William Dennison (Canadian politician)

William David 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, teacher. He was also a beekeeper who at one point had 900,000 bees in the backyard of his Jarvis Street home."William Dennison Stammering farm lad became mayor of Toronto", "Globe and Mail", May 4, 1981]

Dennison grew up on a farm in Renfrew County. 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.

Dennison was a member of the United Farmers of Ontario in the 1920s, and became a member of the Cooperative 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 would serve 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 the Black Creek River. 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. [Editorial, "Globe and Mail", May 5, 1981] He eventually rose to the position of mayor in 1966 campaigning on providing "a strong voice for labor 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.

Dennison was a pro-labour mayor and opposed the early Eaton Centre development plan which would have seen the demolition of Toronto's Old City Hall.but moved to the right in response to early criticism and became generally conservative in orientation. 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.

William Dennison's daughter, Lorna Dennison Milne is a Liberal member of the Canadian Senate.

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