Joe Piccininni


Joseph J. "Joe" Piccininni was a long-serving city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He represented the Corso Italia area on city council for 25 years.

Background

Born in Toronto, Piccininni was educated at De La Salle College and then joined his family's produce business and opened a restaurant named Piccininni's.
He was very involved in soccer in the city and in southern Ontario and Quebec. He was president of the National Soccer League, with teams in Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, Ottawa, Sudbury, London, St. Catharines, Windsor and Montreal, from 1965 to 1977 a span of 12 years. He was elected vice-resident of the Canadian Soccer Association at the 1973 AGM of the national governing body, and held this position until the 1979 AGM.

Politics

He was elected to city council in 1960 for a ward covering a working class area of west Toronto with a large Italian-Canadian population. He was the first representative ever elected to city council from Toronto's large Italian community. On council he was a strong supporter of the right wing, generally taking conservative and pro-development stances. In 1982, he raised an unsuccessful motion to have the LGBT magazine The Body Politic banned from city council's press gallery after the magazine ran a cover story on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which Piccininni took as an affront to his Roman Catholic faith.
In the 1985 municipal election he was ousted in a surprise upset by 28-year-old school board trustee Betty Disero.

Later life

After the defeat former mayor, and then cabinet minister, David Crombie had Piccininni appointed as a federal citizenship judge. His colleagues on city council also voted to name the Joseph J. Piccininni Recreation Centre in his honour.