Ontario municipal elections, (October 27, 2014) - Master thread

[King of Kensington]

I was opposed to amalgamation in the 1990s, but it's pretty hard to put back at this point.  I think what is needed is some budgets and powers given to the community councils, a proposal suggested by Joe Pantalone in the last election.

Hamilton and Ottawa I would argue were worse, given that at least Metro Toronto was entirely urbanized and Hamilton and Ottawa include a lot of exurban territory.

[King of Kensington]

It seems John Tory didn't really get much of a bump from his announcement.  He seems to be very much of an elite obsession.

[King of Kensington]

If we were to have a New York-type borough system I'd break the city into Toronto (including York/East York), North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough.

What would a London/Montreal-type borough system look like? 

[King of Kensington]

Perhaps a London-type "borough system" could include:

A Central Toronto borough stretching from the CPR Tracks and Rosedale Valley between Bathurst and the Don.  Plus North Toronto, West Toronto (old city west of Bathurst) and East Toronto (old city east of DVP). 

Retain York and East York.

Split Etobicoke in two (Rexdale and Etobicoke) and Scarborough into Scarborough, West Hill, Agincourt and Malvern.

North York could have a Don Mills/Downsview/Willowdale split.  The only question is what to do with the areas of North York that shared postal codes with the Old City of Toronto.

[King of Kensington]

Except Ford does well among Black voters while Labour to UKIP switching is virtually all white working class.  Granted the sample size is small - but is Toronto's Black community just more conservative?  In the US we'd probably be seeing "justice for Anthony Smith" protests.

[King of Kensington]

It seems to me that some of the "social democratic constituency" seems to be parking some votes with Soknacki right now (I think it's largely white progressive inner city types who like his "hipster-ironic" anti-Ford ad and that he "speaks his mind" etc.) as well as the Black community which seems to be pretty pro-Ford.

[King of Kensington]

Attributing Ford's victory to Blacks is as silly as saying Blacks were responsible for Prop 8 passing in California - in both cases far more white people voted for Ford/Prop 8.

Interestingly, we've never heard about the "Black vote" in Canada until Ford.  They make up more than 20% of the population in a few ridings and the Black population in the GTA is about the same percentage as in L.A. and the Bay Area.  Yes I know they're not the largest VM, but they're certainly large enough to take note of. 

[King of Kensington]

Looks like the "strategic vote" might stampede to Tory.

https://twitter.com/TorStarEditor/status/504830349873258496

[King of Kensington]

Looks like Ford bombed with the highly educated, the wealthy, gays and Jews.  Ford basically got the working class vote, the poor and visible minorities. Chow only won the largely "creative class" west end.

Tory won due to strategic voting and the complete evaporation of Ford's 2010 support among the wealthy.

[King of Kensington]

Turnout wouldn't have surged past 60% if Ford wasn't on the ballot.

It may have looked a bit more like the 2003 race, where the working class on the city's periphery wasn't particularly excited about either Miller or Tory.  In that race, Tory did especially well among the wealthy (as he did this time), while Miller dominated the core and did very well for a progressive candidate among wealthy voters.  Chow probably would have done similarly well as Miller in the core, but probably not as well as he did in Forest Hill, North Toronto, Leaside, the Kingsway, etc.  I don't know if Chow could have made up for that by getting out more of the working class and immigrant vote.

[King of Kensington]

Miller was a Harvard-educated Bay St. lawyer so he probably had more appeal among the affluent.  As I said, Chow would have had to have out-polled Miller in Scarborough, Weston, Rexdale etc.

[King of Kensington]

Chow might have wont all these additional wards (15,21,22 maybe...) but it would have been a much more policy directed campaign and Chow's had Tory beat on that.

I think you mean Ward 16.  Ward 15 is more working class and lower income, and includes the Oakwood-Vaughan Rd. area and Lawrence Heights.  It voted for Miller in 2003 and a Ford both times.  Until this election, it was the bellweather ward.

[King of Kensington]

The Fords appear to have accomplished something I can't think of having been accomplished elsewhere in the Western democracies: a multi-racial, right-wing populist backlash movement.  

[King of Kensington]

Tory won with a "Bloomberg" type constituency of largely affluent voters.  The Chow campaign just seemed confused, not sure if they wanted to resurrect the Miller coalition or trying to take more of a left-populist "De Blasio" approach.

[King of Kensington]

It's remarkable though that they are the party of choice for "angry white males", racists etc. and at the same time appeal to racial minorities, immigrants, people in public housing etc.

Most of the ethnic groups they've stereotyped or used epithets against seem to have voted for the Fords, with the exception of the Jewish community which categorically rejected them in this election. 

[King of Kensington]

I know it's not an ethnic community per se, but the LGBT community has been the target of quite a bit of ire from the Fords. The level of invective, the casual bigotry, and code-worded slander is precisely the same kind of rhetoric used by the right-wing racist populists elsewhere (who also, for the record, disdain LGBT people).

That's for sure.  It's no coincidence that Ford's lowest share of the vote was in the city's "gayest" ward.

[King of Kensington]

No, the majority of Ward 27 lives south of Bloor.  The city-designated neighborhood of Rosedale-Moore Park has a population of 20,000 and maybe another 5,000 in Yorkville and thereabouts.  KWT would not have been elected councillor in the first place if Rosedale made up a majority of the electorate. 

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, I remember recall seeing data somewhere that put the highest LGBT population in TC (about 25% I believe), with Danforth and Trinity-Spadina coming next.

I agree that a roughly 50/50 split between Chow and Tory sounds about right.

[King of Kensington]

Richard Florida on the Toronto election and the class divide in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-new-class-divide/article21456139/

Basically Tory won the affluent but Chow did well with the core creative group of people in the arts, the Annex intellectuals (apparently "intelligentsia" is an offensive term), and Ford won the working class.

[King of Kensington]

Inevitably, the lefty intellectuals will have to get stuck with Rosedale in the 50 ward map. 

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, a ward system would be better for working class representation in Vancouver, where there are no census tracts east of Cambie or Main that exceed the metro's average income. 

Toronto has more of a central corridor/periphery divide rather than east/west.  Interestingly I think in every other Ontario city there's a east-west split with the west side being more affluent and the east side more working class (i.e. Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton, London).

[King of Kensington]

Ottawa is more like Toronto in that regard. Sure, parts of the "east end" are historically poor neighbourhoods, but we have clusters of poor neighbourhoods throughout the city, much like Toronto.

Yes, also Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa's wealthiest area is in Ottawa-Vanier, but so is the more troubled Vanier. Looking just quickly at the riding level, it's difficult to generalize about its social geography, though it's true that the west end of the pre-war city is more affluent.  It's probably fair to say that Ottawa South and Nepean sort of function the way North York or Etobicoke do in Toronto.

Average income:

Ottawa Centre  $53,859
Nepean-Carleton  $53,096
Carleton-Mississippi Mills  $52,914
Ottawa-Vanier  $45,200
Ottawa South  $45,054
Ottawa West-Nepean  $43,714

Ottawa Vanier has the highest percentage with low incomes (20%) and Ottawa Centre, Ottawa West-Nepean and Ottawa South all are in the 16-17% range.  The remaining suburban/exurban ridings,not surprisingly, have very low poverty rates.

[King of Kensington]

Sounds about right to me.  If we add up Vancouver's 2 densest and most "urban" suburbs, Burnaby and New Westminster, and also add the University Endowment Lands which are not part of the City of Vancouver, we get a population of 905,000 in a land area of 236 sq. km and a population density of 3,842 per sq. km, a density not too far off from the current City of Toronto.

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, an Ottawa-style amalgamation would mean the GVRD being one city - what a nightmare!  Toronto's amalgamation was actually the least egregious in that at least Toronto was in many respects one "city" since 1954 (but with a borough system).   And at least it doesn't include any exurban and rural areas.

[King of Kensington]

Which in Winnipeg's case was a "progressive" measure by the Schreyer government to counter inequality between the poorer inner city and more affluent suburbs.

A GVRD Megacity would be awkward - but look at how ridiculous amalgamated Ottawa is.