Next Municipal Election - Oct 27, 2014 - contenders

[1overcosc]

In Russell Township the incumbent mayor who was running for re-election died suddenly and unexpectedly this weekend.

I wonder what the procedure under the Municipal Act is for such an event. Do they restart the election so any advance voters who voted for the now-deceased candidate get to revote?

[c_speed3108]

The deceased have been elected before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Missouri,_2000


Sometimes the voters find the dead guy less scary than others running.

[Dado]

From the Municipal Elections Act:

Death or ineligibility of candidate
39. If a certified candidate for an office, before the close of voting on voting day, dies or becomes ineligible to hold the office,

(a) if no candidate would be elected by acclamation as a result of the death or ineligibility,

(i) the election shall proceed as if the candidate had not been nominated, and
(ii) the clerk shall omit the candidate’s name from the ballots or, if they have already been printed, shall cause notice of the candidate’s death or ineligibility to be posted in every voting place;

(b) if another candidate would be elected by acclamation as a result of the death or ineligibility, the election is void and a by-election shall be held to fill the office. 2009, c. 33, Sched. 21, s. 8 (21).

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_96m32_e.htm#BK52

So basically voting for a deceased candidate would be akin to spoiling a ballot.

I'm a little surprised the Act doesn't give the clerk the power to strike out the candidate's name from any printed ballots.

Doesn't seem to be anything dealing with advanced voting, though.

[waterloowarrior]

There is only one other person running for mayor in Russell, so they will have to have a separate by-election for mayor in the future (see Section 39 b posted by Dado). The election for council will still continue.

[rocketphish]

Playing at politics

Kate Heartfield, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 20, 2014, Last Updated: October 20, 2014 12:29 PM EDT

Jim Watson is a hard man to run against. He’s a well-liked centrist with an impressive political network who lives for the job. That fact kept big-name challengers out of the mayoral race this time, but it also left the field wide open for a relative newcomer to make his or her mark.

Seven people paid their money to have that chance. And then they all set about sabotaging their own chances, to varying degrees, and some of them with mystifying determination.

Every election has its eccentrics, trolls and one-issue activists. As my colleague Mark Sutcliffe wrote in a beautiful column, when we compare our system to those of countries where candidates are hand-picked or bullied, “ours is not the greater farce.” Even so, this mayoral race stands out for its preponderance of apparently earnest, but woefully unprepared, candidates.

The Citizen’s editorial board met with half of the eight candidates for mayor. We invited them all. Two of the people who paid their $200 to get their names on the ballot – Rebecca Pyrah and Michael St. Arnaud – didn’t respond to our invitation. A third, Robert White, cancelled the night before our scheduled meeting, taking issue with the Citizen’s coverage of the campaign. A fourth, Darren Wood, didn’t show up for his meeting.

Anwar Syed and Mike Maguire have been the most dedicated challengers to Watson, consistently showing up for debates and explaining their platforms.

Syed is puzzling. He is an intelligent and likeable man with broad life experience, who might very well be of service to this city in some political capacity. But he’s running for mayor without having done his homework. He is eager to talk about his ideas, but he seems not to have bothered to check whether anyone else had those ideas first, whether anyone costed them, whether there might be some reason they haven’t been tried, or whether they failed.

To some degree, all of Watson’s challengers in this race display this tendency to act as if they’re undergrads arguing over a pitcher about how they would run the world if they were in charge. Mike Maguire is the most credible, and he too is likeable and hard-working. But his transit plan just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. When he talks about the city’s debt, he buries valid concerns in hyperbole that makes it hard to take him seriously as a potential mayor.

Of course not every candidate for public office needs to be a technocrat; heaven forbid. But if you’re going to run on a technocratic platform – if you’re promising to redraw transit maps, for example, or rearrange garbage collection – that comes with a responsibility to get to grips with the details. The real work of government is not the canvassing and the stump speeches. It is arduous and tedious, and the victories are small. Committee meetings may be boring but the people who go to committee meetings run the world.

The thing is, some of these candidates really do seem to be trying to win.

So where did these intelligent, good-willed people get the idea that a bombastic, feelings-over-facts approach was the way to succeed in politics? Where did they get the idea that learning about historical context and expert opinions can only hurt them? Or that people will trust you to learn on the job tomorrow if they like your personality today?

It’s one effect of the cult of the political outsider. Canadians have seen that people do often vote for the candidate who talks to the little guy, who knocks on enough doors and talks about gravy and fat, or leadership and change, who shrugs selectively at reports and experts, who talks about the private sector or common sense or hardworking families.

The trick is that to be a successful know-nothing outsider, you have to be an insider. You have to have money and power or a family dynasty, some veneer of credibility to make people think there must be something underneath the bombast. Otherwise the world sees you as you are.

Kate Heartfield is the Citizen’s editorial pages editor.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/heartfield-playing-at-politics

[rocketphish]

Reading the tea leaves of Ottawa's advance polls

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 20, 2014, Last Updated: October 20, 2014 5:24 PM EDT

At the start of this election campaign, political pundits predicted a low voter turnout. After all, municipal election turnouts are often dismally low — an apathetic 33 per cent in 2003, for example — and without a competitive mayoral race, the fear was that people wouldn’t be motivated to drag their sorry selves to the polls.

But so far, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

The advance polls, the final day for which was Saturday, saw almost 47,000 of us cast a ballot. That’s 7.4 per cent of the total eligible voters, a healthy improvement over the 6.9 per cent of us (or 42,178) who voted at advance polls the last time around.

Neither 2014 nor 2010 advance turnouts were as high as 2006’s, which was 8.6 per cent. However, the 2006 election was a particularly contentious one, with the north-south light-rail issue driving folks to the polls for a vote that saw political outsider Larry O’Brien win. So perhaps that’s not a fair comparison.

It’s always a bit dicey to assign specific reasons for voter turnouts, in particular for the advance polls. But it’s still fun to try.

One reason the advance turnout is relatively healthy this time around surely must be the three extra advance voting days that Ottawa held at the very start of the month. These were special ballot-casting days, where anyone from any part of the city could vote in any of three city locations: City Hall, Ben Franklin Place and the Cumberland branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

These special days saw 7,582 early deciders mark their “X’s.” A convenient addition to the buffet of voting options — and cheaper than setting up advance polling stations in each ward — we hope they continue, or are even expanded, in the 2018 election.

Like the past several elections, the Bay ward residents win the prize for biggest turnout this time around, with 3,635 people having already cast their ballots — a whopping 12 per cent of voters. Why Bay ward? For one thing, there’s a relatively large number of seniors living in high-rises there. As seniors are known to be diligent voters, and the polling stations are often set up in highrise apartments, do the (theoretical) math and it’s easy to see why Bay consistently outdoes the rest of the city in advance poll turnout.

But that’s likely not the whole story. Bay ward sees some committed politicians with great ground games who know how to get their supporters out: namely, incumbent Mark Taylor and challenger (and former councillor) Alex Cullen. Their roles were reversed the last time around. Either way, they both have experienced teams that understand the importance of campaign logistics as well as electoral issues.

Cullen claims the race is neck-and-neck. And perhaps there’s some truth to that. Because as high as the advance voter turnout is in Bay ward, it was relatively higher in 2010, with more than 15 per cent of eligible voters marking their X’s ahead of election day. Does that indicate some indecision on the part of some voters?

Who knows, but certainly Taylor doesn’t seem too concerned. The incumbent is certainly working hard, but feels he can spare some time from his own race to help at least a couple of other candidates campaign in their wards, including Gloucester-South Nepean candidate Susan Sherring (on leave as the Ottawa Sun’s City Hall columnist) and Rideau-Vanier incumbent Mathieu Fleury, who Taylor says has also come out to help in Bay ward.

Speaking of Gloucester-South Nepean, one might have expected a higher turnout for the advance polls, considering it’s one of six wards where the incumbent isn’t running again. The turnout of 1,860 people is higher than the last two elections and represents 6.9 per cent of total eligible voters in the ward, compared to an advance total turnout of 5.4 per cent in 2010. Still, consider that Cumberland, with a similar population, can boast almost as good a turnout at 6.5 per cent of total voters in a race that’s not remotely competitive.

So what’s going on in Gloucester-South Nepean? Lack of experience in getting out the vote from a field of newbies? Folks haven’t made up their minds yet? (Nothing wrong with that, certainly.)

Then there’s Rideau-Rockcliffe and Rideau-Vanier, which are almost tied for second highest turnout at 10.5 and 10.1 per cent respectively. It’s somewhat expected in Rideau-Vanier, where there’s a pitched battle between two well-organized front-runners — incumbent Fleury and community activist Marc Aubin — with candidate Catherine Fortin LeFaivre giving them a good run for their money. People appear motivated to vote in that contentious race.

But Rideau-Rockcliffe is a bigger surprise, as incumbent Peter Clark has run a rather muted campaign. Is it his political machine driving voters to the polls or those of his worthy opponents, including Tobi Nussbaum, Penny Thompson and Sheila Perry?

Tea-leaf reading like this is pure fun. It’s a chance to sharpen your focus by trying to guess the outcome. Getting it right is a bonus. Getting it wrong is just a reminder that our democracy is about uncountable variables but just one, decisive election day.

[email protected]

twitter.com/jchianello

For more municipal election coverage, please visit the Ottawa Citizen’s Ottawa Votes site


By the Numbers

46,971: total number of advance poll votes cast

632,385: total eligible voters

7.4: percentage of voters who took advantage of advance polls

6.9: percentage of voters who did so in 2010

12.4: percentage of Bay ward voters who have already gone to polls — the highest advance turnout of any ward

10.1: percentage of Rideau-Vanier ward voters who have gone to polls — the second highest turnout

4.4: percentage of voters to turn out in Kanata South — the lowest ward turnout

4.5: percentage of voters to turn out in Barrhaven — the second lowest turnout.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/1021-col-chianello

[rocketphish]

Advance poll stats by ward, 2014 vs 2010

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 20, 2014, Last Updated: October 20, 2014 6:07 PM EDT

It’s always interesting to look at the turnout for advance polls to see if you can discern any rhyme or reason to them. I took at shot at doing just that in my Monday column — good times! I was surprised to see the relative turnout for the advance polls was higher this year than in 2010, which was conventionally considered a more “exciting” election than our current one (although I find them all pretty fascinating in different ways). Just to recap, 7.4 per cent of total eligible voters cast their ballots at the five advance polling dates held by the city’s election office, while just 6.9 per cent did so in the two advance polling days in 2010.

What will be more interesting, other than from whom voters are actually casting their ballots, is whether these trends hold for the election. Below, I’ve calculated the percentage of voter turnout ward-by-ward this year as compared to 2010 (again, as a percentage of total eligible votes per ward). Enjoy!

Ward Name	2014 Advance Poll	2010 Advance Poll
		as % of total votes	as % of total votes   

1. Orleans	6.6	4.9

2. Innes	6.4	4.6

3. Barrhaven	4.5	4.6

4. Kanata-North	7.4	7.5

5. West Carleton-March	7.3	5.7

6. Stittsville	8.6	7.7

7. Bay	12.4	15.6

8. College	7.1	13.5

9. Knoxdale-Merivale	6.2	6.0

10. Gloucester-Southgate	7.6	7.1

11. Beacon Hill-Cyrville	6.1	6.2

12. Rideau-Vanier	10.1	8.5

13. Rideau-Rockcliffe	10.5	8.8

14. Somerset	9.5	9.4

15. Kitchissippi	8.5	8.0

16. River	5.7	5.6

17. Capital	7.2	7.0

18. Alta Vista	8.4	9.0

19. Cumberland	6.5	4.7

20. Osgoode	6.9	5.9

21. Rideau-Goulbourn	6.8	6.5

22. Gloucester-S. Nepean	6.9	5.4

23. Kanata South	4.4	5.7

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/1020-advance

[rocketphish]

Jim Watson is better with Larry O'Brien

Mark Brownlee, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 21, 2014, Last Updated: October 21, 2014 3:48 PM EDT

You are forgiven for wanting to forget about Larry O’Brien’s term as mayor, which was, even by his own admission, something of a circus.

Dysfunctional council meetings dragged on and on for hours. Tax increases regularly came in at way more than the promised zero percent.

No one in their right mind would pine for those days. And yet, it’s clear a gaping hole has been punctured in our current municipal election.

We need more Larry.

On the surface, you couldn’t find two more diametrically opposed politicians than O’Brien and the man who is all but assured a second term during this October’s election, Jim Watson.

O’Brien’s first job in politics thrust him into the mayor’s chair of one of the largest cities in Canada. Watson, when he was elected in 2010, had spent a lifetime plugging away as a city councillor, member of provincial Parliament and even mayor of the old City of Ottawa.

But underneath the surface differences lurk some more fundamental similarities that have actually produced a remarkably productive combination for Ottawa residents.

O’Brien and Watson are, in many ways, the Lennon and McCartney of Ottawa politics: they may not always get along but when they come together, they can carry the city on their shoulders.

It’s easy to forget, when you look around Ottawa today, just how many of the current projects in this city stem from O’Brien’s term as mayor.

Take the currently under-construction light-rail transit system that was O’Brien’s brainchild. He scrapped an ill-advised plan and replaced it with the 12.5-kilometre spine that will serve as the basis for most every other transit project in this city for the next century.

What did Watson do? He cleaned it up and redesigned it, bringing the project in on budget. O’Brien’s plan for a station close to Confederation Square promised to be too expensive. Watson, with the coldness a forensic auditor could only dream of, ignored public clamouring about losing a centrally-located landmark and cut it out. Now he’s proposing adding to the initial spine of the light-rail by building in every direction of the city over the next few decades.

Lansdowne Park is another example. Watson has been such a big fan of Ottawa’s new CFL team, it’s easy to forget that during the last campaign he actually chastised O’Brien over the redevelopment, reluctantly promising to go through with it only because it was already in the works. Go back even further and you’ll find that Watson actually wanted to tear down the stadium during his first term as mayor.

Watson is correct that the situation at Lansdowne is far from perfect. It was only because of O’Brien’s willingness to kickstart the process, however, that Watson is now able to lead the parade as the RedBlacks’ number one fan.

Go down the list of signature accomplishments that people identify with Watson. Most of them started with O’Brien.

But it’s not just that O’Brien spurred many of the ideas that Watson has spent the past four years championing. The competition between the two also strengthened the debate in this city.

Four years ago, the mayoral race presented Ottawans with a clear set of choices. We looked the two candidates up and down before firmly pointing in Watson’s direction. This time? We might as well be collectively shrugging our shoulders as, given the dearth of other qualified candidates, we place the chain of office around Watson’s neck.

Watson has benefited greatly from the situation O’Brien left at city hall. But whether he can be as effective without the same well of ideas from which to draw is still an open question.

The current mayor’s plans for bike lanes and murals underneath highway overpasses are great. Will it be enough to keep Ottawans excited for another four years? Or will they, like so many of the other small ideas that dominate this city’s politics, slip away across the universe?

Mark Brownlee is a writer based in Ottawa who covered the 2010 municipal election for a journalism research project at Carleton University.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/mark-brownlee-jim-watson-is-better-with-larry-obrien

[Norman Bates]

Larry Efing Obrien.

Thanks for that 51 day transit strike.

[Cre47]

No comments from any of Watson's opponents regarding yesterday's events? Wondering if any candidates beside Watson will have double-digits. Forum Research showed Macguire at 17 (note Forum's polls have been very erratic lately - talking specifically the federal and Toronto mayoral polls).

[1overcosc]

I think Maguire will probably get 20%-ish of the vote, mostly protest votes from the CFRA/Sun crowd.

No polls have been done since that original Forum poll way back in September, as far as I know.

[rocketphish]

More urban than suburban, rural responses to architecture questions

Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 23, 2014, Last Updated: October 25, 2014 3:04 PM EDT

Supporting policies to improve architecture is “far more” popular with urban council candidates than their suburban and rural counterparts, according to the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

The institute posed five questions about design quality, the environment and heritage to the city’s 124 candidates for council. Only 39 council candidates responded, 31 of them from urban wards, according to the institute.

Institute regional director Allan Teramura said there was a lot of interest from urban wards. In total, responses were received from candidates in nine urban wards, four suburban wards and one rural ward. Most responses were supportive of the statements, he said.

“I understand that many people get involved in municipal politics because of issues in their immediate community, but in an amalgamated city, councillors have to be prepared to understand and deal with issues far from where they live,” Teramura said in a statement. “This is a challenge for both urban and rural councillors.”

He said it’s “regrettable” only mayoral candidates Bernard Couchman and Anwar Syed responded, out of the eight registered mayoral candidates.

The statements candidates were asked to agree or disagree with were: I will advocate for making achieving architectural design excellence a top priority for city projects; I would support the use of design competitions for significant municipal projects; attaining carbon-neutral status for all Ottawa buildings by 2030 is a key priority for me; I will be an advocate for Ottawa’s built cultural heritage; and I will support initiatives to rejuvenate our urban streets and spaces; and make them more bike- and pedestrian-friendly.

The incumbent council candidates who replied were David Chernushenko, Peter Clark, Mathieu Fleury, Katherine Hobbs, Bob Monette and Marianne Wilkinson.

“While I would not expect new candidates from rural or suburban wards to have many strongly held opinions on issues that primarily affect the downtown, I would have thought that incumbents would, having had a few years of grappling with them,” Teramura said. “And yet there was relatively little response from these candidates.”

Here are a sample of three candidate responses:

Jeff Lieper, candidate in Kitchissippi ward: “There is too much use by the City of terms like ‘landmark architecture,’ particularly when evaluating development applications, when what they really mean is ‘this is big.’ When the City builds anything major, a design competition should be a given. We need buildings in Ottawa with a ‘wow factor.'”

Sheila Perry, candidate in Rideau-Rockcliffe ward: “Ottawa is a national destination and focus internationally. Therefore, we need to be more entrepreneurial and seek resources through competition. This approach will inspire excellence.”

Marianne Wilkinson, incumbent in Kanata North ward: “I’m already working on this for the Beaverbrook community as built cultural heritage is more than just individual buildings and is not only for older buildings. It also can apply to infrastructure, e.g. the Valour Bridge.”

Click here for a chart of candidates’ responses.

[email protected]
twitter.com/CarysMills

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...ural-responses-to-architecture-questions

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I think Maguire will probably get 20%-ish of the vote, mostly protest votes from the CFRA/Sun crowd.

No polls have been done since that original Forum poll way back in September, as far as I know.

The Sun endorsed Watson though, although with reservations.

[1overcosc]

First batch of results has Watson with 73.9% of the vote (very early though).

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

First batch of results has Watson with 73.9% of the vote (very early though).

CTV already saying he is re-elected, no surprise. The questions are how high his margin are, and if there are any wards (likely rural) that vote against him.

[1overcosc]

Huge chunk of polls just came in. Watson may win with as much as three-quarters or more.

[1overcosc]

Leiper has a huge lead in Kitch, so far. Over 1000 votes.

[theman23]

What happened to the Canada forum?

[1overcosc]

Mathieu Fleury has a slight lead on Aubin but its close. Catherine McKenney has a huge lead right now. Mark Taylor has a lead over Cullen.

[eternallyme]

Peter Clark looks to be gone, big upset in Rockcliffe. The inner-city area is going to have a lot of new faces.