By Joe Mancini
Published in June 2013
Dominic Cardillo had a unique personality that was larger than the City of Kitchener. He seemed to know everyone. He liked to walk the back alleys of the downtown as much as the main street. He took the time to see for himself what was going on. He grew up in Guelph but Kitchener became his home. Dom was hugely popular because he connected with people in Kitchener. His trademark way of doing this was by simply walking around. He was know for picking up litter and he was also known for stopping to talk with people and listening to what they were saying. When he became Mayor in 1982, he quickly established himself as a populist politician who cared about the issues of common people.
In 1988, The Working Centre asked Mayor Cardillo if we could organize a fundraising dinner as a public celebration of his 25 years in municipal politics. He trusted us to do all the organizing work and to sell the tickets. We were confident that people would want to be part of a celebration of Mayor Cardillo’s commitment to his city.
On a cold and snowy night in February we sold over 400 tickets for the dinner at the old Market Square and the idea for The Mayor’s Dinner was born. Dave Broadfoot provided the entertainment but this was Dom’s show. We had over 10 speakers all of whom had stories of Dom’s commitment to the city and municipal politics. Everyone agreed it was a fun evening and a good way to celebrate our municipal culture. The next year, Mayor Cardillo was the Host of The Mayor’s Dinner and the Guest of Honour was Jonas Bingeman. In 2013 the 26th Mayors’ Dinner continued the tradition and was hosted by Mayors Zehr and Halloran with Ron Schlegel as the Guest of Honour. The Working Centre is forever grateful to the legacy Dom provided to promote The Mayors’ Dinner as a fundraiser and as a way to recognize citizens who have made outstanding public contributions and to encourage commitment and dedication to our community.
Dom became Kitchener Mayor in 1982, in the middle of the recession with unemployment nearing 12%. Cardillo almost immediately organized the Mayor’s Committee on Unemployment which was organized into four subcommittees of labour/training, social services, economic development, and recreation. Each group looked at government and community issues related to each topic. The goal was to find ways to ensure the unemployed were getting help. The Working Centre participated in the labour/training and recreation committees. These were our early days but Mayor Cardillo reached out to include us. The main Mayors’ Committee meeting took place in a large room at Kitchener City Hall on Frederick Street. Dom ran the meeting and I remember one meeting that featured a rigorous debate between labour and business. This was the democratic process working itself out at the municipal level. Dom excelled at making everyone feel equal on the committee.
At Dom’s funeral Fr. Earl Talbot captured Dom’s earthy approach to politics. Dom was the kind of politician that made sure potholes were filled. The workers in the road maintenance department always acted when Dom called them because he had personally taken the time to get to know the workers and to learn about their concerns. This is how trust is built. Fr. Earl compared ‘filling potholes’ to ‘filling the hole in your soul’ and the only way to do that, is to do it with love. And what is love but developing respect for the other, looking after people who you know and who you don’t know, caring about their concerns. Every Christmas while Dom was Mayor, he would visit St. John’s Kitchen and bring a big fruit basket that someone had given to him. He would visit to pay respect, ask us questions and thank us for our work. That was Dom’s way of building trust and he generated a lot of trust everywhere he went in the City of Kitchener.
