Nathan Phillips (politician)

Nathan Phillips (7 November 1892 &mdash; 7 January 1976) was a Canadian politician who served as the 53rd mayor of Toronto from 1955 to 1962. A lawyer by training, Phillips was first elected to Toronto City Council in 1926. He is the city's first Jewish mayor, ending an unbroken string of Protestant mayors.

Early life
Born in Brockville, Ontario, the son of Jacob Phillips and Mary (nee Rosenbloom), he was educated in public and high schools in Cornwall, Ontario. In 1908, he articled with the Cornwall lawyer, Robert Smith, who later would be named to the Supreme Court of Canada. He graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1913, but at 20-years-old, he was too young to be called to the bar. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1914 when he attained the age of majority, at age 21. He practised law in Toronto and was appointed a King's Counsel in 1929, and was thought to be the youngest person in the British Empire at the time to have that honour.

He married Esther Lyons (1893–1983) on 7 March 1917. They had three children: Lewis; Madeline; and Howard. On Mother's Day, 12 May 1929, a motorist struck and killed Lewis while he was posting a letter in a mailbox for his father near their Lauder Avenue home. In 1949, Howard along with Nathan, became the first-ever son and father duo to sit as alderman at the same time on the City of Toronto council. Howard represented Ward 3, while Nathan represented Ward 4.

Federal and provincial politics
Phillips was a member of the Conservative Party having been involved in founding the Ontario Conservative Party's youth wing and then having run as the Conservative candidate in Spadina in the 1935 federal election. He placed second. Later, Phillips also ran unsuccessfully in St. Andrew riding during the 1937 and 1948 provincial elections.

Municipal politics
Phillips was first elected to Toronto City Council in 1924 as an alderman for Ward 4. It was the start of a 36-year career in municipal politics.

He was elected mayor in 1955. Until his election, all mayors had been Protestant and every mayor since the appointment of Thomas David Morrison in 1836 had been a member of the Orange Order, which dominated the city's political and business establishment. Phillips became mayor by defeating Mayor Leslie Howard Saunders, an Orangeman, who had stoked controversy with his sectarian comments about the importance of the Battle of the Boyne. Phillips's victory marked a turning point in Toronto history and its transformation from a Protestant, staunchly British and conservative city to a modern multicultural metropolis.

On 23 March 1959 Phillips welcomed exiled King Peter II of Yugoslavia on an official tour to City Hall but forgot about the Serbian Orthodox Bishop from the Diocese of Chicago that he left waiting in the council chambers. He was supposed to take the Bishop on a tour as well, and caused an incident as the Bishop felt slighted.

Under Phillips's direction, the City of Toronto pursued an aggressive agenda of demolishing heritage structures throughout the city in order to 'modernize.' Large blocks of downtown were purchased and razed and many landmark buildings and neighbourhoods were destroyed such as the University Avenue Armouries, the Chorley Park estate, the General Post Office (built in 1873 in the Second Empire style, and the most expensive federal building ever constructed in Canada), Toronto's original Jewish community (called the Ward) around Old City Hall, and Toronto's Old Chinatown. Old City Hall itself narrowly escaped being demolished and Fort York survived a council vote to be moved to Coronation Park after the Toronto Historical Association rallied public support.

Nathan Phillips is best remembered as the driving force behind the construction of Toronto's New City Hall and the selection of a striking avant-garde design by Finnish architect Viljo Revell.

Phillips served five terms as mayor before being defeated in the 1962 Toronto municipal election by Donald Dean Summerville.

Nathan Phillips Square
On 10 October 1961, while still the sitting mayor, Toronto City Council named the future civic square at New City Hall Nathan Phillips Square in his honour. Before a crowd of 500, on his 69th birthday, he broke the ceremonial first sod and hit a button that detonated some explosives to signal the start of construction on the new square and City Hall. When mayor Phil Givens opened the square's skating rink on 29 November 1964, Phillips was there at the ceremony and practicing his photography hobby as well. In November 2005, a proposal by a city councillor to sell the naming rights to Nathan Phillips Square unleashed a storm of opposition from many Torontonians, including Phillips's grandchildren. The proposal was withdrawn.