April 2025
Chris Erl
Reprinted with permission

Harry Paikin, though not born in Hamilton, was inextricably linked to this city’s story. His parents were Jewish refugees from Lithuania living in Stockholm when he was born in 1905.  Sweden was just one stop on their long and arduous journey, which brought them to Hamilton in 1909. Not long after arriving in the city, Paikin’s father, Abraham, opened a grocery store in their modest home on Bay Street North.

Paikin went to Hess Street School before heading to the Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute at the corner of Stinson and West and to University of Toronto for medical school. During undergrad, he worked at local factories to help pay for his tuition. His time in local shops, as well as his parents’ own struggles, gave him a deep appreciation for the challenges facing working people. After graduating in 1930, he returned home and opened a practice on Barton Street East, and married his wife Goldie the following year.

As the Second World War ramped up and the threat of fascism increased, Paikin became increasingly involved with the Hamilton Council of Jewish Organizations (CJO). After Nazi Germany initiated Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941 and the Soviet Union joined the war on the side of the Allies, the CJO spearheaded the city’s Aid-to-Russia campaign. Paikin, who was selected to lead the campaign, organized rallies at local theatres and talks from prominent international relations experts who advised Canadians to set aside their distrust of the Soviets to ensure victory over the Nazis.

In 1943, Paikin was elected as public school trustee in Ward 5, carrying 53.5 per cent of the vote.Shortly after being elected, he threw himself into advocacy on all fronts. He headlined a conference recommending schools provide free vitamins to students, and wrote poems in favour of buying war bonds. At the same time, Paikin became one of the city’s most prominent communists. In June 1945, he was unanimously selected as the Labor-Progressive Party (LPP — the name for the Communist Party from 1943 to 1959) candidate for MP in Hamilton West. On election night, he earned 7.7 per cent  of the vote, drawing enough votes away from incumbent CCF member Robert Thornberry to ensure his defeat. He went on to introduce motions opposing the city’s centennial celebrations because of the commercial exploitation of city streets, requesting the Ministry of Education add labour history courses to the curriculum, and seeking approval to purchase a mobile x-ray machine to test students for tuberculosis more efficiently. In 1948, Paikin unsuccessfully sought a $100 annual pay increase for teachers. That year would bring the 43-year-old doctor a rollercoaster of ups-and-downs. On July 27, his father passed away at his home on Grosvenor Ave. N. Three months later, Paikin and his wife welcomed the birth of their daughter. 

Though he remained a progressive firebrand without many friends on the board, a number of acclamations and years of dedication led to Paikin being named chair of the board for 1952  —  by all accounts, becoming the highest ranking Jewish Hamiltonian in public office ever.

Every election, Paikin was returned enthusiastically by his constituents, many times by acclamation. When ward boundaries were realigned in 1960, Paikin opted to run in the new Ward 2 where he still lived and practiced medicine. Even when faced with a strong challenge from former board chair George Ross and young Tory-affiliated lawyer Doug Scott, Paikin earned 2,932 votes, topping the polls in his new ward. He repeated this feat over and over again. 

The late 1960s brought more bold proposals from Paikin. During the urban renewal craze that leveled much of the downtown core, Paikin initially supported plans by the board to demolish Central Public School and build the new education centre on the site. But, as plans changed, the board moved to the corner of Bay and Main, and the downtown began to experience the effects of renewal, his tone changed. By 1966, he was urging the board be more mindful in its effort to secure land for the new Sir John A. MacDonald Secondary School. “It’s not necessary for the school board to get a school at the expense of the poor little fellow who’s lived all his life in that area,” he told a meeting of the board during an expropriation debate.

Paikin carried on with his advocacy for accessible, universal healthcare. He pushed the board to support water fluoridation and advocate for universal dentalcare. Maybe it was this dedication for the NDP’s favourite cause or maybe it was just a smart bet, but, in 1968, the Hamilton and District Labour Council endorsed the former LPP candidate for the first time in his political career.

As the 1970s approached, Paikin remained alone on the left of the school board. Increasingly marginalized and left to defend his positions alone, Paikin began searching for allies on the board. An opportunity arose in 1970 when the NDP announced they would formally run candidates for municipal office under the party’s banner. In late October, Paikin was added to the party’s slate alongside a host of other official NDP trustee candidates.

The entry of the party could not have come at a worse time. The party suffered a massive dent in its credibility after Tommy Douglas opposed the implementation of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis that year. And, locally, all the political energy in the city was directed toward the triumphant re-election effort of Vic Copps, the popular mayor who vehemently opposed partisanship at city hall. Only three NDP-backed trustees were elected, including Paikin, who mused to the Spec that “running on the NDP ticket…cost him 500 votes.”

As the longest-serving trustee on the board, Paikin was elevated to the role of chair after the 1970 election. But his status did little to endure him to other board members and, by May of 1971, trustees were getting into shouting matches over basic procedures.

In 1972, Paikin’s seatmate, McDonald, resigned with just months to go before the municipal election. The board set up a hiring committee to select his replacement, narrowing a list of candidates down to 13 applicants and making a recommendation to the board. The board promptly rejected the recommendation and, instead, voted on a shortlist of three people: retired nurse Donna Husband, Marjorie Baskin, the wife of the city’s well-known Rabbi Baskin, and former candidate Ray Mulholland. In the end, the board settled on Mulholland, which drew opposition from all corners. 

In the election three months later, the voters of Ward 2 elected Paikin by a wide margin and handing the second seat to the spurned applicant, Donna Husband, sending Mulholland packing after only a few meetings.

Using the office of school trustee as a platform, Paikin pursued a cornucopia of policies, from opposing the widening of York Boulevard (he said urban renewal advocates: “embrace the philosophy of the bulldozer. All they want to do is bulldoze everything and I resent it terribly.”), teacher layoffs, and the termination of night school programs.

By the 1980s, it seemed like the tide was turning for Paikin. Two easy election victories in 1980 and 1982 for Paikin were paired with a shifting dynamic on the board and a local trend toward liberalization that countered the international shift toward the right. Suddenly, trustees became the last defenders of local schools and public education. 

Two successes followed soon after: the board united to oppose extending funding to Catholic schools past Grade 10 (Paikin said schools “should not have any particular ideology incorporated”) and finally voted to ban the use of the strap in schools. The board was finally coming around to Paikin’s way of viewing education.

On the morning of Friday, Oct.18, 1985, Paikin suffered a massive heart attack and died in his office, just two weeks short of his 80th birthday.

After his passing, his fellow trustees noted that he was a trailblazer who advanced ideas well before their time. His Ward 2 seatmate, Lillian Vine, said that “When we first introduced junior kindergarten a few years ago, it turned out Harry had talked about the importance of it very early on.” The Hamilton Spectator’s editorial board summed up his impact on the city with ease: “Hamilton without Harry Paikin is like Hamilton without the Mountain or the Bay.”  Spec columnist Tami Paikin Nolan wrote: 

“Harry Paikin has been called Hamilton’s last angry young man…He was a socialist without the dogma, an avowed defender of the rights and dignity of the working man…He was a crusader whose fervour never waned. He believed in the discipline of thought. But his capacity for feeling knew no bounds.”

Paikin was a man of principle and passion. Over 41 years, he advanced causes few would have dared to even consider for fear of ruining their political careers. He took up the cause of women when there were few women in politics, the cause of working people when so many advocates for labour and workers were systematically excluded from local politics, the cause of children with differing needs, from differing backgrounds, and with differing life experiences.

He had opposition in the community and on the board, but he persisted through it all, dedicating his life to making this city a little better, one day at a time. Not bad for an angry young downtown socialist.

Chris Erl is a current Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) postdoctoral fellow in the department of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University.