June Rowlands

June Rowlands
60th Mayor of Toronto
In office December 1, 1991 – November 30, 1994
Preceded by	Art Eggleton
Succeeded by	Barbara Hall
Personal details
Born	1925 (age 86–87)
Nationality	Canadian
Political party	Liberal

June Rowlands (born 1925) was the 60th mayor of Toronto, Ontario, and the first woman to hold that office. She had previously been a long time city councillor, unsuccessful federal candidate, and chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission.

Early political career

Rowlands was first elected to Toronto City Council in 1976 when she was returned as the junior alderman for Ward 10 covering Rosedale and part of North Toronto. In 1978, she topped the vote in her ward becoming its senior alderman with the added duty of sitting on Metro Council.

She attempted to enter federal politics by running for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 1984 federal election. She ran in the suburban riding of York—Scarborough, far from her electoral base in the old City of Toronto, and was defeated by Progressive Conservative Paul McCrossan.

She remained on both Metro and Toronto city council until the 1988 municipal election in which she did not run in order to accept an appointment as Chair of the Police Commission. She left the commission in 1991 to return to elected politics.

Mayor of Toronto

Rowlands was elected mayor in 1991 following a campaign that focused on law and order. The election began with a group of three right of centre women: Rowlands, Susan Fish, and Betty Disero. The left was mostly unified behind city councillor Jack Layton. Eventually right wing support coalesced around Rowlands, and she was elected by a two to one margin over Layton.

Shortly after taking office, Rowlands came under fire by hiring a relative for a municipal position without either advertising the position or interviewing candidates.

Rowlands is perhaps best remembered (and blamed) for banning the Toronto pop group Barenaked Ladies from performing at a City Hall function, claiming that the group's name objectified women. (Rowlands herself was out of town at the time and it was a mayoral staffer who thought the band's name objectified women.) The band benefited immensely from the incident and media attention and went on to great national and international success, but the issue became a bit of a cause celebre among many Toronto voters, who felt it an example of political correctness run amok. Later in her term, Rowlands gained further notoriety when she seemed to be staggeringly uninformed about—and even completely unaware of—a large-scale youth riot that had shut down parts of Yonge Street, Toronto's main street located just one block east of City Hall. This widely-reported incident did not help Rowlands shed her 'out-of-touch' image.

After one term in office, Rowlands was defeated in 1994 by Barbara Hall, and retired from politics.

References

Political offices
Preceded by Clare Westcott	Chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission 1989–1991	Succeeded by Susan Eng