Leslie Howard Saunders

Leslie Howard Saunders ( September 12, 1899 - March 30, 1994 ) was the 51st Mayor of Toronto in 1954 .

Life

Saunders began his professional career with the Ontario Northland Railway . As a union member, he began his political career in the Canadian Labor Party by running for a seat on the North Bay City Council . During the First World War he served as a soldier and then became vice-chairman of a veterans society. The Protestant Saunders moved to Toronto during the Great Depression , became manager of The Sentinel newspaper and came into contact with the Orange Order . Since he did not see his political views represented there strongly enough, he founded a counter-newspaper called Protestant Action . He became a staunch member of the Orange Order and published a letter in which he won the victory of Wilhelm III. greatly praised by England at the Battle of the Boyne . That letter earned Saunders a lot of criticism for being intolerant of religious minorities. The criticism, some of which was even voiced from within the ranks of the Orange Order, was decisive for his deselection as mayor in 1954. In 1960, he appeared as head of the East York district , but lost this election. His last political office was in 1976 when he became interim mayor of East York.

Works

• An Orangeman in public life: the memoirs of Leslie Howard Saunders Britannia Printers, 1980.
• The cost of romanism to the nation and the truth about Quebec's part in the second world war , Britannia Printers, 1948.
• The story of Orangeism , 1960.

Web links

• Leslie Howard Saunders in the database of Find a Grave (English)