Live 2022 Hamilton municipal election results for mayor, council, and school board trustees

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Published October 25, 2022 at 12:55 am

Anthony Urciuoli/insauga.com photo
Anthony Urciuoli/insauga.com photo

Mayor-elect Andrea Horwath could be joined by as many as eight rookie city councillors, after the rumbling of a change election in Hamilton proved prescient.

The next mayor of the city, who may receive “strong mayor” powers if Premier Doug Ford uses the power of a legislative majority to go that route, will work with a city council that could have 60 per cent turnover. Six of the 15 council races were already open due to retirements,. Three multiple-terms incumbents — Jason Farr in Ward 2, Maria Pearson in Ward 10 and Arlene VanderBeek in Ward 13 — appear to have lost decisively with more than 95 per cent of polls reporting.

At 12:45 a.m. Tuesday, the City of Hamilton declared “uncertified candidates” — or winners — in all 15 city-council and 22 trustee races.

With Pearson going down, all three councillors who voted in November 2021 to expand Hamilton’s urban boundary are off of council. The other two who were on the short end of 13-3 vote retired.

Challengers Cameron Kroetsch, Jeff Beattie and Alex Wilson, respectively, have been declared the winners in those wards.

Wards 4, 5, 11, 12, 14 and 15 were also open races. But the presumptive new councillor for Ward 15, Ted McMeekin, repped Ward 7 early in a long political career that has also included being a rural mayor and an Ontario Liberal cabinet minister.

The progressive wing of council, Maureen Wilson (Ward 1), Nrinder Nann (3) and John-Paul Danko (8), seem likely to be re-elected with relative ease. In Ward 12 (Ancastar), Craig Cassar profiles as more of a climate-minded centrist than the retiring fiscal conservative Lloyd Ferguson, who was the only councillor to vote against Hamilton’s Climate Adaptation Strategy.

The heavy turnover of so-called “Old Guard” councillors came after of four years of tumult in the city. It included local governmental scandals, collective anxiety about a housing crisis and the local response to the climate emergency and, hardly least of all, the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. Incumbents may have also faced fallout from #SewerGate, the Red Hill Valley Parkway buried safety report and concerns about Hamilton Police’s frayed relationship with equity-seeking communities.

The city’s largest school board was also roiled by a racism scandal while contending with COVID-19 and reduced education funding (in terms of inflation-adjusted real dollars) by the Ford-led PC Party of Ontario government.

The pandemic widened many socioeconomic inequities nationwide and in Hamilton, which is on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. Over the last four years, the elected leadership has moved somewhat in progressive directions by adopting a climate adaptation strategy, trying to freeze the urban boundary and making roadway safety improvements after back-to-back years of new highs in traffic fatalities.

Continued work on all of those issues is probably much more than a four-year job.

BREAKING: Andrea Horwath elected; makes history as first female Hamilton mayor
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Live Election Results for Hamilton:


Mayor

For the first time since 2003, Hamilton has a mayoralty contest without an incumbent seeking re-election. As noted, Horwath appears to have weathered the Loomis challenge to become the first woman to lead Hamilton in its 181-year history.

Former mayor Bob Bratina is on his way to finishing a distant third. Bratina was mayor from 2010 to ’14, and a Liberal member of Parliament from 2015-21. Horwath has held elected office for 25 years municipally and provincially, including 13 years as the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party before stepping down in June.

Other entrants in the race include Jim Davis, Paul Fromm, Solomon Ikhuiwu, Hermiz Ishaya and Michael Pattison.

Council

Please check back for updates on council and school trustee races.

Ward 1 (Chedoke-Cootes)
Winner: Maureen Wilson (2nd term)

Wilson, one of the proponents of progressivism on council, sailed to re-election to a second term. Hamilton media portals declared her the winner within 15 minutes of early results showing a potential landslide. Wilson had 74.96 per cent support, the highest of any incumbent councillor.

Wilson’s opponents were Ian MacPherson and John Vail.

Ward 2 (Downtown)
Winner: Cameron Kroetsch

The rematch in the downtown, so far, is going to the second-time challenger. Kroetsch had a roughly 16-point margin over 12-year incumbent Jason Farr.

Signs for Farr, Kroetsch and third-place finisher Raquel Rakovac were omnipresent in Ward 2. The precinct reflects Hamilton’s changes and challenges, with numerous new housing developments going up amid hard-not-to-see social issues, such as including housing deprivation, heat islands and poverty.

The choice by council in August 2021 to resume encampment evictions may have been been a flashpoint. The city had the legal right to remove people, and while waitlists for affordable housing with CityHousing Hamilton are long, there were hundreds of families who did find a secure place to live in the last four years. But optics count for a lot at the ballot box.

Rakovac is polling in the 10-per-cent range. The race also includes Shahan Aaron and Robin McKee.

Ward 3 (Hamilton Centre)
Winner: Nrinder Nann (2nd term)

The race was tight, but Nann was still above 50%. She had a 16-point gap on Walter Furlan, who ran an energetic campaign with some NIMBY elements.

The field in Ward 3 also includes Michael Falletta, Laura Farr and Stan Kruchka. Farr has run a solid third, breaking into the double digits.

Ward 4 (East Hamilton)
Winner: Tammy Hwang

The co-largest open race had three emerging contenders, with no one above 25 per cent. Tammy Hwang (23.00) got in by by a roughly three-point margin against Eric Tuck (19.88), with Alex Johnstone (17.35) just over 5½ percentage points adrift.

Hwang, who is of Taiwanese descent, will join Nann as the second racialized woman on Hamilton city council.

The 11-candidate race included Max Francis, Angelica Hasbon, Cindy Kennedy, Pascale Marchand, Adam Oldfield, Robert Paris, Laura Taylor and Mary Williams.

The ward drew a large field after 22-year councillor Sam Merulla opted to retire.

Ward 5 (East of the Redhill)
Winner: Matt Francis

Francis, who once played quarterback for the Hamilton Hurricanes junior football team, knows about being at the head of a large group. In an 11-candidate race, the 32-year-old first-time candidate drew nearly 44% support, which is more than the next three candidates combined.

Lynda Lukasik, a local climate defender, ran a distant second.

The race also included Sebastian Aldea, Krysta Boyer, Kevin Geenen, Stan Habza, Bob Hurst, Ryan Ladner, Gordon Noble, Andrea Pugliese and George Rusich.

Twenty-six-year councillor Chad Collins, whose tenure predated amalgamation between Stoney Creek and Hamilton, vacated the seat last fall after he was elected to federal Parliament. Russ Powers was appointed councillor with an implicit understanding he would not seek election.

Ward 6 (East Mountain)
Winner: Tom Jackson (11th term)

Death, taxes, and Tom Jackson repping the East Mountain. Jackson outpolled his nearest opponent by about a margin of four.

Dan Preston, Donna Puddu, Stefan Spolnik and Chris Slye stepped up to give Ward 6 voters an alternative. All of them registered within five days of the Aug. 19 deadline.

Ward 7 (Central Mountain)
Winner: Esther Pauls (2nd term)

The co-smallest race was the tightest. Esther Pauls hung on for less than a two-point win against Scott Duvall, or a 217-vote difference out of nearly 11,900 cast.

Pauls just completed her first term. Duvall, who was thrice elected to council  in Ward 7(’06-10-14) before he was elected to Parliament as a New Democrat.

Pauls was a volunteer for Patrick Brown’s Conservative Party of Canada leadership campaign earlier this year. (Brown was disqualified from the leadership contest, but has been declared re-elected as mayor of Brampton.)

Ward 8 (West/Central Mountain)
Winner: John-Paul Danko (2nd term)

Danko got majority support for a second term with better than 62% support and a nearly 40-point margin against second-placed Sonia Brown.

The field also consists of Joshua Czerniga, Anthony Frisina,, Daniel Veltri.

Danko, who self-applies the term “Red Tory,” has emerged as a throwback fiscal conservative with progressive sensibilities over the last term. He was one of the champions of the Climate Adaptation Strategy that the city adopted in the summer.

Ward 9 (Upper Stoney Creek)
Winner: Brad Clark (4th term overall)

Brad Clark is tough to beat in Upper Stoney Creek, and he had a comfortable 16½-point lead over Peter Lanza, who has challenged him in the last two elections. Muhummad Naeem was the other candidate in the ward.

Clark will be serving his fourth term in the last five council cycles. He made a bid for mayor in 2014, then got his council seat back four years ago.

Clark was a PC Party cabinet minister in the early aughts under two premiers, Mike Harris and Ernie Eves. However, over the last council term he and Danko often aligned with the progressive advocacy of Nann and Wilson, the lower-city representatives.

Ward 10 (Lower Stoney Creek)
Winner: Jeff Beattie

Jeff Beattie unseated 19-year, five-terms councillor Maria Pearson in a very competitive three-way race. Beattle and Louie Milojevic were both steadily outpolling Pearson. Beattie, at 39.69 per cent support, was about 7½ points ahead of Milojevic.

All three were also opponents in 2018.

Beattie, 47, who co-owns and operates the Winona Gardens greenhouse and garden centre, is a former Hamilton public school trustee (2014-18). Both he and Milojevic have raised concerns about intensification and overdevelopment in Ward 10 area, which includes the lakeside area that includes the fecund fruit-growing regions of the Niagara Escarpment.

The last time around, in 2018, Pearson had a 9-point margin over runner-up Milojevic and a nearly 12-point spread over Beattie.

Ward 11 (Glanbrook)
Winner: Mark Tadeson

Mark Tadeson won by the slimmest of margins againsts Nick Lauwers. At last report, Tadeson (37.99%) support had edged Lauwers (36.88) by only 83 votes.

at last report, are fewer than 100 votes apart, with both polling in the 37-38 per cent range. Tadeson’s percentage margin is just more than 1 per cent.

Terri Moffett and Nick Pellegrino are the other candidates in a rapidly urbanizing section of Hamilton that includes Hannon and Mount Hope.

Three-terms councillor Brenda Johnson announced her intentions to retire earlier this year.

Ward 12 (Ancaster)
Winner: Craig Cassar

Craig Cassar, who has vowed to cycle to city hall from Ancaster, is breaking away from the 10-candidate pack. Cassar is polling near 39 per cent, good for an 18-point margin over second-place Chuck Alkerton. Alkerton is garnering 20 per cent support, which is respectable in a fragmented field.

The other eight entrants are Robert Baboth, Richard Deverson, Karl Hanley, William Robert Hume, Cindy Kaye, Megg Markettos, Bob Maton and Pamela Mitchell.

Ferguson, who held elected office in the Ancaster area for nearly 30 years, announced his retirement in July.

Ward 13 (Dundas)
Winner: Alex Wilson

Alex Wilson, the 25-year-old upstart who jumped in the ring in Auguat when it appeared Arlene VanderBeek might be acclaimed, upset the two-term councillor.

Wilson had a better than 15½-point lead against VanderBeek (57.94 to 42.06) in the head-to-head race. There was great speculation that the low-key VanderBeek was vulnerable in Dundas.

Wilson has been a legislative assistant to Ontario NDP MPP Sandy Shaw, who represents Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas.

Ward 14 (West Mountain)
Winner: Mike Spadafora

Mike Spadafora edged Kojo Damptey by 79 votes in seven-candidate race, with a winning margin of under 1 per cent. Sparadora (28.48) and Damptey (27.62) could

There was plenty of competition with Brian Lewis, Christopher Poole, Don Ross, Christine Seketa and Colleen Wicken also standing for the seat.

Spadafora is well-known in sports circles, as president of the Hamilton Kilty B’s junior hockey team and general manager of the Hamilton Huskies youth hockey program. Spadafora’s work background has involved working in business development for PPG-Dulux, the paint manufacturer, and owning a contracting company. He was the PC Party of Ontario candidate in Hamilton Mountain in the June 2 election, where the NDP’s Monique Taylor was re-elected.

Damptey, a climate and social justice activist, has been the most visible presence in the open race on the West Mountain. He is the former executive director of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, an award-winning musician, and a sessional instructor at McMaster University, where he helped design Black, African and African Diaspora Studies,program.

The ward’s last representative was 19-year councillor Terry Whitehead, who bowed out in August due to health issues. Whitehead, during the last term, had his pay docked twice for bullying and harassing city staff and another councillor.

Ward 15 (Flamborough East)
Winner: Ted McMeekin

McMeekin will represent Flamborough again. The last mayor of the city before it was amalgamated into Hamilton in 2000 and former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister earned a 9-point winning margin (640 votes) over second-placed Zobia Jawed.

Robert Kunysz, Ted McMeekin, Chris Pera and Sumaira Wagar are running to give the rural ward a new councillor.

Former councillor Judi Partridge announced last winter that she was moving on from elected politics.

School board trustees

Hamilton residents are also choosing trustees for four local school boards. Those include the Hamilton-Wentworth school boards (English public, English public Catholic), Conseil scolaire Viamonde (French public) and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir (French public Catholic). Some wards share a trustee on the two English boards. That distribution is decided by the board, based on population size and community needs.

HWDSB (English public)

Ward 1
Winner: Elizabeth Wong

Elizabeth Wong drew a more than two-thirds plurality (69.4%) in a four-person race. Wong was running against Michael Kelly, Cameron Prosic, Wendy Thrasher.

Ward 2
Winner: Sabreina Dahab

Dahab, who shared a King St. E. campaign office with Cameron Kroetsch, earned more than half the support to represent the downtown on the city’s largest school board. Dahab, with an even 57% support, outpaced Tarek Jalbout, Michael Peters and Andrew Smyth.

Ward 3
Winner: Maria Felix Miller

Incumbent Maria Felix Miller polled above 60%, heading off challenges from Larry Pattison and Fatima Baig.

Ward 4
Winner: Ray Mulholland

Ray Mulholland, the longest-serving trustee on the public school board, had a consistent double-digit lead against Shane Cunningham Boles throughout Monday evening. Davin Thornborrow is the third entrant in this race.

Wards 5 & 10
Winner: Todd White

Todd White, a past chair of HWDSB, had a four-point winning margin against Marie Jackson (34.3 to 30.3).

Zahid Butt, Nancy Silva Khan and Joseph Szigeti were the other contenders.

Wards 6 & 9
Winner: Kathy Archer

Kathy Archer had a nearly 14-point winning margin against second-time challenger Jay Edington in a head-to-head rematch from 2018.

Archer faced challenges over the past term with the threatened closure of Sherwood Secondary School, which she opposed, and her role in an extensively documented racism scandal. But she appears to have held on with a bigger margin than she had four years ago.

Last time, Archer beat Edington by 551 votes, with her 3,046 tally capturing 48.4 per cent of ballots cast. The third-place finisher garnered 749 votes.

Ward 7
Winner: Dawn Danko

Dawn Danko, the most recent chair of HWDSB, polled above 56 per cent. Her nearest challenger, Amy Cowling, polled around 30%. The third candidate, Ryan Weinberger, also polled in the double-digits.

Danko and Ward 8 councillor-elect John-Paul Danko are wife and husband.

Wards 8 & 14
Winner: Becky Buck

This was one of the more watched trustee races, due to conflict between incumbent Becky Buck and challenger Ahona Mehdi, a former student trustee. Buck won by 11 points over Mehdi (42-31) in a race where three candidates had significant support. Third-place Ben O’Reilly was at close to 23%. Behrouz Bakhtiari was also in the field.

Buck was one of the four trustees, all white-presenting women, whose racist conduct was confirmed in a third-party investigation after Mehdi spoke out about incidents that occurred during her term in 2019-20. Three of the four trustees participated in a vote to redact names from the public copy of the report.

Buck attended sensitivity training after the saga. Her campaign materials identified learning recovery as her top priority, and she has noted the HWDSB “student population is diverse, and, thinking especially of newcomers to Hamilton, they face unique challenges.”

Wards 11 & 12
Winner: Amanda Fehrman

Amanda Fehrman, who is a longtime volunteer in the school system as well as a youth hockey coach, earned 58.27% support in a two-person race against Tom Patterson.

Ward 13
Winner: Paul Tut

Incumbent Paul Tut is outpolling challenger by Larry Masters, a self-described “anti-woke” candidate, by a 2-1 margin in a race with no other entrants. Tut had 67.54 support in a two-person race.

In the lead-up to the election, an elementary school teachers’ union local circulated a questionnaire to trustee candidates. Masters’ response, as recorded in the questionnaire, was, “Looks like a Lefty trap.”

Ward 15
Winner: Graeme Noble

Graeme Noble, who switched the ward he was running in when “Stop Woke” candidate Catherine Kronas was unopposed, may be schooling Kronas at the polls. Noble has a 12-point lead against Kronas (53-41).

Syed Banoori, the third entrant, is not a factor in the race.

While many far-right candidates have joined trustee races, trustees have zero input into school curriculum. That area is governed by the Ontario Ministry of Education.

HWCDSB (English Catholic)

Wards 1, 2 and 15
Winner: Mark Valvasori

Mark Valvasori has been acclaimed to his seat on the Catholic board.

Wards 3 and 4
Winner: Josie Angelini

Josie Angelini (52.47% support) will be the east end’s Catholic board trustee after a five-point win over Ralph Agostino.

Ward 5
Winner: Aldo D’Intino

Aldo D’Intino (71.04%) was a shoo-in against his lone opponent, Lucas Mascotto-Carbone.

Ward 6
Winner: Ellen Agostino

Ellen Agostino (54.74%) was in the clear with a nearly 22-point spread over runner-up Peter Mamer. Anthony Mari was also vying to represent the East Mountain.

Ward 7
Winner: Pat Daly

Pat Daly, who is the HWCSDB chair, is getting better than 50 per cent in a three-way race. Nick Agostino and Michael Di Giacomo stood as challengers.

Wards 8 and 14
Winner: John Valvasori

John Valvasori (64.32) nearly doubled his closest competition, Francesco Capisciolto. Wieslawa Chrapka also challenged in the race.

Wards 9 and 11
Winner: Louis Agro

Louis Agro (42.9%) appears to have emerged from a three-way race against Jeanie Corner and Tyler Iorio. All three candidates got at least 27 per cent.

Ward 10
Winner: Mary Nardini

Mary Nardini (54.93%) has been elected over Andrea Di Nicola.

Wards 12 and 13
Winner: Phil Homerski

Phil Homerski was elected with 57.9 support, holding off Ricky Tavares in the race for Catholic board trustee in Ancaster and Dundas.

Conseil scolaire Viamonde (French public)
Winner: Pierre Gregory

Pierre Gregory was acclaimed in August as the representative of public school students and parents who choose French-language education.

Conseil scolaire Catholique MonAvenir (French public Catholic)
Winner: Marcel Levesque

Marcel Levesque, with 70.46% support, was safely elected over opponent Joseph Gosselin on the French separate schools board.

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