Originally Published: 2010-02-07

Rocco Rossi, Giorgio Mammoliti and Joe Pantalone are contenders.

Canadians of Italian origin have achieved high political office in this country since the late ’70s. In 1981, the redoubtable Charles Caccia was the first, and by no means the last, to become a federal cabinet minister. Since then, the sons and daughters of immigrant Italians have distinguished themselves in local and provincial politics as well – but never as mayor of Canada’s largest city and home to the country’s largest concentration of citizens of Italian descent – Toronto.
That may change in next October’s city election as no less than four proud sons of Italian immigrants are vying for the job. Three are councillors and one is a businessman and back room politician. In alphabetical order they are Adam Giambrone, councillor and Chair of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), Giorgio Mammoliti, a member of the mayor’s executive council, Deputy-Mayor Joe Pantalone, and Rocco Rossi, the former director of the federal Liberal Party.
Aside from shared backgrounds, this is a varied, talented, hardworking and high profile group that is a vivid tribute to how far the second and third generations of Italian immigrants have come. However, given the community’s full integration into the wider city, there is little likelihood that any of them can count on their fellow community members voting for them in anything like a block. The days Canadians of Italian origin automatically support each other at the polls are long over.
However, to fuel discussion around good Italian multi-generational dinner tables, here are a few insights into each of the four.
Adam Giambrone’s father was a U.S. army Vietnam deserter whose parents had immigrated to America where his grandfather worked in the coalmines. Adam’s dad, a designer and painter, moved to the Dufferin/Bloor area and still lives in the house where Adam was born 32 years ago.
Adam is a McGill trained archeologist who got the bug hanging around the Royal Ontario Museum as a young teenager. He has traveled to digs in North Africa, and worked in Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia. He’s traveled to more than 40 countries and speaks French, Arabic and English. He came to politics as an NDP student activist in Montreal and rose to become the youngest ever national president of the party. The “youngest ever” title became his again when having been elected to Toronto City Council in 2003, at 29, he became chair of the Toronto Transit Commission.

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