All aboard the election train?
We take a look back at the highlights and lowlights of the campaign
IT
WAS A WEIRDLY low-key election campaign until it wasn’t.
The race for mayor started at a crawl in July with only two candidates with a real shot of reaching voters city-wide — and not many promises, events or debates. Even the biggest campaign issue came from a provincial, not local politician.
New Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford shocked Hamilton by suggesting a new council could kill its planned $1-billion, provincially funded light rail transit project — and keep the money for unspecified “transit or infrastructure” projects.
That promise has driven mayoral challenger Vito Sgro’s “Stop the Train: Fix Infrastructure” campaign, which has even included a plane flying over the city trailing a “No LRT” banner.
He was accused of focusing on LRT to the exclusion of critical city issues — earning loud criticism for skipping a rare mayoral debate organized by the Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association.
Pro-LRT incumbent Fred Eisenberger largely skipped early campaign announcements to run on his record amid a city building boom, downtown and waterfront revitalization. He disagreed with the idea that LRT defined the race.
But an explosive robocall poll by Forum Research suggested residents are evenly divided over both LRT and who should be mayor just days before the Oct. 22 vote.
If accurate, the landline-dependent poll suggests the LRT debate has neutralized the traditional “huge incumbent advantage” in the mayoral showdown, said longtime McMaster University politics professor Henry Jacek.
It also points to a polarized electorate reacting differently to the “pace of change” in an evolving city.
It’s not just the familiar post-amalgamation, suburban-urban divide, said Jacek, who argued Hamilton is increasingly importing priced-out GTA residents who have new expectations about transit, walkable neighbourhoods and housing.
“You really have a population split between people who live in two different worlds,” he said.
If there is an upside to the divisive LRT and mayoral debate, it is the potential to get voters to the polls, said Jacek, pointing to the low 34 per cent turnout in the 2014 election.
Need an election campaign refresher? Here are some highlights and lowlights ahead of the Monday vote:
The $1-billion question
It might be the most painstakingly parsed and reinterpreted political promise in Hamilton’s history.
On a provincial campaign stop in May, eventual Premier Doug Ford said if Hamilton council killed its already-approved LRT, the project cash could be spent on other transit or infrastructure. (This declaration came days after Ford told The Spectator he supported the LRT for its jobcreating potential.)
Ever since, ward and mayoral candidates have warred over what, exactly, those words meant. (Slightly reworded statements from the Ministry of Transportation and MPP Donna Skelly helped feed the machine.)
Was the cash only for transit infrastructure, or could it be for anything? What about the $105 million already spent on planning and property? Does a pot of money even exist?
The province can budget and spend what it wants, noted Jacek. But he said he understands the skepticism around the idea of a no-strings-attached $1-billion gift from a government that is simultaneously warning the public about a $15-billion deficit.
“The old argument is a bird in hand is better than two in the bush,” he said. “If you don’t spend approved money while it is there, you have to wonder how tempting (that funding) is for a government with that kind of deficit.”
The other valid question, Jacek said, is about timing. “If you don’t do LRT, presumably you’ll need applications and approvals and business cases, maybe environmental assessments, for whatever it is you want to do instead. You can’t expect that to happen quickly.”
A one issue election?
Fred Eisenberger accuses his opponent of running a “one-issue campaign” and planning his alternative to LRT “on the back of a napkin.”
The incumbent spent much of the early campaign pointing to his record, rather than selling new ideas. That record includes highlights like a $50-million affordable housing fund, repeat years of low tax hikes and exploding building permits.
But critics would also point to a no-show bus crisis, a mysteriously stinky compost plant and an awkward medical marijuana investment that initially prevented Eisenberger
from voting on a growing city controversy.
In recent days, Eisenberger made several pitches for the future — such as offering free or low-cost Wi-Fi in public places, attracting a major film studio and focusing anew on gender and diversity in city planning.
Vito Sgro disagrees with the oneissue campaign criticism, but freely admits killing the LRT and recouping project cash is his “top priority.”
The challenger lists some interesting ideas on his platform, like changing ward boundaries to reflect federal ridings, lobbying for a mid-peninsula highway and appointing a city auditor-general “responsible to the province.”
But all of those ideas would require provincial or federal funding or approval, if they are possible.
On affordable housing, his main commitment is to form a “multijurisdictional” group to study and report best next steps, something the city has already done.
Experience
Critics have pointed out Sgro has never held elected office. If he wins, he would become the first rookie politician in the mayor’s chair in the modern history of Hamilton.
He does have plenty of political experience as a Liberal campaign organizer, though, as well as past high-profile board appointments.
Sgro parried the question about elected experience with a pointed poke at Eisenberger’s response to a dragged-out cancelled bus crisis. “If that’s the experience you’re talking about, I don’t want it.”
Eisenberger is a veteran politician, starting off as a city alderman in the 1990s. He won his first gig as mayor in 2006, lost out in 2010 and made a comeback in 2014. That experience comes with wins and baggage.
Whatever your views on LRT, scoring a $1-billion provincial funding promise is a singular achievement.
Another big project controversy — where to build a new football stadium — still hangs over Eisenberger and likely contributed to his 2010 defeat.
Strange political bedfellows
Sgro is a longtime Liberal organizer, but has aligned himself with the new Progressive Conservative government in notable ways.
For example, he shares a fierce opposition to LRT with new Tory MPP Donna Skelly, who joined him on a “Stop the Train” campaign telephone town hall.
Sgro also publicly “welcomed” in a news release Premier Doug Ford’s controversial last-minute decision to change Toronto’s ward boundaries to reflect federal boundaries in the midst of the election. (It was the idea of adopting federal riding boundaries he liked, not the last-minute decision, in case you wondered.)
Eisenberger, meanwhile, once ran for the Conservative Party in the early 2000s and got on well with former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne.
But some of his highest-profile endorsements this election — at least from current politicians — come from the NDP.
Say what about Waterdown?
Burlington incumbent mayoral candidate Rick Goldring inadvertently woke up the sleepy Hamilton mayoral race in September by asking the province to, er, gift Waterdown to his Greenbelted city.
The unlikely request, nonetheless, spurred a candidate sprint to the growing urban enclave in Flamborough and rapid-fire promises of more police and more infrastructure spending. The episode highlighted the community’s lingering postamalgamation dissatisfaction.
Ward wackiness
Things got a bit weird on the newly rearranged Mountain, which features a new Ward 14 and two other wards without incumbents.
Ward 8 candidate and former MP Eve Adams made headlines in 2015 for crossing the floor to the federal Liberals after a nomination battle controversy with the Tories. Now she has earned the ire of the NDP.
The provincial party issued a surreal news release distancing itself from Adams, who advertised an orange-coloured endorsement from “Andrea Horwath” that some outraged voters argued could be confused with NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
Ward 8 competitor John-Paul Danko jumped on what he called “misleading” advertising and took the opportunity to remind voters Adams lives outside the ward.
Adams, who has family on the Mountain, said Horvath with a “v” is a relative and “spectacular hockey mom.”
Ward 14 candidate Terry Whitehead, the outgoing Ward 8 councillor, also sent an email mid-campaign warning his former ward residents their email information had been allegedly stolen from his office.
He pointed the finger at his longtime ward executive assistant Colleen Wicken, who is running in Ward 8. She angrily denied the allegation.
Whitehead spurred a bit of criticism about himself, too, by posting a photo of a traffic jam on Queen Street South from inside the vehicle while it was on the road.
Critics — including Ward 14 competitor Bryan Wilson — publicly accused the police board member of breaking distracted driving rules, an allegation the veteran councillor denied, arguing he was safely parked.
Was the cash only for transit-related infrastructure, or could it be for anything? What about the $105 million already spent on planning and property? Does a pot of money even exist, considering the LRT project was slated to be financed?