The Toronto municipal election of 1978 held on Monday, November 13, 1978, was the first seriously contested mayoralty race in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since David Crombie took office in the 1972 election. Crombie left municipal politics earlier in 1978 to seek and win a seat in the House of Commons of Canada as the Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament for Rosedale electoral district.
The Mayor of Toronto is the leader of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The mayor is directly-elected in municipal elections every four years alongside Toronto City Council. The mayor is responsible for the administration of government services, the composition of councils and committees overseeing Toronto government departments and serves as the chairperson for meeting of Toronto City Council.
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
David Edward Crombie is a Canadian politician, professor and consultant. Crombie served as mayor of Toronto from 1972 to 1978. In federal politics, he served as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament from 1978 to 1988 serving in several cabinet positions.
The contest to succeed Crombie (or more correctly, interim Mayor Fred Beavis) was a wide-open affair that saw three aldermen, David Smith, Tony O'Donohue and John Sewell contest the position.
Frederick J. Beavis was a longtime city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, who briefly served as interim mayor of the city in 1978.
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council member elected by voters.
Anthony "Tony" O'Donohue is a former municipal politician in Toronto, Ontario.
Though O'Donohue and Smith were both aligned with the Liberals with links to developers, O'Donohue was seen as more right-wing and won the endorsement of the conservative Toronto Sun newspaper, while Smith was seen as more of a centrist.
The Liberal Party of Canada is the oldest and longest-serving governing political party in Canada. The Liberals form the current government, elected in 2015. The party has dominated federal politics for much of Canada's history, holding power for almost 69 years in the 20th century—more than any other party in a developed country—and as a result, it is sometimes referred to as Canada's "natural governing party".
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Sewell had first been elected to Toronto city council in 1969 and had a reputation as a community activist and even a radical. His backers consisted of New Democratic Party supporters (although Sewell himself has never been a member of the party), left-wing Liberals and Red Tories, many of whom had supported Crombie who, despite his Tory allegiance, had a reputation as a reform mayor on the left-wing of the municipal political spectrum.
A Red Tory is an adherent of a centre-right or paternalistic-conservative political philosophy derived from the Tory tradition, predominantly in Canada, but also in the United Kingdom. This philosophy tends to favour communitarian social policies, while maintaining a degree of fiscal discipline and a respect of social and political order. It is contrasted with "Blue Tory" or "High Tory". Some Red Tories view themselves as small-c conservatives.
The split on the right between O'Donohue and Smith allowed Sewell to win with less than 50% of the vote.
Sewell received strong support from younger voters, tenants, and the highly educated and affluent. He carried midtown (ward 5), the downtown (wards 6 and 7, the latter of which he represented as an alderman), the east end (wards 8 and 9) and one of the city's wealthy northern wards (ward 10). O'Donohue won the working class, heavily Catholic and ethnic west end (wards 1-4), one of which he represented as an alderman; Sewell fared poorly in the west end. Smith narrowly beat Sewell in the northern ward 11, which he had represented as an alderman. [1]
Top two from each ward elected to Toronto City Council. Top one from each ward also wins a seat on Metro Toronto council.
Ward 4 Alderman George Ben died on December 17, 1978. A by-election was held on February 26, 1979:
(783 out of 815 polls)
(four to be elected)
(783 out of 815 polls)
Mel Lastman was re-elected mayor receiving the most votes ever recorded for a North York mayor. Barbara Greene, Esther Shiner and Robert Yuill were re-elected to Board of Control with Irving Paisley taking the fourth seat. Greene received the most votes for a Board of Control member which carries the post of deputy mayor. Some analysts thought that her chances of retaining the position may have been hurt by her becoming a single mother in the previous year. In the ward races, three incumbents were ousted including Mario Sergio over Gord Risk in Ward 1; Howard Moscoe over Murray Markin in Ward 4; and Mike Foster over Marilyn Meshberg in Ward 5. Elinor Caplan won in ward 13 to replace Mike Smith who retired from council. [2] [3] [note 1]
(four to be elected)
Candidate | Total votes | % of total votes | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Howard Moscoe | 2,757 | 45.74 | High school teacher |
(x)Murray Markin | 1,934 | 32.09 | Incumbent |
Eleanor Rosen | 630 | 10.45 | |
Jean Lance | 447 | 7.42 | Tenant activist |
Alan Mostyn | 259 | 4.30 | Lawyer |
Total valid votes | 6,027 | 100.00 |
(two to be elected)
Gus Harris won his first term as mayor defeating interim mayor Ken Morrish by 3,000 votes. Morrish was appointed interim mayor after Paul Cosgrove resigned to run federally. Incumbent controllers Brian Harrison, Joyce Trimmer and Frank Faubert were all re-elected while alderman Carol Ruddell took the fourth spot. Shirley Eidt returned to council after beating one term alderman Brian Brazier. Newcomers include Wally Majesky (Ward 2), Alan Robinson (Ward 5), and Maureen Prinsloo (Ward 10). [4]
(Four to be elected)
In the borough of York, Gayle Christie defeated Philip White who had been Mayor since 1969. [3] [5]
John Sewell, CM is a Canadian political activist and writer on municipal affairs; he was the mayor of Toronto, Ontario from 1978 to 1980.
The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the City of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Members represent wards throughout the city, and are known as councillors. The passage of provincial legislation in the summer of 2018 established that the number of wards be reduced from 44 to 25 and that they be based upon the city's federal electoral districts as of the year 2000. While the federal districts have been redistributed since then, the ward boundaries remain the same. The city council had at its peak 45 members: 44 ward councillors plus the mayor. On September 19, 2018 an Ontario Court of appeals granted a stay order of a previous court decision that would have prevented this reduction, thus re-establishing the move to 25 wards. The actual court appeal of Bill 5 has yet to be scheduled, but was heard subsequent to the municipal election on October 22, 2018.
The 1994 Toronto municipal election was held in November 1994 to elect councillors in Metropolitan Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and mayors, councillors and school trustees in Toronto, York, East York, North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke.
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