Fred Gardiner - Metropolitan Toronto

Metropolitan Toronto

By the 1940s, urban development had expanded beyond the borders of the City of Toronto. Planning studies anticipated that the townships and villages surrounding Toronto would be the scene of any future growth. However, spending to build any capital projects was limited by the lack of capital borrowing ability of the suburbs. The trunk sewers and sewage treatment plant for the Don Mills development was financed by its developer, E. P. Taylor, when North York Township could not. Planning boards, such as the Toronto and Suburban Planning Board which Gardiner was chairman of, proposed several projects, one notably being the Spadina Road Extension, which were rejected by the local governments.

The Ontario government, in concert with the City of Toronto, and Gardiner's Planning Board, proposed an amalgamated city to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) to overcome the roadblocks in building capital projects and facilitate growth. The OMB deliberated over the plan from 1951 until 1953, when it proposed a two-tier federal government named 'Metropolitan Toronto'. The Frost government approved the idea and passed it in April 1953, naming Gardiner the first chairman of the Metropolitan Council, made up equally of city and suburban representatives. Gardiner was also the chief administrative officer of the Metro Toronto organization. The two-tier plan was not new, it had been first proposed in 1934.

The Metro Toronto federation was charged with the responsibility of providing the thirteen municipalities with those services which were metropolitan in nature, while those services which were local in nature were to be left to the thirteen local municipalities. Metro was responsible for administration of justice, arterial roads, metropolitan parks, metropolitan planning, public education, public transportation, sewage treatment and water facilities and some housing activities and some social services. Metro Toronto, which now had the credit of all of the municipalities could finance capital projects with bonds.

Gardiner was chairman from 1953 until the end of 1961, and he deeply immersed himself in the job. He would be driven from home at 9:00 a.m. and return home some twelve hours later. Gardiner worked on weekends and late at night. During his nine years as chairman, he only took two summer vacations and four mid-winter holidays. On weekends, he would tour Metro Toronto public works projects, rapid transit facilities, urban renewal sites and tracts of suburban housing. The grueling routine took a toll on his health. Gardiner was hospitalized in March 1958 with arthritis and intestinal inflammation. Gardiner gave up his law practice, giving his cases to others and he parted companey with long-time partners Harry Parkinson and Harry Willis.

During Gardiner's tenure, Metro Toronto grew to 1.6 million people and Metro government was busy. To provide the population with water, Metro built water filtration and sewage treatment plants and laid hundreds of miles of subterranean pipes. Metro invested $60 million, which doubled the supply of water to the entire region. A Metro Parks Department was created. Amongst the 3,500 acres (14 km2) of natural parkland developed by Metro was the 600-acre (2.4 km2) Toronto Islands Park. Two major highways, the Lakeshore Expressway, renamed the Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway were started. The Bloor-Danforth and University subway lines were started. Metro built homes for the aged, and some for families with children. Metro formed the Metropolitan Toronto School Board and invested $230 million in new schools. The capital works program cost about $1 billion, at the rate of about $100 million a year, over the ten years.

As Metro Chairman, Gardiner dominated the Metro Council. He was only allowed to vote to break tie votes, but Gardiner made his voting preference known before votes. Over Gardiner's tenure, over 11,539 votes, Council voted over 80% in agreement with Gardiner's position. Gardiner only voted eight times.

Gardiner ruled Council meetings strictly. He controlled procedural questions strictly, challenging dissident members to appeal his decisions, something no-one was able to do throughout his term. Members were scolded for talking inaudibly. Meetings went through agenda items quickly. Often, he would not pause to ask for dissenting votes. Leslie Frost commended his performance in 1956 by that stating that the success of Metro to date "has been very largely dependent upon your own personality." Nathan Phillips described his style: "When he really wanted something, he just came and beat it out of you." Phillip Givens, who was on several occasions brought to tears, described Gardiner's temper as "He scared the hell out of you. If he cut you up, he did it thoroughly. He eviscerated you, he left your entrails all over the floor."

While Gardiner was only allowed to vote in Metro Council to break ties, he was a voting member of all four policy committees. The committees would do the early work of working through proposals preparing them for Council. Gardiner prided himself on his work ethic, the same style he had used since his days at high school. "I was not going to change my way of proceeding. It was more necessary than ever. My diagnosis was that if I was going to get anywhere I had to know more about any given subject than any individual councillor, and more about metropolitan business as than all the members of council combined." Gardiner would wait to speak on important resolutions after others had spoken. When a close vote was anticipated, Gardiner went around the council table, rebutting objections one by one.

Gardiner was also known for controlling consideration of issues until the political time was right. The Bloor-Danforth subway was proposed by the City in 1956, but Gardiner stalled it until 1958 by starting three successive studies. When it reached Council, Gardiner gave it his full support, and he used tactics to build Council support through the use of preliminary and tentative council commitments. "Once you get those bulldozers in the ground, it is pretty hard to get them out."

One area of capital projects that especially was keen to Gardiner's interest was Metro's expressway program. Gardiner won executive approval for the drawing up of plans for the lakeshore expressway in July 1953. While the route through the central section was controversial, especially around Fort York, which he proposed moving, Gardiner was successful in convincing Council to approve the less-controversial east and west sections first. With the ends built, the central section was inevitable.

Gardiner used similar methods to push the Don Valley Parkway project along. Engineers were interested in studying alternate routes, which Gardiner was able to prevent because "councillors could not afford to stop, look and listen. Either the project was started forthwith, or the whole east end of the city will be on our shoulders like three tons of bricks." Metro executive committee approved the preliminary plans one month later. When the plans were in draft, he secured section-by-section approval. The Parkway project went from proposal to approved policy in about two years, from January 1955 until February 1957.

While the routes of the lakeshore expressway and the Don Valley Parkway were mostly uncontentious, the other parts of the expressway program went through developed areas and sure to be controversial. In 1954, Gardiner deferred the extension of the lakeshore expressway to the east, and the cross-town expressway was deferred in 1955. The Spadina expressway was similarly shelved in 1956. While all of the expressways were part of the official transportation plan in 1959, only the Spadina expressway was approved by the time Gardiner left office in 1961. The Spadina was formally approved at the final meeting Gardiner chaired, and the Cross-town deferred again.

Metro Toronto greatly expanded the ability to finance capital works projects and Gardiner followed three principles in the allocation of money. Gardiner chose under his chairmanship to negotiate the amount of money to go to local municipalities, but did not interfere in the actual ways the local municipalities spent the money. He also pursued a policy of balance between the city and the suburbs. He pushed for the Bloor-Danforth subway, located mostly in the City, but he also pushed for a uniform water rate, a policy that favoured the suburbs. His third principle was to limit demand. While in 1953, he claimed that "there was nothing we could not afford", in 1954, he cautioned against the belief that "Metro has more money in the aggregate than we all had individually." Later in his term, Gardiner named $100 million as the upper limit of annual capital borrowing. He held onto the total figure "it was a nice round number" until 1961, when he agreed to a five per-cent increase.