Joe Mihevc
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Joe Mihevc is a city councillor in Toronto, Canada. He represents one of the two St. Paul's wards, Ward 21 St. Paul's.
His family was originally from a small village in Slovenia. They became refugees in the war and immigrated to Canada in 1948. Mihevc grew up in the Toronto area of Dufferin and Eglinton [1], an ethnic working class area that borders the northwest corner of his ward. A Catholic, Mihevc obtained a PhD in theology and became professor of ethics at the University of Toronto. Aloysius Matthew Ambrozic, the Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, is from the same Slovenian village. Mihevc is a strongly progressive Catholic and has been active in social justice, gay rights, and anti-war issues.
He first ran for office in 1991 in the old City of York, and defeated incumbent Tony Mandarano, who had been facing corruption charges. Backed by the New Democratic Party, he rose to be deputy mayor of York.
Following the amalgamation of York with the five other municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto, which he opposed, Mihevc was elected to the new Toronto city council. In 2000, redistricting forced him into a tough election battle with right-leaning councillor Rob Davis. The election was marred by an anonymous telephone campaign that attempted to paint Mihevc as anti-Semitic. This was especially odd as Mihevc had done his master's thesis on the Holocaust, and was backed by a number of prominent rabbis. Controversy also developed when Mayor of Toronto Mel Lastman endorsed Davis, despite an earlier pledge to remain neutral. Despite this, Mihevc won with a large majority.
He was chair of Toronto's World Youth Day, and from 2000 to 2003 was chair of the health board. He was in that position during the 2003 SARS outbreak. He also shepherded through a ban on the use of lawn pesticides. He is also the vice-chair of the Toronto Transit Commission, and recently played an important role in heading off a potential strike.
Despite a high-profile challenge from former mayor John Sewell, Mihevc was easily re-elected to city council in the 2006 election.
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