James Simpson (politician)

James Simpson ( born December 14, 1873 in Lindal -in- Furness, † September 24, 1938 in Toronto ) was a Canadian journalist, trade unionists, politicians of the Left and 44th mayor of Toronto.

In the 1890s, Simpson rose from the printer to the journalists. In 1892 he became politically active, in which he was one of the 27 members of the union organization Typographical Union and participated in a strike against the Toronto News. As a result of this strike, he was co-founder of the Evening Star, the forerunner of the Toronto Star. Ten years was Simpson reporter of urban policy for the Toronto Star. In the years 1904-1909, 1916/1917 and from 1924 to 1936 he was vice-president respectively of the trade union organization Trades and Labour Congress of Canada. In the 1920s, he was several times as a Labour candidate for the Canadian House of Commons to vote, but could not decide for the choice. In the 1930s, he became a leading figure in the Ontario New Democratic Party and in 1934 he went to the mayoral election, he could decide for themselves. He was the first social democratic mayor of Toronto. Simpson sat down for a boycott of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games to protest against the regime of the Third Reich. Despite his political Simpson was an extreme anti - Catholic, which cost him more support from the Toronto Star, and thus prevented the re-election as mayor. James Simpson died in 1938 as a result of a collision of his car with a tram.