Municipal Elections in Canada

[whatnext]

Across BC a huge 37 incumbent mayors were tossed out, a rarity. An incumbent mayor hasn’t lost in Vancouver since 1980. It will be interesting to see if this plays out across the country. It should also be a cautionary tale for the premiers and Trudeau.

[Denscity]

All three cities in our tri city area have a new female mayor.

[ssiguy]

Sim has the ability to bring forward some truly meaningful change which the city desperately needs particularly in crime, drugs, and housing affordability. Now the question is will he have the balls to make it happen and stand up to the city's politically powerful Westside residents.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Across BC a huge 37 incumbent mayors were tossed out, a rarity. An incumbent mayor hasn’t lost in Vancouver since 1980. It will be interesting to see if this plays out across the country. It should also be a cautionary tale for the premiers and Trudeau.

We have a new mayor in New West as well, but in our case the incumbent Jonathan Coté didn’t run this time around.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Nor did Kennedy do anything about Vancouver's perverted land use policy which has led to Vancouver having the highest rate of zoning for SFH of any major city in the country.............a whopping 82%. It has done a huge amount to increase Vancouver's real estate prices over the decades and why Vancouver has no "missing middle".

Unfortunately, there is no reason to think Sim will do any better. Vancouver has done so many things right but it's housing zoning policies have been a failure of epic proportions and I think Sim will end up being just another cruise control Mayor.

Vancouver is very strange that way. Very progressive, except when it comes to upzoning. Nearly all the density is towers on the Downtown Peninsula and along the Skytrain with much of the remainder of the City being sfh.

The City of Ottawa is often criticized for restricting development in older neighbourhoods and many of our urban Councillors are called NIMBYs (some are, don't get me wrong), but when we look at the latest census data of the major Canadian Cities, seems Ottawa is the only one where population has grown nearly everywhere in the core, even in the traditionally sfh areas of the early and mid 20th Century.

https://censusmapper.ca/maps/3054#12/45.4058/-75.7343

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Vancouver is very strange that way. Very progressive, except when it comes to upzoning. Nearly all the density is towers on the Downtown Peninsula and along the Skytrain with much of the remainder of the City being sfh.

The City of Ottawa is often criticized for restricting development in older neighbourhoods and many of our urban Councillors are called NIMBYs (some are, don't get me wrong), but when we look at the latest census data of the major Canadian Cities, seems Ottawa is the only one where population has grown nearly everywhere in the core, even in the traditionally sfh areas of the early and mid 20th Century.

https://censusmapper.ca/maps/3054#12/45.4058/-75.7343

Every lot in Vancouver allows multiple dwellings. The same sort of soft densification being praised in California has been permitted in Vancouver for years.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by zahav

Sim is more business friendly for sure, and right now one of the biggest issues business have is safety and declining urban environments. I'd arguably say one of the top concerns in this election was law & order, homelessness, and just general declining urban spaces. Even more than housing affordability maybe, peopl felt Stewart was just turning a blind eye and had no plans or will to even touch the crime issue. Right or wrong, that certainly was the perception. ABC Vancouver swempt Mayor, Council, School Board, and Park Board. It was a clear sign people had no faith in the political establishment curently. Almost reminiscent of the NDP implosion in 2001 when the NDP were redcued to 2 seats against the BC Liberals with 77. I know the 2022 municipal election wasn't that extreme, but the same message was at play, a clear victory for the challenger.

The closest analogy is actually Vision Vancouver in 2008 when they ran the table in a similar fashion to ABC.

[J.OT13]

Ontario elections are on Monday, and it's getting interesting in Ottawa. Leading candidates are at a statistical tie. Progressive candidate McKenney v. Business man and Watson 2.0 Sutcliffe.

Sutcliffe's campaign co-chair, current Councillor and head of the Police Services Board not running for re-election has hired a new chief of police. We'll find out who that is today. Sutcliffe is the only one of the three leading candidates who thinks that's o.k.

Meanwhile Sutcliffe is saying that he never promised he would build a new police station in the ByWard Market, when he did in fact, several times, calling it a ""Storefront Neighbourhood Operations Centre"" and not correcting news media when they call it a station.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Sutcliffe saying he never said his opponent was waging a "War on Cars" even though he's been saying that the whole time, at debates, on campaign ads, and campaign signs. Again, technicality; he's saying he won't wage a "War on Cars" in response to his opponents promise of investing $250 million over 4 years on cycling infrastructure. He may not have straight up said "McKenney is waging a "War on Cars", but he have least strongly implied it. Same with "free" transit; McKenney promising free for under 18, but he makes it seem like they promised "free" across the board.

[Acajack]

Patrick Brown easily re-elected in Brampton. Bless his heart!

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Patrick Brown easily re-elected in Brampton. Bless his heart!

Guy who constantly tries to jump around, clearly in it for himself.

Del Duca and Horwath seemingly in tight races.

Ottawa's progressive Mayoral candidate McKenney lost against "no war on cars" Sutcliffe. Council generally seems more progressive however, some incumbents who are truly terrible people have or seem to be winning.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Patrick Brown easily re-elected in Brampton. Bless his heart!

That was no surprise. The media attention whether good or bad actually helped him.

[Loco101]

Michelle Boileau has been elected mayor of Timmins with 61% of the votes. She has been a city councillor since 2018. We haven't had a francophone mayor in a long time even though we have a large francophone population. She is fluently bilingual and ran unsuccessfully for the federal Liberals in 2019 although she did very well in the Timmins part of the Timmins-James Bay riding. I voted for her.

[GeneralLeeTPHLS]

I'm interested in seeing how Andrea Horwath runs Hamilton, considering her experience on council before.

I'm not sure what to think of Del Duca as Vaughan's myor, but we'll see.

I'm unsurprised to see Brampton, Mississauga and Toronto retain their old leadership, to my dismay in the latter.

I'm not a fan of John Tory, but hell, he could be worse. Still, he doesn't come across as someone willing to put forward much action/change in council which is frustrating, as we've seen over the last eight years now.

[ssiguy]

Tory is no visionary nor is he particularly invigorating but that is why he got elected in the first place. Remember, Tory was elected after the fiasco of Ford so Torontonians were in desperate need of some normality and Tory fit the bill perfectly.

He is not a grand-plan sorta guy but he is rational, non-ideological, well informed, mildly progressive, personable, and a good consensus builder. While it may be very hard to fall in love with Tory it is equally hard to hate him.

He hasn't been a great Mayor but he has been a decent one.

[J.OT13]

Tory is weird. He was PC Leader, but now, based on the way he's been running Toronto, seems more Liberal, maybe even left leaning Liberal. Maybe I'm way out of whack on that one.

Disappointed all the other failed Provincial politicians, other than Chiarelli in Ottawa, who ended up a distant third, won their respective Mayoral races.

[niwell]

Tory was fine for a term or two to get over the Ford hangover but it's become very stale. There hasn't been anything particularly bad under his watch and a few decent things (King st car priority, expanded bike lanes, some good new parks) but the mantra of keeping property taxes low has resulted in a general decline in the public realm. Garbage bins overflowing, lack of park maintenance, streetlights out for weeks even after reported to 311, etc. I wouldn't blame him for the housing/homeless situation or general failure of Vision Zero, but he's certainly not doing any favours. The mantra of "we'll look into it" is getting old.

The result was predictable and I'm not at all angry as I was when Rob was elected, but I still think change is well overdue.

[JHikka]

Tory's mayorship can be defined as mediocre. Sure, nothing bad has happened, but nothing particularly good has happened either. It's holding onto status quo for another four years as the city continues to decline at its most basic levels. We sorely need new leadership in the city but will have to wait a few years more. Safe to say at this point that amalgamation was a mistake, both for Toronto and elsewhere, and our broken voting system isn't doing us any favours.

[MolsonExport]

Of course Josh Morgan is now the new mayor of London. This city loves voting for the status quo candidates. Consequently, he didn't get my vote.

The car culture of London must be pleased. Long live the stroads.

[Wigs]

anyone else disgusted with the low voter turnouts in Ontario municipalities?

London 25.5% out of 281,000+ eligible voters

Welland 25.8% out of 42,000+ eligible voters
St. Catharines 26.3% out of 100,000+ eligible voters
Niagara Falls 27.5% out of 68,000+ eligible voters

Toronto 29.1% out of 1,890,000+ eligible voters

Windsor 31.5%

Hamilton 35.3% out of 405,000+ eligible voters

Ottawa 43.7% out of 722,000+ eligible voters

The local paper had the audacity to put the headline: Democracy Wins!
Unless 2/3 of people vote, it's truly pathetic.
It took me 6 minutes to walk to the polling station and 3 minutes to vote from the time I arrived. There's truly no excuses in Canada where we don't have the wait times of USA.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Wigs

anyone else disgusted with the low voter turnouts in Ontario municipalities?

London 25.5% out of 281,000+ eligible voters

Welland 25.8% out of 42,000+ eligible voters
St. Catharines 26.3% out of 100,000+ eligible voters
Niagara Falls 27.5% out of 68,000+ eligible voters

Toronto 29.1% out of 1,890,000+ eligible voters

Windsor 31.5%

Hamilton 35.3% out of 405,000+ eligible voters

Ottawa 43.7% out of 722,000+ eligible voters

The local paper had the audacity to put the headline: Democracy Wins!
Unless 2/3 of people vote, it's truly pathetic.
It took me 6 minutes to walk to the polling station and 3 minutes to vote from the time I arrived. There's truly no excuses in Canada where we don't have the wait times of USA.

I get Toronto, where Tory's re-election was a forgone solution (though you'd think that the progressives would have flocked to the polls). It was the same the last two elections in Ottawa where it was obvious Watson would win again. But in cities with competitive races like Ottawa this time around, or Hamilton or Vaughn (through my limited knowledge of the latter two), one would think that passions would get people out to vote.

It frustrates me to no end seeing people complain about Government, but don't vote. Think of the truck nuts who held up Ottawa for an entire month, yet most probably did not take 15 minutes to vote in the September 2021 Federal election.