Roy Belyea
Roy E. Belyea (1894 - December 12, 1976) was a businessman and politician in Toronto who sat on the city's powerful Board of Control and ran for Mayor of Toronto against Nathan Phillips.[1]
Belyea's ancestors were United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution and settled in the Toronto area in 1776.[2] His father, Issac K. Belyea, was a locomotive engineer for the Grand Trunk Railway (later Canadian National Railway). He and his wife, the former Sarah Hunter, had three sons and a daughter.[3]
After apprenticing as a plumber, Roy Belyea he opened a plumbing business, Belyea Bros., with one of his brothers, in 1908 and together they built it into the largest plumbing and heating firm in Canada.[2]
He first ran for Toronto City Council in the 1949 Toronto municipal election when he couldn't get the city to solve a plumbing issue. He was elected as an alderman representing Ward 9 and served for 6 years before being joining the city's Board of Control in 1954. As the senior alderman for Ward 9, he became an inaugural member of Metropolitan Toronto Council when it was inaugurated in January 1954 and remained on Metro Council when he became a Controller [1]
As chairman of the Parks Committee in 1949, Belyea responded to the inferno on the SS Noronic, a fully loaded passenger ship that caught fire overnight while docked in Toronto Harbour, by turning a building at Exhibition Place into a morgue in order to accommodate the 118 fatalities and arranged food and accommodation for the survivors of the disaster.[2]
On Toronto Council, he persuaded the city to initiate a winter works programme which was later taken over by the province.[2]
As a Metro Toronto Councillor, he persuaded Metropolitan Toronto to purchase the property now known as Edwards Gardens and develop it into a public park. Belyea was a neighbour of industrialist Rupert Edwards who had been planning to sell the property for $485,000 development as a subdivision but agreed to sell it to the municipality for $157,000 on the condition that the park be named after him.[2]
When Controller Louis Shannon died in 1954, Belyea was appointed in his place.[4] He was elected to the Board in his own right, later that year in the 1954 Toronto municipal election. He ran for Mayor of Toronto in the 1955 Toronto municipal election but failed to unseat incumbent Nathan Phillips. He attempted to win back his seat on the Board of Control in the 1958 Toronto municipal election, but was unsuccessful and retired from politics.[2][5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Roy E. Belyea", The Globe and Mail (1936-2016); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]15 Dec 1976: 2.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Roy E. Belyea, 86, got Metro to buy Edwards Gardens", Toronto Star (1971-2009); Toronto, Ontario [Toronto, Ontario]16 Dec 1976: B8.
- ↑ "Isaac K. Belyea: Strong Loyalist Served CNR For Many Years", The Globe and Mail (1936-2016); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]26 Oct 1961: 9.
- ↑ "Precedent Cited for Filling Vacancies From City Council, The Globe and Mail (1936-2016); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]22 Nov 1963: 4
- ↑ "Jean Newman Tops Board of Control: FOURTH TERM FOR PHILLIPS To Give Up Politics, Brand Says", Westell, Anthony. The Globe and Mail (1936-2016); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]02 Dec 1958: 1.
