Name

Mel Lastman

Number

OH 290

Subject

Religion

Families

Interview Date

1 Jun. 2006

Quantity

1

Interviewer

Ellen Scheinberg

Total Running Time

60 min.

Conservation

Copied November 2006

Use Restrictions

Copyright is held by the Ontario Jewish Archives. Please contact the archives to obtain permission prior to use.

Biography

Melvin Douglas Lastman was born in Toronto on 9 March 1933, the son of Rose and Louis Lastman. Raised in the Kensington Market area, he attended Ryerson Public School and Central High School of Commerce, where he was president of the school council. Lastman left high school to work at an appliance store and, in 1955, opened his own appliance store. By the late 1960s, he owned a chain of forty stores, Bad Boy Appliances, throughout Ontario. Lastman lived in North York and, in 1969, ran successfully for the North York Board of Control. In the 1972 municipal election, he was elected as mayor of North York, a position he held for twenty-five years until North York became part of the newly created City of Toronto on 1 January 1998. With the provincially-mandated creation of the new City of Toronto by the amalgamation of Metropolitan Toronto and the six local municipalities, Lastman decided to run for mayor against the other major contender, former City of Toronto mayor Barbara Hall. He won the 1997 election and was sworn in on 1 January 1998. Lastman was easily re-elected in the 2000 mayoralty election; however, in February 2003, Lastman announced that he would not be seeking re-election in the November municipal election.

In 1953, Mel Lastman married Marilyn Bornstein. They have two married sons and six grandchildren.

Material Format

moving images

Name Access

Anshei Minsk Synagogue (Toronto, Ont.)

Lastman, Mel

Scheinberg, Ellen

Geographic Access

Toronto

Kensington Market

Original Format

Digital videocassette

Copy Format

DVD

Source

Oral Histories

In this clip, former Toronto mayor Mel Lastman remembers playing as a child at the Minsk Shul in Kensington Market.