1994 Brantford municipal election explained

The 1994 Brantford municipal election was held on November 14, 1994, to elect a mayor, councillors, and school trustees in the city of Brantford, Ontario.

In the mayoral contest, Chris Friel defeated one-term incumbent Bob Taylor.

Results

• Bob Lancaster was raised in the small community of Little Lake, Ontario. He was first elected to the Brantford City Council in 1978, winning a seat in the city's second ward. He was re-elected without opposition in 1980 and was returned again in 1982. After standing down in 1985, he returned to council in 1991 and served another term. Lancaster was fifty-four years old in 1994, worked as a realtor, and was seen as a pro-business candidate.^[1] After the 1994 election, he complained to the Ontario Press Council about election coverage in the Brantford Expositor. The case was dismissed.^[2] He later chaired both the Brantford police services board and the Brant and Brantford Housing Authority as a citizen appointee.^[3] His nephew Stephen Lancaster has also been a councillor.^[4]

• Robert E. Smith (died November 15, 2009) was a veterinarian. He graduated from the Ontario Veterinary College (later a part of the University of Guelph) in 1956 and operated a hospital practice in Indianapolis, Indiana, until 1975. He later moved to Brantford and opened a new practice in 1978. He became a founding member of the Society of Ontario Veterinarians and retired in 2002.^[5] Smith served one year on the Brantford city council after defeating incumbent councillor Charles Bowen for the second position in the city's fifth ward in 1991.^[6] He was narrowly defeated by Marguerite Ceschi-Smith in 1994. A decade later, he wrote public letters calling for increased protection for the elderly, for the dismissal of Brantford's highest-paid municipal staff, and against granting legal status for religious arbitration in Ontario.^[7] He died in 2009, at age seventy-seven, after a farming accident.^[8]

Source: Brantford Expositor, 15 November 1994, p. 7.

References

1. Brantford Expositor, 10 November 1994, pp. 2-4.
2. "Complaint against Expositor dismissed," Kitchener Record, 6 July 1995, F8.
3. Heather Ibbotson, "Mayor lashes out at judge for comments," Brantford Expositor, 17 February 1999, A1; "Second term for Lancaster," Brantford Expositor, 17 June 1999, A3; "Lancaster back as housing chair," Brantford Expositor, 13 June 2000, A6; Richard Beales, "Lancaster remains as police board chairman," Brantford Expositor, 17 January 2002, A3.
4. Vincent Ball, "Council table shake up: Four new faces elected by Brantford voters wanting change," Brantford Expositor, 11 November 2003, A3.
5. Susan Gamble, "Aliens sighted in fright fan's garage," Brantford Expositor, 7 June 2002, A3; "Former Brantford councillor, veterinarian killed in tractor mishap," Hamilton Spectator, 16 September 2009, A2.
6. Brantford Expositor, 13 November 1994.
7. Robert E. Smith, "Suggestions to protect the elderly" [letter], Brantford Expositor, 12 February 2004, A10; "Ex-councillor offers radical advice," Brantford Expositor, 8 March 2004, A8; Dr. Robert E. Smith, "Check out religious arbitrations" [letter], Brantford Expositor, 17 September 2005, A13.
8. "Former Brantford councillor, veterinarian killed in tractor mishap," Hamilton Spectator, 16 September 2009, A2; "Accident claims former city councillor", Brantford Expositor, 2009, accessed 28 January 2011.