26 Facts About Joe Pantalone

Joe Pantalone was born on February 22,1952 and is a retired Canadian politician who served on Toronto City Council and Metro Council from 1980 to 2010.

Joe Pantalone's father was a "pick and shovel" man who earned his living building the Toronto subway system, and his mother was a seamstress.

Joe Pantalone attended Harbord Collegiate Institute where he was elected Student Council President.

Joe Pantalone then obtained a degree in geography from the University of Toronto.

Joe Pantalone lost a very close race to Liberal candidate Bob Wong by only 137 votes.

In 1985, Joe Pantalone was successful in his bid to be elected to the Metropolitan Toronto council.

Joe Pantalone ran for the chair of Metro Council in 1991 and 1994, but he lost both times to Alan Tonks.

Joe Pantalone served as the Chair of the Planning and Transportation Committee under Mel Lastman, and was a commissioner for the Toronto Transit Commission.

Joe Pantalone has chaired various committees including Urban Environment and Development, Metro Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force, National Trade Centre Building Committee.

Joe Pantalone was the founder of the Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation.

Joe Pantalone retained this position alone after the 2006 election, while Mike Feldman was dropped and Sandra Bussin became speaker of city council.

Joe Pantalone is a member of 11 community based Business Improvement Associations in the City of Toronto.

In 2006, Joe Pantalone spent $248,817 in salary and benefits for his support staff, the second highest on council after Howard Moscoe.

Joe Pantalone argued that he had executive assistants and both were very senior and so were paid more.

Joe Pantalone was a candidate for Mayor of Toronto in the 2010 municipal election.

Joe Pantalone announced his bid in 2009 after incumbent David Miller decided not to run.

Joe Pantalone was endorsed by many left-wing politicians such as Jack Layton, the leader of Federal New Democratic Party, Stephen Lewis and Ed Broadbent.

Joe Pantalone's campaign emphasized continuance of the existing plans of the current administration, with particular focus on large scale transit expansion in the form of the Transit City initiative negotiated with the provincial Ontario government by the Miller administration.

On his promise to freeze property taxes for seniors, Joe Pantalone expressed the opinion that the loss of this revenue could be made up elsewhere, saying: "If you distribute that across the whole tax base, people won't even know that it has happened".

Joe Pantalone promised to build a world standard professional cricket pitch modeled on the BMO Field which he helped bring to the CNE fair grounds.

Joe Pantalone claimed that he was "no clone of David Miller", nonetheless his platform largely continued the status quo with Miller's policies.

Joe Pantalone said that Toronto is a "garden", and that Ford and Smitherman would endanger it.

Smitherman repeatedly asserted that "a vote for Joe Pantalone is a vote for Rob Ford", but Pantalone refused to bow out despite pressure.

Smitherman left a voice-mail with Miller to ask Joe Pantalone to withdraw from the race but Miller never returned the call.

Pantalone is urban affairs specialist at Joe Pantalone Consulting Limited and received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Joe Pantalone has been a volunteer at a local community garden and member of Waterfront Toronto.