Toronto Mayor John Tory has won a third term, facing no serious challengers, in Monday’s municipal election.
But in Ottawa, a nailbiter election was unfolding, with media personality Mark Sutcliffe being declared the winner Monday evening by a small margin.
The Ottawa race was at times so tight that Catherine McKenney, a city councillor who was the progressive mayoral candidate and who goes by they / them pronouns, was leading in some polls prior to election day. Sutcliffe also beat out former mayor and Ontario Liberal cabinet minister Bob Chiarelli.
Meanwhile, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown was also re-elected, beating out challenger Nikki Kaur. Brown ran a campaign fresh off of being disqualified to run as federal Conservative leader.
Toronto had one of the most packed mayoral races with a total of 31 candidates on the ballot trying to unseat Tory. Polls showed Tory with a strong lead going into the race.
Some polling stations in the city had to extend their hours due to “technical administrative challenges that impacted standard voting hours.”
A total of 26 different locations were impacted by the delays. Voters were also notified by the city that incumbent councillor Cynthia Lai’s votes would not be counted citing the fact that she passed away last week.
In Hamilton, former Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath ran to be the mayor of her home city after she resigned from her position as the leader of the official opposition following her defeat to Premier Doug Ford in June.
Over 6,000 candidates ran in this year’s local elections. 2022 was also the first year several municipalities engaged in online and over the phone voting.
As exclusively reported by True North, some voters in the region of Clarington faced hurdles accessing voting assistance after officials directed them to a closed library as an “Election Assistance Centre.”
Many Ontario residents also found themselves paying attention to school trustee elections for the first time after dozens of candidates ran across the province on an explicitly “anti-woke” platform.
The Ottawa Carleton District School Board and the Waterloo Region District School Board elections were of particular concern to parents.
This is a developing story that will be updated as more election results come in.
