Case Ootes
Case Ootes (born 1941) is a retired Canadian politician who served as deputy mayor of Toronto from 1998 to 2003 and as a city councillor from 1998 to 2010. He represented East York’s Ward 1 from 1998 to 2000 and, after the 1998 amalgamation, Ward 29 Broadview–Greenwood from 2000 to 2010.
Ootes was born in Schagen, Netherlands, and moved to Canada in 1952 at age 11. His family settled near Renfrew, Ontario, where his father worked as a miner. He earned an MBA from York University and worked for Imperial Oil, where he became friends with Dave Johnson, a Conservative political figure.
In 1992 he left Imperial Oil to pursue politics full time. He was elected to the council of Metropolitan Toronto in 1994. When Toronto and five suburban municipalities merged into the new city of Toronto in 1998, he became deputy mayor, a role many saw as second in power after the mayor.
As deputy mayor, Ootes was known for quietly building majorities to advance the mayor’s initiatives. In 2000 he won re-election in Ward 29, defeating Gail Nyberg. His campaign focused in part on a plan to ship Toronto’s garbage to Adams Mine in Kirkland Lake, which drew Liberal support for Nyberg but strong backing for Ootes from the mayor and other councillors.
Ootes did not run for re-election in 2003. After leaving office, he remained a centrist voice on council and helped select Bill Blair as Toronto Police Chief. He won the 2006 municipal election by a narrow margin. In 2007 he opposed delaying the mayor’s proposed vehicle registration tax and land transfer tax, though the council eventually approved the taxes.
He announced in January 2010 that he would not seek re-election. After the 2010 election, Mayor Rob Ford named him to chair his transition team. His brother, Jake Ootes, is a former member of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:34 (CET).