[6] Belyea and Harry Weinraub were initially acquitted, but then convicted on appeal to the Supreme Court of Ontario.
He had the city begin a winter works program, and convinced Metropolitan Toronto to buy land owned by Rupert Edwards and make it a public park instead of developing it.
The Noronic was a passenger ship that docked for the night at Pier 9 in Toronto Harbour on September 16 when a fire broke out, resulting in the loss of at least 118 lives.
Belyea ran on a platform of parks improvement and accused Phillips of having "frustrated my every effort to bring about reforms in city management.
[11] During the campaign, Belyea called on the city to adopt an official master plan, limiting the construction of tall buildings south of Bloor Street[12] (the city would go on to adopt a 45-foot limit in the 1970s, while David Crombie was mayor).
[13] He also said that as a businessman, he would be better able to stop taxes from going up, supported building expressways as well as saving parkland, urban planning, the building of an east-west subway system, the installation of escalators in every subway station to help the elderly and disabled, the construction of apartments for senior citizens, and the construction of a new city hall.