by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer
The welfare problems facing local politicians today pale beside those encountered by Sarnia’s municipal leaders in the late 1870s.
Indeed, during Mayor Daniel Mackenzie’s administration Council was briefly saddled with a “corporate baby” that was literally dumped in the lap of a startled Councillor by a single mom.
Mackenzie, a local businessman, was elected to the first ever Town Council in 1857. He became Sarnia’s 12th Mayor in 1878, defeating Councillor E.P. Watson by 299 votes to 231.
The new Chief Magistrate, who also served 20 years on the Public School Board, soon found himself facing a social services crisis.
In fact, the Town’s “indigent poor committee” handed out the then unheard of sum of $110.00 to disadvantaged residents during his first two months in office, The Observer reported homeless people were flooding into town. “The tramp nuisance is on the increase, more of that class having been sheltered during the past two months than for any two months of previous years”, one story read.
CORPORATE BABY
Council soon found itself facing agonizing decisions. One of the most controversial came when it was asked to foot the bill to send a poor woman to Buffalo for breast cancer treatments.
Critics said she had no hope of survival but Mayor Mackenzie, a prominent member of the Liberal Party, talked Council into paying her way. There is no record as to what happened to her after that.
The next crisis appeared when a destitute single mom marched into the office of Councillor
E.A. Vidal, dumped her two-year old child in his lap and then left town.
Unsure what to do, Vidal brought the child to Council and announced the Municipality had a “corporate baby”.
The youngster was quickly put up for adoption.
Mackenzie was re-elected to a second term but stepped down at the end of 1879.
He died while on a business trip in Toronto on January 18, 1892, at age 64.