7 April 2006, A12.
- ^ Ed Hooven, Academic Biography, York University, accessed 24 October 2006.
- ^ Canada and the New World Economic Order, 2e, press release, Captus Press Catalogue, accessed 24 October 2006.
- ^ Ed Hooven, "Society must sort out deserving from undeserving" [letter], Toronto Star, F3.
- ^ Ed Hooven, "Quebec judge's ruling" [letter], Globe and Mail, 2 February 1998, A14.
- ^ Ed Hooven, "Dangerous liaisons" [letter], Globe and Mail, 11 June 1998, A20.
- ^ Ed Hooven, "We Don't Need Psychobabble to Understand the Shootings in Colorado", reprinted by the Canadian Conservative forum, accessed 24 October 2006.
- ^ Helen Branswell, "Word that Canadians felt ...", Canadian Press, 21 September 2001, 18:32 report.
- ^ Geoff Chapman, "Big Band ensemble puts Mississauga on the map", Toronto Star, 26 December 1993, E12.
- ^ "The candidates", Toronto Star, 11 November 1988, A14.
- ^ Julia Turner, "Get rid of portables, separate school hopefuls say", Globe and Mail, 5 November 1980, P5.
- ^ Suzanne Wintrob, "RC board urges clinics for Junction children", Globe and Mail, 24 September 1984, M2.
- ^ Darcy Henton and Brian McAndrew, "MDs deplore health habits of schoolkids", Toronto Star, 17 January 1987, A1.
- ^ "Break up separate board angry Metro trustees say", Toronto Star, 21 January 1988, B7; Walter Melnyk, "Options open to Catholic trustees" [letter], Toronto Star, 10 February 1988, A14.
- ^ Rita Daly, "Metro separate trustees say no to smaller boards", Toronto Star, 29 March 1988, N5.
- ^ Walter Melnyk, "Catholic schools should rescind ban" [letter], Toronto Star, 19 June 1988, B2.
- ^ "The candidates", Toronto Star, 11 November 1988, A14.
- ^ Walter Melnyk, "More facts needed on school meal plan" [letter], 14 April 1991, B2.
- ^ "City Of Toronto Mayor, councillors", Toronto Star, 7 November 1991, G1. The Toronto Star also reported that Melnyk wanted to make Toronto a "Communist-free zone". He later indicated that he made the comment as a joke, and charged the Star with diminishing his status as a serious candidate by printing the reference. The press council expressed some reservations about the paper's decision, but ruled that the paper did not violate Melnyk's rights as a candidate. See "Star not biased in election coverage press council rules", Toronto Star, 16 November 1992, A13.
- ^ Danielle Bochove, "Candidates banned from '94 vote", Globe and Mail, 12 October 1992, A11
- ^ "Trustee candidate charged with fraud", Toronto Star, 12 November 1994, A4.
