ELECTION DAY: The candidates had their say; now it's up to you
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Municipal voters head to the polls Monday to choose their local councils and school boards.
Across the Greater Toronto Area, incumbents like Toronto Mayor John Tory and Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown are trying to ward off challengers.
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And in Brampton, city officials were working Sunday to find at least 150 workers needed to run that municipality’s election.
Former provincial Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca is seeking the mayor’s job in Vaughan, while former provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath is running for mayor in Hamilton.
Eight councillor positions in Toronto have no incumbent.
The councillor election in Scarborough North will go ahead despite the death Friday of incumbent Cynthia Lai as there are three other candidates in the race.
Ballots already cast for Lai in advance or through the mail-in process will not be counted but her supporters will not be allowed to vote again.
Polls are open from 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
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In Brampton, city officials sent out a mass request — less than 24 hours before polls were set to open Monday morning — for staff needed to work the election, according to the CBC. Municipal officials issued a tweet Sunday afternoon, insisting they had enough trained workers to run the election.
In addition to selecting municipal council members, voters will also choose a local school trustee from one of the four school boards — English Catholic, English Public, French Catholic and French Public.
Two French-language trustee races in Toronto — in public Ward 3-Centre and Catholic Ward -Toronto Est- will be decided in byelections at a later date after elections officials found some candidates ineligible due to not speaking French, not having children in French-language schools and not having gone to a Canadian French-language school.
Vaughan Council is increasing by one position to 10 members.
An Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) analysis of the 2022 election reported 6,306 candidates across the province, with 1,931 candidates — or 31% — female.
The same analysis found 582 candidates acclaimed and 32 councils fully acclaimed because they had no competition.
“There has been an increase in the total number of candidates acclaimed,” AMO noted, including 139 mayors and reeves in 2022.
Voter turnout for municipal elections tends to be lower than that of provincial or federal elections.
Just over 38% of eligible voters showed up for the 2018 municipal election.
The Ontario vote that returned the Doug Ford government to power in June attracted 43% of eligible voters, the lowest turnout in provincial election history.
aartuso@postmedia.com
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