The current method of electing the mayor of Toronto is straightforward: candidates file nomination papers by a deadline, then voters fill out a ballot during the polling period. During the 19th century, however, how a mayor was elected varied between selection by members of city council and official nomination meetings that occurred shortly before the public had their say.
When Toronto’s first city council was elected on March 27, 1834, voters in each of the city’s five wards elected two councilmen and two aldermen. The distinction was based on property holdings; there was a higher minimum for aldermen, who were also eligible for municipal judicial positions. The mayor would be selected for a one-year term by all councillors from the pool of aldermen. The debut council consisted of 12 men allied with the Reform movement and eight allied with the Tories. The latter weren’t happy about being a minority, nor were they pleased that their none of their potential mayoral choices was elected.
Council’s likely choices for mayor were two Reformers, William Lyon Mackenzie and John Rolph. Mackenzie had clashed with the Tories over the previous decade as a printer and a member of the Upper Canadian legislature, from which he’d been expelled numerous times. During the council election, Tory-leaning papers attacked Mackenzie for being a nuisance. “It would be difficult to see where you could bestow him,” the Patriot declared, “and not make trouble for somebody.” Most Reformers felt Mackenzie deserved the mayoralty as payback for all the abuse he had suffered from the Tories.
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Rolph received bipartisan support during his council campaign and was deemed “socially acceptable” by the Tories. Prominent Tories sounded out Rolph about his willingness to be mayor. He agreed, raising suspicions among Reformers. Their caucus met and persuaded Rolph to stand down in favour of Mackenzie. Rolph prepared letters to representatives of both sides indicating that he would not only turn down a nomination for mayor, but also resign his council seat effective immediately. Rolph’s actions seemingly confirmed the suspicion that, all along, he had been interested only in being mayor.
When council met on April 3, Mackenzie was nominated. The official record indicates that “debate ensued,” but discussions stopped when councillors from each side opened letters from Rolph confirming his resignation. When the vote was taken, Mackenzie won by a 10-8 margin.
This practice continued for the next two decades, usually with little hostility. Several mayors won unanimous votes during troubled times. John Powell got the nod in 1838 for being a “saviour of the city” during the Rebellion of 1837: he had killed his guard while being held captive by the rebels and nearly shot Mackenzie to death. Joshua Beard got the job in 1854 because he was free from any taint from the “Ten Thousand Pound Job” scandal, which affected his predecessor, John George Bowes. There were some close votes: in 1841, George Gurnett narrowly lost to George Monro after it was revealed that he rented a home to a madame. Sometimes a mayor was elected in absentia; in 1845, William Henry Boulton was a no-show because he was attending a session of the colonial legislature in Montreal.
Perhaps the most controversial mayoral-selection process during this period occurred in 1857. Voting was disrupted in St. David’s Ward (which was located east of Yonge Street and north of King Street) when a mob took over a poorly managed polling station, leading to no proper returns and legal charges against three candidates. City council set a new election date for the ward, but several councillors and Mayor John Beverley Robinson sought further legal advice. Both city solicitor Clarke Gamble and provincial attorney general John A. Macdonald believed council had no legal right to drop a new writ. After failing to secure a preferred polling location, council scrapped the election plan and took nearly two weeks before meeting to resolve the situation.
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The meeting on January 20, 1857, was a long one. Future premier Oliver Mowat, then an alderman for the St. Lawrence ward, argued it wasn’t appropriate to pick a mayor until councillors for St. David’s Ward had been chosen. During the ensuing debates, charges were made that Robinson and his allies might have wanted to delay things as long as possible, as the candidates likely to be appointed would have supported political rival John Hutchison. After much debate, it was decided the top two councilman candidates and the first- and third-place alderman candidates among the votes that were counted would be appointed (the second-place finisher was among those charged).
Mowat nominated Hutchison for mayor, while Alderman John Worthington, to jeers from the gallery urging him to shut up, indicated he would nominate Robinson if Hutchison failed to secure a majority. As expected, all the new St. David’s councillors voted for Hutchison, giving him a 14-13 win. Hutchison abstained from voting, while Robinson voted against him. The Globe reported that, “when the clerk read the numbers, the excitement was intense and the shouting tremendous” and that city hall had “never before witnessed such a scene of exultation.” The next day, charges were dropped in the riot case.
The next year, the Province of Canada (the united legislature that governed the future Ontario and Quebec) passed a new municipal act that allowed the public to vote directly for mayor. The first official mayoral-candidate nomination meeting was held in front of city hall (which is now encased within St. Lawrence Market) on December 20, 1858. The event drew around 2,600 spectators. “The people, we are disposed to think, are somewhat in advance of the lawmakers,” a Globe editorial observed. “For while rendering the mayoralty elective, and instituting a nomination as an indispensable preliminary, the legislature has provided that there shall not be a show of hands. The electors are called together to hear the sweet voices of the candidates and their immediate friends, but the relative popularity is not to be ascertained by the aggregate viva voce votes in front of the hustings.”
Three candidates were nominated: Alderman Adam Wilson and former mayors Boulton (who had recently resigned over the handling of police corruption and incompetence) and Bowes. Each candidate had two nominators who were allowed to make speeches. The main target was Boulton, who was accused of corruption and cowardice. Wilson would win by a comfortable margin.
Sketch of city hall as it would have appeared around 1856. Illustration credited to C.W. Jefferys. (Toronto Public Library, B1-27C)
Revisions to the Municipal Act passed in 1866 eliminated the councilman position and handed the selection of mayor back to council. The Globe warned that “unless we have a good council we cannot expect a good mayor.” The return of this method was controversial, as Francis Medcalf, who had been elected by the public for three consecutive terms, was ousted by a 12-9 vote when a new council convened in January 1867. Five more nominees were rejected before James Smith won by one vote. The press believed that Smith’s name had been purposely withheld until his opponents were defeated and that a critical vote from future mayor Samuel Harman was “in the bag.”
Another round of changes to the Municipal Act in 1873 restored a direct public vote for mayor. “It hence becomes every ratepayer to ponder more carefully even than usual the character and antecedents of the different candidates, so that an enlightened vote may be given for the one who will fill with most propriety the civic chair, and help forward with most energy and integrity the best interests of the community,” a Globe editorial observed. Nomination meetings returned, as did Medcalf, who regained the mayoralty after a break from city hall.
Throughout the rest of the 19th century, nomination meetings were held in the council chamber or outside city hall a week or two before election day. Candidates gave their speeches and rallied their supporters. Some were quiet, boring affairs, while others were straight out of a Victorian melodrama, full of cheering and jeering.
Among the most dramatic was the nomination meeting held on December 22, 1893. The mayoral race was expected to be a rematch between incumbent Robert John Fleming and businessman Warring Kennedy. The session threatened to turn into a farce due to the first nominee. Ernest Macdonald was a businessman, developer, and former city councillor; the Empire described him as a “prince of demagogues.” The audience viewed his nomination as a joke. Macdonald had accepted the nomination only because of his conviction that it was his duty to promote, at every available opportunity, his scheme to construct a canal between the Humber River and Georgian Bay. He went on a tirade, criticizing Fleming for blocking his canal dreams and for wanting to continue as mayor only for the salary. He also criticized the press for its lack of support for his plan, accusing them of being in the pocket of electric light, gas, and railway interests. “The crowd invited him to go home and talk to himself,” the Evening Telegram observed. “He didn’t.”
The next nominee was Toronto World publisher and York East MP William Findlay Maclean. He indicated that he would withdraw immediately if Fleming and Kennedy both agreed “not to interfere with existing rights in regard to running streetcars on Sunday.” Maclean was a major proponent of allowing Sunday transit service, and his side had narrowly lost a public referendum on the issue in August 1893. The province decided another vote couldn’t be held for three years. Maclean was greeted with a mixture of applause and hissing that lasted for several minutes. When Maclean attacked Macdonald’s canal plan as impractical, Macdonald mocked him. Maclean was cheered by the audience for stating that he was a citizen who wanted answers about a potentially costly project.
Front-page cartoon of Robert John Fleming (on horse) and Warring Kennedy from the December 22, 1893, edition of the Toronto Evening News.
During Kennedy’s speech, Macdonald once again proved disruptive, as he told Fleming he had to leave to catch the Ward 1 nomination meeting. Fleming told Macdonald he had plenty of time and shouldn’t leave until the incumbent had discussed Macdonald’s plan during his speech. Macdonald decided to leave anyway, and as he headed to the door, Fleming called him a coward. Fleming demanded time to say things in Macdonald’s presence, and Kennedy agreed, although those in the gallery heckled him, saying he should wait his turn.
Macdonald turned around and stood next to Fleming. He told the audience, as he pointed to Fleming, “I never feared a face of clay. Do you think I would fear that? Never!” Macdonald then left, and Kennedy resumed his speech. Macdonald finished far behind in the Ward 1 race; he did become mayor in 1900 but had a nervous breakdown when he came in third in 1901. In 1902, he died of complications from syphilis.
After Fleming spoke, a final nominee, Toronto MPP Joseph Tait, immediately withdrew to back Fleming. Maclean, satisfied that Fleming and Kennedy would respect public opinion on streetcars, also withdrew. The election campaign was short and nasty; Fleming was criticized for his raising of property taxes to pay for municipal improvements and his handling of the Sunday streetcar issue. Kennedy, backed by the city’s moral crusaders, won decisively on New Year’s Day.
The nomination-meeting process carried on into the 20th century. Over time, its importance diminished, as the date simply became the nomination deadline. By 1964, the event drew only 75 onlookers, and by the end of that decade, press coverage had faded. The day would have become a chore by the 1980s, as the number of mayoral candidates increased — imagine a single session in this year’s mayoral byelection in which all 102 candidates had the opportunity to speak.
Sources: A City in the Making by Frederick H. Armstrong (Toronto: Dundurn, 1988); Mayors of Toronto by Victor L. Russell (Erin: Boston Mills Press, 1982); Forging a Consensus: Historical Essays on Toronto, Victor L. Russell, editor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984); Toronto Past and Present: Historical and Descriptive by Henry Scadding and John Charles Dent (Toronto: Hunter, Rose and Company, 1884); the December 23, 1893, edition of the Empire; the January 10., 1857, January 21, 1857, January 22, 1857, December 21, 1858, December 2, 1873, and December 23, 1893, editions of the Globe; the December 22, 1893, edition of the Toronto Evening News; the March 25, 1834, edition of the Patriot; and the December 22, 1893, edition of the Evening Telegram.