How Frederick G. Gardiner shaped modern Toronto, for better or worse

City Space

If you drive in Toronto you know the name “Gardiner”. The waterfront expressway was named after the man who dominated Toronto politics at a crucial point in its history: Frederick Goldwyn Gardiner, or “Big Daddy” as he was known. In 1953 Gardiner became the first chair of Metropolitan Toronto, a trailblazing experiment in two-tier municipal governance that brought Toronto and 15 surrounding towns together, until full amalgamation in 1998. But Gardiner’s legacy is a complicated one, and his reign left tensions between urban and suburban Toronto baked into the city’s physical fabric and governance. In this episode we look at why, more than 40 years after his death, the City of Toronto is still reckoning with his vision.