Mario Sergio

Mario Sergio retired in June 2018 from his role as MPP for the Humber River – Black Creek area after 40 years as an elected politician. He was first elected as a North York Councillor in 1978 and served on Metro Council from 1985 – 1988 and remained a Councillor until he was elected as an MPP in 1995. Mario Sergio currently lives with his wife Rose in the former North York and they have 2 sons and four grand children.

Please start by telling me a bit about yourself.

My first 18 years were spent in my hometown in Calabria, Italy. So, I was 18 years old when I arrived in Canada and those were tough days because as you may recall, then Prime Minister Diefenbaker had just cancelled the Avro Arrow, the super sonic jet the year before and there was a lot of unemployment. It was very difficult to find jobs in those days. Eventually, I was able to find a job in a factory and after a couple of years, I moved on. I went into the life insurance business and by the age of 21, I had my own general insurance agency. I wasn’t happy with it in those days – you know, you would be making $5.00 a policy and I had to go from Oshawa to Hamilton servicing clients. I had just gotten married, so I went into real estate and in real estate, I was doing okay but I was still working seven days a week with a young family. I was 21 when I got married and my wife was 19 – I had nobody here other than my aunt and uncle where I was staying. My father came with me originally but after two years, he went back home. His wife, my mother and the rest of the family were there so I was left by myself. In 1969, I started my own Real Estate Brokerage and operated it until 1978 when one of my friends pushed me into politics. So, that’s what happened.

What were the circumstances that led you to become a politician?

When I tell people this story, they think it’s very funny, which it is! We had just moved into a semi-detached house on Benrubin Drive, backing onto the St. Roch Catholic School. That was an empty field and at that time, I was selling for a particular builder when he said, “I will be building in such and such an area – it’s a small parcel so come and take a look at where we’re going to set up the sales office.” I went and I said, “Can I have some plans?” He showed me what he was building and then I went home in the evening and I told my wife - at the time we had bought our first house 26 Brubeck Road at Finch and Islington. I’m talking about 1966 or ’67 and Rose says, “Oh yeah, you bought another house so when am I going to see it.” I said, “They have to build it.” “What do you mean they have to build it?” “Well, I bought it off the plan.” I knew what I was doing so we waited – it was okay, it was a bit bigger because I expected a visit from my parents from back home.

Being a new subdivision there were no sidewalks, so in the morning going to work, I would go out and meet my neighbours, all Italians at that time and one of the ladies was kind of upset and she said because there was no sidewalk, she had to go on the street walking her kids to school, and she was talking loudly to the other ladies saying I wish somebody would do something about it. One of the other neighbours, also walking the kids to school says, “Yes, Mario’s here, he’s always around. Tell him to call city hall.” Anna was her name and she says, “Mario, why don’t you do that and tell them to build the sidewalks here”, and I said, “Okay, I will.”

Next morning, to my surprise they came and did the sidewalks. I didn’t have the time to call city hall to do the sidewalks, but they were there. As usual, I go to work, come home and I’m about to finish my supper and there’s a knock on the door with three of my neighbours. “What’s up guys?” “We want to talk to you.” “Okay, come on in.” In those days, we would start with salami, cheese and a bottle of wine and bread or whatever. One was Ralph, another was Johnny and Luigi and they said, “We decided you are going to run for councillor.” Me and my wife, we both said, “Go home, go home guys.” “No, no, no – we are serious.” I said “Guys, have another glass of wine, enjoy and go home.” “You guys are crazy. I’m doing good in real estate. I don’t know anything about politics.” We spent about an hour chatting and then they went home. The next night, again there was a knock at the door and my wife says it’s the boys again. Come on in – more salami, more cheese and another bottle of wine and they said, “Mario, you have to run they said.” “I don’t have to run, guys – I’m doing okay and I’m happy with what I’m doing.” “Mario, you have to run.” I was exasperated at this point and I said, “I’ll tell you what, you run my campaign and I will run”, thinking that they would abandon the idea and go home. But to my surprise they were thrilled to get started. With our neighbours and friends, we canvassed the old Ward 1 twice on foot. And we won! The rest is history.

In the early days as a Councillor, what were the issues in the community and how did you respond to some of the issues that you felt were important?

Services, when I was elected, in the Humber Summit area which I know you know well, there was a very strong English, Scottish, Irish Ratepayer Association called the Forgotten Corners Resident Association. The main issues were services, local facilities and roads and Ward 1 was really a forgotten corner of the city of North York. They were upset with the current Councillor. I didn’t know politics, but in other parts of the ward they were upset because of the big rental towers that were built at Jane and Wilson on Chalkfarm Dr. and then the ones on Sheppard and Weston Rd, so I guess they were really upset with him. I guess it was the time when they would vote for anybody but, okay? Of course, there were a lot of Italians, so I had a lot of support from therm.

During the campaign, I listened to people to hear their issues. We had no flowers in our parks or anything – it was really forgotten. But mainly it was the road conditions and the sidewalks. Islington wasn’t paved in those days, so they were really upset. I didn’t really know what I was getting into.

After I was elected, my wife said, “Well how much are you going to be making now?” I said, “Well, its going to be about $16,140 a year.” “Are you crazy – are you nuts. What did you do?” But the beautiful thing was, one morning, after the election, I saw 3 - 4 families who needed help. They couldn’t get this, they couldn’t get that and needed food as well. I remember that week, we went into the basement and gathered skates, clothing, food and we filled three big bags that we gave away to those families in need. Rose was not upset but was laughing in a way and said, “Well now that you got onto this, you’re better do it. I said, “I’m going to do it.” So, I never looked back.

Shortly after I was elected, I have to say that the people in the Humber Summit area were anxiously watching at what this guy is going to do for us now. After a year or so the Forgotten Corner Resident Association disbanded because they said, “With Mario, things are working out, so we don’t need to be on everybody’s back all the time.” Then, I was always working in the community – I was practically a social service agency on four wheels doing things for people. People would call in and I would go and see them and then they would say “Oh my sisters are coming, I called my brother – can you do the cheques for them, can you pay a bill for them, can you do a note?” I was doing all of that. I have to say that I was willing to help them, and I had a lot of patience.

Then we had no church in the area. We didn’t have St. Roch. One night there was a knock on my door and my wife said, “There is a man in black at the door, you better go.” So, I went, I opened the door and I recognized him because I had seen him at St. Jude’s church where he was serving. He said, “I’m Father Oreste Cerbara and I am here to talk with you as I have to start a new parish in the area.” So, I said come on in and we talked about how to reach out to the community to start a new Parish on Islington. I grew up in this area from the beginning, we had fundraising events, knocking on doors and getting pledges until it was built. And then, when it was built, I was doing the readings, both first and second readings for 10 years at St. Roch. First of all, we started celebrating mass at St. Roch’s Catholic School in the gym.

While I was a Councillor, I was on the Planning Board, the chairman and member of the Planning Board Committee for 14 years. Jane and Finch was already built in those days. The only thing that was built during my years was a co-op called Glen Gardens on Jane St. I remember that they came back to planning or council because they wanted to add one extra floor. There was a lot of resistance from people and I said, they’re going to be building the building – its just one extra floor but politics being politics, I said, let it go but I was telling my friends on council to approve it. It didn’t make sense. That was the only building while I was on City Council.

When I served on the Metro Toronto Council, I served as the chair of the Metro Transportation Committee, the Public Works Committee, the Metro Toronto Housing Authority, the Metro Toronto Region Conservation Authority and the Canadian National Exhibition Board.

When you first became the MPP in 1995, what were the issues at that time and how did you respond to some of the issues that you felt were important.

It was the same issues that had been brewing for many, many years. The high concentration of people and that was the time when the community was slowly changing with new people coming in and new programs coming in. I could visualize it by myself because I came here as an immigrant and when I came, we didn’t have any assistance from anywhere. If you worked, you made some money and you would go and buy something. If you didn’t have insurance, you were on your own. Those were really trying years because you had to deal with a lot of poverty, new people, housing was a big issue and I’ve always pressed on that, assisting people in need and getting jobs. Those were the big issues – the big issues those days. That’s from my own area. There were bigger issues – we talk about health care and education – they were tough, tough days and in some cases, we still have them, but it has improved. There is no question about it, it has improved, and we’ve come a long way. But a lot of the needs are still there. When you have such a large concentration of people in an area with medium to low-income, it’s normal and natural that they have problems.

Fortunately, I’m happy that the Humber Hospital on Finch didn’t get sold or didn’t close but a lot of the needs are still there. In 1979, speaking now even with the kind of needs in the area and things like even transportation was a big issue. I remember talking to Mel Lastman and I said, “Mel, you talk so much about getting a downtown in North York, you’ll never get a downtown in North York unless you change your mind and get a little bit tough and start to give the developers something in return, otherwise you won’t get developers to come in to build downtown at one-time density.” I said, “Its impossible, nobody’s going to do it. You’ve got to give them three, four times coverage to make it appealing to them.” And Mel Lastman understood what I was talking about. So slowly, slowly applications for rezoning were coming in and downtown North York was starting to take shape.

And I said to Mel, “One thing that is affecting my area is a lack of transportation” and I said, “What do you think if we get the subway up all the way to York University.” “What a good idea Mel said and how are we going to do it?” So, we worked on that.

I remember, I went to speak to former Mayor Lorna Jackson at the Vaughan City Hall and I said, “Lorna, we are heavily supporting a subway extension to York University and loop it around Steeles Avenue and then all the way to Yonge Street.” She said, “I want nothing to do with the subway – I’m not going to spend half of the money to please the people of Toronto.” And I said, “No, its not really pleasing the people of Toronto – we’re going to bring the subway to your doorsteps.” She wanted nothing to do with it. That was back in 1979 when I planted the seed to bring the subway to York University. So, then the subway eventually came, and we had a lot of meetings with the LRT people about the 15 acres to be used for the service garage and LRT Bus Depot. Those were some of the big issues. It takes a long time and I learned that in politics, a good idea takes a long time to come to reality.

The years with former Premier Mike Harris were frustrating, I was with Al Leach, Minister of Municipal Affairs, at the time we were dealing with the amalgamation of the City of Toronto, and the Harris Government was bent on shoving it down the throat of the Toronto City Council against their will. I said, “Don’t do it. But if you want to do it, give notice to the City of Toronto where they have three or four years until the next election to decide how they want to see the City of Toronto amalgamated.” “No, we’re going to do it now and the way we want to.” Al Leach replied. I told him that he was really choking people and not giving them a chance. “Well, that’s what Mike Harris wants. It’s got to be our way and done now because if we leave it to the City of Toronto, they will never do it.” I told him that it’s wrong. Leach said it was going to be revenue neutral. And I said, “Al, come on, you know better than that.” It wasn’t, we can see that now. I told him, “You are going to be practically undoing 6 or 7 municipalities which are functioning very well. Metro was doing very well so why do you want to push this on the people who don’t want it.” And, the people didn’t want it. But the government went ahead with it.

Of course, I remember the first sitting of the legislative assembly when Mike Harris announced the cancellation of every housing project, even the ones that already had approval and the funding, the mortgage and everything. I said, “How can you do that?” “We’re doing it.” And, they did it with one scoop, including 21.8% social services. It was chaos – we were powerless. You have a majority government, you’re very bullied and you can sympathize as much as you want with people, and you feel it’s a crime because there is nothing you can do.

Tell about your time as Minister Responsible for Seniors.

It was in 2013 when Kathleen Wynne won, and she called me up. I didn’t expect to be called because she had a majority, but she said she had too many people to accommodate and I said, okay. She said, “I like the way you operate, always speaking from the heart and you are a good guy so what am I going to give you. There isn’t much left.” Well, I said: “If you gave everything away then you haven’t got anything for me.” She then said that there is one area that she wanted me to take on. “Why don’t you take the seniors ministry.” And I said to her, “We don’t have a seniors ministry.” I kept myself abreast. “It’s something called seniors ministry but it’s underneath another major ministry and seniors never get what they expect or what they should be getting so I said, “I’ll take it only if you give me the chance, the opportunity and the freedom to create a stand alone ministry for seniors.” So, I got the ministry, I had no portfolio, but I gained the opportunity to do something new for our seniors as a minister. I had senior organizations at my doorstep everyday. They never had anything, so now they knew they had this new Minister for Seniors and everyone wanted a little piece of me. I was blessed with wonderful people working for me, wonderful dedicated staff and we understood that seniors were there, alone and abandoned with no voice and they were looking for somebody to really work and who would speak for them.

I really loved the chance, the opportunity. At the first meeting of caucus, I remember saying that I wanted to change the name of the ministry which was not a ministry at that time. I wanted to call it the Ministry Responsible for Seniors Affairs and everybody said to go for it. Then I said that I needed some money. Well, they said they had no money, and everyone is looking at each other and Kathleen said, “Okay I’m going to give you a half of a million dollars and see what you are going to do for the seniors.” That’s how I got started. I called the deputy and said, “We have to do something for our seniors here.” There were no programs for seniors or help or whatever and we started to create a couple of programs. It took on like a wildfire.

We started to give away up to $10,000 to senior’s organizations and in the first year, we reached some 350,000 seniors in the province of Ontario. I was blessed to show caucus what we did with $500,000. I remember Eric Hoskin, he had a big health portfolio, saying that he would give me an extra half million dollars from his budget so that I could do more for seniors. I travelled across Ontario and I’ve seen every senior’s organization and I have to tell you that they were happy. I had seniors crying of joy because they never had anything and I would go and open up various recreational programs and provide other services to improve the lives of seniors including more access to more recreational facilities and provide help with accessibility where this was not possible before. This type of assistance made a big difference to the communities in the north, especially where they had nothing. They didn’t even have a little room, they had nobody to run a program. I felt like I had accomplished something wonderful. I don’t know how they are doing now but I know there is a great need to assist seniors in our province and especially those living alone or living in remote areas where it’s hard to access any seniors program.

One of my more interesting moments representing the province of Ontario as Minister Responsible for Seniors, was when I went to Winnipeg to attend the first Senior’s Minister’s conference. At the time, we started to talk about dementia and seniors, especially for single seniors. Under the PC Government of Stephen Harper, I said to the then Federal Minister responsible for seniors that it would be nice if we had a strategy for Dementia, Parkinson’s, etc.) throughout Canada instead of starting in just the province of Ontario. Everybody agreed but nothing was ever done. Now we know – Dementia and Parkinson’s Diseases are here big time. When the next election was coming up, I told Kathleen, “No, I wasn’t running any more – I’m done.” She said she would have to give the portfolio to someone else and I said, “By all means, go ahead.” In 2018, I didn’t want to run anymore.

From 2006 – 2013, you were the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Housing is a big issue in our community. How did that role assist you in dealing with the local issues?

I was disappointed when I didn’t get the Housing Ministry because of my experience with 14 years serving first on the Planning Board and serving on the Planning Advisory for the City of North York. But that’s politics being what it is. I started as the Parliamentary Assistant to Jim Watson who was the Minister of Housing. Then I continued as P.A. to the new Minister of Housing from the riding of Kingston and the Islands, Johnny Gerritsen. During one of our briefings, the Minister said to me at the time, “We should be doing a study on housing needs.” I said, “I’d like to produce some documents that will show our situation with respect to housing. If I have your permission and some funding and some staff, I’d like to do the study.” I got the go ahead. I produced a study, well done and extensive across Ontario about housing needs throughout the province and especially in large cities such as Toronto where the largest concentration of affordable housing was a big issue. Also, I had done extensive consultation on “Land Lease Housing” which is another form of housing aimed at seniors as a much more affordable type of accommodation. Land lease is where you lease the land only, but you own the house. You pay a monthly fee for that lot without the burden of investing a large sum of money to buy a lot.

Then there was the year where at the time the Federal Minister of Housing was saying that they were getting out of the housing business completely. And I said to John, “We can’t allow the Federal Government to pull out completely of subsidizing housing. We already have billions of dollars for retrofitting existing housing – how can we survive without any federal funding.” Minister Gerritsen said, “You are right – let’s go to Ottawa and speak to the Federal Minister.” And so, he did. He went to Ottawa and he made his case and said that we can’t survive unless you continue to support financially, housing in Ontario and throughout Canada. They agreed to continue. Otherwise, the Fed’s in those days wanted to pull out of the housing completely. Even today, housing continues to be a problem.

I believe that Black Creek – Humber River covers the neighbourhoods with the least resources and the most challenges. Some would say that the north west area has been neglected. What were the issues or challenges that you faced in the last couple of years as the MPP and what do you think needs to be done to combat those issues?

Some of those challenges are still here. You mention Black Creek and I recall when we had to establish a little farm on the grounds of the wonderful Black Creek Pioneer Village. We were having a hard time to get some help in maintaining this local vegetable farm helping people with needs in the Jane and Finch community. I think last year, the new government wanted to close the entire Pioneer Village and cut the funding completely – close it down and I said, this is insane. It’s a little bit of a jewel, especially in our area and provincially as well. Why can’t they see the benefits of having something like this in our midst. It’s not just for the Jane and Finch community, it’s for the people in Scarborough, Mississauga and the people of Ontario where they can really come and see the Black Creek Pioneer Village history.

It’s very challenging because it doesn’t matter who is there, whether it’s Liberal, NDP or Conservative – unless they have the best at heart for the community, then you are being pulled left and right because of the funding demands. Of course, the community is growing, and the needs are growing as well. If you are honest with the people and say we have to provide more education, more services, more health care or whatever, and if it’s going to cost an extra dollar a year, you be honest to the people and they will understand. We saw the effects of cuts, the devastating effects of cuts that they do to the general community affecting the most vulnerable people.

While in government, I also served as deputy whip, and the critic for small business, Parliamentary Assistant to the Ministers of Consumer and Business Services, Minister Responsible for Seniors, and to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. I also served on several standing committees of the Legislature, including being member of the Legislative Assembly, Regulations and Private Bills, Standing Committee on Estimates and Standing Committee on General Government.

Tell me about any experiences where you felt you made the biggest contribution.

Given the composition of the ward and riding, in the early days especially, people didn’t know what to do or where to go. As soon as I opened up my office, I was flooded everyday. They didn’t know if it was municipal, provincial or a federal problem. And then they had their own issues – family problems, whatever. They said that basically, they never had anybody to listen to them. It was on a one to one basis with people of all colour and status and I felt that people were leaving my office a little bit happier than when they came in because they got some information about what to do and where to go or how to get it. I saw the impact that this was doing and that was my forte. I had some extra people in those days and one of them was dedicated specially to this as I knew I would be out of the office a lot, so I was dedicated to serving the people. When they come in, no matter what, you look after those people. That was the big thing for me really. People would call and they would come in with a little cake or they would come and say “I want to take you out for some pizza – you are so good. You do so much for us.” And we had people appreciated what we did and every Friday, they would come in and bring treats to the staff.

The Ministry for Seniors, that was an eye opener for me because that gave me a chance to do a very important job – to sit at the cabinet table. The cabinet table is only 20 – 25 people at the table with the Premier and you can see how decisions are made and sometimes you shake your head how those decisions are made and how they affect people. But politics is what it is. Sometimes we would be discussing some issues, big issues and we decide to do certain things and then the next morning, you read on the front page of the Star something completely opposite and I’d say, “Where is this coming from – where were we yesterday when we discussed this at the cabinet table. This was not what we discussed.” So, it gave me an opportunity to see from the inside how government works or doesn’t work.

What were you most proud of?

Of course, I have been very proud to have had the opportunity to serve the people in the riding of York West for some 40 plus years, both municipally and provincially. I have greatly enjoyed working closely with my constituents and the close relationship that I and all my staff had developed with the various ethnic communities over the years.

I’m proud of my constituency work. I was grateful to have a dedicated staff and we were so close, so tight knit that my staff named it as the Sergio family. It was so wonderful to have been able to create that aura in the community and I kept saying, you come in whenever you want – you don’t need an appointment, you don’t have to call. We had brought in the local, and I would tell them at Queens Park, sometimes we forget who elected us. We come from the local area with the local people – the people that we know. Let’s not forget those people. And my constituency staff mingled practically with everybody at the Queens Park’s ministry at the time. My office was on the east side of the building and I had some staff on the same floor and 3 on the upper floor and we also created this friendly environment. We had staff from other ministries coming down to my office to get a cookie or a coffee, have a sit down and have a little chat. We would have breakfast on Tuesday mornings with everybody doing their part and then we would have a potluck lunch occasionally. We had created this Sergio family atmosphere even at Queen’s Park.

I was very pleased as well to be able to start a yearly breakfast prayer meeting at Queen’s Park for all members with the help of my assistant. I think I did it for three years. Before we would start every session, we had a prayer for all the politicians to bring them down a bit to earth and to let them know the Lord is watching our actions. I remember having as one of our guests Rev. David Mainse who attended with his wife and son. He was a known personality being the founder of Crossroads/100 Huntley Street which is the longest running daily television program in Canada providing messages of faith. They attended the first and second prayer meeting at Queen’s Park and said: “Mario, you have to take this to the federal level because all politicians need something like this.”

I was very proud when in 2006 I promoted for the first time the Italian flag raising on the Queens Park grounds in the occasion of Italian National Day on June 2^nd. I did that well attended celebration for some ten years.

Then in 2010, I introduced a private members bill declaring the month of June of every year as “JUNE ITALIAN HERITAGE MONTH.” Bill 103 was approved unanimously by Parliament. I continue to feel much pride in this accomplishment, and it became the legacy I left after my 40 years in politics together with all the great programs I created for the seniors to improve their lives.

So, I’m happy with the work that I have done. I have memories of the things that we couldn’t do and of those we could have done better but you know, the Lord says you are here with a mission, do your best with the capacity that you have and leave the rest to me.