Hawrelak: The Edmonton mayor removed from office by the supreme court

Edmonton's mayor was removed from office by the Supreme Court.

In 1965.

Whoops, I click-baited ya.

With his eponymous Hawrelak Park reopening next month, let's talk about the scandalous William Hawrelak.

Hawrelak is still Edmonton's longest-serving mayor, with just over 10 years in the chair, winning mayoral elections seven times, and also resigning in disgrace, and being removed from office by the courts.

Busy guy.

But actually, yeah, busy. His time in office overlapped with a boom economy, mostly fuelled by the discovery of massive amounts of oil at Leduc No. 1.

In this period, we kind of just built all our stuff. Stanley Milner Library, Groat Road, Royal Alex Hospital, the Valley Zoo, Fort Edmonton, Borden, Coronation, and Mayfair Parks.

It was a lot of stuff, and people liked him for it.

Hawrelak was a juggernaut

1951

He first became mayor in 1951, when the existing mayor, Sidney Parsons, had to step away for health reasons.
1951

Parsons was soundly defeated by Hawrelak later that year, and would never return to public life afterwards.
1950s

The following four two-year terms were either unopposed or electoral landslides. Hawrelak was a juggernaut.
1959

But things soured when Alderman Ed Leger spearheaded a petition to investigate Hawrelak and city administration for a scheme by which the city would sell land at below-market prices, and then the land would change hands several times between speculators, with Hawrelak and his associates getting richer at every step.

A provincial justice found him guilty of gross misconduct, and he resigned in disgrace in 1959. Though, he didn't admit any wrongdoing, and he didn't take responsibility.

But then the city sued him for his alleged personal gains in the scheme, and settled for 100 grand, which is just over a million bucks adjusted for today's inflation.

The settlement, though? That made him eligible once again to seek the mayor's chair.

And he did.

One of the nastiest elections in Edmonton history

In 1963, he won a narrow victory over Stanley Milner. Yes, that Stanley Milner.

And in what has been described as one of the nastiest elections in Edmonton history.

The Edmonton Journal from the time talks about an organized mob of “rowdies” loyal to the mayor, who attended candidate forums and meetings and loudly booed and heckled candidates other than Hawrelak to prevent them from speaking.

After the election, students protesting Hawrelak's victory in front of City Hall were punched and assaulted in what was described as a “near riot,” as police watched on without intervening or arresting anyone.

The Journal's editorial after the near riot: “Uphold The Law.”

Removed by the courts

1964

Hawrelak won again in 1964.
1965

But his term was cut short in 1965, when he was removed from office by the Chief Justice of Alberta.

The City Act at that time required that mayors or aldermen could only hold a maximum of a 25% stake in any company entering a contract with the city. He owned 40% of Sunalta Builders Ltd., which did a land deal with the city.

He appealed his removal all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, but he lost, and he was removed from his role as mayor.

And you'd think that the story ends there.

But!

In 1974, he ran again, and he crushed his opponents. After having been removed from office twice for unethical behaviour, he won in a landslide victory.

But he died 13 months later.

Hawrelak Park

Though he's still got a household name, because of the soon-to-be-reopened Hawrelak Park named after him.

But I do find it ironic that we renamed Mayfair Park to Hawrelak Park in 1982.

Because both names, as it turns out, are synonymous with grifting taxpayers and transferring their hard-earned money to the wealthy.