Norman Kelly (born August 11, 1941) is a retired Canadian politician. He represented
Ward 40 Scarborough—Agincourt from 2000 to 2018 and served as
deputy mayor of Toronto
The deputy mayor of Toronto is a member of Toronto City Council appointed to assist the mayor of Toronto. One councillor is designated for statutory purposes and additional deputy mayors may be appointed to represent the mayor on an honorary basi ...
from 2013 to 2014. Kelly was a
City of Scarborough councillor from 1974 to 1980 and 1988 to 2000 and served as the
member of Parliament (MP) for
Scarborough Centre from 1980 to 1984.
Background
Kelly is a trained historian. He studied Canadian political history at the
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...
and attended
Carleton University
Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...
, earning an M.A., and
Queen's University, where he began, but did not complete, a Ph.D. Among his most important accomplishments, Kelly undertook a two-year research project for the two best-selling books in the field of Canadian history: ''The National Dream'' and ''The Last Spike'', written by
Pierre Berton
Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, CC, O.Ont. (July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004) was a Canadian historian, writer, journalist and broadcaster. Berton wrote 50 best-selling books, mainly about Canadiana, Canadian history and popular cultur ...
.
Kelly won the Governor General's Award for his work in ''The National Dream'', which was transferred to television by the CBC as a popular, award-winning documentary series of the same name. Kelly was also a history teacher at
Upper Canada College
Upper Canada College (UCC) is an independent day and boarding school for boys in Toronto, Ontario, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The college is widely described as Canada's most prestigious preparatory school, and ha ...
, a private school and
A. Y. Jackson Secondary School, in
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
.
Early political career
When he first entered politics as an
alderman
An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...
for Ward 3 on the borough council of
Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...
, then a suburb of
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
. Kelly served from 1974 to 1980.
Federal politics
He was elected as a federal
Member of Parliament for
Scarborough Centre in the
1980 election, defeating
Progressive Conservative (PC) incumbent
Diane Stratas. Kelly was twice appointed
Parliamentary Secretary: first, to the
ministry of Supply and Services and then to the
president of the Treasury Board
The president of the Treasury Board () is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet. The president is the chair of the Treasury Board of Canada (a committee of Cabinet in the Privy Council) and is the minister responsible for the Treasur ...
. In this latter capacity, Kelly was given the responsibility of guiding the government's reorganization of its Crown Corporations, Bill C-124, through the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
and its Committees. Kelly was also appointed in 1983 to the Special Committee on Visible Minorities in Canadian Society. This committee was charged with the responsibility of doing research on the status of visible minorities in Canadian society.
The report, ''Equality Now'', contained 80 ground breaking recommendations aimed at protecting visible minority cultures in Canada while integrating their members into the Canadian mainstream. Kelly lost in the
1984 election, to PC candidate
Pauline Browes. He attempted to win the Liberal nomination prior to the
1988 election, but quit the race when Odysseus Katsaitis emerged as the front runner. Prior to the
1993 federal election, he again tried for a Liberal nomination, but this time lost to
John Cannis
John Cannis (; born November 4, 1951) is a Canadian politician. He was a former member of the House of Commons of Canada.
Background
Born in Kalymnos, Greece, Cannis was raised and educated in Toronto, Ontario. A successful entrepreneur for 18 ...
.
Campaign for mayor
In 1985, he ran for mayor of Scarborough, but lost to incumbent
Gus Harris
Augustus Vincent Patrick Harris (July 1908 – February 20, 2000) was a Canadian politician. He was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He was the mayor of Scarborough, Ontario from 1978 to 1988. Although he was a relatively conservative, ...
. Out of office, he worked as a real estate agent, first for
Royal LePage
Royal LePage is a Canadian real estate franchiser and owner-operator with more than 670 locations and over 20,000 realtors in Canada. The company was founded on July 2, 1913 in Toronto, Canada by then 26-year-old Albert Edward (A.E.) LePage, un ...
and then for his own company. In 1988, he decided to again run for mayor, but this time lost by over 4,000 votes to
Joyce Trimmer
Joyce Trimmer (November 10, 1927 – May 17, 2008) was a Canadian politician. She was the first woman mayor of Scarborough, Ontario.
Born in London, England, Trimmer emigrated to Toronto with her husband Douglas in 1954, where they settled ...
, the first woman elected mayor of Scarborough.
Return to Council
In the 1994 municipal elections, he was elected to the
Metro Toronto
The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was an Regional municipality, upper-tier level of municipal government in Ontario, Canada, from 1953 to 1998. It was made up of the Old Toronto, old city of Toronto and numerous townships, towns and vill ...
council from ward 14 Scarborough Wexford, defeating
Michael Thompson. He emerged as one of the most right-wing members of the council, most noted for his attempt to eliminate all funding for
multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''Pluralism (political theory), ethnic'' or cultura ...
programs during a mock council. Kelly took this stance as he views multicultural programs to further segregate rather than integrate diverse members of the Canadian community. The ''
National Post
The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper and the flagship publication of the American-owned Postmedia Network. It is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only. '' newspaper once endorsed him, perhaps somewhat in jest, as "a solid anti-communist. Toronto needs his representation as a bulwark against the left." He also became one of the earliest advocates for merging the City of Toronto with five of its suburbs, an idea he pushed as Chair of the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.
When the "megacity" was created, he was elected to the new Toronto city council. In the
2000 municipal election, redistricting merged Kelly and Mike Tzekas' wards, leading to a bitter election battle between the two, which Kelly easily won. A firm ally of the new city's first mayor,
Mel Lastman
Melvin Douglas Lastman (March 9, 1933 – December 11, 2021) was a Canadian businessman and politician who served as the third mayor of North York from 1973 to 1997 and the 62nd mayor of Toronto from 1998 to 2003. He was the first person to s ...
, his relations with Lastman's successor,
David Miller, were less friendly. Kelly was one of five Councillors removed from the
Toronto Transit Commission
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the primary public transport agency in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, operating the majority of the city's transit bus, bus and rail services. It is the oldest and largest of the urban transit service providers ...
board by council in March 2012 because of his support of mayor Rob Ford's subway plan as opposed to council's preferred LRT plan.
Deputy mayor of Toronto
Kelly was made
deputy mayor of Toronto
The deputy mayor of Toronto is a member of Toronto City Council appointed to assist the mayor of Toronto. One councillor is designated for statutory purposes and additional deputy mayors may be appointed to represent the mayor on an honorary basi ...
, succeeding
Doug Holyday
Douglas Charles Holyday (born 1942) is a retired Canadian politician who served as the last mayor of Etobicoke from 1994 to 1998 and the deputy mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2013. Holyday was first elected to Etobicoke City Council as an alderm ...
in 2013 after Holyday resigned from Council to contest a by-election for the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (OLA; ) is the legislative chamber of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its elected members are known as Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly are given royal as ...
.
Following the controversy surrounding Toronto Mayor
Rob Ford
Robert Bruce Ford (May 28, 1969 – March 22, 2016) was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobi ...
's admitted substance abuse and further allegations of inappropriate conduct, the Toronto City Council voted on November 15, 2013,
and November 18, 2013, to remove the non-statutory mayoral powers from Ford and grant them to Kelly for the remainder of Ford's term. This was unprecedented as the deputy mayor's role is typically largely ceremonial.
On May 1, 2014, Kelly took over the remainder of Ford's duties when Ford entered
drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation is the process of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and street drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and amphetamines. The general int ...
and started a leave of absence from Toronto City Council. These powers were returned when Ford returned to his job on July 1. Even though Kelly had all the powers of the mayoral office for 3 months, Ford still technically held the title of Mayor, while Kelly was still referred to as the Deputy Mayor.
2018 election
Kelly ran for re-election in the
2018 Toronto election in the newly constituted
Ward 22 Scarborough—Agincourt
Ward 22 Scarborough—Agincourt is a municipal ward in the Scarborough section of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It's represented on Toronto City Council by Nick Mantas. It covers the area of the City of Toronto bounded by Steeles Avenue East to th ...
and lost to fellow incumbent councillor for former Ward 43,
Jim Karygiannis
James Karygiannis ( ; , ; born May 2, 1955) is a former Canadian politician. He served in the House of Commons of Canada as a Liberal MP from 1988 to 2014, and as member of the Toronto City Council from 2014 until 2020, when his seat was vaca ...
.
Internet popularity
In the summer of 2015, Norm Kelly became an international internet sensation when he weighed in on the feud between Canadian rapper
Drake
Drake may refer to:
Animals and creatures
* A male duck
* Drake (mythology), a term related to and often synonymous with dragon
People and fictional characters
* Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family ...
and American rapper
Meek Mill
Robert Rihmeek Williams (born May 6, 1987), known professionally as Meek Mill, is an American rapper. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he embarked on his career as a battle rapper, and later formed a short-lived rap group the Blo ...
via Twitter. He has become the figure of several
internet meme
An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...
s and has reached fame in the hip-hop community for his involvement in the feud. Through supporting Drake and posting humorous content to his account, Kelly gained a sizable Twitter following of well over 720,000. In September 2015, the nonprofit organization
HackerNest presented Kelly with the "Nerd Champion" award for his support of the city's technology community.
Kelly was voted Canada's Most Valuable Tweeter for 2015 in a tournament held by Twitter Canada.
In addition to being a Twitter sensation, Kelly, also known as "6Dad," has his own line of clothing. It includes T-shirts, hoodies, and sweatpants featuring images of Kelly, the word "Dad" in different languages, and slogans such as "Too lit to politic." A portion of the proceeds are donated to charity.
Election results
References
Notes
Citations
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Norm
1941 births
Living people
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Toronto city councillors
Upper Canada College alumni
University of Western Ontario alumni
Canadian schoolteachers
Queen's University at Kingston alumni
Carleton University alumni
20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada
20th-century Canadian municipal councillors
21st-century Canadian municipal councillors
Deputy mayors of places in Canada