1908 Toronto municipal election

In the 1908 Toronto municipal election, held January 1, 1908, former alderman Joseph Oliver was elected Mayor of Toronto in an open contest after incumbent Emerson Coatsworth decided not to seek a third term. Oliver defeated former alderman and future mayor George Reginald Geary (also a future Conservative Member of Parliament), former Conservative Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario Dr. Beattie Nesbitt, socialist and future mayor James Simpson and former school trustee and hardware merchant Miles Vokes, in the election. Oliver's majority of almost 7,000 votes was the largest ever recorded up to that time in a Toronto mayoral election.
A referendum was also held which approved the creation of a publicly-owned utility, the Toronto Hydro-Electric corporation, to replace a series of privately-owned power companies, and to also put into public ownership two private interurban radial streetcar companies, the Toronto Suburban Railway and the Toronto Eastern Railway (despite this, the streetcar companies remained privately owned).
Mayoral election.
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Board of Control.
Four members were elected to the Toronto Board of Control in an at-large vote. Long-time Toronto Controller William Peyton Hubbard, the first and for decades only Black Canadian to sit on Toronto City Council, lost his seat to Frank S. Spence. 
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Plebiscite.
Votes were held in towns and cities across Ontario on a plan to create municipally-owned hydro-electric companies to buy electricity produced at Niagara Falls by the publicly-owned Ontario Power Company Generating Station. The by-law also authorized the creation of a "hydro-radial" streetcar system with streetcars travelling between towns and cities. 
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Aldermen elected to City Council.
Three alderman were elected to sit on Toronto City Council in each of six wards.
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