In a life in politics, you deal with many a municipal politician. I expect the dorkiest I ever had to deal with was a little guy named Mel Lastman. Mel was an entrepreneur in business and in politics. He was a showman. He dealt with political controversy as though it was a marketing problem. He was a conservative without the philosophy. He was a politician who liked people. He died the other day at 88.
Mel sold himself short when he first ran in North York. At a time of shifting alliances in Toronto and its surrounding boroughs, he ran to be one of the four controllers in North York. Many of us liberals in North York were amused by his campaign but he had strong name recognition because of his furniture and appliances stores. The old hands at North York city hall and Metropolitan Toronto gave him a rough time. It made him more determined. The next election, he ran for mayor in North York and was unstoppable.
It is easy to admit that it was always fun to deal with Mel. He had the only city hall office that I had been in that had its own telephone booth. He was a bit quirky. I thought of his office as Mel’s Cabinet of Curios.
But he was also very fair. As a ratepayer president for my community, I always considered Mel the last resort. We shared a lot of platforms together for various events and elections. He was always unfailingly jovial and interested in what I had to say.
Once there was a dust-up over some proposed high-rise apartments and Mel stepped in to mediate. I knew darn well that he was a good buddy of the developer and that the only sensible solution was to get the most out of the deal for my community as possible. That meant taking a middle of the road position and I can tell you from experience that going out into the middle of the road in politics gets you run over.
I think Mel made his mistake when he took the leap from North York to the cloistered clamshell of Toronto’s city hall because of the forced amalgamation to the larger city. He had moved out of his comfort zone. He was too old and I think he missed his telephone booth. Mel Lastman was one of a kind.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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