He is Canada’s longest-serving mayor. Why this 89-year-old is running for office in Milton for the 22nd time - Toronto Star

At 89, Milton Mayor Gord Krantz is running for the 22nd time as colleagues back a younger challenger.

Gord Krantz, 89, has been mayor of Milton for 46 years. In his living room is an official photo of when he was first elected mayor in 1980.

Ask Gord Krantz what it’s like to be the man who made Milton what it is today, and he’ll quip that “Gord” is just one letter away from “God.”

It’s just a joke, he adds, but there’s a hint of truth to it too — and perhaps why it’s hard to let go.

Krantz has had the top job here since 1980, making the 89-year-old the longest-serving mayor in Canada.

Some thought he wouldn’t run again this time, after a narrow victory in 2022.

Instead Krantz is leaving it to voters to decide if he should retire. Against the advice of a longtime friend and council colleagues who have endorsed another candidate, he is putting his legacy on the line by facing a slew of younger, diverse challengers who say Krantz can’t take Milton into the future.

It could be the first election he’s ever lost, though he won’t entertain the possibility.

“I’m going to finish first,” says Krantz, sitting at his dining table in his unassuming house just 68 steps away from town hall. “I’ll get out there, as I crudely say, kiss babies, shake hands … I don’t take anything for granted. I never did.”

The Milton that first elected the self-made owner of Krantz Fuels in 1965 bears little resemblance to that of today. After being told to “put up or shut up” while complaining at the barbershop about no growth opportunities for his business in the town of 5,000 people, Krantz ran for a council seat and won.

Gord Krantz entered politics in the 1960s as a councillor in Milton. He is pictured here in the late 1970s.

Fifteen years later, he won his first mayoral race by less than 500 votes. He’s been mayor ever since — twice acclaimed because no one ran against him. Last year, he celebrated 60 years of continuous public service.

Under his watch, Milton became the fastest-growing community in Canada for a decade or so after the “Big Pipe” finally connected the town to the Lake Ontario water supply in 2000. And while it’s only in the top 25 now, the town’s official plan forecasts it to more than double in size — from an estimated 160,000 to 400,400 — in the next 25 years.

There are signs of the rapid growth, and the familiar pains that come with it everywhere you look. Three highrises are under construction near the Milton GO station and the charming main street, with more density in the works, some of which has prompted backlash from residents in the Old Milton area. The local schools have 113 portables. The hospital, expanded in 2017, is overcapacity. A Costco is under construction on the edge of town. Trucks clog the major arteries, as residents complain about traffic, construction, and the lack of transit, recreation facilities and local retail plazas. The pungent smell of active farmland wafts over newly built townhouses. 

In Milton, farmland and new development lie side by side. The new Thompson Towers by the GO station will be the tallest in the town when finished. 

The controversial CN logistics hub — a 24-hour transfer point between trucks and rail — is expected to be operational next year after the town and region lost a legal battle against the feds to stop it, in part because it is so close to residential areas.

Milton, projected to become the size of Markham, has been exceeding its provincial housing targets, breaking ground on 2,699 new homes last year, with 10,000 medium- and high-density units in the application pipeline.

But the housing construction slowdown may derail those plans. At the same time, the costs to build new town infrastructure — from overpasses to fire stations to community centres — are skyrocketing.

The Mattamy National Cycling Centre, built for the 2015 Pan Am Games, is slowly becoming part of a massive new “education village” neighbourhood, including post-secondary campuses, housing, retail and businesses.

Add on the need to navigate a tumultuous economy, and some in Milton say the town is due — or overdue — for a change at the top.

“I respect the mayor, but it’s time,” says Colin Best, who was first elected to council the same year Krantz became mayor and is running for re-election. (He unsuccessfully challenged Krantz in 1997.)

“It is an important election. Which way we go as a community is going to be determined by how the votes go.”

Longtime councillor John Challinor says he was caught by surprise when Krantz announced his intent to run again. The day after Krantz won the 2022 election, Challinor had urged him to plan for retirement. Krantz had seemed on board, and Challinor and other senior council members settled on a successor: George Minakakis, the chair of Milton Hydro.

Minakakis is running on a plan that includes bringing more major employers and a new recreation complex to Milton, along with lower property taxes.

“If we don’t see the change, we’re just going to kick the can down the road, and we’re going to be further behind than we are today,” says Minakakis in an interview.

Milton Mayor Gord Krantz congratulates George Minakakis for winning a 2025 byelection. Minakakis is now running for mayor with the support of a longtime Krantz friend. 

Minakakis was born and raised in Milton (“That’s rare these days,” says Challinor), and he has an international business executive background Challinor thinks could bring in the economic development Milton needs, especially with the tariff threats from the south.

“George ticked all the boxes for me,” says Challinor.

But if Minakakis wins on election night it will feel bittersweet for Challinor, who has run two of Krantz’s mayoral campaigns.

“What breaks my heart is that, if [Krantz] loses, that’s all people are going to remember … they aren’t going to remember the very significant things he did to shepherd Milton through this period of time and prepare it for growth,” he says. 

Krantz says he never ruled out running again to Challinor, though he did give the prospect some thought.

“I wouldn’t go so far to say he betrayed me,” he says of Challinor’s decision to back Minakakis. “It kind of hurts a bit, but that’s the business you’re in. Politics.”

Also among the 10 mayoral candidates in the race is two-time councillor Sameera Ali. She argues that the town’s rapid growth under Krantz’s leadership has put too much strain on services and residents, and that development needs to focus on the “missing middle” rather than more highrises.

Milton councillor Sameera Ali is challenging Krantz for the top job in Milton.

“I’m hearing people being very frustrated with that. And I feel they have every right to be,” says Ali, adding that there hasn’t been a new library or community centre built in Milton in the last decade.

“There’s this loyalty,” she says of why Krantz keeps winning. “But Milton is different now … you need a mayor in that office who actually relates to the issues faced by the majority of the residents.”

Part of that difference is the size of the town, but it’s also the demographics, with Milton a far more diverse place than it was when Krantz first came to power. The most recent census showed Milton as 43 per cent immigrants, and 57 per cent visible minority, with the largest group identified as South Asian. It also skews young, with an average age of 35.

Zainab Azim is among the 10 candidates running for mayor of Milton.

Mayoral hopeful Zainab Azim is even younger than that. The ambitious 23-year-old grew up in Milton, and decided to bring her experience as an organizer on Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign and apply it at home.

“We’ve been pretty apathetic and jaded here for a while because nothing has changed in 45 years other than houses and warehouses,” she says.

She decided to run, partly to try to activate a community known for low voter turnout (29 per cent in 2022) with policies like “alive after five” that would bring more evening activity to downtown Milton.

Azim, who made headlines at 11 when her parents bought her a $250,000 ticket for a Virgin Galactic space tourism flight that has yet to happen, says she has ignored advice to focus on “new Milton” over “old Milton.” It turns out that everyone is ready for change, she says.

Nadeem Akbar, another local businessman running for mayor on a tech-forward platform that proposes zero-based budgeting and grants for businesses impacted by construction, says he once hosted a party in his home marking Krantz’s 45th year in public service.

But he’s seen Milton’s property taxes increase more than he’d like over the past term — a home assessed at $600,000 paid $784 more in 2026 than in 2023.

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Krantz unsuccessfully opposed the hikes, even though he has strong-mayor powers, said Akbar. “He could have done something to improve efficiency,” he adds. “That is the bottom line.”

Proponents of the tax increases cite the need to pay for essential services like firefighters alongside the growing population. According to town budget reports, Milton’s property taxes remain among the lowest in the GTA, and are the lowest as a percentage of household income.

“He’s a good man,” says Akbar of Krantz. “This isn’t about age. But at his age, I hope to be retired and spending time with my family.”

In the basement of Gord Krantz’s house is what he calls a museum to his lifetime in politics.

The basement walls are covered in photos, buttons, plaques and other memorabilia from Krantz’s political life. The sign to his left is from a Santa Claus parade float. 

Much of it is the handiwork of Olive, his wife of 66 years. Though she was no fan of politics herself — she hated the criticism that Krantz accepts as part of the job — she diligently scrapbooked every moment of her husband’s political life alongside their personal one. Olive passed away in 2024, after a year in long-term care.

With a hand sporting a diamond-encrusted “GK” ring (a 25th anniversary gift from Olive), Krantz points out pieces of memorabilia with a showman’s flair. Photos with personal friends, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, Don Cherry, Walter Gretzky, Chris Hadfield and wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh. There is a school project documenting a “day in the life” of the mayor. Buttons from campaigns past — his own and the many that have run against him and failed.

Maybe the whole thing will become part of the Milton Historical Society. Maybe Krantz will use it when he gets around to writing the book people ask him about. But there is no ending to it just yet — he’s still living it.

One corner is filled with glass cases of buttons from campaigns and events from the last 60 years.

He learned some stuff early in his political career that has helped him keep winning. “Don’t jump in front of a cannon unless you absolutely have to,” he says, recalling how his outspoken rookie years left him as popular “as a skunk at a garden party” in some quarters.

The voters like that there is a steadiness about how the town is run, he says, even though he’s not afraid to take a gamble like backing the opening of a casino in 1999 or bringing density to downtown Milton. He takes pride in the green spaces and the town’s low crime rate.

He admits he is not one for new technology. While he doesn’t have a campaign website, he does have a landline that he answers himself when he’s home. And his family keeps him young — one of his granddaughters is running his campaign and has started a Facebook page for him.

“If you don’t change with change, change will change you,” says Krantz. “And it won’t be for the better.” He may be a great-grandparent of seven now, “but I still think and act like a kid.”

Before leaving the basement museum, Krantz dons a conductor’s hat and blows a wooden train whistle.

He says his decision to run for office for the 22nd time — for his 15th term as mayor — was ultimately simple: he has more to offer Milton.

He maintains milestones don’t matter to him, but if he wins, he will reach another one: 50 years as mayor, blowing well past his late friend, former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion’s 36 years.

“All I’m doing is just hopefully doing my job and hopefully doing it well,” says Krantz. “I think I can still make a difference … I’m not ready for the rocking chair.”

Alyshah Hasham is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Reach her via email: ahasham@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @alysanmati.