Norm Gardner - Toronto City Councillor

Toronto City Councillor

He was elected to Toronto city council in 1997, the first election for the new amalgamated municipality under the City of Toronto Act. Each ward elected two councillors in that election, and Gardner finished second, 2,000 votes behind John Filion, a former school trustee making his first bid for city council. He supported Mel Lastman's bid to become mayor of the amalgamated city.

In early 1998, Gardner unseated Maureen Prinsloo as chair of the Toronto Police Services Board. He was supported by those board members appointed by the provincial Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris, as well as Mayor Mel Lastman and his supporters. The right-wing Toronto Sun praised him as "pro-police", while the centre-left Toronto Star argued that he had developed a "reputation as an apologist for police".

In June 1998, Gardner supported a comprehensive overhaul of the police service's administrative structure. He also supported a plan by Police Chief David Boothby to replace the city's public complaints bureau with a more decentralized model. The following month, he concluded a deal to make Toronto police officers the highest-paid in Ontario—higher pay would help Metro retain skilled officers by offering competitive compensation.

In the summer of 1998, an Ontario judge ruled that the Toronto police were negligent in using an unidentified woman as "bait" to catch the so-called Balcony Rapist (the woman was not informed that the rapist lived in her area, and was sexually assaulted). Gardner initially said that he had difficulty believing the police were negligent, and remarked that some women lie about being raped. He later apologized for his comments, and offered an official apology to the unidentified woman.

Gardner supported the purchase of police helicopters in 1999 to provide the police additional tools to fight crime, an initiative that some other councillors criticized as both ineffective and too expensive. He also recommended charging each business in Toronto a $15 fee to cover the costs of policing, an initiative that was quickly rejected by Mel Lastman.

Gardner was a frequent rival of fellow commissioner Judy Sgro. Sgro left the Police Services Board in 1999, after complaining of intimidation from the Toronto police union. On one occasion, Gardner was accused of allowing police union officials to harass and intimidate Sgro at an informal board meeting. He denied that harassment occurred.

Gardner and Fantino opposed the police union's controversial "Operation True Blue" telemarketing campaign in early 2000 and forced it to cease. The Toronto Star alleged that Gardner had made a secret deal with police union leader Craig Bromell to permit similar fundraising efforts in the future. Gardner denied that a deal had been struck, and maintained that he consistently opposed the True Blue campaign.