As someone who has lived on social assistance, I recognize and commend new private development.

New development = less market pressure = less apartment-to-condo conversions.

The properties can be sold.

I'm in the "this project is already under way, carry through" camp, but many of the sunk costs so far are real-estate purchases that still have enough value to make it easy for a government to change their mind with relatively low financial consequence.

I fear this will be the end decision and justification of the PCs, actually. Now that they've shown election promises are worth less than recycled used and flushed toilet paper.

I count at least ten Tories on the field. At a glance…

Mayor: Fred Eisenberger (2004 federal Conservative candidate for HESC)
Ward 2: John Vail (2004 provincial Conservative candidate for Hamilton Centre, Director & VP of Hamilton Centre federal Conservative Riding Association)
Ward 6: Tom Jackson (2004 federal Conservative candidate for Hamilton Mountain)
Ward 7: Esther Pauls (2018 provincial Conservative candidate for Hamilton Mountain)
Ward 8: Eve Adams (Harper-era Conservative MP for Mississauga—Brampton South 2011–2015, one-time fiancée of Harper's press secretary-turned-executive director of the federal Conservative party)
Ward 9: Brad Clark (Harris-era cabinet minister & Conservative MPP for Stoney Creek 1999-2003); Doug Conley (1990 provincial Conservative candidate for Wentworth East, 1997 federal Conservative nomination hopeful for SC, 2000 federal Alliance candidate for SC)
Ward 13: John Mykytyshyn (long-time Conservative insider, author of Mike Harris' Common Sense Revolution, go-to pollster for Mike Harris & Stockwell Day, co-founder of the province's only Tory boot camp, Conservative Leadership Foundation); Kevin Gray (abandoned 2018 provincial Conservative nomination bid for HWAD)
Ward 14: Vincent Samuel (2015 federal Conservative candidate in HWAD, 2018 provincial Conservative nominee for HWAD, Hamilton region co-ordinator of Doug Ford's Ontario PC leadership campaign, co-ordinated campaigns for Patrick Brown and Andrew Scheer)

FWIW, that doesn't make sense....it's the governments job to provide adequate social housing. It's also the governments job to create a business-friendly economy where the private sector can do it's job of providing employment opportunities across all spectra of society.

One of the reasons the lower city has seen an increase in poverty and housing un-affordability is due to no private investment for 40 years. As we all know, townhouse, apartments and condos from 15-30 years ago become today's entry level housing stock (after government affordable housing stock).

I'll never understand Hamilton politicians who go decade after decade doing nothing about affordable housing, AND continue to block private investment as if somehow perpetuating poverty is a great strategy.

This.

The apartment building my wife and I rented in on Hunter St several years back was full of immigrants, students, seniors, city hall workers etc.... a great mix. It would have tended to the poorer side of the income bracket. It was originally built in the 70's as a LUXURY development with all the bells and whistles of the day.
Sadly, Hamilton basically saw a full stop on such urban development from 1980 till today and the result is an unaffordable housing market in a city that has no business having such market pressures. We've lost population in the lower city for 45 straight years. That is NOT one of the tell-tale signs of housing costs becoming unaffordable. Usually it happens in booming cities where everyone is flocking too.....

I was reviewing the candidates and it seems to me that ward 7 is looking like the most unpredictable, just as it was last time around. There are 11 candidates but that's only half of what they got in 2014. Esther Pauls ran in Hamilton Mountain in the summer for the PCs, but the municipal campaign looks like an afterthought for her. It seems like it will be between Pauls, Geraldine McMullen, who ran in 2014, and Karen Grice Uggenti, but there's definitely an opportunity for a highly organized dark horse candidate. I wouldn't be surprised if Pauls takes it, since it looks like there are a number of union affiliated minor candidates who will split the labour vote, whereas Pauls should get 2000 easy votes due purely to name recognition.

I wonder if John Paul Danko, who finished second to Skelly in ward 7 last time around, is questioning whether hopping to ward 8 was a good idea now that he has to face Steve Ruddick.

I have nothing against Steve Ruddick, but I really dislike Hamilton's propensity to elect local media figures.

Hey guys, who’s probably the best candidate in terms of promoting growth and development and will support projects/proposals?

Poll shows Hamilton mayoral race a dead heat over LRT

NEWS 08:46 PM by Matthew Van Dongen The Hamilton Spectator

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8...heat-over-lrt/

Forum Research poll due to be published Friday says light rail is the top issue for respondents – and those voters are evenly split in their support for pro-LRT incumbent Eisenberger and anti-project challenger Sgro.

here's my take on it so far:

Eisenberger and Sgro seems too close to call unfortunately. That's a bad sign for yesLRT even if Eisenberger wins because there won't be a strong mandate. They will pose some questions to the province and then wait for the response before holding a vote, so there won't be any clear answer until well into 2019.

I don't see any incumbents at risk except for Conley.

ward 1: I see Maureen Wilson winning this one. I live in the ward and while Jason Allan has campaigned well, Maureen has been everywhere and has a lot of support.

Ward 3: I think this will be Nann by a lot with a really solid campaign with lots of volunteers and endorsements.

Ward 7: I pretty much have the same non-opinion as in my previous post on this, it's really hard to tell these people apart.

Ward 8: from driving through the ward I see tons of signs for Adams, Ruddick and Danko, with probably the edge to Danko. My sense is Adams will do a lot worse than the signs suggest and Ruddick better. Hoping for Danko here though.

Ward 9: I'm betting Clark wins this back pretty easily. He's just so much more capable than Conley.


Making the results for LRT, including both/all candidates where it's close:

for: Wilson, Farr, Merulla, Danko, Nann, Eisenberger

against: Whitehead, Partridge, Conley or Clark, Johnson, Ruddick, Adams, pretty much everyone in ward 7, Sgro

somewehere in the middle: Pearson, Ferguson, Collins, Vanderbeek, Jackson

From this, seems to me there are four definite yesLRT wards and six no (unless Clark is being tricky in his recent aboutface, and giving no hope to Dan Macintyre)

However grim as that looks, correct me if I'm wrong, but the noLRT group needs nine votes to cancel the project, whereas the yesLRT only needs eight, since a tie would lose and a failure to cancel it means the project proceeds.

In any event, if Sgro wins as well as one of Ruddick or Adams, then only one more would be needed and it will surely die, maybe before end of year.

On the flip side, if Eisenberger and Danko win, then just two others are needed and I think Ferguson, Pearson, Collins and Vanderbeek will all follow that lead.

In most other scenarios, it comes down to the response from the province to the question of the availability of the funds for other projects.

So basically, big potential for tragedy, small glimmer of a miracle, and most likely, stay tuned for more all night LRT debates well into 2019.

Jason Farr is at a serious risk from Cameron Kroetsch... who has got major support from the NIMBY folk in W2.

I've barely even seen Farr campaign.

I doubt it. I've seen this before with a very active candidate against an incumbent...it looks like there's all this momentum and then they get absolutely crushed. The only incumbent I can think of that lost in the last two elections was Dave Mitchell in 2010, and you can't compare Dave Mitchell to Farr.

Whitehead isn't against LRT. He's very vocal about the issue. Without his threat to vote against approval of the B-Line, the LRT would have likely been terminated at Ottawa St and not to Eastgate.

At the end of the day, Whitehead just wants the best for the B-Line LRT, McMaster to Eastgate. Even his advocacy for B-Line to end at Eastgate ended up scrapping the plan for A-Line BRT that was part of the B-Line. So in a way, he ended up hurting Mountain transit service in order to have a better B-Line LRT line.

Sgro put out a tweet affirming Whiteheads support of him with Whiteheads face on it saying "I no longer support the building of the LRT"

How is he not against the LRT?

In council, Whitehead has always voted in favour of LRT. He even voted yes to the last vote.

Now election fever, sure he supports Sgro. Whitehead probably would like a piece of that $1 billion towards infrastructure on the Mountain. However, if Eisenberger is re-elected I'm sure Whitehead will test the wind direction and if a majority supports re-affirming LRT than Whitehead won't let a billion dollars slip away from our fingers.

We just need to make sure candidates like Danko, Nann, and Willson are elected as Pro-LRT. I'm pretty sure Brad Clark is on the same boat as Whitehead.

I'm doing my part:
https://i.imgur.com/aKFE8nW.jpg

well done interr0bangr! As a ward 3 resident, what's your take? Who's got the best ground game?

I have to give grudging credit to Sgro for managing to get this far as a no-name by leveraging LRT.

I've seen a lot more Farr signs lately, although I'll admit Kroetsch has been campaigning hard. As much as Farr annoys me sometimes, Kroestch will be worse for development.

ugh these old liberals are the worst. Politically irrelevant, they all decided to use their last gasp of air to destroy LRT. What a legacy Bob Bratina will have. No streets or facilities will bear his name. If they cancel LRT someone should name it after Bob.

In my hood, Dan Smith has the most signs I feel, followed by Farr and then Nann.