Ontario municipal elections, 2018 (Oct 22)

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, we definitely need a thread on this, now.

Nominations closed today across the province, but have been extended for Toronto council, because Doug Ford is promising to cut Toronto's council size down to 25 (from 47) mere months away from the election on the last day of nominations. So, they're going to have to go through nominations again, barring any legal ramifications, which I am sure there will be. The Toronto's clerk office has stated that it will be impossible to comply with the changes on such short notice. Fun!

Ford is also LITERALLY CANCELLING ELECTIONS for regional chair in York, Peel (where Patrick Brown was going to run), Muskoka and Niagara. All four regions were going to have direct elections for chair for the firs time, something other regions have been doing so for a while now.

[Hatman 🍁]

Most of the mayoral races were looking to be rather boring until today, where some last minute candidates declared their intentions.

In Toronto, it was looking like no one credible was going to run against John Tory, but former city planner Jennifer Keesmaat has entered the race, promising to secede the city from the rest of the province. So naturally she has my support   Also, white nationalist Faithy Goldy is running for mayor. She will split the far right vote with neo-nazi James Sears.

The deadline for mayoral nominations was not extended like it was for council, so none of the councillors who will now be forced to run against friends and colleagues will have the opportunity to run for mayor instead.


In Ottawa, it was also looking like no one credible was going run against the mayor, Jim Watson. However, today former city councillor Clive Doucet has entered the race. Doucet ran for mayor against Watson back in 2010, winning 15% of the vote. He's a progressive while Watson is very much in the middle. Doucet is a bit kooky though, and I'm not sure if I will even vote for him (I didn't in 2010).

[Hatman 🍁]

I guess the most interesting mayor race in the province will be Brampton, where disgraced former PC leader Patrick Brown has decided to run for mayor in (he was previously running for chair of Peel Region, but considering that election will be cancelled, he has switched to mayor). Brown doesn't even live in Brampton, but is popular among some of the minority community there. Also running in Brampton is former Conservative MP Bal Gosal and of course incumbent mayor Linda Jeffrey, who is a former Liberal MPP.

London will also be interesting as they will be using IRV to elect the mayor and council. It will be the first city in Ontario to do so. There will be 14 candidates for the top job, so voters are going to have fun ranking them. The incumbent mayor is not running for re-election. The best known candidate is former Conservative MP Ed Holder.

[ON Progressive]

Former city planner Jennifer Keesmaat has entered the race, promising to secede the city from the rest of the province. So naturally she has my support  

"Endorsed!" - everyone in Ontario not from Toronto

[Hatman 🍁]

Former city planner Jennifer Keesmaat has entered the race, promising to secede the city from the rest of the province. So naturally she has my support  

"Endorsed!" - everyone in Ontario not from Toronto

Heh. Well, I too would like my city to secede from Ontario. Would make more sense, as the national capital.

[mileslunn]

I think John Tory will win pretty easily, wouldn't surprised if north of 60 percent due to name recognition. Faith Goldy will likely get less than 1 percent as asides from your hardcore Rebel media readers few know who she is and most who do find her viewpoints very disturbing.

I was wondering what people think about Patrick Brown's chances in Brampton. I think his chances would have been better in Barrie where he is well known. Although I wonder if a lot of progressives will vote for him just as a way to send a message to Doug Ford?

[Hatman 🍁]

I think John Tory will win pretty easily, wouldn't surprised if north of 60 percent due to name recognition. Faith Goldy will likely get less than 1 percent as asides from your hardcore Rebel media readers few know who she is and most who do find her viewpoints very disturbing.

I was wondering what people think about Patrick Brown's chances in Brampton. I think his chances would have been better in Barrie where he is well known. Although I wonder if a lot of progressives will vote for him just as a way to send a message to Doug Ford?

No. Progressives will vote for the incumbent Liberal mayor.

Not sure who will win though. It's Brampton, so ethnic cleavages could matter just as much as ideology.

[mileslunn]

Also if you want to talk about bigots running, I believe Kevin J Johnston is running for mayor again in Mississauga, off course he will lose badly and be lucky to get 2%, quite probably under 1%.

For Hatman - Not sure if you followed this one closely, but remember Terry Kilrea who ran for mayor in Ottawa.  I believe he got something like 36% of the popular vote and if his twitter comments are anything to go on, he seems pretty far to the right.  Big Trump supporter although hasn't made any racist remarks like Faith Goldy that I can find, although doesn't mean he hasn't.

For far right candidates, in 1974, Don Andrews came in 2nd in Toronto, although David Crombie won by a landslide and faced no serious challenge.  Guessing it was a donkey vote as his name was first listed alphabetically so many who didn't like Crombie voted for him without realizing who he was.

[mileslunn]

Anybody have a tab on how many defeated Liberal MPP's are running here as well as defeated Tory and NDP MP's from the 2015 election.

[Hatman 🍁]

Also if you want to talk about bigots running, I believe Kevin J Johnston is running for mayor again in Mississauga, off course he will lose badly and be lucky to get 2%, quite probably under 1%.

For Hatman - Not sure if you followed this one closely, but remember Terry Kilrea who ran for mayor in Ottawa.  I believe he got something like 36% of the popular vote and if his twitter comments are anything to go on, he seems pretty far to the right.  Big Trump supporter although hasn't made any racist remarks like Faith Goldy that I can find, although doesn't mean he hasn't.

For far right candidates, in 1974, Don Andrews came in 2nd in Toronto, although David Crombie won by a landslide and faced no serious challenge.  Guessing it was a donkey vote as his name was first listed alphabetically so many who didn't like Crombie voted for him without realizing who he was.

I don't follow Terry Kilrea on Twitter, but I'm very familiar with his "political career". Makes a lot of sense that he's a #MAGA a$$hole now. No, he's not a white nationalist though. Interestingly we did have a white nationalist/nazi run in that election (2003) for mayor, Donna Upson. She won 0.7% of the vote.

Speaking of the 1974 Toronto mayoral race, I can't believe this was a thing...

https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1023013367961640961

Don Andrews could've become mayor!

[adma]

If you want a measure of how Faith Goldy might do, consider how Lauren Southern got 0.9% for the Libertarians in Langley-Aldergrove in 2015.  It's not like she's a Tooker Gomberg of the far right or anything...

[DC Al Fine]

Also if you want to talk about bigots running, I believe Kevin J Johnston is running for mayor again in Mississauga, off course he will lose badly and be lucky to get 2%, quite probably under 1%.

For Hatman - Not sure if you followed this one closely, but remember Terry Kilrea who ran for mayor in Ottawa.  I believe he got something like 36% of the popular vote and if his twitter comments are anything to go on, he seems pretty far to the right.  Big Trump supporter although hasn't made any racist remarks like Faith Goldy that I can find, although doesn't mean he hasn't.

For far right candidates, in 1974, Don Andrews came in 2nd in Toronto, although David Crombie won by a landslide and faced no serious challenge.  Guessing it was a donkey vote as his name was first listed alphabetically so many who didn't like Crombie voted for him without realizing who he was.

I don't follow Terry Kilrea on Twitter, but I'm very familiar with his "political career". Makes a lot of sense that he's a #MAGA a$$hole now. No, he's not a white nationalist though. Interestingly we did have a white nationalist/nazi run in that election (2003) for mayor, Donna Upson. She won 0.7% of the vote.

Speaking of the 1974 Toronto mayoral race, I can't believe this was a thing...

https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1023013367961640961

Don Andrews could've become mayor!

Replacing the old mayor with the runner up isn't that outrageous if the city in question is a Victorian village. It was probably one of those outdated laws that never got taken  off the books.

[mileslunn]

If you want a measure of how Faith Goldy might do, consider how Lauren Southern got 0.9% for the Libertarians in Langley-Aldergrove in 2015.  It's not like she's a Tooker Gomberg of the far right or anything...

I suspect most of Lauren Southern's votes were dissatisfied conservatives as she was running under the Libertarian banner and she wasn't a household name then so lots of her votes probably didn't realize she was a white supremacist.  Libertarians did reasonably well in the ridings they ran federally, but poorly in the last Ontario election which is interesting (I thought they would have picked up more anti-Ford PC types who couldn't stomach going Liberal or NDP).  Federally I suspect most Libertarian voters were dissatisfied conservatives who wanted Harper gone, but couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trudeau or Mulcair.  The Libertarians also did surprisingly well in the ridings they ran in, in the BC election and there I suspect mostly either former BC Conservatives or dissatisfied BC Liberals.

As for white supremacists running, it seems Toronto has a long tradition of this and every election at least one runs, but usually they don't get very many votes thankfully.

[Hatman 🍁]

Also if you want to talk about bigots running, I believe Kevin J Johnston is running for mayor again in Mississauga, off course he will lose badly and be lucky to get 2%, quite probably under 1%.

For Hatman - Not sure if you followed this one closely, but remember Terry Kilrea who ran for mayor in Ottawa.  I believe he got something like 36% of the popular vote and if his twitter comments are anything to go on, he seems pretty far to the right.  Big Trump supporter although hasn't made any racist remarks like Faith Goldy that I can find, although doesn't mean he hasn't.

For far right candidates, in 1974, Don Andrews came in 2nd in Toronto, although David Crombie won by a landslide and faced no serious challenge.  Guessing it was a donkey vote as his name was first listed alphabetically so many who didn't like Crombie voted for him without realizing who he was.

I don't follow Terry Kilrea on Twitter, but I'm very familiar with his "political career". Makes a lot of sense that he's a #MAGA a$$hole now. No, he's not a white nationalist though. Interestingly we did have a white nationalist/nazi run in that election (2003) for mayor, Donna Upson. She won 0.7% of the vote.

Speaking of the 1974 Toronto mayoral race, I can't believe this was a thing...

https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1023013367961640961

Don Andrews could've become mayor!

Replacing the old mayor with the runner up isn't that outrageous if the city in question is a Victorian village. It was probably one of those outdated laws that never got taken  off the books.

Even for a village it's outrageous. The loser will always represent a minority of the public opinion.

[emcee0]

Anybody have a tab on how many defeated Liberal MPP's are running here as well as defeated Tory and NDP MP's from the 2015 election.

As far as I know, Chris Ballard is running for Mayor of Newmarket. Kathryn McGary is running for mayor of Cambridge. Steven Del Duca was supposed to run for regional council chair in York. I believe Han Dong is also running for Council.

[King of Kensington]

Mike Colle is also running for council.

[mileslunn]

It will be interesting to see how many win.  That would be a good indication of their actual popularity as each of their losses was probably more due to the unpopularity of the Wynne government as opposed to them, mind you being a member of the Wynne government that was just recently defeated might make them an easy target for their opponents.  Interestingly enough from the 2015 federal election, there were 5 defeated Tory MPs who ran and 4 of them were successful (One Parm Gill though switched ridings, the riding he lost in Brampton Centre narrowly went NDP, while the riding he ran in Milton is Tory held federally) while no defeated NDP MPs.  Not sure how many other unsuccessful from 2015 ran this time, but I know there were two unsuccessful Tory candidates (Michael Parsa, and Effie Triantafilopoulos who won and I know Nina Tangri has run multiple times at both levels unsuccessfully).  So at least provincially it doesn't seem losing elsewhere hurt, mind you a bad comparison as you have parties for both federal and provincial, while municipally

[Krago]

Doug Ford = Thanos

Provincial election = Infinity Gauntlet

Toronto City Council = Marvel Universe

[Krago]

Jennifer Keesmaat wants to build a wall along Steeles Ave and get York Region to pay for it.

[Hash]

I do like this quote from whoever the horrendous municipal affairs minister is right now:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Provincial government literally cancelling elections and halving a city council's size = 'getting out of the way'.

For a less flippant comment, short of constitutionally recognizing municipalities' autonomy and limiting provincial governments' powers to unilaterally mess around with them willy-nilly, there should absolutely be some sort of law (like in other countries) which prevents changes to municipal election rules/procedures less than a year before the next scheduled election.

[adma]

If you want a measure of how Faith Goldy might do, consider how Lauren Southern got 0.9% for the Libertarians in Langley-Aldergrove in 2015.  It's not like she's a Tooker Gomberg of the far right or anything...

I suspect most of Lauren Southern's votes were dissatisfied conservatives as she was running under the Libertarian banner and she wasn't a household name then so lots of her votes probably didn't realize she was a white supremacist.  Libertarians did reasonably well in the ridings they ran federally, but poorly in the last Ontario election which is interesting (I thought they would have picked up more anti-Ford PC types who couldn't stomach going Liberal or NDP).  Federally I suspect most Libertarian voters were dissatisfied conservatives who wanted Harper gone, but couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trudeau or Mulcair.  The Libertarians also did surprisingly well in the ridings they ran in, in the BC election and there I suspect mostly either former BC Conservatives or dissatisfied BC Liberals.

As for white supremacists running, it seems Toronto has a long tradition of this and every election at least one runs, but usually they don't get very many votes thankfully.

Actually, you're making a mountain out of a molehill here; I pointed that out as a perfectly generic Libertarian result, rather than as anything exceptional in one way or another--if it seems "high", it's probably a bit as a "none of the above" proxy (she was the only non-four-major-party option in Langley-Aldergrove), and maybe a bit of a token kookie Vancouver/Fraser Valley suburbanite/exurbanite maverick/vote-spoilage element.  But 0.9% is still pretty marginal.  (And re provincially in Ontario: you have to remember that the nature of the Ford-led PCs made them likelier to *steal* Libertarian support--or that of other marginal right-of-centre forces like Freedom, Trillium, etc--than contribute to it.)

In fact, if you want an example where a Libertarian candidate made hay out of race-baiting, Tamara Johnson parlayed First Nations-bashing into a Ontario-best 3.33% in Thunder Bay-Superior North in 2014--and in fact, she went on to be a provincial PC candidate in 2018 until her FN-bashing ways led to her removal.

[Hatman 🍁]

Anybody have a tab on how many defeated Liberal MPP's are running here as well as defeated Tory and NDP MP's from the 2015 election.

As far as I know, Chris Ballard is running for Mayor of Newmarket. Kathryn McGary is running for mayor of Cambridge. Steven Del Duca was supposed to run for regional council chair in York. I believe Han Dong is also running for Council.

Ballard is running for mayor Aurora, actually.

Here are some more:

Jim Bradley is running for regional council in Niagara.  Bill Mauro is running for mayor of Thunder Bay. Granville Anderson is running for Durham regional council. Dipika Damerla is running for Mississauga City Council. And Bob Delaney is "running" for Peel Region Chair, if that election is still going on.

And Michael Harris (who didn't run for re-election, because he was forced out of the PC party) is running for Waterloo regional council.

[Hatman 🍁]

First Forum poll of the Toronto mayoral election shows Tory up 70-30 over Keesmaat.

[Hatman 🍁]

Defeated Tories from 2015 running for municipal election:

- Mike Wallace is running for mayor of Burlington
- Ed Holder is running for mayor of London
- Bal Gosal is running for mayor of Brampton
- Brad Butt is running for city council in Mississauga

[mileslunn]

Defeated Tories from 2015 running for municipal election:

- Mike Wallace is running for mayor of Burlington
- Ed Holder is running for mayor of London
- Bal Gosal is running for mayor of Brampton

How many of the above do you think have a real chance of actually winning?  We have seen a few ex Liberal MPs make a jump municipally and win such as Bonnie Crombie of Mississauga and Maurizio Bevilacqua of Vaughan.  Certainly helps in name recognition and my understanding is for both the defeated MPs as well as defeated MPPs many were well liked personally, it was more their party and leader that caused their defeat as opposed to them personally.