Municipal elections were held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on December 1, 1969. Across Metro Toronto there were few surprising results, and city of Toronto incumbent mayor William Dennison was easily re-elected. The one dramatic exception to this was on Toronto city council, where a number of long-standing members lost to young new arrivals who shared a common vision of opposition to the megaprojects that had transformed Toronto throughout the post-war period. While the reform movement candidate for mayor lost, it gained a strong presence on city council. The 1970s reform faction dominated Toronto politics for the next decade.
Toronto mayoral race
The NDP chose not to enter an official mayoral candidate, but tacitly endorsed incumbent William Dennison, who ran as an independent but had been active in the New Democratic Party, and its predecessor the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, for many decades previously. The Liberals nominated University of Toronto professor Stephen Clarkson as their candidate. The third candidate was city controller Margaret Campbell. A Progressive Conservative, she ran on an explicitly reform platform.
One important issue in the race was the future of Metro Toronto, with Dennison pushing strongly for amalgamation of Metro into a single city. This initiative was opposed by the Progressive Conservative provincial government. During the election a non-binding referendum was held in the city, and found overwhelming support for amalgamation. There was also debate over whether Metro should continue to grow to incorporate the newly formed suburbs to the north in Markham and Thornhill.
Two of the most important issues was over the continuation of the urban renewal plans that had reshaped to Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s. Campbell staunchly opposed the Spadina Expressway and the further demolition of neighbourhoods to build apartment towers. Clarkson also opposed the expressway, but argued the city was giving up federal funding by abandoning the clearances program and that areas like Kensington Market and Trefann Court should be redeveloped.
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!rowspan="2" colspan="2"|Candidate
!rowspan="2" colspan="1"|Affiliation
!colspan="2"|Popular vote
!rowspan="2"| Elected? |- ! Votes ! % |-
| style="text-align:left;" |William Dennison (Incumbent) | style="text-align:left;" | Independent | style="text-align:centre;" | 65,988 | style="text-align:centre;" | 43.1% | style="text-align:center;" | |-
| style="text-align:left;" |Margaret Campbell
| style="text-align:left;" | Independent
| style="text-align:centre;" | 52,742
| style="text-align:centre;" | 34.5%
| style="text-align:center;" |
|-
| style="text-align:left;" |Stephen Clarkson
| style="text-align:left;" | Civic Liberal
| style="text-align:centre;" | 31,889
| style="text-align:centre;" | 20.9%
| style="text-align:center;" |
|-
| style="text-align:left;" |John Riddell
| style="text-align:left;" | League for Socialist Action
| style="text-align:centre;" | 2,363
| style="text-align:centre;" | 1.5%
| style="text-align:center;" |
|-
| style="text-align:right;background-color:#FFFFFF;" colspan="3" |Total votes
| style="text-align:right;background-color:#FFFFFF;" |138,549
| style="text-align:right;background-color:#c2c2c2;" colspan="2" |
|-
| style="text-align:left;" colspan="13" |Sources: |}
Toronto city council
With this election, there were three important changes in how Toronto was governed. The Board of Control was abolished, replaced by an executive committee of city council and ward boundaries were redrawn to increase the number of wards from nine to 11. Each ward continued to elect two aldermen. The top candidate from each ward also won a seat on Metro Toronto council.