The Canadian Press

Members of the Royal Canadian Regiment (from left to right) Pte. Paul Roventa, Master Cpl. Gary Walters, Cpl. Cameron Kerryann, and Pte. Phil Cheung shovel snow in downtown Toronto Friday, Jan.15, 1999. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Frayer)

TORONTO — Ten years after a series of winter storms buried Toronto under more than a metre of snow, former mayor Mel Lastman still takes pride in calling on the military to tackle clogged city streets while large swaths of wintry Canada looked on in wonder.

While the move raised eyebrows nationwide and gave a country that loves to hate Toronto even more ammunition, Lastman looks back on his actions in January, 1999 as absolutely necessary.

"When something like that is happening and there's so much snow and people can't get to work and seniors can't get a bottle of milk at the corner, there's a problem," Lastman said in a recent interview from his Toronto home.

"No mayor has ever called in the army, please understand that."

The former head of the city's transit commission, David Gunn, knew full well Toronto had become the butt of a national joke by having soldiers clear snow from, among other places, bus shelters.

"People made fun of it, but on the other hand we used them," Gunn said.

The first snowy punch arrived during the lunch hour on Jan. 2.

A huge system from the U.S. started making its way through the city, bringing with it snow and a wind chill that hovered around minus 20 C. The winds picked up and visibility was near zero at times. By day's end, there was a whopping 38 centimetres of snow on the ground, crippling the downtown core.

On Jan. 4, Lastman declared a snow emergency, which banned cars from parking on designated snow routes.

Mother Nature wasn't finished.

Over the next several days, Toronto received more snow -- all in smaller increments, but adding to what was already clogging up the streets and rendering the transit system virtually useless.

Lastman's driver took him out to survey the cumulative damage during a Jan. 12 snowfall, when the city was smacked with another 21 cm. Cars were parked on both sides of the narrow side-streets and there were huge ruts down the centre.

"How can an ambulance get through there? How can a fire truck get through there? How can a car get out of there? It's impossible," Lastman said.

Environment Canada was predicting another major snowfall in two days time, so Lastman picked up the phone and asked then defence minister Art Eggleton to get the military involved.

"I said `Art, what kind of equipment do you have, what kind of people have you got available?' And he says `Mel, I don't know, but I'll look."'

Eggleton did just that.

"I listened to him and then I called the commander in Toronto, of Canadian Forces Base Toronto, to find out what their take on it was and how they felt about assisting -- whether this made sense or not," said Eggleton.

"The conclusion was that yes, if... this additional heavy snowfall came there could be an untenable situation in terms of the movement of emergency vehicles."

On Wednesday, Jan. 13, Lastman declared yet another snow emergency and Gunn told Toronto residents who relied on North America's second-largest transit system to stay home.

"You knew that the weekend was going to be just impossible," Gunn recalled.

"The worst thing you can do is tell everyone it's going to be great and then it's a disaster."

Most of the subway system is underground, but for the portions above ground, the snow blocked the third rail line which conducts electricity to the trains. Some 700,000 transit customers were left stranded as subways came to a halt.

That same Wednesday, Lastman announced that the military was sending troops to Toronto.

On Thursday, Jan. 14, a group of 400 soldiers from CFB Petawawa, Ont., driving armoured personnel vehicles known as Bisons and toting an assortment of other heavy machinery rolled into the old Canadian Forces Base Downsview awaiting their assignments.

"I don't think people who have ridiculed this measure have understood that this was an extraordinary circumstance," Eggleton said.

"It had the potential to be as disastrous in a Toronto context as the ice storm would have been for eastern Ontario and western Quebec, but it never turned out to be quite that bad."

Another 26.6 cm of snow would fall that Thursday -- much less than predicted.

By Friday it had ended, and bit by bit the troops helped remove the white mountains from the city's streets.

During the time the troops were in Toronto, 35 people were taken to hospital in the hulking military vehicles that tackled roads that ambulances couldn't.

After time, there wasn't much for the soldiers to do. However, Gunn found a way to make use of them.

"I said, 'Well have them shovel out bus stops and streetcar stops,' and they did and they were great."

Monday came and the transit system was functioning again. People headed back to work, and slowly but surely, the city got back to normal.

There's been nothing quite like it in Toronto since.

The city saw 118 centimetres of snow fall in January, 1999 and the snow clearing tab came in at $70 million that month alone.

Lastman recalls it as one the busiest months he had in office.

"I did the right thing, and I showed too that politicians should be safe rather than sorry," he said.

"You've got to do what's right."