Sean Marshall

Author: Sean Marshall

  • Mapping the 2014 Toronto election: Wards 5 and 6

    Wards 5 and 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, were both interesting races in the 2014 municipal election, but for different reasons. In Ward 5, there was no incumbent city councillor seeking re-election. Peter Milczyn, the long-time councillor for the area, was elected as the area’s MPP in the June 2014 provincial election. James Maloney was appointed as a caretaker councillor to serve Ward 5 until one was elected in the October election; Maloney promised that he wouldn’t stand for election in 2014.

    Meanwhile, in Ward 6, Russ Ford and Tony Vella were both serious challengers to incumbent Mark Grimes. In the 2010-2014 term, Grimes was a conservative councillor that rarely made a mark. Grimes voted with Ford on most of the important decisions at council meetings. Despite not having much power, Rob Ford gave him the nickname, “the midnight mayor” and seems to have been one of the Ford Brothers’ closest friends on council.

    In the mayoral race, John Tory came in first in both wards. He took 51.2% of the vote in Ward 5 and was selected by 41.1% of the electorate in Ward 6. Doug Ford came in second place in both polls, taking 32.3% of the vote in Ward 5, and a much closer 37.4% in Ward 6;  Olivia Chow came in a distant third place, winning only one poll, in Ward 6.

    2014 Election - WARD 5 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 5

    2014 Election - WARD 6 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 6

    Despite the Toronto Star calling Ward 5 one of “15 races to watch,” it wasn’t. Local businessman Justin Di Ciano won 54.1% of the vote and all but two polls. I didn’t count Poll 040 as only two votes for councillor were cast; Poll 030, a Ukrainian seniors’ home, chose fourth-place candidate Walter Melnyk. In 2010, Di Ciano ran against Peter Milczyn, losing to the incumbent by only 109 votes. Clearly, Di Ciano had the name recognition and organization to succeed in 2014.


    2014 Election - WARD 5 CllrPoll results of the council race in Ward 5

    Ward 6 was a little bit more interesting. Russ Ford, the executive director of the LAMP Community Health Centre, (a local health, recreational and social service agency and a former city staffer) made his first run for council. (He is not related to Rob or Doug Ford, or for that matter, former Long Branch reeve Len Ford, whom a waterfront park there is named for). Russ Ford ran a strong campaign on a progressive platform, winning the endorsement of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council, NOW Magazine, and the Toronto Star.

    Unfortunately, Russ Ford lost to Mark Grimes, 43.6% to 34.1%, a difference of just over 1500 votes. Tony Vella, a former spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service, also put his name forward as a candidate. Despite his local ties and name recognition, he was only able to get 10.5% of the vote.

    After my first tweets in November sharing early drafts of these maps, Russ Ford replied and shared some interesting information. He claimed that John Tory’s campaign was robo-calling residents in order to support Grimes by the end of the campaign. Tory and Grimes won Ward 6, both doing very well in the new condominium neighbourhood of Humber Bay Shores. Grimes also did well in the Alderwood neighbourhood, which also supported Doug Ford in the mayoral race.

    Russ Ford won some polls in New Toronto and Mimico; he did best in Polls 042 and 045, the same polls where Doug Ford won by the highest margin. In fact, every poll that Doug Ford won by at least a 30% margin, Russ Ford also came in first place. Russ Ford insisted that this was no mistake; that the same voters who were motivated to vote for Rob or Doug Ford were supportive of Russ Ford and his commitment to the community.

    2014 Election - WARD 6 Cllr
    Poll results of the council race in Ward 6

  • Mapping the 2014 Toronto election: Wards 3 and 4

    Ward 3 and Ward 4, Etobicoke Centre, were both interesting races to watch. Neither ward had an incumbent councillor running for re-election. Mayoral candidates Doug Ford and John Tory were both very competitive in each ward. Tory came first in Ward 3, while Ford came first in Ward 4; both wards showed clear geographic splits in their choice for mayor. Olivia Chow came in a very distant third in both wards. Ward 4 was interesting for another reason; though Rob and Doug Ford have taken turns representing Ward 2, they both live in Ward 4.

    The incumbent in Ward 3, Peter Leon, was a caretaker councillor, appointed by council in 2013. When appointed, Leon promised that he would not run for election. The incumbent in Ward 4, Gloria Lindsay Luby, a moderate councillor and a Ford family foe, did not stand for re-election in 2014.

    Ward3_Mayor
    Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 3

    As already noted in a few suburban wards (such as Ward 10 and Ward 15), there’s a clear distinction between areas where Tory did well and where Ford was the most popular mayoral candidate.

    In Ward 3, Doug Ford did best in polls in the north and northwest part of the ward, particularly in the high-rise residential towers and townhouse complexes that line Highway 427. Wealthier neighbourhoods such as Princess-Rosethorn and Markland Wood generally voted for Tory.

    Ward4_MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 4

    The same patterns can be found in Ward 4. Polls in affluent Edenbridge-Humber Valley neighbourhood voted for John Tory by wide margins, with one notable exception: Poll 028, Rob Ford’s home poll. Interestingly, mayoral candidate Doug Ford lost his own poll (Poll 027), he was the only top mayoral candidate to do so. Most polls north of Eglinton Avenue voted for Doug Ford by wide margins. Condominium towers, seniors’ residences, and high-end rental buildings (including Polls 015, 019, 020, 021, 022, 038) opted for Tory, while Ford did well in other rental highrises (such as Polls 003, 016, 023, 024, 036).

    (more…)

  • Mapping the 2014 Toronto election: Wards 9 and 10

    2014 Election - WARD 9 Mayor
    Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 9

    Ward 10 Mayor
    Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 10

    This weekend, let’s have a quick look at the 2014 election results in Wards 9 and 10, York Centre. Both wards are located north of Highway 401 in the former City of North York. Allen Road and Dufferin Street separate Ward 9 to the west and Ward 10 to the east. Ward 9 contains Downsview Park, and was my home from 2006 (when I moved from my parents’ house in Brampton) through 2011, when I sold a condo I owned there and moved closer downtown.

    Fifty-nine percent of Ward 9’s residents were born outside of Canada. Many of Ward 9’s residents are long-established Italian-Canadian families, but they are joined by immigrants from Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The ward has a somewhat low average household income ($60,550 compared to the city-wide average of $87,038).

    Doug Ford won Ward 9 by a huge margin. Ford took 61.9% of the vote and came first in every poll, while John Tory was preferred by only 19.0% of the electorate; Olivia Chow only got 14.5% of the vote.

    Ward 10 is somewhat wealthier than Ward 9; it includes the affluent Armour Heights neighbourhood. Ward 10 has a large Jewish population, and it has hosts Russian-Canadian and Filipino-Canadian communities (the two largest immigrant populations in the ward). In Ward 10, John Tory came first with 46.7% of the votes (Ford got 36.7% and Chow 13.0%). Tory did best in Armour Heights, while Ford did best in areas with higher proportions of immigrants and lower incomes, especially in the high-rise residential towers at Bathurst and Steeles. The only major surprise is that despite charges of the Fords’ anti-Semitism, Doug Ford came in first in several polls located in Jewish seniors’ homes.

    (more…)

  • Mapping the 2014 Toronto election: Wards 1 and 2

    2014 Election - WARD 1 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 12014 Election - WARD 2 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 2

    On this beautiful sunny Friday afternoon, let’s have a quick look at the results of the 2014 Toronto municipal election in Wards 1 and 2, Etobicoke North. Ward 2 is the Ford’s home turf (Rob Ford and Doug Ford now live in Ward 4, but their mother’s home, the venue for many “Ford Fest” backyard parties is located here, as is the family business, Deco Labels and Tags.

    Rob Ford represented Ward 2 on city council for ten years before running for mayor in 2010.  In that election, Rob Ford’s brother Doug ran for Rob’s old council seat, and won handily. After being diagnosed with cancer in September of 2014, after a scandal-prone term of office, Rob and Doug traded places. Doug, who did not intend to run for office, took Rob’s place as mayoral candidate. On October 27, 2014, Rob Ford, once again, was elected city councillor for Ward 2. A close ally was re-elected in Ward 1.

    Despite disappointing electoral results in Wards 1 and 2, there is hope for the future in northwest Toronto.

    (more…)

  • Mapping the 2014 Toronto election: Wards 7 and 8

    Wards 7 and 8In this post, I take a look at how the good people of Wards 7 and 8 voted in the 2014 Toronto municipal election. Wards 7 and 8, located in North York, straddle the Jane-Finch neighbourhood. Ward 8 extends east to Dufferin Street and includes York University, while Ward 7 extends west to the Humber River.

    To say that I am disappointed by these election results, particularly in Ward 7, would be an understatement. Both wards voted overwhelmingly for Doug Ford for mayor. Ward 7 returned Giorgio Mammoliti to office.

    2014 Election - WARD 7 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 7

    In Ward 7, every poll voted for Doug Ford by at least a 20% margin. Ford won 65.7% of all votes cast for mayor, one of his best ward-level results.

    At least the results in Ward 8 were a bit more interesting. Along with Ward 17, it was one of only two where the winner, John Tory, came in third place. While over 60% of electors in Ward 8 voted for Doug Ford, two polls thought differently. Poll 007, York University, voted for Olivia Chow; Ford came in third place there. In Poll 021, a small poll located in a senior’s home, Chow and John Tory tied for first. In two more polls, Ford won by narrow margins; Poll 020, the townhouses adjacent to York University (Chow came in second), and Poll 034, new condos built near Downsview Station (where Tory came a close second).

    2014 Election - WARD 8 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 8

    (more…)

  • Mapping the results of the 2014 election: Wards 15 and 16

    Wards 15 and 16 - mayoral raceMap of the mayoral race in Wards 15 and 16, Eglinton-Lawrence

    The second set of maps I posted on Twitter was the results for Ward 16, which had an interesting council race. In this post, I present poll results maps for both Wards 15 and 16;  the two wards named. Eglinton-Lawrence. The name Eglinton-Lawrence comes from the federal/provincial riding that was split into two civic wards at Bathurst Street. This post covers both wards.

    Bathurst Street represents an important east-west divide on the electoral map. It separates several affluent North Toronto neighbourhoods to the east (such as Lawrence Park) and relatively lower-income neighbourhoods to the west. In 2010, the average household income in Ward 15 was $71,529, slightly below the city’s average; in Ward 16, it was $175,528, the second highest in the city. Ward 15 contains the large Lawrence Heights TCHC housing development and has a larger proportion of immigrants than its eastern, wealthier, neighbour.

    Tory won an astounding 74.8% of all votes cast in Ward 16. This was the highest ward-level result for Tory in the last election and the largest winning margin of any mayoral candidate. Olivia Chow came in a very distant second place with 13.0% of the vote, and Doug Ford placed third, taking only 10.6% of all votes cast. Only one poll, Poll 033, located in a TCHC building, thought differently and voted for Ford. On the other side of Bathurst, in Ward 15, Ford won a plurality of votes cast  – 43.1% of the vote – and won 29 polls. Tory won mostly in polls on the eastern edge of the ward, closest to Bathurst Street, Ford won Lawrence Heights and every poll west of Dufferin Street.

    Ward 16 mayoral results
    2014 mayoral race results in Ward 16

    Ward 15 mayoral results
    2014 mayoral race results in Ward 15

    (more…)

  • Mapping the results of the 2014 election: Ward 17

    2014 Election - WARD 17 mayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 17

    Ward 17 Davenport was the first set of ward-level election results maps I posted to Twitter. With a resurrected rivalry between a right-leaning incumbent and a left-leaning challenger, Ward 17 was one of the closest council races in 2014; indeed, it was one that several news outlets declared ‘one to watch’ (even if most political observers were focused on the mayoral race). Unfortunately, change did not come to this part of Toronto. (As it turns out, only one incumbent councillor seeking re-election, John Parker in Ward 26, lost his seat.)

    Ward 17 is relatively compact as far as Toronto’s wards go. It is bounded by the Canadian Pacific Railway to the south and Eglinton Avenue to the north, it extends east to Oakwood and St. Clair, and bounded by more railways to the west. It where the old City of Toronto meets the former City of York; it’s a transitional area where the pre-war inner city meets the inner-ring suburbs. Ward 17 has been represented by right-leaning councillor Cesar Palacio since 2000, though it has been contested by candidates in every election since.

    I’ll start off by admitting my personal bias. While the maps that I produce are completely objective (they only show which candidate placed first in each poll and by what margin), I am not afraid to acknowledge my left-leaning political views. I found myself disappointed by how Ward 17 voted. The incumbent, Cesar Palacio, was one of Mayor Rob Ford’s most loyal councillors. He voted with the mayor over 70 percent of the time in 2011, 2012, and 2013 and failed to make much of an impression over his fourteen years in office. On the other hand, hard-working Alejandra Bravo promised to be a more responsive representative for the community; she’s in tune with local issues such as transit, local infrastructure, and high unemployment. Torontoist’s endorsement of Bravo published on October 16 expresses these thoughts much more eloquently than I can.

    Interestingly, Ward 17 is one of only two polls in which the newly elected mayor, John Tory, came in third place (the other was Ward 8, which I will discuss later). Doug Ford came in first place, with 40.6% of all votes cast for mayor, while Olivia Chow came in second with 31.6%. John Tory came in third, at 24.6%. Chow and Tory were able to place first in several polls south of St. Clair Avenue and east of Dufferin Street, but polls in the northwest quadrant of the ward came out (relatively strongly) in favour of Doug Ford.

    2014 Election - WARD 17 cllrPoll results of the councillor race in Ward 17

    (more…)

  • Mapping the results of the 2014 Toronto municipal election: Part I

    2014 Election - Mayor Votes by Ward Solid Colours
    Immediately after John Tory was elected as the 65th mayor of Toronto*, maps were produced in the media, similar to the one above, that advanced a narrative of a divided city. A city divided between the downtown and suburbs, divided by class and income, and by political leanings. The wisdom was that Ford Nation retreated to the northeast and northwest corners of the city, but remains still a potent political force. But mapping which mayoral candidate (John Tory, Doug Ford, or Olivia Chow) ‘won’ which ward completely misses the bigger picture.

    I started this website after I began producing maps of the local council races and ward-level results of the 2014 municipal election and sharing them on Twitter. This was something that I was doing entirely for my own interest, but was related to work I have done with Ryerson Professor Myer Siematycki for the Maytree Foundation studying voter turnouts in the last three municipal elections.

    Once the full official results were released by the City of Toronto, along with geographic files of poll locations and boundaries (as part of the city’s wonderful Open Data Initiative), it became possible to dig deeper than just looking at ward-level maps. I was pleased — and a bit surprised — by how popular my maps were.

    (more…)

  • A visit to the Toronto Islands

    Ferry Ongiara returns to the cityToday, December 7, was bright and sunny, despite a chilly high of -2 C. On a whim, I decided to explore the Toronto Islands during the off-season. It was well worth it.

    After Thanksgiving weekend, the Toronto Island ferry schedule is reduced to a single ferry to and from Ward’s Island operating on a rather irregular schedule. Sometimes, the service is every 30 minutes, even on Sundays (it takes just under 15 minutes to get between Ward’s Island the central ferry terminal), but at other times, the single ferry runs every 45 or 60 minutes. The round trip fare is $7, or $90 for an adult monthly pass.

    The views of the downtown skyline, are the best thing about taking the ferry to the islands; the night time views are as amazing as the daytime postcard views. During the off season, there are no crowds, no waits, no hassles. The pen-like holding area of the recently re-named Jack Layton Ferry Terminal isn’t so bad when there aren’t large crowds headed to various organized picnics or concerts at Olympic Island or the Centreville amusement park, or to one of several public beaches.

    I’d like to see a new, modern ferry terminal built that doesn’t feel like a holding pen (and which would be more fitting for a terminal named in Layton’s honour). I’m hopeful that the city will finally see this happen, as well as figure out how to better manage the long summertime ticket lines.

    The Jack Layton Memorial

    The “Jack’s got your back” statue near the entrance to the ferry terminal (more…)

  • Welcome!

    So, this is my first post on my new website. Welcome!

    I guess I was born to be a geographer. I’ve been collecting and studying maps since I was three years old. I always loved cities and their transportation networks as well. I ended up becoming a geographer by training (I have both a BA and a Masters’ degree in geographic/spatial analysis); today my day job has me creating maps and analyzing data.

    I’ve also had an interest in politics for many years, though my participation has been limited to involvement with my student union and volunteering for a few municipal and federal election campaigns. I am also involved in advocating for pedestrian and transit issues here in Toronto.

    But I’m hoping to do more. Recently, I have been busy posting maps on Twitter showing poll-by-poll results of the recent municipal election here in Toronto. While many election observers were closely following the mayoral race, I was more interested in the wards. In 2018, I predict Mayor John Tory will be re-elected easily, so it’s the local races that will matter.

    I was most interested in having a permanent place to make those maps available to a wider audience; this is why I started this blog. I also intend to post photos and thoughts about all sorts of things that I find interesting as well. I go on occasional long-distance bike rides, as well as the occasional road trip, so you’ll find all sorts of articles posted here.

    I hope you enjoy!