Thomas J. Campbell, (October 5, 1927 – January 27, 2012) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

politician, who served as the 31st

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

from 1967 through 1972. Campbell was born in Vancouver, where he became a lawyer. In 1962, he joined

Vancouver City Council Vancouver City Council is the governing body of Vancouver, British Columbia. The council consists of a mayor and ten councillors elected to serve a four-year term. Monthly, a deputy mayor is appointed from among the councillors. The current mayo ...

as an alderman, representing the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), a

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

civic party. Running as an independent, Campbell beat out William Rathie in the 1966 election, ending the NPA's long, unbroken domination of city hall. In 1970, he won the NPA nod to replace Rathie as the party's mayoral nominee and again won the mayor's office. As mayor, "Tom Terrific" (as he was both affectionately and derisively called) proved to be brash, confrontational, and controversial. During his term, the City held a referendum which authorized the then-controversial development of an underground shopping mall and office towers, now known as

Pacific Centre Pacific Centre (officially CF Pacific Centre since 2015) is a shopping mall located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is owned by Cadillac Fairview, the Ontario Pension Board, and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, and is manage ...

, Vancouver's largest development. As the Lower Mainland's population topped one million, Campbell took an assertively pro-development stance, advocating a freeway that would cut through a large part of Downtown Eastside, the demolition of the historic Carnegie Centre, and the construction of a luxury hotel at the entrance of

Stanley Park Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...

(the

Bayshore Inn Bayshore may refer to: Communities Canada: *Bayshore, Ottawa, Ontario United States: *Bayshore, neighborhood in the Upper Eastside of the city of Miami, Florida *Bayshore (Miami Beach), Florida, a neighborhood * Bayshore Gardens, Florida, cens ...

) and another at the north foot of Burrard in which it turned out the mayor had invested (it is now an apartment building and never became a hotel). Campbell was a vocal supporter of the

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...

government of Premier

W.A.C. Bennett William Andrew Cecil Bennett (September 6, 1900 – February 23, 1979) was a Canadian politician. He was the 25th premier of British Columbia from 1952 to 1972. With just over 20 years in office, Bennett was and remains the longest-serving prem ...

. Campbell was re-elected in the 1968 and 1970 elections by large majorities. It is, however, Campbell's confrontations with the city's burgeoning youth counterculture for which he is best remembered. They included attempts to suppress and shut down the alternative newspaper, ''

The Georgia Straight ''The Georgia Straight'' is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Overstory Media Group. Often known simply as ''The Straight'', it is delivered to newsboxes, post-secondary schools, ...

'', whose editor Dan McLeod was repeatedly beaten by city police and the blocking of the final concert of the 1970 ''

Festival Express ''Festival Express'' is a 2003 documentary film about the 1970 train tour of the same name across Canada taken by some of North America's most popular rock bands, including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, Flying Burrito Br ...

'' rock and roll tour, which was held in Calgary to avoid risking a confrontation with the Vancouver mayor's stated intention to use police to stop the festival. There was even an incident in August, 1971, when Vancouver police charged on horseback into a group of about a thousand hippies having a "smoke-in" on the streets of Gastown. That came to be known as the

Gastown Riots The Gastown riot, known also in the plural as Gastown riots, also known as "The Battle of Maple Tree Square", occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on August 7, 1971. Following weeks of arrests by undercover drug squad members in Vanc ...

and led to the arrests of 79 people, of whom 38 were charged with various offences. A judicial inquiry later criticized the action, characterizing it as a

police riot A police riot is a riot carried out by the police; more specifically, it is a riot that police are responsible for instigating, escalating or sustaining as a violent confrontation. Police riots are often characterized by widespread police bruta ...

. Campbell chose not to run for re-election in November 1972 and returned to private life and legal practice. He died in 2012.

References

External links

1971 Report of Mr. Justice Dohm on the Gastown Riots, from the British Columbia Civil Liberties AssociationCBC television clip
of Doug Collins interviewing Tom Campbell about Vancouver's hippie problem. {{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Tom 1927 births 2012 deaths Lawyers in British Columbia Mayors of Vancouver 20th-century Canadian politicians