By Stephen White
October 25th, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
It seemed to take forever to tabulate the results of yesterday’s municipal election but the outcomes are finally known. Personally, I was a bit surprised by the margin of victory of several incumbents. I thought in a couple of races, particularly Wards 4 & 6, that it would be a lot tighter. The level of voter turnout was disappointing, but not altogether unexpected.
There are, I think, three things that continue to resonate for me when evaluating the results. First, being an incumbent provides a huge added advantage. It is hard to estimate the “bump” that being an incumbent provides but I would estimate it is somewhere between 10 and 15%.
Second, if someone plans on running for office waiting till late August to “throw your hat in the ring” is far too late, especially where there is an incumbent. Incumbents have name recognition, visibility and profile. Unless a municipal contender has strong presence in the community, a war chest of $10-20K, and a team of 25 to 50 dedicated volunteers, their chances of victory are slim to non-existent.
The third realization is that in a race where there are more than three candidates you might as well just anoint the incumbent. Vote splitting works to the advantage of the office holder. We’ve seen this reality play out so many times in the past, yet sadly, many candidates will hang in there to the bitter end rather than support another challenger with better prospects of success. Lest one doubt the salience of this observation just look at the HDSB results in Wards 4, and 3 & 6, or even the Ward 4 and 5 Councillor races, for confirmation.
I spent a lot of time this year working on the Oakville municipal election. Unlike Burlington, the long-time incumbent Mayor barely eked out a victory over his challenger with a margin of less than 1,000 votes. A few Councillors were defeated. I attended one Candidates’ meeting in Ward 1 and the meeting room was packed half an hour before the event started. Everywhere I went Oakville residents were talking about the election and the issues. People were deeply concerned about the future direction of their community, and beneath the surface there was a palpable anger at the direction the Town was heading.
By contrast, Burlington’s municipal election barely elicited a yawn. In spite of the unceasing drama at City Hall over the past four years, including many contentious development applications and several integrity and conflict of interest investigations, many residents I talked to simply weren’t interested. One resident I talked to Monday night completely forgot to vote.
How can two similar communities exhibit such widely differing approaches to municipal political engagement? I submit there are three things at play. First, in Oakville candidates can post election signs on public property. This sounds like a small thing, but in truth it provides challengers with an opportunity to promote their candidacy, build awareness, and level the playing field. Simply, they aren’t solely dependent on friendly homeowners who will support their election bid by agreeing to post a sign. Some may contend it is “pollution”, but since they get taken down after election day the environmental impact is probably marginal.
Second, Oakville’s election structure has one local Town Councillor and a Local/Regional Councillor. Having two representatives for each ward provides more prospective avenues for aspiring candidates to seek and win election. It also provides an additional conduit through which residents can express their opinions and make themselves heard. If politics is about access and involvement, this type of structure has its merits.
Third, Oakville has several vibrant and active Residents and Neighbourhood Associations. I checked a few years ago and I counted fifteen. These groups have been active for several years on multiple fronts, and not just re-zoning and development applications. I’ve lived in Ward 5 in Burlington for nearly five decades, and the last time I checked into my local ratepayers’ association it was essentially moribund.
Despite what Doug Ford and his Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark may think, municipal government is important. It is the level of public administration that is closest to the everyday needs of constituents. On any given day more residents will interact with, or be affected by, local issues and municipal services and programs, than they will by provincial or federal agendas. That said, one would naturally suppose that more residents would be interested in opportunities to opine about, engage with, or have a say in, who their elected representatives will be.
The Mayor and Burlington Councillors will be returning to City Hall shortly. I wish them well. The next four years will be difficult. Development will again be the predominant issue. An intransigent provincial government that is hell bent on stuffing its intensification agenda down residents’ throats doesn’t augur well for a community struggling to maintain its history and identity while dealing with issues of housing affordability. Add to that budgetary challenges, worsening traffic congestion, and upgrading existing infrastructure, and the challenges are enormous.
How Burlington Council will balance these competing interests will be interesting. They will have to get hit the ground running. Hopefully, they get down to work a lot faster than it took to compile Monday night’s election results.
Stephen While is a Human Resources consultant who also teaches at Sheridan College. He has been an active observer and critic of civic life in the Region
Thanks Stephen for an excellent and insightful article. As the Candidate for Oakville’s Ward 4 Town Councillor I would add that the pathetic voter turnout of only 28.3% would have been drastically different IF Mayor Burton and his Council would allow secure online voting. However they keep saying for the past 8 years that they are studying the issue. They know in advance that the voter turnout will be much much larger and that is definitely not something they prefer as it would severely jeopardize their ability to continue winning. I thought that this time around, ( I ran in 2018 and in 2014 for Councillor and Mayor) the residents were voting for change because the advanced polls were 3% Higher this year. I received phone calls and e-mails from residents asking me to place a sign on their lawn only if I was running to change the way the Council was Governing. There was NO planned or scheduled debates this time around with any Residents Associations in my Ward 4, or with any other organization in my Ward. I called several and they all told me they knew nothing. The incumbent Peter Longo ran a non-issue campaign that was as generic as possible. I focused on all the many issues and offered solutions only to be told by his supporters to stop being so negative. LOL! I even had constituents tell me that they were voting for Longo because he was with the Longo Grocery store chain, (He’s Not!) and he therefore had that name recognition on his side! The sign wars in Oakville has been an ongoing contentious issue for many years, residents are split on not wanting them any longer on public land and wanting them so they have access to seeing who’s running, as you mentioned in your article. I thank the 1400 people who did come out and vote for me and I promise to keep advocating for them and their needs as they told me they needed someone who actually cared about them and wanted to help without being dismissive and/or ignoring. Thanks so much! Kind regards, Gordon Brennan http://www.gordonbrennanforward4.ca
A very insightful and well-written opinion piece. We can always learn from Oakville, especially how their ratepayer groups work with City Hall.
Thanks, Stephen
As usual, a very insightful and sound analysis Stephen. What a complete reversal in just four years; where the municipal election of 2018 was a ‘populist’ rejection of the status quo, the election of 2022 was a complacent acceptance of ‘what is’. In Burlington, nothing changed – or even came close to changing. In most of Halton and the GTA, it was the same story. Indeed, the Halton Regional Chair didn’t even have to campaign or show up at debates to win handily after over twenty unremarkable years in the position.
It was the election where the incumbent advantage was virtually impossible to overcome. This is the one ‘takeaway’. And it is a very dangerous trend. The ability of local municipalities to tinker with the electoral rules, as demonstrated rather dramatically in Burlington, combined with weak oversight and general electorate apathy means that worthy contenders have little realistic chance of winning. This cycle I had the distinct pleasure of working for the best candidate that I have ever encountered in my checkered ‘career’ as a local advocate. But her intelligence, commitment, principled campaigning and strong professional background were not nearly enough – even when faced with a very flawed incumbent, imo. Incumbent advantage was too strong.
There are ways to provide a more level playing field – common mandatory electoral processes, term limits, spending/resource restrictions, abbreviation of the election duration and suspension of local ‘business as usual’ events/services during the campaign period are but a few. Don’t expect any changes, however. Municipalities are the creatures of the Province and the Province, particularly today, is an absent, uncaring parent. The idea that local Councils will establish more equitable, fairer electoral processes is counter-intuitive. Councils at their best work as the stewards of public welfare and the ‘better angels’ of their constituents but self-interest is a survival response and not easily overcome. I live in the hope that substantive electoral reform, driven by a more enlightened Provincial Government, will occur before 2026.
This will be my last comment in The Gazette.
Anyone who has designs on running for election should pay close attention to vote spitting. In terms of “what ifs”, if not for vote spliting in 2018, Rick Goldring might still be Mayor of Burlington. In 2018 Goldring garnered 16,781 votes, Mike Wallace 9,609 and Greg Woodruff 983. Assuming some or all of the Wallace and/or Woodruff votes would have gone to Goldring, he would have won by at least 30 votes.