Sean Marshall

Tag: Ward 24

  • The Scarborough Six: mapping the results of the 2018 election

    In 2014, Scarborough elected ten city councillors. Since that election, one councillor, Ron Moeser, died in office, while two others, Raymond Cho and Chin Lee, resigned to run for provincial office. Cho, representing the Ontario PCs, was successful, while Lee, running for the Liberals, was not. Neethan Shan was elected in Ward 42 in a by-election to fill Cho’s seat. Jim Hart was appointed in Ward 44 by council after Moeser’s death, and Miganoush Megardichian was appointed in Ward 41.

    With the new 47 ward model approved by city council for the 2018 election, Scarborough was allocated the same number of wards, though boundaries shifted to reflect changes in population. Two of the new wards – 44 and 47 – had no incumbent running, opening those wards up to new voices.

    With Premier Doug Ford’s move to cut city council to just 25 wards, Scarborough went down to just six wards. In Wards 20 and 22, incumbents faced off against each other. Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, famous for his support of the Scarborough subway extension, decided that the odds were against him and withdrew his candidacy. De Baeremaeker’s old ward was cut in half and redistributed evenly to new Wards 21 and 24. Had he decided to run again, it would have meant running against fellow council veterans Michael Thompson or Paul Ainslie, both of whom had a geographic advantage in not losing any of their former territories.

    I previously mapped the results in Ward 22, where Jim Karygiannis defeated Norm Kelly, Ward 23, where conservative businesswoman Cynthia Lai won, and Ward 25, where Jennifer McKelvie defeated incumbent Neethan Shan.

    Of the remaining three races in Scarborough, only Ward 20 was interesting. There, incumbents Michelle Holland-Berardinetti and Gary Crawford ran against eight challengers. In Wards 21 and 24, Councillors Thompson and Ainslie won with over 65 percent of the vote and nearly every poll. I did not map the results of those two races.

    Ward 20

    Ward 20 saw two right-leaning councillors, Gary Crawford and Michelle Holland-Berardinetti face off against each other. Both were reliable Tory allies; Crawford served as budget chief under both Rob Ford and John Tory, while Holland-Berardinetti was council’s innovation advocate.

    Crawford was first elected in Ward 36 in 2010 after serving as public school trustee. He previously ran for the provincial Progressive Conservatives in 2007. Ward 36, whose southern boundary was Lake Ontario, was Scarborough’s most affluent ward and included the Scarborough Bluffs. Holland-Berardinetti, the spouse of former Liberal MPP Lorenzo Berardinetti, was also first elected in 2010, representing Ward 35. Both councillors were re-elected by wide margins in 2014.

    Bill 5 resulted in Wards 35 and 36 merging, with only a small part of old Ward 36 shifting to new Ward 24. The number of voters in each of the two former wards was almost equal, but Crawford won a very a tight race; only 411 votes separated the two incumbents.

    Though Mohsin Bhuiyan originally registered to run against Crawford in the 47-ward model, he placed first in five polls in former Ward 35, in the Dentonia Park and Scarborough Junction neighbourhoods. He placed third overall, with 10 percent of the vote, but he drew more votes from Holland-Berardinetti than from Crawford. Suman Roy, a food advocate endorsed by the Toronto Star and NOW Magazine, was only able to get 5.4 percent of the vote, coming in fifth.

    2018 Election - W20.jpg

    Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest
    Candidate Votes Percent
    Gerard Arbour 1,187 4.0
    Mohsin Bhuiyan 2,910 10.0
    Paulina Corpuz 1,813 6.2
    Gary Crawford 10,505 35.7
    Michelle Holland-Berardinetti 10,094 34.3
    John Letonja 160 0.5
    Robert McDermott 367 1.3
    Suman Roy 1,582 5.4
    Curtis Smith 541 1.8
    Bruce Waters 246 0.8

    Ward 21

    Michael Thompson was first elected to Toronto City Council in 2003. In the 2014 election, he won with over 80 percent of the vote. In the larger new ward, the share of the vote fell to 69 percent. While he’s a thoughtful conservative and a good constituency councillor, Thompson also supported Doug Ford’s unilateral cut to city council.

    Ward 21 Scarborough Centre
    Candidate Votes Percent
    Paul Beatty 1,638 6.8
    Vivek Bhatt 993 4.1
    Fawzi Bidawi 1,035 4.3
    Zia Choudhary 1,014 4.2
    Randy Bucao 949 4.0
    Ismail Khan 311 1.3
    Arfan Naveed 349 1.5
    Raphael Rosch 545 2.3
    Nur Saifullah 132 0.6
    Michael Thompson 16,542 69.1
    Zamir ul hassan Nadeem 448 1.9

    Ward 24

    Paul Ainslie was first elected to Toronto City Council in 2006, after being appointed to council in a neighbouring ward in 2005. A principled centrist, Ainslie served on Tory’s executive committee and was re-appointed in 2018. Ainslie won in 2018 with two-thirds of the vote in Ward 24, placing first in all but three polls.

    Ward 24 Scarborough-Guildwood
    Candidate Votes Percent
    Paul Ainslie 15,131 66.8
    Itohan Evbagharu 132 0.6
    Reddy Muttukuru 1,323 5.8
    Priyanth Nallaratnam 1,896 8.4
    Keiosha Ross 405 1.8
    Sajid Saleh 841 3.7
    Michelle Spencer 1,933 8.5
    Emery Warner 393 1.7
    Morlan Washington 592 2.6

  • Mapping the 2014 Toronto election: Wards 23 and 24

    2014 Election - WARD 23 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 23

    2014 Election - WARD 24 MayorPoll results of the mayoral race in Ward 24

    There’s not a lot to say about the mayoral race in Wards 23 and 24, Willowdale. Ward 23 is Toronto’s most populated ward, with over 88,000 residents; the ward’s population grew by 11.2% in the last 5 years. The condo boom along Yonge Street between Highway 401 and north of Finch Avenue explains most of this growth. Ward 24’s population is more stable, ranging from affluent neighbourhoods near Bayview Village to low-income apartment neighbourhoods in the ward’s eastern side.

    John Tory came in first place in both wards, netting 49.0% of the vote in Ward 23, and 47.6% in Ward 24. Doug Ford came in second place in both wards, Olivia Chow coming in  third, with approximately 20% of the vote in both wards. Ford’s best result was in Poll 050 in Ward 23, a TCHC building. In Ward 24, Ford did the best in the Finch Avenue/Don Mills Road area.

    The council races were at least more interesting, if not disappointing.

    Council races

    2014 Election - WARD 23 CllrPoll results of the council race in Ward 23

    In Ward 23, David Mousavi ran against long-time incumbent John Filion, a centre-left councillor who served on North York City Council before amalgamation. Mousavi ran on Filion’s right, with a platform of low tax increases, road improvements, and the extension of the Sheppard Subway to Downsview, as well as a “fresh start” for the ward.

    John Filion, who was the Chair of the Toronto Board of Health (and champion of the disastrous “A La Cart” food vending program), was the first councillor to back John Tory’s campaign, surprising some election observers who expected that Filion might have backed Olivia Chow.

    Filion and Mousavi found themselves in a nasty race, with both campaigns accusing each other of dirty politics. In the end, though, the incumbent won; Filion took 55.5% of the vote to Mousavi’s 31.2%. David Mousavi won 8 of 64 polls, all along the Yonge Street corridor.

    2014 Election - WARD 24 CllrPoll results of the council race in Ward 24

    Ward 24 was, in my opinion, terribly disappointing, one of the biggest in the 2014 election.

    First-time candidate Dan Fox registered in February, putting together a strong team in a bid to oust David Shiner. Fox, a community activist and federal civil servant, ran to the left of Shiner, a failed Ontario PC candidate. (I got to meet Dan Fox during the campaign, I was supportive of his run, and I hope to see him run again in 2018.)

    Like Filion, Shiner first served on North York City Council; he was first elected in 1991. During Rob Ford’s term as mayor, Shiner voted with the mayor over 80% of the time, and found himself in hot water for two mini-scandals. In 2013, the Toronto Star reported that Shiner was moonlighting as a federal lobbyist for five years, on behalf of a company that dealt with the city. Also in 2013, the CBC revealed that Shiner (along with Giorgio Mammoliti, Toronto’s worst city councillor) was paying exceptionally cheap rents for an apartment in a building owned by the Greenwin-Verdiroc Group, a major city contractor.

    As his custom, Shiner didn’t even bother to campaign until very late; he officially registered as a candidate on September 5.

    Ward 24 was ripe for a change. Fox won the endorsement of the Toronto Star, NOW magazine and others. But like Ward 7, the people of ward 24 stuck with the incumbent, no matter how awful their councillor might be. Fox only won 2 polls, Shiner coasted to victory with 55.2% of the vote to Fox’s 29.1%.