The forty year club

September 9th marked the end of an era in Hamilton.

Without much ceremony, the trustees of the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) accepted the resignation of Ward 4 trustee Ray Mulholland. After being granted a leave of absence in April, Mulholland has not returned to the board table. An undisclosed medical issue prompted the 90 year-old trustee to formally resign, effective immediately.

At their meeting this evening - Monday, September 23 - the HWDSB trustees will receive a report recommending how to proceed with filling the vacant Ward 4 seat. The board is required by provincial law to fill the seat in 90 days (by December 8, 2024) and has the option of either holding a by-election or initiating an appointment process.

They will almost certainly opt for the latter, as a by-election would be costly, time-prohibitive, and feature dismal voter turnout. Over in Burlington, they decided to hold a by-election for the vacant Wards 1 and 2 public trustee seat last May and only managed to pull 6.1% of registered voters out to cast a ballot.

Going for the appointment process means either a) appointing the runner-up from the 2022 election, Shane Cunningham Boles; b) drawing up their own list of candidates and appointing one of those, or; c) inviting members of the community to apply. Option “A” isn’t very likely, as it has been two years since the election and Boles was around 12 percent behind Mulholland in the vote. When the board appointed Maria Felix Miller to the Ward 3 trustee seat after the death of Chris Parkinson, that was only a few months after the 2018 election and MFM had only lost by 29 votes.

If I were a betting man, I’d say Option “C” is the more likely, where the board will collect applications from community members, hold interviews, and, by late November/early December, will appoint one of those applicants.

And that person will likely be former Wards 11 & 12 trustee Alex Johnstone, who has lived in Ward 4 for some time and unsuccessfully ran for the councillor’s seat there in 2022. That last bit is just a hunch, but that should not prevent any eager candidate with a passion for public education from applying and making a strong case to be appointed.

***

Mulholland’s resignation means that, after just under 50 years in office, he walks away with the distinction of being the longest-serving elected official in Hamilton’s history.

Lengthy careers as trustee are not uncommon on Hamilton’s two English-language school boards. Indeed, Mulholland is among eight trustees since 1940 who served over 25 years in office. There are 45 trustees over that same time period who served in office so long, they could have been elected when their child started junior kindergarten and still been in office when they graduated from high school - at least a full 14 years.

This isn’t some modern phenomenon, either. While one might assume that’s because of general democratic decline and growing disinterest in municipal affairs, Hamilton has had long-serving trustees for well over a century.

George R. Allan notably served as trustee for Ward 4 (then the Central, Strathcona, and, eventually, Westdale neighbourhoods) for 36 years - from 1904 to 1940. A Spectator employee and a key figure in (as is a running theme with many people in my historical research) the city’s Conservative Party establishment, Allan was “urged to become a candidate for school trustee in Ward 4” by friends who, according to The Spectator, refused “to take no for an answer.”1 Once he relented and decided to stand (or was satisfied that the Tory ruse of making it seem like there was a popular groundswell of support for their hand-picked candidate had succeeded), the Spec simply indicated that he would be elected “whether opposed or not” and that “Mr. Allan is a young man with a head full of brains and good, sound, practical and progressive ideas - just the sort of man who should be on the Board of Education.”2 That endorsement made no mention of Allan’s employment at the paper.

Allan’s career in public service - which included a record of missing only 5 meetings of the school board during his time as trustee and a stint helping his brother, John Allan, become mayor of Hamilton in 1913 - only came to an end after he died in hospital at age 80 following a fall on an icy street corner at Napier and Bay on his way to the market.3

Mulholland’s retirement is the perfect opportunity to take a look at some of Hamilton’s long-serving trustees, many of whom were dedicated community advocates, public servants, and educators.

So here are profiles of the three Hamilton school trustees who held office for over 40 years: Father Kennedy, Dr. Paikin, and Ray “Squibb” Mulholland.

Class is in session.

Father Kyran Kennedy

While Mulholland may hold the record for the longest serving trustee, Father Kennedy has the record for the longest consecutively serving trustee, having first been appointed to the Hamilton Separate School Board in 1967 - just 5 years after elections for Catholic trustees were first held during normal municipal elections.

Kennedy was a doctor’s son, born in Saskatchewan two years before the onset of the Great Depression. The family relocated to Hamilton before Kennedy turned 5 and, other than a few years in Toronto for undergrad and the seminary, he never left the area. Kennedy was one of the first students to pass through Canadian Martyrs’ School in Westdale before heading to Cathedral. After his post-secondary studies, on June 8, 1952, Kennedy was ordained by Archbishop O’Sullivan and sent to be the associate pastor of Sacred Heart on the edge of the Escarpment, overlooking the burgeoning city below.

After five years there, Kennedy was afforded two opportunities. First was a placement at the Notre Dame Convent in Waterdown as their chaplain. Second was an offer from Bishop Ryan to serve as the director of the local Catholic Youth Organization (CYO). An athletic and energetic priest who was, at the time, also coaching basketball at his old high school, Kennedy jumped on the opportunity. His love of the outdoors and camping, combined with his new post with the CYO, allowed him a chance to, in 1961, reopen Camp Brebeuf, a Catholic youth summer camp 58KM to the northwest of the city, just outside Guelph.4

In 1966, the Diocese approved the building of a new church on the east mountain. The parish at Blessed Sacrament was overflowing and the determination was made that there were enough Catholics in the growing suburbs that necessitated another church. They secured a spot just off Upper Ottawa and Fennell and began building the modernist masterpiece that would become St. Margaret Mary. For his stand-out work with the CYO and his community service, Bishop Ryan once again afforded Kennedy an exciting opportunity. He would become the first priest for the new Catholic community.

***

The next year, two-term Ward 8 trustee Father John Lawless was transferred to a parish outside of Hamilton. With just over a year to go to the next election, the Catholic board decided to put out a call for applicants to fill the vacancy, rather than hold a by-election. Two defeated candidates from the previous year’s general election, Patrick Wilson and John Malone, applied, as did Kennedy. At their October 10 meeting, the trustees held a secret ballot vote and selected the young priest to fill the role. The community leader would add “politician” to his growing list of accomplishments.5

At this point in Hamilton’s history, the city’s mountain communities were growing rapidly, but our municipal electoral divisions had not been adjusted accordingly. The mountain had two giant wards: Ward 7, which made up the part of the mountain east of Upper Wentworth, and Ward 8, which was the western portion of the mountain.

While Kennedy was appointed to represent Ward 8, he lived in Ward 7, and opted to seek a full term in the next year’s general election in his home ward. And, after provincial reorganization, the Hamilton Separate School Board had been merged with the smaller Catholic boards in the county, creating a new larger organization that would be known as the Hamilton-Wentworth Separate School Board. The Ward 7 seat on the board was afforded two trustees and attracted four candidates. On election day, Kennedy topped the polls with 1,803 votes, nearly double those of his seatmate, the young Dundas teacher named Art Samson.6

The municipal election of 1968 - the same that brought Bob Morrow into office as Ward 1’s alderman and saw Ray Mulholland fall 300 votes short of a trustee’s seat in Ward 5 - was the first election Kennedy won. Over the next five decades, he would never lose a general election.

When ward boundaries were redrawn for 1970, Kennedy’s home and parish fell squarely in Ward 6, where he sought re-election. Because of provincial regulation, the Catholic board was capped in the number of trustees they could have, meaning Wards 1 and 6 were only afforded a single trustee each. But no one bothered to challenge the popular priest, who was acclaimed in 1970. Indeed, Kennedy would not face another challenger until 1988, marking eight full elections where he ran unopposed for the office of trustee.

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Through the 1970’s, Kennedy became a vocal critic of provincial policies around education. After Hamilton West’s Progressive Conservative MPP Ada Pritchard said she supported merging the Public and Catholic boards, Kennedy became one of her loudest critics.7 Over the years, he took the province to task for funding cuts, imposed trustee boundaries, and lack of investment in new schools.8 His high profile and popularity in the community led him to assuming the role of chair of the board in 1977 from Patrick Wilson - one of the men he defeated to join the board ten years earlier.9

Kennedy was, above all else, a devoted Catholic, so when new federal guidelines on sex ed were released, Kennedy led Hamilton’s Catholic board into a direct fight with the government of Pierre Trudeau. As chair, he slammed the directives as “brainwashing material” for their mention of birth control and abortion. “They’re deplorable, insulting and discriminating,” he raged at the last meeting of the board in 1977 - a meeting wherein he was re-elected chair for the following year.10

Over the next ten years, Kennedy cycled in and out of the chair, as well as chairing the St. Joseph’s Hospital trustee board. But a glowing profile in The Spec in 1986 marked the end of the easy times for Kennedy.11 The following year, a collection of Francophone parents sued the Catholic board for $1.5 million over violations of their Charter rights.12 Later that year, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) threatened job action as Kennedy stuck to the board’s offer. With just one day to go before a planned strike, negotiators with the board and OECTA held marathon sessions to hammer out a deal, securing a last minute contract that left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.13 The rest of that year was filled with bickering between the boards and the province over class sizes, funding, and school buildings.

Community frustration with the board’s leadership was palpable. In 1988, Kennedy faced his first electoral battle since being elected. Local parent Jack Jackson ran on a campaign of opposing “overcrowding and underfunding” at the board, as well as offering a fresh new perspective on Catholic education.14 But Jackson’s campaign was no match for the depth of experience brought by Kennedy, who sailed to victory, earning double the votes of his opponent on November 14, 1988.

***

Returned to the office of board chair, Kennedy remained steadfast in his opposition to what he considered immoral attitudes around sexuality. In response to the AIDS epidemic and a rise in sexually transmitted infections in Hamilton, Ward 3 trustee Tony Agro suggested it might be a good idea to include information on condoms in the Catholic school curriculum. Kennedy, still in the position of board chair, vigourously opposed this, reiterating the board’s support for abstinence-only and chastity-forward sex ed with an unfortunate analogy: “Students are taught to say no to drugs, not use them in moderation.”15

Later that year, after Kennedy became parish priest at Canadian Martyrs in Ainslie Wood, he learned of the passing of one of his colleagues: former trustee Father Bernard Cox. Asked by the Spec about Cox and his legacy, Kennedy reminisced that his colleague was one of the longest-serving Catholic trustees in Ontario up until that point, having sat on the board from 1951 to 1976.16 Though he may have been confident in his position, he could have never known that he would beat Cox’s record by almost double.

The 90’s brought a series of political headaches for Kennedy, who easily retained the board chair’s position. Only a few weeks into the new decade, Catholic parents from Westdale and Ainslie Wood began demanding a lasting solution to the problem of St. Mary’s High School, then housed on the grounds of McMaster University. As both Mac and St. Mary’s expanded, and the end of the Catholic board’s lease on the building in 1992 drew near, worried parents pressured the board to act. The board initially suggested expropriating a derelict factory complex between Main West and Whitney on Rifle Range before settling on a lease extension with McMaster.17 By May, the board had begun the process of buying the land and, shortly after, had announced plans for a new St. Thomas More High School on the west mountain.

In a light-hearted and carefully staged photo to commemorate the sod-turning on the new STM site, Bishop Anthony Tonnos looks through a surveyor’s level with a wide grin as Kennedy, hard hat askew and shovel at the ready, looks on happily. That photo of the groundbreaking for my future high school appeared in the Spec just five days before I was born.18 Kennedy had already been in office for 22 years and 8 months.

***

The dawn of the 90’s wasn’t all smiles for Kennedy. That year, Hamilton city council dropped a bomb on the city’s boards. Councillors openly voted in favour of not collecting school taxes after both boards sought an 18.1% tax increase to keep up with demand. When faced with slashing the municipal budget to ensure overall property tax increases remained low, council did what it could to throw the matter back to the boards. Even more shocking, the motion was moved by former Catholic trustee and then-Ward 5 alderman Dominic Agostino.19

Kennedy oversaw massive cuts to the Catholic board’s budget to address this issue, which were opposed by OECTA at a loud protest in front of the board’s Mulberry St. headquarters in June of 1990.20 By August, the board’s Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) members - including educational assistants and librarians - threatened to strike as soon as the school year started.21 The strike was averted just in time for the release of a provincial report that allocated funding to the new St. Mary’s project, but not to a request by Stoney Creek parents for a replacement for Cardinal Newman High School, creating further tension in the community.22

The cavalcade of controversies around the board during his time as chair did little to impact Kennedy’s re-election efforts in 1991, and he was acclaimed again in the November election. By all accounts, Kennedy was ready to jump back into the fight, battling the new provincial NDP government’s changes to funding which threatened to leave the Catholic board with a sizable $4.6 million deficit.23

But, in August of 1992, Kennedy suffered a near-fatal heart attack, which, for the first time in his life, required the priest to slow down.24 His next two years on the board were notably less intense, as Kennedy worked on improving his health and refocusing on his priorities.

In the election of 1994, Kennedy first faced the man who would be his most persistent electoral opponent. Joseph Baiardo, a corporate analyst who emerged as a strong critic of the NDP’s Social Contract and would eventually play a key role in Ontario Liberal Party candidate Marie Bountrogianni’s campaign on Hamilton Mountain, announced his intention to run against Kennedy, campaigning on building “new partnerships in education while developing innovative ways of communication”.25 On election night, Kennedy managed to emerge victorious with 57% of the vote, but Baiardo was less than 500 votes behind the long-standing trustee.

Maybe it was the close election or his continuing health problems, but, later that year, Kennedy retired as a regular parish priest for Canadian Martyrs. The Spectator reported it took a fair amount of convincing for Kennedy to even speak about his retirement, which was uncharacteristic for the normally public-facing priest.26

***

By 1997, Kennedy had slowed down considerably, and his re-election bid that year occurred under an upsetting dark cloud. Early in 1997, Joseph Carron, a former deacon who worked at Kennedy’s St. Margaret Mary Parish in 1976 was found guilty of abusing children while in training there. Following Carron’s trial, the defendants launched a $6 million lawsuit against the Diocese of Hamilton, the parish of St. Margaret Mary, and Kennedy for their alleged negligence in the matter.27 There were no updates about the lawsuit following Carron’s trial, so it is unclear how the claim was resolved, but Baiardo once again stepped up to challenge Kennedy in the tense environment. Combined with the new Harris government’s cuts to education, the election of 1997 was a decidedly unique occasion. Kennedy even made the bold choice to actively campaign after decades of shunning many of the normal efforts one would take to win a bid for public office. The week before the election, Kennedy placed ads in the Spec with a simple message: Kennedy for Quality Catholic Education.

On election night, the margin between Kennedy and Baiardo was even more narrow than in 1994 - just over 400 votes. But Kennedy was returned to office with 55% of the vote. Baiardo, who had worked his way up the ranks of the Ontario Liberal Party to become the party’s regional campaign manager, was eventually appointed to the vacant Ward 5 trustee’s seat in 2000 after Rose Agostino resigned to focus on her family.28

Later that year, Kennedy was on hand for the 50th anniversary celebration of high school basketball at Cathedral which turned out to be a surprise celebration of Kennedy’s impact on youth sports in the city. “With Father Kennedy, it was always about trying to work the hardest and never about the score,” said coach Mark Walton at the ceremony.29 In the general election that year, the score didn’t matter much either, as Baiardo was acclaimed in Ward 5, allowing Kennedy his own acclamation in Ward 6. Two years later, he was inducted into the Hamilton Gallery of Distinction.30

Another acclamation in 2003 led to Kennedy assuming the office of Vice Chair of the board. In 2004, he faced backlash after he appeared to reject demands from STM students for transparency about the working conditions in the factories that supplied the Catholic board’s uniforms, arguing the policy “could be harmful to suppliers’ competitive bids if they had to release details about the source of their uniforms.”31 This stance did little to harm Kennedy, who was re-elected through acclamation in 2006.

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The next four years sailed by for Kennedy as controversy swirled around his trustee colleagues. By the 2010 election, there was an organized effort to change the composition of the board, led by respected educators in the Catholic board. Mark Valvasori, a football coach at the school Kennedy helped secure a location for - St. Mary’s - ran against incumbent Louis Agro in Wards 1 & 2. His brother, the former principal at the very same STM where Kennedy was photographed at the groundbreaking, John Valvasori, ran against incumbent Sergio Manchia in the west mountain’s Ward 8. Their brother-in-law, Paul DiFrancesco ran for one of the two seats in the combined Wards 9, 10, and 11, while Frank Ciotti, a former teacher, ran against incumbent Linda Di Bartolomeo for Ward 5 trustee. The word “slate” was thrown around to describe the move by the educators to shakeup the Catholic board. While they didn’t run a candidate against Kennedy, two local residents - Michael Ecker (who ran a distant fourth in the 1991 Ward 7 alderman election) and Nick Pellegrino - both challenged the incumbent priest for his seat.

On election night, the Valvasori’s and DiFrancesco prevailed in their campaigns. In total, four incumbent trustees out of a board of 9 were defeated. And Kennedy experienced his closest race in his political career, coming within 65 votes of being defeated by Ecker.

In May of 2011, the 84-year-old Kennedy was invited by Bishop Douglas Crosby to say a special mass to honour Catholic Education Week in the gym of his former high school and the place where he served as a basketball coach for many years - Cathedral High School.32 In under a year, Kennedy would step down from the board as his health deteriorated and made continued public service impossible.33

On September 9, 2012, just over a month after his 85th birthday, Kennedy passed away at St. Joseph’s Villa in Dundas.34 Walton, the coach at Cathedral who helped put on the surprise party for Kennedy in 2002, told the Spec: “I totally believe we will never see his like again.”35 Just before Christmas, 2012, the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board announced they would be naming their Mulberry Street headquarters after Kennedy, whom chair Pat Daly called the “conscience” of the board.36 In the next elections in Ward 6, Kennedy’s opponent-turned-colleague, Joseph Baiardo, won the seat with a commanding 63% of the vote.

***

Kennedy’s legacy is one of a deep commitment to Catholic education. As trustee and chair, he oversaw a period of incredible change in Hamilton’s Catholic board, watching as schools grew, changed, and closed. He maintained the church’s strict positions on social issues, reflecting the complicated balance between dedication to social justice and the advancement of socially conservative stances on personal freedom that remain a central challenge for the Catholic Church. While there were plenty of threats of job action while Kennedy was chair of the board, he managed to oversee negotiations that tried to balance the wants of taxpayers and the needs of staff.

Ultimately, his leadership was respected by (or, at the very least, tolerated by) the Catholic voters of the east mountain, who allowed him to return to office through 12 acclamations and 5 convincing electoral victories.

Dr. Harry Paikin

Harry Paikin was, like so many, not born in Hamilton, but became inextricably linked to this city’s story. His parents were Jewish refugees from Lithuania living in Stockholm when he was born in 1905 . Sweden was just one stop on their long and arduous journey which, by 1909, brought them to Hamilton. Not long after arriving in the city, Paikin’s father, Abraham, opened a grocery store in their modest home on Bay Street North, between Sheaffe and Barton.

Paikin went to Hess Street School before heading to the Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute at the corner of Stinson and West (now the site of the Central Memorial Rec Centre - dedicated after the school burned down in 1946) and, finally, to U of T for med school. During undergrad, Paikin worked at local factories, including National Steel Car, to help pay for his tuition. His time in local shops, as well as his parents’ own struggles, gave him a deep appreciation for the challenges facing working people. After graduating in 1930, he returned home and opened a practice on Barton Street East, and married his wife Goldie the following year.37

Throughout the Depression, Paikin spent years dutifully caring for his patients in Beasley, Central, and the North End. As World War II ramped up and the threat of fascism increased, Paikin became increasingly involved with local Jewish groups, including the Hamilton Council of Jewish Organizations (CJO).

After Nazi Germany initiated Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941 and the Soviet Union joined the war on the side of the Allies, the CJO spearheaded the city’s Aid-to-Russia campaign. Paikin was selected to lead the campaign in 1943, holding rallies at local theatres and talks from prominent international relations experts who advised Canadians set aside their distrust of the Soviets to ensure victory over the Nazis.38

***

His profile raised, Paikin announced in November of that year that he would run for the office of Public school trustee in Ward 5 which, at the time, included his home at the corner of Barton East and Hughson North.39 At the time, each municipal ward was represented by two trustees. Trustees were elected for two year terms on a staggered schedule, meaning voters would elect a trustee one year and vote on their colleague the next. In 1943, Paikin sought to replace retiring trustee G. Warren Nelson, who had been appointed to the board in 1939 and had served since. The contrast between Paikin and Nelson could not be more stark; Paikin was a fervent advocate for social justice and peace, while Nelson gained notoriety in 1940 for proposing that “children who refuse to salute the flag or sing the national anthem be denied the right of education.”40 On election night, Paikin beat his only challenger by a narrow margin, carrying 53.5% of the vote.41

Shortly after being elected to the school board, Paikin threw himself into advocacy on all fronts. He headlined a conference recommending schools provide free vitamins to students, became the chair of the local CJO, and wrote poems in favour of buying war bonds.42 At the same time, Paikin became one of the city’s most prominent communists. In early 1945, he was a campaign surrogate for Dr. Sam Sniderman, the Labor-Progressive Party (LPP - the name, with the American spelling, for the Communist Party from 1943 to 1959) candidate for MP in Hamilton West. Sniderman was up against a host of high-profile candidates: the Liberal Minister of National Revenue, Colin Gibson, the Tory history professor from McMaster, Chester New, and the CCF intellectual and future party leader, David Lewis. With such fierce competition, Sniderman employed the help of the popular trustee, who gave campaign speeches for his fellow physician on CHML.43 Sniderman would eventually finish the race with only 3.7% (the best communist result in the riding ever).

His aid to the party made him a star in the movement, and, in early April, he was unanimously selected as the LPP candidate for Hamilton Centre in the June provincial election.44 On election night - June 4, 1945 - Paikin earned 7.7% of the vote, drawing enough votes away from incumbent CCF member Robert Thornberry to ensure his defeat and the success of the PC candidate, Ward 3 alderman Vernon Knowles.45

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Paikin’s electoral adventure with the LPP did little to sour the voters of Ward 5 on their trustee, returning him with 67.6% of the vote in that December’s municipal contest.46 His foray with the far-left did rankle his trustee colleagues, though. When Paikin teamed up with another trustee to introduce a motion to, among other things, “express [the board’s] disapproval of the legislature’s action in sanctioning cocktail lounges in our province” and “requesting the immediate implementing of a housing program”, it was opposed by trustees of all political stripes as “propaganda”. Even the CCF-affiliated trustee, Reverend Fred Ellis, said that, though he agreed in principle, he believed it to be “outside the scope of the board.”47

Paikin did not back down from his values. He introduced motions opposing the city’s centennial celebrations because of the commercial exploitation of city streets, requesting the Ministry of Education add labour history courses to the curriculum, and seeking approval to purchase a mobile x-ray machine to test students for tuberculosis more efficiently.48 In 1947, he opposed wording in a board report that indicated most girls in local schools “will eventually become housewives” on the grounds that “it was time they were emancipated” and, in the same meeting, moved a motion that would have the board work with council to provide free milk to students every day.49

But Paikin’s resolutions rarely met with success. Indeed, he was regularly sidelined and insulted by his colleagues. The tension boiled over in the spring of 1947 when Paikin verbally sparred with trustee Walter Chadwick, a deeply conservative appointee from city council (at the time, the board of trustees included council-appointed members to manage local high schools - a practice that would be abolished by a referendum of municipal voters in 1948). Chadwick accused Paikin of spreading communist propaganda and claimed Paikin called him “stupid” after a meeting. Paikin demanded an apology and opposed the breakdown in decorum, saying his fellow trustees were using “the methods of the alley cat, the knuckle-duster and the blackjack.”50

Acclaimed for another two-year term in December of 1947, Paikin remained steadfast in his values. During budget discussions in 1948, Paikin unsuccessfully sought a $100 annual pay increase for teachers, once again showcasing the extent of his marginalization on the board.51 That year would bring the 43-year-old doctor a rollercoaster of ups-and-downs. On July 27, his father passed away at his home on Grosvenor Ave. N.52 Three months later, Paikin and his wife welcomed the birth of their daughter.53 By the end of the year, he was back at the pay issue, this time demanding that “there should be equal pay for men and women doing equal work,” - a proposal the board considered overly dramatic, at best.54

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Paikin maintained his values across the other social and political commitments he held. After being appointed to the city’s Board of Health, he bridged the gap between local boards, advocating against the sale of pop in schools and for more health-related discussions during phys ed classes.55 Though he remained a progressive firebrand without many friends on the board, a number of acclamations and years of dedication led to Paikin being named chair of the board for 1952 - by all accounts, becoming the highest ranking Jewish Hamiltonian in public office ever.56

His profile raised again, Paikin was sought for his comments on all issues relating to education and medicine. When Canada faced a doctor shortage in 1952, Paikin suggested that the requirements to enter medical school be reduced from nine exams to six, drawing swift backlash from the McMaster Silhouette, which lambasted Paikin’s proposal as “not valuable.”57 His views on physician training weren’t the only ones he freely shared; over the next few years, Paikin suggested changing high school graduation requirements to ensure students knew how to swim and safely drive a car, encouraged the provincial government to establish a teacher/administrator arbitration board, and mused that Ontario’s universities should change their examinations to better suit the needs of students with differing learning styles.58 When an executive with the Westinghouse corporation told delegates to the Canadian Conference on Education that they should listen more to businessmen and ensure schools trained obedient workers, Paikin, attending as a representative of the Hamilton Board of Education, rose in vigourous opposition, telling the conference: “No one can agree that we should let industry - or anyone else - tell education what to do,” before telling the other delegates he was disappointed by their “timidity and passivity”.59

When Ward 5 trustee Rev. Fred Ellis launched into an anti-French and pro-colonial speech at the board (that included such lines as: the people of Quebec “should have learned English 300 years ago”, that be believed “British culture [is] the best in the world…that’s my prejudice”, and that the people who immigrated to Canada moved here because “they can’t get along [where they came from]…then try to change Canada into a country like the one they left.”), Paikin responded by describing a cartoon in which an Indigenous person tells someone like Ellis: “if you don’t like this country, why don’t you go back to where you came from.”60

What might have seemed like radical stances clearly endured him to voters. Every election, Paikin was returned enthusiastically by his constituents, many times by acclamation. When ward boundaries were realigned in 1960, Paikin opted to run in the new Ward 2 where he still lived and practiced medicine. Even when faced with a strong challenge from former board chair George Ross and young Tory-affiliated lawyer Doug Scott, Paikin earned 2,932 votes, topping the polls in his new ward.61 He repeated this feat over and over again; in 1964, challenged by a tax-focused young parent in David Houston, and former Ti-Cat-turned-three-term-PC-MP Bob McDonald, Paikin refused to tack right, sticking to his values and running on a campaign that advocated for free textbooks and universal post-secondary education.62 Paikin secured the top spot again, beating McDonald, who took the second trustee’s seat, by a slim 19 votes. Both men earned well more than third-place Houston.63 

Paikin kept pursuing the universal post-secondary plan, introducing motions about it in 1966 and making it a centrepiece of his re-election campaign that year.64 His campaign ads mention it prominently, along with some of his other stated goals, like free milk and low bus fares for students. Once again, McDonald and Paikin defeated Houston by over 1,000 - even if Paikin had dropped to second, just over 150 votes behind the former Tory MP.65

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The late 1960’s brought more bold proposals from Paikin. During the urban renewal craze the leveled much of the downtown core to make room for cars and sprawling modernist structures, Paikin initially supported plans by the board to demolish Central Public School and build the new education centre on the site. But, as plans changed, the board moved to the corner of Bay and Main, and the downtown began to experience the effects of renewal, his tone changed. By 1966, he was urging the board be more mindful in its effort to secure land for the new Sir John A. MacDonald Secondary School. “It’s not necessary for the school board to get a school at the expense of the poor little fellow who’s lived all his life in that area,” he told a meeting of the board during an expropriation debate.66

Beyond the logistics of providing new school buildings, Paikin carried on with his advocacy for accessible, universal healthcare. He pushed the board to support water fluoridation and advocate for universal dentalcare.67 Maybe it was this dedication for the NDP’s favourite cause or maybe it was just a smart bet, but, in 1968, the Hamilton and District Labour Council endorsed the former LPP candidate for the first time in his political career.68

As the 1970’s approached, he remained alone on the left of the school board. He was one of just four trustees opposed to to the use of the strap in schools, saying “sadism in any degree or manifestation has no place in an education system in a civilized society.”69 

Increasingly marginalized and left to defend his positions alone, Paikin began searching for allies on the board. An opportunity arose in 1970 when the NDP announced they would formally run candidates for municipal office under the party’s banner. In late October, Paikin was added to the party’s slate alongside a host of other official NDP trustee candidates.70 

The entry of the party could not have come at a worse time. The party suffered a massive dent in its credibility after Tommy Douglas opposed the implementation of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis that year. And, locally, all the political energy in the city was directed toward the triumphant re-election effort of Vic Copps, the popular mayor who vehemently opposed partisanship at city hall. Only three NDP-backed trustees were elected, including Paikin, who mused to the Spec that “running on the NDP ticket…cost him 500 votes.”71

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As the longest-serving trustee on the board, Paikin was elevated to the role of chair after the 1970 election. But his status did little to endure him to other board members and, by May of 1971, trustees were getting into shouting matches over basic procedures.72

Paikin’s work continued in the face of stubborn opposition. He used his position as chair to once again push for public post-secondary, making a passionate speech at a meeting of the Ontario Public School Trustees Association in favour of abolishing Grade 13 in favour of the creation of an Ontario CEGEP system - essentially universal junior colleges that would offer technical diplomas to those who wanted them and pre-university classes for those destined for academia.73

In 1972, Paikin’s seatmate, McDonald, resigned with just months to go before the municipal election. The board set up a hiring committee to select his replacement, narrowing a list of candidates down to 13 applicants and making a recommendation to the board. The board promptly rejected the recommendation and, instead, voted on a shortlist of three people: retired nurse Donna Husband, Marjorie Baskin, the wife of the city’s well-known Rabbi Baskin, and former candidate Ray Mulholland. In the end, the board settled on Mulholland, which drew opposition from all corners. Paikin lamented that “there is no point setting up an ad hoc [hiring] committee if its prerogative is pre-empted by the board.”74

In the election three months later, the voters of Ward 2 had their say, electing Paikin by a wide margin and handing the second seat to the spurned applicant, Donna Husband, sending Mulholland packing after only a few meetings.75

The rest of the 1970’s was much of the same for Paikin, who was consistently in the minority on the board. His efforts to save community schools from closure were consistently thwarted by his colleagues. In 1974, after Paikin made a passionate speech advocating for quality education over financial concerns, one of his colleagues flippantly responded: “if we don’t make some savings this year, next year your philosophy won’t be worth a hoot.”76

Using the office of school trustee as a platform, Paikin pursued a cornucopia of policies, from opposing the widening of York Boulevard (he said urban renewal advocates: “embrace the philosophy of the bulldozer. All they want to do is bulldoze everything and I resent it terribly.”), teacher layoffs, and the termination of night school programs.77

By the 1980’s, it seemed like the tide was turning for Paikin. Two easy election victories in 1980 and 1982 for Paikin were paired with a shifting dynamic on the board and a local trend toward liberalization that countered the international shift toward the right. Suddenly, trustees became the last defenders of local schools and public education. When high school teachers walked off the job in 1985, Marjorie Baskin (who had been elected to the board representing Ward 1) tried to encourage her fellow trustees to support a motion that called for teachers to be forced back to work. Paikin, with a few new progressives on the board, was able to defeat the motion by a massive margin.78

Two successes followed soon after: the board united to oppose extending funding to Catholic schools past Grade 10 (Paikin said schools “should not have any particular ideology incorporated”) and finally voted to ban the use of the strap in schools.79 The board was finally coming around to Paikin’s way of viewing education.

***

On the morning of Friday, October 18, 1985, Paikin left his home on Mayfair Place, directly across from McMaster University, and travelled to city hall. There, he filed his papers for re-election. From Main West, he travelled down to his old office at the corner of Barton East and Hughson North, where he had an array of appointments scheduled. Sometime during the day, Paikin suffered a massive heart attack and died in his office, just two weeks short of his 80th birthday.

After his passing, his fellow trustees noted that he was a trailblazer who advanced ideas well before their time. His Ward 2 seatmate, Lillian Vine, said that “When we first introduced junior kindergarten a few years ago, it turned out Harry had talked about the importance of it very early on.”80 The Spec’s editorial board summed up his impact on the city with ease: “Hamilton without Harry Paikin is like Hamilton without the Mountain or the Bay.”81 Spec columnist Tami Paikin Nolan (unclear if there was a relation) wrote:

***

Paikin was a man of principle and passion. Over 41 years, he advanced causes few would have dared to even consider for fear of ruining their political careers. He took up the cause of women when there were few women in politics, the cause of working people when so many advocates for labour and workers were systematically excluded from local politics, the cause of children with differing needs, from differing backgrounds, and with differing life experiences.

He had opposition in the community and on the board, but he persisted through it all, dedicating his life to making this city a little better, one day at a time. Not bad for an angry young downtown socialist.

Ray “Squibb” Mulholland

While Kennedy was a priest and Paikin a doctor, Ray Mulholland is, above all else, a hometown working class Hamiltonian, the son of a school janitor, east-end born-and-raised.

From age 16 to 26, Mulholland was a local baseball star, playing on a number of local teams and earning a reputation as a heavy hitter who could bring “fancy work afield” as a second baseman.83 After the birth of his son, he began working at Stelco as a plummer, but he never really left the sport, playing actively on the plant’s team for years.

In 1958, Mulholland and his family moved to Erin Avenue and threw themselves into the social life of their new neighbourhood. By the time he was ready to run for office in 1968, Mulholland was a young father, active on the Rosedale Community Council and enrolled in night classes to earn his Grade 12 diploma.84 During his campaign, he proudly called himself “Raymond ‘Squibb’ Mulholland”, telling the Spec that “the nickname Squibb [was] given to him at birth by his father.”85 His campaign didn’t really get off the ground, and he placed a distant third behind incumbent trustee Dorothy Cooke and NDP-backed candidate Howard McMillan.86

A second bid for the Ward 5 seat in 1970 received even less attention, with Mulholland needing to place his own advertorial announcing his intention to run. While he dropped the “Squibb” from his name, he did add a new slogan: A Trustee to be trusted”.

Again, this bid was unsuccessful, with Mulholland falling over 1,000 votes behind the top-earner, Rev. Joseph Rogers and second-place finisher Ted Scandlan.87

The incidents of 1972 - Mulholland’s controversial appointment and subsequent loss in Ward 2 - did not stop his electoral drive. In fact, it seemed to only increase his desire to win a seat on the board. Afforded a special opportunity - the extraordinary elections held in 1973 on the occasion of the creation of the region of Hamilton-Wentworth - Mulholland once again stood in Ward 5 on a platform of independence from partisan forces, traffic safety around schools, and alleviating classroom crowding.88 And, this time, he won, defeating Ted Scandlan in a nailbiter of a vote.

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Mulholland hit the ground running, making a name for himself for his relentless advocacy and bold proposals. He suggested offering Central Public School to the region for offices at the cost of $1 a year, fought against portables around schools in his ward, and voting against a pay increase for trustees from $3,000 to $7,200 a year (from about $16,400 to $39,400 in today’s currency), opting to keep his old salary even when the pay was increased.89 His populist cred didn’t end there; a few weeks before the 1976 election, Mulholland suggested the board should be cut to just one trustee per ward.90

For whatever reason, his hard work and populist proposals weren’t convincing to enough Ward 5 voters, who voted back in Scandlan by a narrow margin. Once again, Mulholland was off the board.91

He couldn’t be kept down. Indeed, the first decade of Mulholland’s political career was defined by an almost obsessive tenacity. Two years later, when 21-year board veteran Dorothy Cooke announced she was retiring, Mulholland jumped at the opportunity to contest the Ward 4 seat. For whatever reason, this campaign was a knockout, with Mulholland earning over 4,000 votes and claiming the top spot in the ward.92

***

With his trustee’s seat secured, Mulholland once again got to work. In mid-1979, he came out against both the Red Hill Valley and Lincoln Alexander Expressways, saying the projects would negatively impact nearby schools.93 He began advocating for easier community access to schools, greater elected official control over the board, and, for his re-election effort in 1980, focused on job training for high school students, maintaining his trademark syncretic populism.94

That populism led him to, once again, oppose trustee wage increases in 1982, chastise fellow trustees for being “too safety conscious” when a proposal for bus monitors was raised the following year, and cast a vote in favour of a failed motion that sought to abolish junior kindergarten later in 1983.95

His eclectic views and populist streak may have confused his fellow trustees, but that did not stop them from making him board chair for 1984 and 1985. Under his leadership, the board maintained a steady course until they dove headfirst into a battle with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) over work-to-rule tactics.

As chair, Mulholland’s signature was on a letter sent to teachers indicating that, if they continued work-to-rule, they would no longer be paid. Though this was required by provincial law, it positioned the board against the OSSTF in a dramatic and public way.96 Further frustrating all parties involved, from teachers and students to parents and union officials, was the fact that Mulholland was in Florida at a conference during the most tense days of negotiations.97 A parents’ forum at the Central Library in late May was a public relations disaster for Mulholland, who claimed to be “more aware of the teachers’ demands because of their own public awareness campaign and media exposure,” which, as the Spec reported, elicited “a hostile response”.98

As the strike dragged on, Mulholland and the board took the aggressive step of taking out ads in the Spec outlining their position in the form of “A Open Letter to Hamilton Taxpayers”.99 It took 3 and a half months, but the strike was resolved just in time for the start of the 1985/1986 school year and for the 1985 municipal election.100

The OSSTF took a cautious approach, indicating they weren’t formally running candidates or “blacklisting incumbents” for their role in the strike, but that didn’t stop angry parents, labour activists, and community members from using the trustee election as a forum to vent their anger. And, as board chair, Mulholland was a prime target.101 Despite a strong showing by labour-backed candidates, Mulholland kept his seat along with every incumbent who sought re-election.102 The storm, it would seem, had passed.

And then, in 1987, an opportunity presented itself. It would be Mulholland’s shot to move on up.

***

In 1987, Ward 5 alderman Shirley Collins finally won a seat in the Ontario legislature. After contesting Hamilton East in the 1985 provincial election as a Liberal and losing to Bob Mackenzie, she threw her hat in the ring for the OLP nomination in the riding of Wentworth East, a sprawling riding that included rural portions of Stoney Creek and Binbrook. She won that seat in the 1987 election and promptly vacated her city council seat, which her former colleagues opted to fill via by-election.

A huge slate of 10 candidates, including Liberal stalwarts Dominic Agostino and Craig Dowhaniuk, former NDP candidate Sharon Lehnert, and teacher Dave Rogers contested the seat. Among those candidates was Mulholland, who told the Spec that he was “the candidate with the most experience in civic politics.” In a reversal from his previous stances, he now supported all the city’s perimeter road plans, while also advocating for regular GO service into downtown.103

Mulholland’s campaign was no match for the Agostino machine. After the count on election night, November 17, 1987, Mulholland walked away with 12.3% of the vote, putting him in third place behind second-place Lehnert and Agostino, who collected 24% of the votes in Ward 5.104

He didn’t learn from the experience. The 1987 campaign was a battle between the Liberal machine of Agostino and the NDP machine of Lehnert. His stated non-partisanship and difficult-to-pin-down populism made him a sort-of pariah in the city’s political sphere. Rather than cozy up to a party, Mulholland opted to blaze his own trail. When Ward 4 alderman David Christopherson stepped down in 1990 after being elected to provincial parliament, Mulholland gave it another go. But, once again, the party machines were there and ready. Agostino mustered his Liberal forces behind former alderman Reg Wheeler, who had lost a bid to become regional chair in 1988. Christopherson and the energized NDP forces in the city threw their support behind Dave Wilson, the president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council.

On election night, Wilson was victorious, pulling 42.5% of the vote to Wheeler’s 28%. Mulholland fell way back with the “also rans” at a hair shy of 14% and just 174 votes ahead of Teresa Lago, a nurse who had never been involved in politics before. After the 1990 by-election, Mulholland seemed to understand the impact his rebellious streak had, telling the Spec: “It’s difficult for an independent to run against party political machines…I still maintain party politics have no business at city hall.”105

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Mulholland, who claimed perfect attendance at board meetings before his re-election bid in 1988, easily won his next three election bids with ease.106 By 1997, when board reorganization dropped the number of trustees per ward to one, he was acclaimed and, the following year, was board chair again. Like clockwork, another strike vote was held, though, this time, Mulholland wouldn’t shoulder any blame in the fight between teachers and the PC government of Mike Harris. The conflict was resolved, though Mulholland then faced the prospect over overseeing massive school closures, again imposed by the provincial government.107 But Mulholland managed to work with aldermen Andrea Horwath and Marvin Caplan, as well as fellow trustee Judith Bishop, to advocate for community schools. The board was successful in holding off forced closures, but the issue came up again just before the 2000 election.

Even with the looming closures, there was little interest in trustee elections that year. Mulholland was interviewed by the Spec about this and said, rather bluntly, “Our responsibilities have eroded drastically over the years.”108 He was right. The Harris Tories had stripped most of their power - including taxation power and any power when it came to negotiating with teachers - away and had imposed caps on trustee pay, essentially reducing compensation to an unlivable honorarium of $5,000. It was no surprise when Mulholland and three of his colleagues were returned by acclamation that year.109

Another acclamation in 2003 and easy re-election bids in 2006, 2010, and 2014 preceded a final acclamation in 2018. During the pandemic, Mulholland’s attendance dropped and he was absent for a crucial vote calling for a review of the School Resource Officer program that was promoted by groups like HWDSB Kids Need Help.110 After a narrow victory in 2022 over Shane Cunningham Boles, Mulholland receded further from view. During a heated meeting over masking in schools that was repeatedly disrupted by a gallery full of conspiracy theorists, parent’s rights militants, and far-right extremists, Mulholland simply left, opting to not cast a vote on the issue.111 In 2023, he quietly opposed consultations on non-Christian holidays before seeking a leave-of-absence in April of this year.112

Then, on September 9, Mulholland resigned from the board, marking the end of decades in public office in Hamilton and cementing him in the local history books as this city’s longest-serving elected official. On the occasion of his retirement, former trustee Judith Bishop commented to the Spec that he “often didn’t explain why he voted as he did,” but would be a regular fixture at events, celebrations, funerals, and meetings for schools across Hamilton.

Mulholland was a unique politician: a maverick with his own distinct sense of duty.

The public trust

In a short while, another name will be added to this list. Very soon, Catholic trustee Pat Daly Jr. will also join the 40 year club and, if he serves a full term, will be tied with Dr. Paikin for length-of-service.

But, as the responsibilities of trustees are eroded, the office will become less-and-less appealing to anyone who actually wants to shape public education in this city. There is little a trustee can do aside from fiddle with the day-to-day operations of a board and raise some concerns brought to them by the few parents who care.

A story I always tell folks is that, when I was running for school trustee in Wards 1 & 2 in 2014, I knocked on as many doors as I could, only to be greeted with questions about my stance on LRT or downtown revitalization or amalgamation. I’d argue fewer than 1 in 25 people I spoke with had any concerns about education and even fewer of them knew what a trustee could actually do.

There’s almost no awareness about the responsibilities of trustees anymore. And, when people do find out about what they can do, they’re more likely to tune out than get involved. Why pour energy into a trustee’s campaign when you can focus on provincial politics and actually get something done?

The profiles of the three members of the 40 year club in Hamilton show a wide array of skills, areas of focus, and passions. Father Kennedy was committed to youth sports, the teachings of his church, and responsible community service. Dr. Paikin used the office of trustee to advance…well…sewer socialism: that kind of down-to-earth, everyday progress that helps working people right here and right now. And Ray Mulholland jumped into the role of chair at a time when trustees could impact things like salary negotiations, opting to remain a steady hand on the wheel long after all the powers he once had were removed from his office.

***

In my chapter in the 2024 book Political Engagement in Canadian City Elections, I identified three broad categories of trustee: the “useful apparatchik”, the “aspiring star”, and the “concerned-citizen trustee”. The apparatchik is a useful politician who may not have the desire or skills to make it at a higher level. The aspiring star uses the board as a place to learn the ropes and raise their profile. The concerned-citizen is a person who genuinely cares about school board affairs and wants to apply their knowledge to the role to benefit their family, their community, or their city.

Each of the trustees in the 40 year club embody some aspects of each category, though most fall into the category of “useful apparatchik”. As powers are further stripped from school boards, professionalizing and “undemocratizing” aspects of the job, we will see fewer and fewer “concerned-citizen trustees” seeking office.

And, at some point before the 40 year club earns a fifth member, we should ask ourselves: what is the point of a school board if it has no power? Can it be reshaped into something more useful? Can some of its former powers be restored? Can it, as an institution, weather the coming political storms?

***

During the 2022 election, I published an open spreadsheet of trustee candidates to raise awareness about their campaigns. Unlike in the past, when the Spec would cover trustee campaign announcements, board meetings, and the minutiae of board affairs, the erosion of local media has meant less and less attention being paid to trustee affairs. At the same time, extremists of all stripes - anti-gay, anti-science, anti-trans, anti-diversity, anti-truth - are using trustee elections to both spread their views and become the “aspiring stars” of the future.

Even if trustee elections might not afford people real power like they used to, they can still see people elected who will change the day-to-day policies of boards to suit their own needs and amplify views meant to divide our communities.

Herein lies the problem. On one hand, the office of school trustee is an increasingly powerless post with little appeal to most citizens. On the other, the office of school trustee is still a platform from which fringe voices in our communities can continue to spread their hate.

So that’s why our history is important. It is worthwhile to know who these long-standing public servants were, what they did, and how they used their office. It is essential to understand their impact on our community. And it should be inspiring, pushing us to become better, more engaged citizens, and, at the very least, know a little about trustee candidates in 2026.

Maybe, just maybe, that will give us a chance to begin reshaping the institution into something that works for everyone - teachers, parents, support staff, students, admin, communities, Hamilton.

Alright. Class dismissed.

Graphics designed by author using background photos from Noita Digital on Unsplash and the Hamilton Spectator archive.