2026年安大略省市政选举盘点与秋季经济报告解读

I'm Steve Pacen

elections for 2026 have come and gone.

We'll sort through the highs and lows of

an historic evening.

altogether, yes, Toronto, Ottawa,

Bmpton, we're looking at you. Others

kicked out incumbents with extreme

prejudice.

Ministry of Finance has released its

fall economic statement. We'll tell you

what it says about the state of the

province's books. In your column, my

column, I'll focus on that wave of

incumbents who lost mayor's races around

the province.

shocking upset I've ever seen in more

than four decades of covering those

mayoral races.

let's get to it.

started today.

is a t-shirt featuring the controller

for the original Nintendo Entertainment

System,

since 1985. And, uh, you know, there was

a we mentioned a wave of new faces in

municipal politics. And at least some of

those people are now my age. Uh, and so

I I I like this trend of uh, politicians

who are elder millennials like me uh,

winning important offices. And so, uh, a

shout out to people like Alvin Ted,

who's just a few years younger than I

am. Uh, people who remember the

original, uh, Nintendo Entertainment

System, whose initials, of course, are

NES. Uh, and a different NES won his

seat in my council award of Beaches East

York. Nater Smith.

winning important jobs. Yes. I I I kind

of like it when just elders win

important jobs because that sort of

speaks more to my generation.

Steve.

forget the population of Missaga now,

something like 750,000. Does it feel

weird that there's a a mayor of a big

important city in Ontario who's younger

than you?

ago that time moves on and there's

there's younger people coming up behind

me every day. Ah, okay. Now I am going

to get you to guess what? I heart Hazel.

You see it all there, everybody? Okay.

My shirt says I heart Hazel. Yes.

to?

one Hazel in reference to Ontario

politics and that would be the late

mayor of Missaga, Hazel Mall.

she died almost four years ago was

actually still a bit of a significant

player in this municipal election in

Missaga, which we're going to talk about

more later as we go along.

It has been a really fascinating last I

mean week and a half, two weeks for

politics. It's been crazy. The British

Columbia election call.

for

errors in tennis. You know, it's for

unforced errors.

know, Premier Eevee in British Columbia

early election call got crushed.

into a four-year mandate. using Trump

and I have to protect you against Trump

tariffs as his reason for calling the

election got a third consecutive

majority government and then of course

David Peterson back in 1990 went three

years into a four-year mandate. He

called the early election and he lost as

well.

good, you know.

did have the advantage of uh calling the

election Yes. early, but uh not quite as

early as EIE. And uh it really was right

at the same time as, you know, the the

liberation day tariffs and Trump

starting to talk about the 51st state

and all of that nonsense. And so there

was a proximity in events that I think

helped Ford uh more than it helped EIE

who was really un and we have to mention

the context of the uh chaos inside the

uh BC Conservative Party.

look um I guess I'm allowed to say

crassly opportunistic.

It's funny though when when victory

looks like it's just about 25 meters

down the road, how all of those

desperate conservative forces managed to

somehow come together and sing Kumbaya

under Lauren Dirkson and uh there you

go, majority government for blue. First

time in a 100 years.

the US military uh that I heard a lot in

a prior decade uh the enemy gets a vote

that the enemy got a vote and in this

case the conservatives came together and

they voted.

give a shout out to somebody cuz last

week I was at a Canadian Opera Company

gala at the Four Season Center.

Incredible event, wonderful singing, as

you can imagine, throughout the evening.

And a young server came over to my table

to serve me dinner. Her name was

Michelle Ezel.

It's spelled E.

young woman, lovely young woman, walked

up to me and she placed her my dinner on

the table in front of me and she said,

"Oh, I hope you won't think this is

unprofessional if I say this, but I

wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed

the OnP podcast." She's a regular

listener. I did not suspect that going

to a COC gala at some point in the

evening, Ontario Politics or this show

would come up, but it did. Michelle, as

the premier says, you're a champion and

uh thank you very much uh for your kind

comments and uh we do hope you will

continue to watch or listen. So, did I

expect to be talking Ontario politics at

the opera? Uh Aayita, yes. Rialletto,

yes. Tristan Solda, yes. On Polly, not

exactly, but there you go.

to issue one.

with local elections across Ontario now

done. This is our final edition of

Municipal Election Watch. So, let's

start in the Capitol City where Toronto

Mayor Olivia Chow of course remains on

the job with the decisive victory over

challenger Bradford. JMM, a little

background as we go, please.

for a second, take folks back to the

special election in 2023 that followed

John Tor's resignation. In that race,

Olivia Chow won a relatively narrow

victory over Annabauo, 37% to 32%. Uh,

so her starting point in this election

was that she could substantially improve

her performance over uh the election win

from 3 years ago and still could have

lost in a close twoerson race. And for a

few moments last week, you and I talked

about this on the podcast last week, the

polls did seem to tighten a little bit.

At least one had shown it, you know,

within the margin of error. um when the

votes were counted in fact uh it was not

particularly close. Uh Chia won 54% of

the vote to Bradford's 41 and that

happened in an election that also

happened to have higher turnout than any

election we'd seen since 2014. Um I do

think uh Bradford's performance is worth

mentioning here not to uh diminish

Chiao's victory here uh but to say you

know Bradford mounted what was even in

defeat. It was you know substantially

the strongest challenge that uh an

incumbent mayor in this city has seen

since amalgamation. And how to put this

any incumbent can run up the score

against a weak opponent. Uh Chiao faced

a strong challenger and still posted a

win that was larger than any of the

polls had projected. We we got that last

big dump of polls on Sunday night from

all of the major pollsters. Uh the the

most that they projected was a 10-point

uh uh win over Bradford. She ended up

with uh 13, I guess.

and a very consequential one uh for the

provincial capital.

surrounding this race is always going to

be what if John Tory had decided to run,

right? Because he looked like he was

absolutely going to throw his hat back

into the ring to try to reclaim his old

job right up until the moment when he

did not. And I mean, of course, it would

have changed the dynamic of the race. I

don't know how. Do you have a thought

about how?

questions implied in there. One is,

would John Tory have entered the race?

And the other is would Brad Bradford

have dropped out of the race if Tori had

uh had entered? Um I suspect that for

Bradford this was an all or nothing

proposition. Uh he had said as much when

uh the rumors were flying that Tory

might get into the race. He he was asked

and he's like, "No, I'm not getting out

of the race." Um and uh that if if the

two of them had stayed in the race, that

would have simply um it it would have

made Olivia Chow's job even easier. it

would have divided the the conservative

uh field. Um truly an unknowable

scenario though and and yes, one of

those great whatifs.

point, but back in 2014, John Tory and

Doug Ford and Olivia Chow all ran for

mayor. Two conservatives, one new

Democrat.

The two Tories came first and second.

admittedly, in 2026, she is a much

better candidate, a much more formidable

opponent than she would have been back

in 2014. But anyway, I think there's a

lot of whatifs that people are going to

ponder for a long time. You talked about

um the defeat of Bradford and and I'm

going to talk about moral victories here

for a second because I think Bradford is

entitled to say, you know, I didn't win

this thing,

know, if you consider three years ago in

the bi-election, he didn't even get 2%

of the vote. Yes.

I mean, that is quite a significant

that's quite a significant coming

together of the anti-chow forces in his

camp. And it certainly suggests to me

anyway that if he wants to have a future

in politics based on his relatively

strong showing in this election, he's

got one. The other thing is I wanted to

um I wanted to put on the record here

that Olivia Chow got more votes in that

election than any politician ever in

Canadian history. She got north of

532,000

votes.

the history of Canada with more than

400,000 votes. So

take take that what you will, but it's

these are impressive numbers.

most uh vote collecting office in the

country, right? It's biggest, you know,

the the single office for the whole city

and it's the biggest city. And so, you

know, in time uh somebody will exceed

Olivia Chow's uh uh record uh that she

set this week as the city's population

uh grows. But on the other hand, it

could be an election cycle or two

because if we have, you know, it was a

relatively high turnout election. It

still did not crack 50%. So, I'm going

to , you know, shed a single tear for

that. But, um, you know, if we have,

say, two more elections with lower

turnout, uh, that record might, you

know, be pretty safe for a while.

repeat. I think it's worth putting on

the record. Bradford got more votes in

this election in defeat.

Yes. than John Tory got in two elections

that he won. That Rob Ford got in the

election he won. Then David Miller got

twice in the two elections he won. Then

Mel Lman got in the 1997 election that

he won. So, these are things that

Bradford can, you know, I I think he can

check a few boxes and saying, um, you

know, I didn't win, but I did pretty

well. For all the talk I heard about how

uninteresting this campaign was and how

not ready for prime time the two main

candidates were, and is this the best

Toronto can do? You know, the biggest

city in the country, the these this is

the most talented uh field we can

possibly produce. Well, you know what? I

guess the race captivated a lot more

people than we thought because, as you

point out, 46% turnout. That's the best

since 2014.

and a lot of people vote. I think

there's an interesting contrast here

between like what political sickos like

you and I think is interesting versus

what you know the general population

what the the electorate thinks is

interesting because if you had to say to

somebody in our line of work like which

was the more interesting election 2023

or 2026 I think most people would say

2023 the circumstances of it the context

right bar none a more interesting

election and yet this was the one that

got substantially more turnout uh now

some of that is because I I think uh you

know it's people may have also

understood that uh the control of

council was also up for grabs and so we

actually saw some important changes in

council which we can talk about in a

minute um but no I mean clearly a lot of

voters saw this as an important election

that they were going to make themselves

heard in

that I wanted to look at the numbers of

the first was Atobbico North

do you know who the member of the

Ontario legislature for Atobbico North

is

one occasion That would be Doug Ford.

Who won his writing

at Tobico North?

Um, did Bradford win it?

single percentage point.

of. Not really.

council your writing.

points.

East York, to Olivia Chow by 34 points.

the old city of Toronto's East End,

Toronto Danforth and Beaches East York

were some of uh Brad Bradford's uh worst

performing uh wards in the city.

ago, the changes on Toronto City

Council. There were many. Take us

through it.

are a bit more nuanced. It's it's not

all uh you know, a a hard break between

a a conservative and a progressive. Uh

but there are some arguably important

changes coming for uh this uh incoming

council uh term. Uh so, in University

Rosedale, uh Mike Leighton has

successfully returned to municipal

politics after a bit of a a hiatus, I

guess you could say. Uh he replaces

Diane Saxs in that ward. Diane Saxs was

of course the former environmental

commissioner of Ontario. She had become

a Toronto city councelor. When Leighton

entered the race, she saw which way the

wind was blowing and not her way.

run in Toronto Danforth. She lost there

to I believe Sarah Heheart is her name

race to succeed Gourd Perks was won by

Diana Chan McN. I think it's fair to say

she was seen as the the most progressive

uh of the the the major candidates on

the ballot. Uh in York Southwestern,

this one I was keeping a close eye on.

In York Southwestern, uh Francis Nunata

was beaten by Kiara Padavani. Padavani

had run against Nunata in the 2022

election and had come very very close uh

to beating Nunata. Then uh Nunata now

came in third in this most recent

election. Uh I've alluded to this

before. Nate Erskin Smith won in Beaches

East York uh beating uh Natalie Johnson

there. So there 's other of of course

many other council races and uh we could

go over them all, but we don't do not

have time for the entire Toronto City

Council uh right now. Um I I think

broadly speaking, I would say that the

overall effect of the council races uh

has been to move council a little bit

closer to Chiao's uh own position. uh

she has one or two more uh progressive

uh counselors who have replaced uh uh

you know let's say more antagonistic

counselors swapping Brad Bradford for

Nan Smith is obviously if you are Olivia

Chow that's just a pure win right um and

then even in cases where you had like uh

you know one progressive replacing

another uh these are in some cases these

were still changes that I think will end

up benefiting uh Olivia Chow I I don't

think she has a really uh a confident

majority on council outright because of

course the majority of the city of

Toronto is um still the suburban city of

Toronto and uh they tend to elect more

conservative uh members of council

generally speaking. Um but I do think

it's fair to say that progressives have

a stronger hand on Toronto city council

than they did uh before election night.

can accuse me of it if you want to. But

I still think I'm on solid ground with

this. I think we just saw the biggest

upset in municipal political history.

Yeah.

In the province of Ontario, just west of

here in Missaga, Alvin Tedjo, younger

than you.

incumbent mayor, Carolyn Parish, and the

former mayor Bonnie Crombi. I am going

to talk about this much more later in

the your column, my column part, but I

think he wanted to make a point just

before we go on.

wrote about Alvin when he launched his

campaign in I guess April of this year

and I had one or two people write me and

say like what are you doing pay

attention to this guy and I said now

who's laughing

wrote the column

um and yes um there was an odd moment uh

in the the final days of this race and

uh here I'm going to refer to uh an

interview that Crombi uh conducted with

uh or or or sat down with uh Ahmed

Albayumi uh who publishes a newsletter

called Poly Corner and he was actually

on the rundown earlier this week. Um he

published this interview with Crombi

where she kind of disavowed her time as

liberal leader. Uh I'm going to quote

from the article here saying you know

she said that the the liberal brand

wasn't always a good fit and she said

quote my policies were very conservative

frankly and yet I was running as a

liberal. And then that interview uh left

a lot of liberals, current liberals uh

kind of reeling.

I think, that it dropped.

Um and uh so uh the current uh interim

for a little bit longer. Liberal leader

John Fraser uh reacted to her uh

comments. Um uh for viewers even younger

than me, I'm going to use some slang. uh

he put her on blast uh saying that uh

you know politics isn't about comfort,

it's about knowing what you believe and

making tough choices.

I'm not quite sure what Crombi was

hoping to accomplish uh with these

remarks. In theory, you could imagine it

being like a smart political maneuver, a

bit of a late political genius to to

appeal to uh uh more conservative-minded

voters. Um it did not work. Uh she ended

up in third place uh when the votes were

all counted. Okay, as I say, we're going

to come back to that later in the show,

but for now, let's you and I just sort

of go back and forth here, and we're

going to drop in on some noteworthy

races, starting with what I thought was

going to be the most exciting, uh,

mayor's race in the province, uh, about

two months ago, uh, turned out to be not

that close, the city of Hamilton. But

where the trend of one-term mayors

continues, as a guy named Keenan Lumis,

was elected, Andrea Horvath, a name

people will remember, the former leader

of the Ontario NDP. She was the

incumbent mayor. She came third and a

very distant third. She got 16% of the

total vote. I looked this up. Since

1997, we have had nine elections for

mayor in the city of Hamilton. The

incumbent has won once.

which to win re-election.

Milton for 46 years uh and he had been

on council for another 20 years before

that. Uh he uh his time as mayor of

Milton has come to an end. He will be

succeeded by uh George Makikas uh who

won a bi-election to Milton Council only

last year. He's been on council for just

a single year. He is now going to be

mayor of the council of Milton. Uh we

had mentioned an ad that Crance and uh

Zanabazim uh had uh filmed. They did

this charming uh video where they uh

shared ice cream. Uh talked about the

importance of keeping uh politics civil

during the election. Uh unfortunately

did not help either of them. Azim came

in a pretty distant third.

going to hear from her again. She was a

dynamo. 23 years old um Muslim young

woman, wore a hijab. Um, lots of poise,

lots of personality. I'm betting that if

she wants a future in politics, she

could probably have it because she

didn't win this campaign, but she

showed, you know, she's on the map now.

She's on the map.

example of Kiara Padani, who we just

mentioned, who, you know, yes, she lost

that uh first race against Francis Nuni,

but she came back four years later and

now she will be a counselor.

Fred Francis coming into the role. Uh,

he replaces Drew Dilickens, who we've

spoken about before on the podcast. One

of Doug Ford's I'm sure he loves all of

his children equally, but truly Drew

Dilkins, one of Doug Ford's favorites.

a list here because there were a lot of

mayors who were defeated this past

Monday night all over the province.

There was Rob Burton in Oakville, Jim

Daddy in Niagara Falls, Brian Patterson

in Kingston, Michelle Buau in Timmons,

Jan Liot in Cambridge, Dorothy McCabe in

Waterlue, Wayne Reticop in Foreri, Mike

Bradley in Sarnia. Mike's been the mayor

there since 1988 and an MPP as well. It

is I mean, do we need to say it? It is

highly unusual for so many incumbents in

so many major centers to lose all in the

same election. Uh, we are constantly

told incumbency and name recognition is

so important in municipal politics

because there are no party politics.

Thankfully,

that's a little aside. Watch our nerds

on your jab there. A little jab cuz

watch our nerds on politics segment on

YouTube. That's um

he likes party politics at city hall. I

don't anyway. But because there's no

party policy

as liberals, new Democrats,

conservatives, generally speaking, and

and as a result, name recognition is

everything. And it didn't help a whole

bunch of people the other night. So,

it's not everything. That's for sure.

how remarkable this evening was because

it is such a break from past president.

And yet uh somehow continuity was the

name of the game in in Toronto, as we've

mentioned. Uh Ottawa saw Mayor Mark

Suckliffe reelected. Uh Bmpton, Patrick

Brown won a third term. Uh Kitner saw

Barry Verbanovic re-elected. uh at Barry

with Alex Nutal again re-elected quite

handily. Uh and then uh London and

Vaughn saw Josh Morgan and Steven Deluka

also reelected.

that I'm not sure has ever been done

before. In 2018, the residents in Jolly

Ontario, that is in the district of

Perry Sound, elected Tim Bryson as their

mayor. The next election in 2022, the

residents of Strong, Ontario. That's the

name of a place. Strong, Ontario.

Strong.

Yeah. In Perry Sound district elected

Tim Bryson as their mayor. And the next

election, 2026, which took place, you

may have heard, just earlier this week.

Guess who the residents of Sunundridge,

Ontario, in Perry Sound district elected

as mayor?

Yes. There are three different villages

in the Perry Sound area and he has now

won the merry of all of them. At some

point down the road there is whispers.

There is talk of amalgamating them all

into one area.

Bryson has a pretty good claim that he

could represent everybody cuz he's won

them all.

Uh like Pokemon.

thank Graden Smith who's a minister in

Doug Ford's government and who is the

MPPP for Perry San Muskoka. He called me

a couple of days ago and he said,

"Steve, you might want to put this on

the on Pauly podcast cuz I don't think

I've ever seen that happen before." And

that's pretty good. Running the table in

Perry Sound, Muskoka. Not bad.

longer the mayor of Strong Ontario,

which means he is no longer a strong

mayor.

dad. Um but let's finish on the

municipality that almost elected nobody

at all. Uh we are going to return to the

results in Foki Strickland, the small

township that when nominations closed on

that Friday afternoon in August, did not

have uh a single registered candidate

for any of its mayor or council races.

Um as it happened, Pier Laang was

acclaimed as the sole candidate for

mayor back in August. Uh and he will now

preside over a council with a single

returning incumbent and three new faces

including well I guess not new to him uh

his wife Nicole Laantang.

Uh Pierre was a counselor in the prior

term who initially was not going to run

uh for reelection. The married couple

will now make up a full 40% of the

governing body of the township that had

a a census population in 2021 of 467

people. Earlier this year, the La

Mountains told CBC they opted to put

their names on the ballot out of a a

civic concern about what would it mean

for their community if nobody ran for

election. So, I want to um salute their

civic spirit if I can. Uh not least

because if if I can be blunt about it,

FIA Strickland uh you know it faces some

real financial hardship. uh each of

these uh incoming members of council are

are facing frankly some really difficult

choices and a tough job that they are

going to have to do and they volunteered

for it in a place where they are not

likely to parlay this political

experience into necessarily higher

office at the provincial or federal

level. This is uh a tough job that they

are doing really purely for the love of

their own community. So, uh, I want to,

uh, wish good luck to the newly elected

council of Fier Strickland and

congratulations to the winners around

the province and, uh, you know, thank

you to the challengers who kept them

honest.

talking about that, I thought to myself,

I'm sure there's been an example of a

husband and wife team both getting

elected to the same council at the same

time. And I was just doing the Google

search in my brain and I seem to recall

when I was a city hall reporter back in

the early 1980s

on North York City Council. This is

before amalgamation of course.

Sutherland.

Okay.

same time.

one of them on council as well. So boy,

some days it's all in the family in this

business, isn't it?

on to issue two.

MPPPS have returned to Queens Park after

a 21-w week summer break. And the

government has hit the ground running

with two major bills already. Earlier

this week, the government introduced its

latest red tape reduction bill. And on

Thursday, the finance minister, Peter

Bethlin, presented the province's fall

economic statement. Okay, JMM, let's

start there. What do the books look

like?

want to start off by eating some crow

here. Earlier this week, I did a short

segment on the rundown, and I said that

in general, the government's books

improve over the fiscal year, right?

They start with some very conservative

assumptions in the spring budget, and

then things generally get better uh by

the fall economic statement. Uh well,

guess what?

this time.

gotten uh measurably worse uh since the

budget, which is of course important for

all sorts of public policy reasons and

not just because it made me look foolish

on TV. Um in the spring budget, this

year's deficit was projected to be 13.8

billion. They are now projecting it to

be 16.9 billion. So substantial

deterioration there. Uh it gets worse.

Next year's deficit was supposed to be

6.1 billion. It will now be 12.7

billion, more than doubled. Uh and then

in 2028, the budget was actually

supposed to be balanced. Uh they are now

projecting a $6.7 billion deficit and

maybe balancing it in 2029.

I've ever heard. Maybe.

for the deterioration in our finances?

shock to anybody, but slower than

expected economic growth reaction to uh

Trump's tariffs and uh let's say um some

other foreign policy choices, general

economic chaos globally. Uh the province

had been expecting real GDP growth of

1%, they're now forecasting uh only 0.5%

growth for this year. uh that is

expected to catch up in later years, but

it's a big hit to the budget uh for this

year and and the next one. Uh there was

also a decision to top up the

government's contingency fund and that

gets booked as more spending. Um they

are they haven't allocated that money

yet, but they expect to. One of the

things that they are keeping their eye

on is that at least technically uh there

are a whole bunch of new tariffs that

were supposed to get applied on January

1st. uh you know retaliatory tariffs

from Trump retaliating to our

retaliatory tariffs. Um so that is

something that the government is is

worried about. Uh if that money is not

spent it will then be used to pay down

the the debt and uh would would result

in a smaller deficit. Uh but at the

moment they say they expect to to spend

all of that uh extra contingency

spending. I do want to mention one other

thing. the uh another big uh change in

the economic variables was a decline in

resale homes uh which shrank both in the

number of sales and also the resale

price uh of homes. Um this one's an an

interesting one because at least a

little bit of this might actually be the

government's fault. Um they of course

made a big show about um cutting the HST

on new uh homes uh that are are

purchased uh like new construction. Uh

and there is some shift uh the the the

government sort of acknowledged that

there has been some shift in the market

away from resale homes and to the new

construction um in part because of the

tax measures that they brought in uh in

the spring. It's not doing all of the

work. the the resale home sector was

already soft to begin with. Um but you

know it it's one of those lessons in

politics that sometimes the cause of

today's problems was last week's

solutions.

so lots more red ink. What does the

government intend to do about it?

will not be uh raising taxes and he will

not be cutting healthcare spending and

that does not leave a lot of other

options. the healthcare spending being

the single biggest chunk of uh public

spending. Uh so what we see in this fall

economic statement and sorry I should

say we have the fall economic statement

right here. Uh it is once again called a

plan to protect Ontario. Uh that was

also the title of the budget. I think

that's been the title going for a few

years now. Um what we see in the fall

economic statement is a pretty sharp

spending restraint. Uh basically every

other part of the government aside from

healthcare. Uh just to put some numbers

on this, Ontario is projected to spend

an extra eight billion dollars in the

health sector by 2030 relative to this

year. Every other broad category of

public spending, you know, education,

post-secondary, uh the justice sector,

uh transportation, everything else, uh

in aggregate, uh you're going to see

cuts in spending. Uh now that's going to

vary from ministry to ministry of course

but overall basically if you do not work

in healthcare uh and you work in the

public sector uh there is going to be

some lean years coming.

next week. We'll expand on some of the

numbers that you just gave because uh

economist friend of the show man about

town of the monk school of global

affairs and public policy at uft Brian

Lewis who's been here before he's going

to join us and we're going to do a

little deeper dive into the numbers

then. But you also mentioned the red

tape reduction act. Okay. What's that

all about?

Ontario faster act which was introduced

by the minister for red tape reduction,

Andrea Kenjen. Uh these bills happen

about once or twice a year and they are

always a grabag of different measures.

Uh and this one is kind of a big grabag.

Uh, it has 23 separate schedules

including changes to the Courts of

Justice Act, the Environmental

Assessment Act, the Metro Links Act, the

Planning Act, my favorite, and the Bees

Act. Yes, Ontario has a bees act.

production and like the safe

transportation of honey.

regulated, right?

Um, so yes, I think that's wonderful.

Uh, Bill 140 makes substantial changes

to 23 different laws. And uh, we are not

going to uh, talk about each of those,

but we are going to go over some of the

biggies.

one that touches on every household here

in the capital city every couple of

weeks or so, and that is bluebox

recycling. What can you tell us? So over

slowly transitioned from the old system

where municipalities ran uh recycling

collection to a current system where

manufacturers and retailers pay to

operate the blue bin collection. Uh this

is called extended producer

responsibility and it relieves

municipalities of the costs of

collecting those items. But retailers

and manufacturers uh have started

complaining that the costs of this new

system are too high for them and they

want the government to make it easier

and ideally uh cheaper for them. So the

government is considering doing uh just

that with public consultations expected

about what to do with particularly hard

to recycle items uh certain kinds of

plastics that um uh really don't work

well in the recycling stream. Um but

we're going to zoom out for a moment

here and say, you know, why do we

recycle in the first place? Well, the

reason we recycle in the first place is

because landfills have a finite uh

lifespan and recycling uh is one reason

to do it is because it helps extend the

lifespan of those landfills. And the

government is also addressing that in

two ways. Uh they are making it easier

to build or at least to approve new

landfills and they're making it easier

to start incinerating uh existing waste.

Uh technically they are calling it

energy from waste. To the rest of us,

this is simply burning non-recyclables

to generate electricity.

mentioned easier to build new landfill

sites. Few years ago, back in 2020, the

government gave municipalities something

that they had not had before and that

was the power to say no, we don't want a

new landfill site in our jurisdiction

and we can veto that. Has that changed?

section of the environmental assessment

act uh that this government itself

enacted uh only six years ago. Uh

municipalities will lose the power to

stop landfills in their own areas. uh

technically they will still have the

power to object. Uh it will only be as

part of the uh environmental assessment

process. So the the municipal council

will have exactly as much right as you

or I or any environmental NGO for

example. You can file your commentary

with uh the government through their

consultation process and I'm sure they

will give it exactly as much uh

attention and weight as they do all

those other comments. Is this uh in your

view another example of how the province

is sort of making a further incursion on

municipal power? They have always been

sections of the law uh and and some of

these are very clear in the planning act

where they say you know uh none of the

powers in this law apply to you know uh

categories x y or z right and so one of

the the classic examples is you know

back when it was Ontario hydro and now

uh Ontario power generation and um hydro

1 uh municipalities cannot zone for

electrical power uh uh stations uh they

they just If OPG wants to build a power

plant in in your city, it does not

formally need permission as good

publicly owned corporate citizens, they

like to be nice about it, but uh they do

not require uh municipal zoning to do

it. There have always been some

exceptions to to municipal powers. And

this one's kind of an obvious one,

right? Where like it not pretty, but

we all acknowledge that we need

landfills and we also all acknowledge

that nobody wants one, but they need to

go somewhere. And so for a very long

time up until 2020 uh municipalities did

not have that power and now for a few

short years they had that power in law

and now they are losing it again. I sort

of see this more as it was probably a

mistake in the first place but Doug Ford

made a promise in the 2018 election. He

felt the need to keep it and now they're

kind of realizing that it was not a

great idea.

legislature since the break. So, let's

do a bunch of quick hits here on some of

the other issues that came up. Private

career colleges, it was big at question

period yesterday. What can you tell us?

from the hastily announced changes to uh

OSAP qualifications. Uh, the opposition

critics are calling for Minister Quinn

to resign. Uh, he says he will not.

and dry though with the fact that the

province has now put the brakes on any

more money going out to these private

career colleges.

the that money will start flowing again,

whether these students will uh get uh

you know whether their educations will

uh be made whole in some sense. It's

it's all up in the air right now.

here in Toronto? Latest on that.

still working on uh removing those bike

lanes. It's been slowgoing because of um

very motivated protesters.

motivated protesters. Few people

arrested along the way.

they they managed to slow the work down

by a few days at least.

the legislature for Sue St. Marie, Chris

Scott, has had his charges dealt with.

that.

uh serious story. Uh Scott was accused

of um domestic violence, I guess, is the

best way to put it. Um those charges

have been withdrawn by the crown. Uh and

uh Scott had been elected as a

progressive conservative MPP when the

charges were announced. Uh he was

expelled from the PC caucus. Uh he has

uh continued to sit as an independent uh

despite some pressure from uh the NDP

and uh local unions uh demanding that he

resign and uh that that the government

call a bi-election. Uh he uh remains

sitting as an MPP. Uh the government has

said he will not be welcomed back into

the PC caucus. Government House Leader

Steve Clark saying that this week. I

know it was his hope that if the charges

were dropped, he would be welcomed back

into the party caucus. Not the case.

that uh you know, we hold our uh members

to a higher standard. So, it's it's not

just a a question of criminal liability

in this case. There also is allegation

that he committed adultery, I guess, for

lack of a better word. And um you know

obviously this is a very uh touchy and

upsetting uh topic for him and his

family. Um but the government is not

obligated to welcome him or any other

MPP back in uh once they are gone

column my column.

Time now for our regular feature your

column my column in which JMM and I have

a little chitchat here about the columns

we wrote for the TVO website tvO.org.

over the past week. Go to the site,

click on the articles, you can read all

about it. JMM, what are you going to

favor us with this week?

of incumbents who lost uh particularly

the the mayor's offices uh in this

week's municipal elections. And one

thing I wanted to really point out is

how much work this now makes for uh the

premier and for the minister of

municipal affairs, Rob Flack. Right. the

premier, this premier specifically, um,

frankly, I mean, certainly more than his

immediate predecessor, uh, really relies

on personal relationships, uh, in terms

of, uh, you know, his his managing of of

municipal affairs around the province,

right? Uh, I mean, just look at, you

know, him kind of sort of mostly not

quite endorsing Olivia Chow over

Bradford. Like if you just put their

respective political stances on paper,

you would have assumed he would endorse

Brad Bradford. But no, this this is uh

for this premier at least uh it is as

much about personal relationships and

how he gets along with these people. And

a whole bunch of those personal

relationships now uh I mentioned Drew

Dilson's in in Windsor. Uh those

personal relationships now have to be

restarted with entirely new faces and

entirely new people. Uh and that's not

even getting to the issue that some of

these new mayors have been elected on

platforms specifically opposed to

provincial policies in their

communities, right? Uh in Oakville, the

new mayor uh has been uh elected with a

promise to get uh ministerial zoning

orders reversed in his community. Uh so

as much as these are uh change elections

in these communities and and you know

there's all sorts of local ramifications

there that you know I'm not even going

to pretend to comment on from you know

the distance where you know we're

sitting here at Young at Egllandon but

from a provincial affairs standpoint uh

yeah there's a lot of new relationships

that need to be built. There's a lot of

uh implications for how the province is

going to run.

In as much as some I'm sure

well-intentioned journalist put the

question to Doug Ford this past week

that Premier, you've just lost a lot of

people that you had good close

relationships with who were considered

allies of yours and they're all gone

now. Do you infer from that that you're

next? And he certainly did not want to

go there with that. But I mean it is an

interesting political theory that you

know if you can't get the king, you're

going to get the king's disciples and

wait for your chance to get the king

after that. I opened this column with uh

an anecdote from uh this year's uh AMO

conference in Ottawa in August where

somebody pulled me aside and we were

chatting about the coming municipal

elections and they said, you know, I

think there's going to be a bunch of

mayors who lose this year because this

was the theory that was posed to me.

This was back in August. As person said,

um, we had provincial and federal

elections where clearly there were a lot

of people who were frustrated with the

incumbents, but because of the

circumstances of Donald Trump and a

feeling that they needed to sort of

protect stability, uh, they ended up

voting for the incumbents. They voted

for the Liberal Party federally, even

though it was a different leader, of

course, and they voted for uh, Doug Ford

in Ontario. And uh this person suggested

that that frustration uh with the status

quo had not gone anywhere and so it was

going to get displaced onto a bunch of

incumbent mayors. Um and uh it's not

provable. It is like it's as a

scientific hypothesis. I could never,

you know, prove this in a in a political

science sort of way, but it stuck in my

mind. And then when I started seeing

those returns come in on Monday night, I

was like I well I was in the comfort of

my own home and I don't mind telling

you. I uh uttered an obsity or two.

of those particular races, but because

the guy's theory came through pretty

loud and clear.

in one or two places, right?

obscenities when I saw the results of

the election in Missaga. And we're going

to get back to my t-shirt here. Yes.

about Hazel Mall's uh old Berg and how

much she still has a role to play in

what goes on there. Uh but I but I will

say you could have knocked me over with

a feather when I saw the return starting

to come in for Missaga because it

literally was I think the most

astonishing upset I've ever seen. Uh oh,

probably since 1962 when Donald

Somerville defeated Nathan Phillips to

become the mayor of Toronto. And no, I

did not cover that race just in case you

were wondering. This Missaga race was

supposed to be, right? Like all the

smart money was on Carolyn Parish versus

Bonnie Crombi, the current mayor versus

the former mayor. And they got all the

attention and you know, truly they

sucked up all the oxygen of every news

story that seemed to be done on that.

They had a lot in common. They were both

liberal members of parliament. They both

served a stint on Missaga Council. They

were both mayors of Missaga. Crombi, of

course, left to become the Ontario

Liberal leader for a little while. Lost

to Doug Ford in 2025. thought, "Well,

I'll give it another shot." Back at city

hall, Carolyn Parish has only been the

mayor for a couple of years. Carolyn

Parish herself thought she had a great

shot to be reelected, provided Crombie

stay out of the race. That all changed

when she got back into the race. This

race was just overwhelmed by the enmity

between those two candidates. It wasn't

good. The debates became shouting

matches. There is that famous video of

the of the the shot of a young woman in

the audience at an all candidates debate

where the two women are going at each

other hammer and tongue and this young

woman just has her her you know her

hands in her face shaking her head

because you can't hear anything. It just

it just wasn't good.

his head down. He kept talking policy.

He kept being positive with so much

attention on the two women. I think a

lot of people missed the late breaking

story in the campaign which was his move

from as I suggested earlier 4% when the

campaign began to 39% on election day.

It was just an astonishing rise. Parish

ended up at 27%. Crombi got 23%.

There are some ironies here. I mean

Parish was worried about being able to

beat Crombi. She did beat Crombi. Yeah,

dangerous opponent. You've got to give

credit where it's due.

Giving a concession speech when every

poll that had been published up until

election day showed you winning. Yeah.

incredibly difficult. And she did a

great job of it. She got out there. She

was classy. She took the high road. She

gave Ted Joe props. Um said she's

rooting for him. Offered to be helpful,

etc., etc. Uh, I'm sure the notion of

losing had occurred to her before she

gave that speech. I'm not sure the

notion of coming third had occurred to

her. That was almost unimaginable. And

let me leave you with a little final

oddity about Missaga politics.

Guess how many years it's been since

Missaga elected a man to be the mayor of

that city.

something like 50 years.

an election for mayor of Missaga, you

you're not going to know the guy's name,

are you? Or you might know his name.

election in 76. And ever since then,

Hazel McCallion.

watching this know that if you play your

cards right, just keep your head down

and do your job. Yes. You, too. You

young lads watching this, you can be the

mayor of Missaga someday. A glass

ceiling has now been broken for you poor

young boys who think you'll never have a

chance to be I'm being facicious here.

Don't write me letters. You know I'm

being funny here, okay? Or trying to be

anyway. All right, let's go to the

mailbag. If you've got a burning

question or an insightful comment, we

always like to hear from you at the

email address on politics at tvo.org.

JMM fire away.

listener Naman Sud in Toronto who

writes, "Hello, thank you for the show.

I was reading the Cooperative

Corporations Act on the Ontario E-Laws

website as one does."

viewer and I found a tiny typo. The word

whatever was used when clearly the word

whatsoever was intended. I emailed my

MPP Chris Glover about this and a nice

person in his consid office forwarded it

to the e-law's editorial team where

presumably the typo will be fixed. My

question to you is when is something

considered a small and insignificant

enough change that it can simply be

fixed by a bureaucrat going well they

obviously meant that versus requiring

legislation to amend the law is this

encoded anywhere at all or are we just

going off fibs I mean going on a

case-byase basis thanks Nan from Toronto

Ontario

John Michael McGrath question I've ever

read so I pass the baton to you

getting at here like you could imagine a

context in which there was a genuine um

error in uh there's like a text of the

law passed by the legislature that was

just typed into the website wrong and in

that case I'm sure the editorial team

can just uh fix a typo. But that's not

what is happening in this specific case

that he has cited because the word

whatever is used in this context as a

synonym for the word whatsoever. Uh and

it's it's used in that way in all sorts

of laws. It is not a a typo or an error.

This is a a a proper use of the word

whatever uh in uh legal ease if I can

put it that way. But there are sometimes

errors in law. Um or you know there are

times where like uh language is archaic.

uh we've moved on, we use uh words

differently now. And then something

comes before a court and the judge has

to say, "Wait a second. How am I

supposed to interpret this uh this

language in a way that makes sense in uh

the modern context?" The the clearest

answer to Nan's question is if there is

an error in the law, like we've just

actually used the wrong word in a law,

the only body that can change the law as

it is written is the legislature of

Ontario. uh if if they are the one who

wrote the law, if they wrote it badly,

it has to be a new bill to amend the law

or revise it. And that's like black and

white constitutional law. Um

but there are times when language

becomes archaic or it it was written

ambiguously or somebody had a clear idea

of what it meant back in 1950 or

whatever and now we use language

differently and a matter comes before a

court and a judge has to say, "Well,

wait a second. How am I supposed to

interpret this law? you're using this

weird old language, right? Um, and there

are a few different tools that, uh,

courts can rely on. I mention

two. Uh, one is the interpretation act.

There is a law that tells judges how to

interpret the law. I love this.

Um, just as an easy one here, right? For

70 years in Ontario. Every single law

was passed in the name of Her Majesty

Queen Elizabeth II. Did those laws

suddenly become invalid because the

crown passed to his majesty King Charles

III? No, they did not because a section

of the interpretation act says so. Um,

another principle that Canadian courts

can use, particularly uh in uh provinces

where languages are are published in

both uh official languages in English

and French. Um there if there's an

imprecise word in the English text of

the law, the courts are also allowed to

consult the French text of the law. And

if that language is more precise, then

that more precise language becomes the

the the binding interpretation. Um now

ask me how I know that, Steve.

that because you are John Michael effing

McGrath and you just know this stuff.

Oh, all right. I'll humor you. How do

you know all this?

fact in dispute when uh the late Rob

Ford, the the brother of the premier,

Doug Ford. Uh he was initially found to

have violated the Municipal Conflict of

Interest Act. And those of us who are

around remember that trial because for a

moment it looked like uh Rob Ford was

going to be kicked out of the mayor's

office and and forced to run for

election again. Um I'm not going to go

into the uh legal minutia of that case

except to say that when it was appealed

uh one key element of the appeal rested

on the fact that the French text of the

law was more precise than the English

text of the Municipal Conflict of

Interest Act. That is more about a

single subject than any normal person

needs to know. But Nean I hope you found

it all very helpful. Anyway, well done,

Michael. John Michael McGrath, well

done.

Let's get out of here.

get a little bit of a less obscure email

that we can follow up on.

content on the show, please email us at

onpolitics at tvo.org.

Friday, October 30th, 2026. You can

follow our show wherever you get your

podcasts so that you get notified each

time a new episode is available. And you

can see the video version of the podcast

on the TV today YouTube channel.

happy to hear it, good, bad, or

indifferent. Write us an email at

onpolitics at tvO.org. Please include

your first and last name and where

you're from.

Matthew Omera, editing by Colin Kish.

Hallowell and TVO's digital media

services team.

digital. Vanessa Casease is vice

president media.

thanks to our wonderful studio crew here

for making the video part of the podcast

look so darn good. Have a great

Halloween, everybody. And remember,

tomorrow night, watch out for those

little kids if you're out driving in the

evening. Trick or treat, everybody.

Happy Halloween. And we'll see you again

next Friday. Bye-bye.