By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer
He introduced a form of ‘workfare’ more than half a century before Ontario Premier Mike Harris came up with the same idea.
Homer J. Lockhart, who was elected our 50th Mayor in 1933, headed the Council that forced unemployed people to work for what was known in those days as ‘relief’.
Born in Sarnia on July 21, 1888, Lockhart toiled in a local lumber mill as a teenager.
After graduating from Sarnia Business College, he entered the insurance business, eventually becoming President of City Insurance.
In 1930, Lockhart was elected to Council as an Alderman, holding that post for three years before winning the Mayor’s chair at the beginning of 1933.
There could hardly have been a more difficult time to be in office. The Great Depression was in full swing and almost 2,300 of Sarnia’s 18,000 residents were on relief.
Mayor Lockhart’s Council increased the level of assistance to the poor by almost 200 per cent, spending $30,000.00 on relief that year.
At the same time, however, Council insisted that able-bodied men work for their cheques. As a result, they were soon shovelling snow, cutting wood and performing other chores.
Unemployed men were allowed to keep any of the wood they cut and Council also allowed them to grow vegetable gardens on vacant Municipal lots.
Next, Mayor Lockhart turned to young people for help. Specifically, he visited every school in the City to ask students to donate clothing to the needy. Two days after he visited his last classroom The Observer was able to report “the response to the appeal for clothing issued by Mayor Homer Lockhart to the pupils of the public and separate schools has been gratifying and at noon today the receptacles in the various schools were filled”.
Despite the huge increase in relief spending that year, Council was able to cut taxes by reducing expenditures in other areas.
In addition to his interest in politics, Mayor Lockhart served two terms as President of the local Chamber of Commerce and was President of both the Rotary Club and The Sarnia Golf and Curling Club.
He married Nellie Smith and they had three children.
He died on December 21, 1963, at age 75.