Melvin Douglas 'Mel' Lastman was born to Polish-Jewish immigrants in 1933. He entered into politics in 1969, after having created a chain of stores in the area of Toronto. According to legend, at the age of 22, he borrowed $2,000 and a truck to open his first appliance store; and the store grew into a chain of 40, earning $50 million annually. From 1972 to 1997, Mel Lastman served as mayor of the City of North York, one of the municipalities to be amalgamated with Toronto in 1997. After the suppression of his position, he became the first mayor of the newly created 'megacity' of Toronto, the most populous city in Canada. Re-elected in November 2000 with an 80 percent majority, he served until his retirement in 2003 because of health problems. He belonged to the Ontario Progressive-Conservative Party. On January 1st, 1998, the five municipalities of Scarborough, York, North York, East York and Etobicoke were amalgamated with the existing City of Toronto. The first mayor to rule this 'megacity' was Mel Lastman. Ten years after this major event in the life of the Province of Ontario, what is the balance of both the megacity of Toronto and its first mayor, Mel Lastman? How did this man deal with the difficult challenge of building a new form of governance, at a new scale? Even if Mel Lastman was neither involved in the amalgamation decision or in the process, just as the citizens, he tried to do his best to make it effective and positive for Toronto during his two terms in office.
[...] Municipal elections took place in November, and the new city was incorporated on January [Boudreau, 2000] Thus, the process has been hurried, with only half a year to coordinate the merger Mel Lastman victory Mel Lastman, as mayor of North York for twenty-five years was opposed to the merger: he participated to many anti-amalgamation rallies to prevent the disappearance of his city. He opposed to the Provincial Government and expressed his anger by this sentence: “They're carving us up like a turkey and it isn't even Thanksgiving!” [Chidley, 1997] Nevertheless, in fall 1997 when the amalgamation was irremediable, he ran for the mayoralty of the new Megacity against twenty candidates, including outgoing mayor of former Toronto, Barbara Hall who was also opposed to the merger. [...]
[...] Conclusion Described as an outspoken and gaffe-prone politician [Wikipedia], but also endearing and popular, Mel Lastman had the difficult task of inventing a new form of government, at the scale of a Megacity of 2,4 million inhabitants. Initially, he didn't approve Mike Harris decision to force the amalgamation of the former six local municipalities and the metropolitan political structure of Toronto into a single corporation, but he tried to do his best to manage this new situation, and obtained some success. [...]
[...] In 2010, for the next municipal elections, he would be 77 and doesn't exclude to come out from retirement in order to run for office against his successor, David Miller: Mel Lastman hasn't slammed the door on running . [Warmington, 2007] and fighting for the interests of his city. Bibliography H. Aubin, unanimous: Toronto's megacity is a in The Gazette, January 8th J.-A. Bourdeau, The Megacity Saga, Black Rose Book J. Bow, “Whose fault is March 16th http://bowjamesbow.ca J. Chidley, “Toronto's Struggle Against Amalgamation”, Maclean's Magazine, March 17th J. Cohan, “MetroVisions: Toronto stumbling six years [...]
[...] With the holding of this worldwide event, Mel Lastman contributed to establish Toronto as a world-city. But one of his famous cost a lot to Toronto bid for a much bigger event than the World Youth Day: the 2008 Olympic Games. In June 2001, after leaving the capital city of Kenya, he created a vast worldwide polemic after saying to a journalist "What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa? . I'm sort of scared about going out there, but the wife is really nervous. [...]
[...] In the meantime, Harris government shifted several of the province's responsibilities to the city, which forced Toronto to absorb and hire workers for a variety of social service programs” [Cohen, 2004]: all those additional costs imposed by the Provincial government lead Mel Lastman to accuse Harris of "cutting the heart out of the city." As a response to Mike Harris' policy, Lastman proposed in fall 1999 the creation of a new province, a city-state exclusively composed of Toronto, in order to concentrate more resources and powers, and so, to compete effectively with other global cities in the world. [...]
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