Gardner served ten years in the Canadian Forces, and was a member of The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada, a Primary Reserve unit.
[1] He owns Toronto's Steeles Bakery, and often brought doughnuts, bagels and other baked goods from his store to distribute at council meetings in the 1980s and 1990s.
[7] Gardner was elected to the North York Board of Control in 1980, a position that gave him an automatic seat on the Metro Council.
He supported grants to community groups in the 1980 campaign to alleviate social problems, and was described in a The Globe and Mail editorial as a possible voice of progressive reform.
[9] An avid gun collector in private life, Gardner served on the federal firearms advisory council after his defeat.
He endorsed a proposal to create co-operative housing for low-income families in the city, and later supported a five-year grant to a paper recycling firm.
Another media report indicates that Gardner identified "Jamaican posses and Asian crime gangs" as being responsible for most of Toronto's illegal weapons.
[23] In late 1991, Gardner argued that attempts by the federal government to toughen gun controls would not make anyone in Metro Toronto safer.
[28] Later in the year, he supported a protest by the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association against a new provincial law that required officers to file a written report after drawing their guns.
[32] Shortly after leaving the board, Gardner called for the creation of a special hate crimes unit in Metro Toronto to target neo-Nazis and other racists.
He campaigned in favour of tax breaks for corporations, and his nomination was supported by Canadian Handgun magazine, which featured him on its front cover.
He was the Progressive Conservative candidate in Willowdale for the 1997 federal election, and lost to Liberal incumbent Jim Peterson by 17,000 votes.
[46] He also supported a plan by Police Chief David Boothby to replace the city's public complaints bureau with a more decentralized model.
[50] He also recommended charging each business in Toronto a $15 fee to cover the costs of policing, an initiative that was quickly rejected by Mel Lastman.
[52] On one occasion, Gardner was accused of allowing police union officials to harass and intimidate Sgro at an informal board meeting.
[54] Gardner and Fantino opposed the police union's controversial "Operation True Blue" telemarketing campaign in early 2000 and forced it to cease.
The Toronto Star alleged that Gardner had made a secret deal with police union leader Craig Bromell to permit similar fundraising efforts in the future.
[60] Gardner supported a race relations probe in late 2002, following media reports that the Toronto police engaged in systemic discrimination against blacks.
[62] He later criticized the Toronto Star for running a series of articles on racial profiling, arguing that they hindered the ability of police officers to do their job.
[64] The initial six-week investigation by the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services (OCCOPS) resulted in a formal inquiry later in the year.
An Ontario Court of Appeals decision later overturned Gardner's suspension on technical grounds, while offering no opinion on whether or not he had violated policy.
[70] Gardner announced that he would seek the Progressive Conservative nomination in the Greater Toronto Area riding of Thornhill for the 2007 provincial election but, following pressure from the party leadership, agreed to withdraw in favour of CFRB talk show host Peter Shurman.
Gardner told the Toronto Star that he would support Shurman in the general election because he's a "team player" but expressed his personal disappointment saying "I'm not jumping for joy, let's put it that way.
[72][73] His campaign received little attention; he was never considered a major candidate, did not register in opinion polls and was not invited to participate in mayoral debates.
[72] On June 27, 2018, at the age of 80, Gardner filed to run in the 2018 municipal election for Toronto City Council in Ward 28, which covers the neighbourhood of Willowdale that he represented in the past.
Gardner was active opposing a proposal to restructure the stretch of Yonge Street between Finch and Sheppard Avenue by making it more pedestrian friendly by widening sidewalks and introducing bicycle lanes, arguing that the changes would cause traffic congestion.