Municipal elections

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Mendalla

Happy headbanging ape!!
Pronouns
He/Him/His
So, beside the looming provincial vote, Ontarians also face electing their municipal councils and leaders again this year (November). London's mayoralty race got a shakeup this week as incumbent Matt Brown chose not to run for re-election. Officially, he's decided that one term as mayor and another as a councillor is enough. Unofficially, one of his key initiatives, a bus rapid transit system, is on the ropes as opposition mounts (I am actually a supporter) and he's been a bit of a lame duck after being caught in flagrante delicto with the deputy mayor, who took the fall (which is the part that kind of soured me on it, the woman taking the fall is so 1950s). We have a lot of possible candidates with the deadline to file papers still a ways off, not many official ones. Some veteran councillors have also decided to call it a day. The battle over BRT and the lack of an incumbent in the mayor's chair (which also happened in 2014 when Brown was elected) could make this municipal vote an interesting one.

What about other communities? Are communities in other provinces facing municipal votes this year? Do people around here take an interest in municipal politics, which is often the most neglected part of our system in spite of it's everyday impact on our lives?
 
So, beside the looming provincial vote, Ontarians also face electing their municipal councils and leaders again this year (November). London's mayoralty race got a shakeup this week as incumbent Matt Brown chose not to run for re-election. Officially, he's decided that one term as mayor and another as a councillor is enough. Unofficially, one of his key initiatives, a bus rapid transit system, is on the ropes as opposition mounts (I am actually a supporter) and he's been a bit of a lame duck after being caught in flagrante delicto with the deputy mayor, who took the fall (which is the part that kind of soured me on it, the woman taking the fall is so 1950s). We have a lot of possible candidates with the deadline to file papers still a ways off, not many official ones. Some veteran councillors have also decided to call it a day. The battle over BRT and the lack of an incumbent in the mayor's chair (which also happened in 2014 when Brown was elected) could make this municipal vote an interesting one.

What about other communities? Are communities in other provinces facing municipal votes this year? Do people around here take an interest in municipal politics, which is often the most neglected part of our system in spite of it's everyday impact on our lives?

Here in Toronto, turnout for municipal votes tends to run around 30%. We have a vote this year. Personally, I support Kevin Clarke for Mayor.
 
Our mayor has announced that he's running again, and he's largely well-liked, so I imagine he'll be back. My own ward councillor is perfectly adequate and has been doing the job for a number of years, so don't imagine there'll be much contest. There will be fringe candidates. We're going to be running a lot of pre-election debates in the sanctuary this year!
 
Do away with polity people elect Gods ... then it would all be over quicker ... maybe not painlessly ... but perhaps we would learn something ... isn't that the devil to advocate in a group despising greater wisdom?
 
Aaand we are now officially in municipal election season in Ontario, though I doubt much attention will get paid until after the provincial vote.

The expected folks have all filed their papers to run for mayor here and we have a four horse race now. Haven't heard much yet about my ward but I will look into it.

We have the added wrinkle here of being the first municipality in Ontario to adopt ranked ballots for municipal. Not sure how I feel about that, yet. I generally like the idea of ranked ballots, less so the idea of being an electoral guinea pig.
 
Mendalla said:
The expected folks have all filed their papers to run for mayor here and we have a four horse race now. Haven't heard much yet about my ward but I will look into it.

Four? I'm reading six names. Did you mentally subtract two because they don't appear to be linked to any kind of scandal? ;)

Mendalla said:
We have the added wrinkle here of being the first municipality in Ontario to adopt ranked ballots for municipal. Not sure how I feel about that, yet. I generally like the idea of ranked ballots, less so the idea of being an electoral guinea pig.


Interesting. Thank you for taking on the awesome responsibility of ruining it for everyone else. :p
 
Four? I'm reading six names.

I hadn't heard about O'Connell and White filing. Neither is a likely contender. O'Connell's vote when he ran for Council last time was in the hundreds. I'm thinking it will be among Cheng, Park, and Paoletto with Orser as a wild card. I'm leaning Park since I'm a supporter of BRT but O'Connell is supporting it, too, so I suppose I should check him out.
 
Mendalla said:
I hadn't heard about O'Connell and White filing. Neither is a likely contender.

Ahhhh. Brantford has those also. Of course one of our regulars, John Turmel, has the Guiness records for elections contested and lost.

I don't like to toss professional terms around loosely. The man is bonkers.

Mendalla said:
I'm thinking it will be among Cheng, Park, and Paoletto with Orser as a wild card.

No horse in the race but I didn't last long looking at Cheng's page. As soon as I read the "world-class" comment I decided it was time to check out the others for some sense of who they were.
 
No horse in the race but I didn't last long looking at Cheng's page. As soon as I read the "world-class" comment I decided it was time to check out the others for some sense of who they were.

He was the number two last time and put up a pretty good "outsider" campaign. Better, really, than some who have tried to play that card even if his lack of experience showed (he seemed to think council has a say in how schools are run, for instance). I think he'll have a harder ride this time now that he's a known quantity and also a public opponent of an approved and funded Council project (BRT).
 
So, deadline for nominations in Ontario municipalities has come and gone (2pm this afternoon). We have fourteen candidates running for mayor in London and that's after one withdrew and threw his hat into a ward race instead. My own ward only has two candidates including the incumbent and if the challenger is who I think it is, I'm likely voting for the incumbent.

BTW, Toronto nominations are apparently still open until Sept. 14 due to last minute changes by the province. One thing I find weird about the "reforms" is that Toronto, which probably 7 or 8 times the size of London, will have only 2x the number of councillors. Seems a bit skimpy to this ape unless that means London is the one that's over-governed (which I find hard to believe).

Anything interesting happening anywhere else in the province?
 
My long, long time councillor is retiring; got her "final" newsletter today. Nice woman. Her daughter is running, as is a local business person, male, whom I do not know. I will have to do some research. Our mayor, extremely popular (and seems to be for good reason) is running for re-election, so doubt that there will be much competition there.
 
Cambridge's mayor is being challenged by the person who ran provincially. Seems to be support for change. Would have been an interesting race with two candidates. Now there are 5. Not sure

Also a challenge in my ward with a relative of @revjohn . Gary Price. I would have said Gary should take it but now a 3rd threw in his hat.
 
Cambridge's mayor is being challenged by the person who ran provincially.

Sounds familiar. In our mayor's race, we have Ed Holder, a former federal MP who was going to seek the provincial PC nomination in London West until the Brown debacle put him off, and Tanya Park, a former councillor who stepped down from her council seat to seek (but lost) the NDP nomination in my riding. I need to look at their platforms, but they are actually my favorites among the mayor's race candidates here at this point. As mentioned earlier in the thread, London doesn't have an incumbent in the race, as Matt Brown decided to be a one term mayor, likely related to personal stuff that happened early in his term (discussed elsewhere).
 
And there's weird undemocratic stuff that Ford is imposing on Toronto, Peel Region (and others) ... good grief, what next?
 
And there's weird undemocratic stuff that Ford is imposing on Toronto, Peel Region (and others) ... good grief, what next?

Undemocratic, perhaps, but quite constitutional. Municipalities are under the control of the provinces and their governance is entirely a matter of provincial law. It was an arrogant, asinine move by the PCs to do it on the last day of nominations, but also quite legal from what I've read. The optics would have been better if they had waited until after this year's election and made the changes for 2022.

BTW, the regional chairs that were changed from elected to appointed were apparently not originally elected positions. That itself is a change made by the Liberals recently. Regions like Waterloo where the regional chair has always been elected are unaffected. And, personally, I've never understood having open elections for regional chair. It's like electing two mayors. Having the regional council choose it from among their number seems democratic enough for me.
 
Congratulations Toronto on your next mayor!

Faith is one of 35 candidates, including incumbent John Tory, seeking the title of Mayor of Hogtown. It don't think she's even a favorite at this point. The opening bell favorites would appear to be Tory and former city planner Jennifer Keesmaat. So "next mayor" may be a stretch. But with a field like that, who knows?
 
Last edited:
Meanwhile, here in London, former MP and federal cabinet minister Ed Holder seems to be laying low. Not even a website that I can find. He better move soon. The other prominent names, Paul Cheng, Paul Paoletto, and Tanya Park are sign-bombing the city like crazy and have campaigns in full swing already.
 
Our incumbent mayor, as I've mentioned, is VERY popular. He has only one person contesting him this year, and that person is a total local flake who runs often for lots of things. We're having our usual Candidates Meeting at the church. Some years we would have done two - both ward candidates (for our ward) and mayoral, or a combo event. This year, however, in light of the mayoralty 'non-race', we're just doing councillor candidates.
 
Back
Top