William Dennison (Canadian politician)

William Donald Dennison
55th Mayor of Toronto
In office December 1, 1966 – November 30, 1972
Preceded by	Phil Givens
Succeeded by	David Crombie
Member of Provincial Parliament
In office 1948–1951
Preceded by	Roland Michener
Succeeded by	Everett L. Weaver
Constituency	St. David
In office 1943–1945
Preceded by	Allan Lamport
Succeeded by	Roland Michener
Constituency	St. David
Personal details
Born	January 20, 1905(1905-01-20) Renfrew County
Died	May 2, 1981(1981-05-02) (aged 76) Toronto
Nationality	Canadian
Political party	United Farmers of Ontario / Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Spouse(s)	Dorothy Gertrude Bainbridge
Children	Lorna Ann Dennison (Mrs. Ross Milne)
Residence	Toronto
Alma mater	Westmeath S.S. # 8
Occupation	School Principal
Religion	Protestant

William Donald Dennison (January 20, 1905 – May 2, 1981) was the last member of the Orange Order to serve as Mayor of Toronto, Canada. He held the office from 1966 to 1972, and was a long time member of Toronto City Council. Prior to entering politics, he was a school principal and teacher. He was also a beekeeper who at one point had 900,000 bees in the backyard of his Jarvis Street home.

Background

Dennison grew up on a farm in Renfrew County. He first left home at age 15 to work in the lumber camps of Northern Ontario. As a young man he would trek west to Saskatchewan in the summers to earn money helping with the harvest and pitching grain. By night, he would educate himself by reading Little Blue Books.

As a child and a young man he stammered so badly that he could not pronounce his own name, but after several failed attempts to correct his stammering, first at a school in Kitchener and later at a school in New York city he eventually learned how to control and correct the habit himself, opening his own School of Speech Correction.

Politics

Dennison was a member of the United Farmers of Ontario in the 1920s, and became a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its successor, the New Democratic Party. He was a CCF candidate in the riding of Rosedale in the 1935 federal election, placing third.

In 1938, he was elected a school trustee and served three successive one-year terms. In 1941 and 1943 he won election to serve as an alderman on Toronto City Council

He won a seat in the 1943 provincial election as the Ontario CCF Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the downtown Toronto riding of St. David by defeating Progressive Conservative candidate Roland Michener. In the legislature, Dennison was an early environmentalist. An early conservationist, in the 1940s, he tried to stop the de Havilland aircraft factory's pollution of Black Creek. He also tried to force the government to stop a pulp and paper mill from polluting the Spanish River. In 1946 he personally planted 40,000 trees.

Michener defeated Dennison in the next provincial election, two years later, but Dennison regained the seat in the 1948 election.

After being defeated again in the 1951 provincial election, Dennison returned to Toronto City Council in 1953 serving again as an alderman until 1958 when he was elected to the Board of Control. On council he interrogated other politicians and officials on conflict of interest, expense accounts, and their relationships with companies doing business with the city. He eventually rose to the position of mayor in 1966 campaigning on providing "a strong voice for labour in city affairs" and opposing the pro-development policies of incumbent Phil Givens. He was elected despite being opposed by all three daily newspapers. He was the first member of the CCF or NDP to serve as mayor of Toronto since James Simpson in 1935, and the last until Barbara Hall.

He opposed the early Eaton Centre development plan that would have seen the demolition of Toronto's Old City Hall, Dennison was a pro-labour mayor but later became more conservative in response to early criticism. Serving as mayor during the Canadian Centennial, he urged the organizers of Caribana to make it a recurring event. He generally favoured development and complained about hippies and deserters from the US military flocking to the city saying that "a few hippies and deserters are Toronto's only problem." He retired from politics in 1972 and died of Parkinson's Disease in 1981.

Dennison not only saved the Old City Hall from demolition but also was responsible for preserving Toronto's original City Hall (St. Lawrence Hall) and for preventing the demolition of Old Fort York when the original plans for the Gardiner Expressway took that road directly over the old fort. He was the lead negotiator for the City when the waterfront railway lands and warehouses were turned over for redevelopment and so was ultimately responsible for the erection of the CN Tower.

William Dennison's daughter, Lorna Dennison Milne was a Liberal member of the Canadian Senate from 1995 to 2009.