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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 27 September 2026

It has been brought to my attention - by the Mayor himself no less - that my description of his position on electoral reform was inaccurate.

I opened my blog with this statement:  

Newmarket Mayor, John Taylor, is in favour of mandatory voting, supports electoral reform and – with all its challenges and some real dangers – is on the side of AI. And he would like to see education become the responsibility of regional councils (in two-tier municipal areas like York Region) or single tier municipalities elsewhere. And education should develop curiosity and creativity, fostering debate, discussion and democracy. 

At no point in the evening did Taylor express support for electoral reform. He said he was in favour of compulsory voting which was, I think, the first time I’d heard this. I made the mistake of conflating this with his previously stated views on electoral reform. This was just sloppiness on my part.

I’ve known for years that Taylor is an “unabashed fan of ranked ballots”. He said that way back in 2019. I don’t know if that is still his position. 

Compulsory voting is different from embracing a new electoral system, replacing First Past the Post.

This is what Mayor Taylor told his colleagues on 14 May 2019 at a Special meeting of the Town’s Committee of the Whole:

“I'm an unabashed fan of ranked ballots. I think in this context, it's a little tricky. The financial consideration, the fact that we're doing online voting, and we're just getting going on that, and the fact that we only have London (Ontario) to look to, and, you know, you want to manage your risks and manage everything else, but I think there's a great deal to be said for it. 

I think this last election here in Newmarket was relatively, if not very polite, and having witnessed many over many, many years that aren't necessarily that way. I believe that there's evidence internationally that ranked ballots can do a lot to improve the tone and tenor of elections, and create a different type of conversation, a more respectful debate, focussed on issues and ideas, over personalities, because of the fear that you could lose people's second place vote, if you start slandering, frankly, their candidate. 

… in most communities, in every election, there's at least one race that might be changed, and the other way of putting that is that, in every, in many elections, someone is elected that the majority of residents would not have voted for.

And a ranked ballot takes that out. That means that the person that most want gets elected. And you don't have this vote splitting with one person with 30% or 35% of the vote, getting elected, even though the majority of people wouldn't have voted for them if there was a system in place where they could express that. 

So I think there's clear democratic advantages. I think there's advantages to the respectfulness, and we need to think deeply about the voter disenfranchisement due to the tone of elections North America wide..."

As I say, I don't know if this is still Taylor's position.

If his views have changed I shall let you know.

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Update on 28 September 2026: The Mayor tells me earlier today: 

"I think electoral reform deserves our attention given the well documented shortcomings of our first past the post system. I like ranked ballots especially for municipal, possibly for provincial and federal too. I would have to spend a lot of time studying options and examples to be sure about what reform may or may not work at the provincial and federal level but our current system creates enough democratic shortcomings that it warrants a serious look at all options. I hope Canada takes a deep dive on this issue and creates a meaningful dialogue on the pros and cons of the various options. This work is long overdue." 

I am glad that's sorted out. 

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 26 September 2026

Dawn Gallagher Murphy MPP hosts her fifth annual taxpayer-funded community BBQ on Sunday 27 September 2026 from 2pm-4pm at Riverwalk Commons. 

It's all free and people love it. They queue up. They register. And they are now in her database.

So it’s time for me to accept defeat and throw in the towel.

For the past four years I have been sniping at our Progressive Conservative MPP for casually squandering taxpayers’ money on her annual “free” community BBQ at Riverwalk Commons.

This is what I said about her first BBQ; her second; her third and her fourth. And I railed about our MPP's flexible definition of her "office operations" budget and how much she spent on BBQs in her first term as Newmarket-Aurora's Progressive Conservative MPP. (Photo bottom right shows her 2023 BBQ.)

What started out as outrage has now mellowed into a reluctant acceptance of the practice. Dawn Gallagher Murphy was an early adopter but now MPPs all over Ontario have jumped on the bandwagon and are using taxpayers’ money to fund increasingly extravagant BBQs. And no-one bats an eyelid. 

So I gotta move on. 

Hey! Big Spender

Sheref Sabawy, the PC MPP for Mississagua Erin Mills, spent $32,157.59 on his BBQ. That’s over 30% of his “office operations” budget. The event reportedly attracted over 2,000 people. And he has just chalked up another $21,752 for an evening meal at sunset at the banqueting hall, Elmacan, on 6 March 2026 where an unspecified number of his constituents broke their fast during Ramadan.

This taxpayer funded extravagance puts Dawn Gallagher Murphy, by comparison, on the side of the Angels. Her spending on last year’s BBQ was a modest $9,662.19 – almost 11% of her “office operations” budget.

Servicing Ontario's Debt

Of course, it escapes no-one that all this is happening at a time when the Province’s 2026 Budget is projecting annual interest payments of $17.2 billion on its ballooning debt. These interest payments are more than the annual cost of running the Province’s entire justice system ($7.3B) or its spending on postsecondary education ($14B). But no matter.

I suppose the FordFest started it all with Doug handing out $20 bills to constituents just because he likes people and can afford to do it.

Lightning Fast

Digging out the details of MPPs spending was always possible but you had to know where to look. Now ChatGPT makes the whole process lightning fast and painless. So you can easily compare spending in 2025/6 with 2022/3 when Gallagher Murphy was first elected and the years in between. 

I shall wander down to Riverwalk Commons tomorrow and check out the vibes.

But, in line with my long standing practice, the puritan in me won’t let a “free” hamburger or “free” hot dog touch my lips.

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And from the man who started it all 

The table below shows the 43 MPPs who used taxpayers’ money to fund their BBQs in the Fiscal Year 2025/6. The Fiscal Year runs from 1 April to 31 March of the following year. (Figures pulled by ChatGPT and checked by me.)

35 of the 43 MPPs are Progressive Conservatives (claiming $403,213 in total); 3 are Liberal ($22,797 in total) and 5 are NDP ($21,725).

Office and Support Staff Expenses

From 2024–25 to 2025–26, Dawn Gallagher Murphy’s reported spending changed as follows. Percentages use 2024–25 as the base. www.ola.org

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 24 September 2026

Newmarket Mayor, John Taylor, is in favour of mandatory voting, supports electoral reform and – with all its challenges and some real dangers – is on the side of AI. And he would like to see education become the responsibility of regional councils (in two-tier municipal areas like York Region) or single tier municipalities elsewhere. And education should develop curiosity and creativity, fostering debate, discussion and democracy. 

I learn all this last night (23 September 2026) when I take myself along to Pickering College, an independent school and a Newmarket landmark since 1909 but founded (in Pickering no less) by the Quakers in 1842. I am in the magnificent new Assembly Hall, opened last September, to hear the political journalist and author, Steve Paikin, in conversation with Newmarket’s Mayor since 2018, John Taylor. 

Taylor has since been acclaimed twice in a row, in 2022 and 2026. Acclamation rather than election is the norm in many municipalities across Ontario.

Many of the Town’s top tier movers and shakers are here. I see Dr Mohsen Alavi, the wannabe Deputy Mayor of Newmarket but no sign of the current place-holder, Tom “Instagram” Vegh. 

The moderator is Rex Taylor, a retired teacher and currently a Board member of Newmarket Public Library. He is clearly at home in his surroundings and guides the conversation easily from topic to topic.  He wants to focus on the importance of education for community and civic life and touch on recent changes to public education, the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the spread of dis/misinformation, and the erosion of democratic norms. That’s quite the menu. 

We know that, increasingly, young people seem to be losing faith in democracy. But, unfortunately, we don’t hear from any of the students at Pickering what the problem is as they see it. Given the topic, that for me would have been a highlight.

Political Junkies 

Steve Paikin was a familiar sight on the TVO’s Agenda – a programme for political junkies which hooked me for many years. The final episode aired on 27 June 2025 after a 19-season run of 4,000 episodes featuring 19,000 guests.

It is in his DNA to adopt a centrist position that he and his audience are comfortable with. He doesn’t shock. He is, rather, an accomplished storyteller. He doesn’t take sides, one way or the other. Although, very occasionally, he lets his hand show.

“I’ve spent a whole career not taking public positions on issues that are controversial, because if I have to cover them on the program that I did—or do—I’ve got to be seen as a neutral person.”

Too much time is taken up at the start of the evening talking about Donald Trump and how he has debased and coarsened American democracy. But, curiously, not once in the entire evening did anyone mention the elephant in the room, Doug Ford, who has done more than most to erode democratic norms here in Canada.

Decency Matters

Indeed, Steve Paiken tells us that our former MPP and Doug Ford’s deputy, Christine Elliott, has started a group in Ontario called “decency matters”. 

“She just wants to re-establish, not just in politics but in all walks of life, the notion that we’ve got to get decency back at the centre of everything we do, and that you are just not allowed to be a horse’s ass 24/7 anymore.”

I almost laughed out loud when I heard that. Our current MPP, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, was Christine Elliott's protégé. She was appointed by Ford as Newmarket-Aurora’s PC candidate and went on to relentlessly harass and bully her staff before, at the last minute, settling the dispute with her aggrieved Office Manager, Teena Bogner. The grisly details are covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Boycott election debates

Ford has told Progressive Conservative candidates to boycott election debates. He now appoints the Chair of York Regional Council. The Region's population is larger than Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI, NT, Yukon and Nunavut.

He uses omnibus bills with no Committee Stage to ram legislation through. This is not a deliberative process where MPPs invite and consider expert perspectives before a Bill is enacted. Instead inchoate Bills are rushed through regardless. He throws conventions overboard.

Too bad all that didn't get a mention.

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Click "read more" for selected transcripts of the conversation.

Read more: Steve Paikin and John Taylor talk about Education and the Erosion of Democratic Norms

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 12 September 2026

Background and Full Disclosure: I ran against Tom Vegh for Newmarket Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor in 2022. I did so because I was appalled by his behaviour in the 2018 election when developers bankrolled his campaign. 

Vegh won easily by 9,396 (63.2%) to my 5,455 (36.7%) votes, outspending me by $20,000. No complaints from me. It was my choice to limit my spending to a figure I considered reasonable. For his part, Vegh borrowed $27,800 from the bank to finance his 2018 campaign (along with a tsunami of donations from developers) and a further $26,500 from CIBC and Scotiabank for his 2022 campaign. Vegh also reported interest charged on the loans. In 2022, every vote for Vegh cost him $2.91 to my $1.34. (Calculated by dividing the reported expenses by the number of votes received.) 

Vegh’s Election Deficit

Running for election for Mayor or Deputy Mayor can be very costly. In 2022 Provincial Election rules placed a cap on Deputy Mayor campaign spending at an eye-watering $57,153. That’s a big chunk of change for a private individual - even with a prescribed limit on self-funding aimed at preventing well-heeled candidates paying for their entire campaign.

In the event, Vegh spent $27,312 or 47.8% of the amount allowed. I spent 12.8%.

Vegh chose not to return the candidates’ questionnaire to Newmarket Today in 2022. But the paper’s campaign coverage on 30 September 2022 revealed that he would no longer accept donations from developers. In fact, he said he wouldn’t take money from anyone doing business with the Town which is a nuanced variation. 

Vegh told Newmarket Today:

"I respect that (there are) people who would prefer you don't accept donations from anybody who's doing any business of any kind with the town. I just got to respect that." 

He ended his campaign with a deficit and informed the Town Clerk he needed extra time to pay it off. This is allowed by election rules.

Vegh and his wife spent $28,615 of their own money in the two campaigns. The figure of $16,305 for 2022 includes $3,995 in reused lawn signs from 2018.

I am surprised Tom Vegh is running for a third term. I saw hundreds of “Re-elect Tom Vegh” signs dumped at York Region’s Waste Transfer Station at Warden Avenue in Georgina when I was dropping off my own for recycling four years ago. The workers there told me he wasn’t running again. I am left wondering why he changed his mind. (Photo: Top right. Discarding expensive - and reusable - lawn signs)

Is Tom Vegh worth $168,368+ a year?

In 2025 the Town reported that Tom Vegh received a salary of $78,355 plus $63,623 from York Region totalling $141,978. In addition he received $26,389 in benefits bringing the overall total of salary plus benefits to $168,368. He also gets a car allowance of $7,340. He claimed $6,393 in reimbursable expenses from the Town in 2025 and $4,975 in expenses from York Region. He gets per diem remuneration for attending Board meetings of the Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority which in 2025 amounted to a modest $750.

People should get the rate for the job but what does that mean in the context of the Deputy Mayor if “work” involves posting thousands of photos on Instagram and turning up at a zillion Board meetings and saying nothing?

The Deputy Mayor is, on the face of it, a full-time job. He says being Deputy Mayor is evidence of a leadership role. But what does Vegh do all day? How does he spend his time?

ChatGPT tells me that over the past eight years Vegh assumed the chair for two items when Taylor declared a conflict of interest (on 25 February 2019 and 24 August 2020). (The downtown parking review of 24 August resurfaced at Council on 31 August where Vegh again took the Chair just for that item.) Vegh doesn't do much deputising. Taylor never takes a day off.

Spectator of events 

Tom Vegh’s glitzy new campaign website, packed full of endorsements, gives the impression of a man on a mission, bubbling with ideas, claiming credit for a thousand and one projects.

The Tom Vegh I know is different. I see him as a spectator of events rather than someone who gets stuck in with his own distinctive agenda, who leads and persuades others. He runs away from serious argument and debate. He is more at home posting selfies on Instagram than advancing major new policy proposals. Pretty much everything he writes about in his new website was initiated by someone else. He “supports” projects brought forward by others. There is a striking photo of Tom Vegh with the Mayor, John Taylor, suggesting he is a key part of the team running Newmarket and York Region. He is more the passenger, riding on Taylor’s coat tails. (Photo right: With the Mayor. From Vegh's campaign website)

It is a rare thing for Vegh to challenge Taylor on any important issue. It occasionally happens. (Photo below bottom right: In a 2021 vote on an amendment to York Region's Official Plan, Vegh voted to allow the redesignation of the Protected Countryside portions of the Greenbelt in Vaughan from Prime Agricultural to rural against the advice of the Region’s Chief Planner.)

Despite these ups and downs, and after more than two decades on the Town Council, Vegh now seems content to coast along in his comfortable role as Deputy Sheriff.

Over-promising and under-delivering

That said, Vegh’s habit of over-promising and under-delivering goes back years. In the 2018 campaign he said he wanted to see a new library and a co-located new Seniors’ Centre on the Town owned Hollingsworth Arena site at Patterson and Davis. He said the existing Seniors’ Centre was too small and a new library was long overdue. He famously told us:

“The debate over the need for a new public library is long over. The only question now is where and when.”

And in his own 2018 Newmarket Today questionnaire, Vegh wrote:

"The existing Seniors' Centre is too small to accommodate the growth and a new library is long overdue." 

Seven months after the election he had given up on the Hollingsworth Arena site telling his colleagues the location of any new library was, in the first instance, a matter for the Library Board.

By February 2022 he was wondering aloud why the Library’s new Strategic Plan did not contemplate a new building. He was still pointing to the physical limitations of the existing building. But typically, he folded and didn’t make an issue of it. In recent years Vegh has said nothing about a new library which, for him, was once “a priority”.

In the same cavalier way, Vegh ditched his eight-year old proposal for a new Seniors’ Centre. He now stresses the importance of seniors' housing and services – laudable but different.

Signature achievements 2022-2026

I hope the 2026 election campaign will flush out policies and initiatives that can be fairly attributed to Vegh personally. So much of what happens at the Town Hall is driven by staff recommendations. Vegh frequently moves consent items, minutes and routine reports. But how often – and on what issues – does Vegh propose a substantive change to a staff recommendation or bring forward an important issue under “new business”.

ChatGPT tells me Vegh’s motion on Fairy Lake:

“…is probably the clearest Vegh example of self-generated policy.

The minutes actually say:

“Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor Vegh shared a potential initiative…”

He then presented Council with a motion to consider a pilot project. The motion proposed reintroducing catch-and-release fishing at Fairy Lake and constructing a fishing dock, subject to approvals and fundraising.” 

ChatGPT throws out a few other examples such as the Municipal Accommodation Tax in June 2024 and the windrow (snow clearing) resolution of June 2025 where Vegh moved the motion directing staff to provide winter windrow opening to qualifying households, capped at 100 households, with a report back to Council. But anyone watching the on-line videos posted on the Town’s website would immediately recognise Taylor’s primary role in shaping the agenda and pushing these initiatives forward.

The Quiet Man 

Vegh’s challenger in this election is the thoughtful academic urban planner, Dr Mohsen Alavi, who says

“We should have an expert voice at the table not a quiet one.”

An astute observation. Vegh is quiet to a fault.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve waited for a killer intervention from Vegh but nothing materialises. He keeps his thoughts to himself. Even, unbelieveably, on the financing of the Inn from the Cold which he used to run as Executive Director.

In 2016 Vegh left the charity during a period of significant financial and organisational pressure and in the election campaign later that year he described himself this way:

“I am currently an independent business management consultant, helping small and mid-sized organizations meet their revenue goals”

emphasising his experience in executive and consulting roles in the non-profit and career-transition sectors.

So it is beyond weird that he chose not to speak when John Taylor brought forward a motion at York Regional Council on 29 September 2022 calling for funding for the IFTC. Vegh remained silent throughout the long debate. What was all that about? Saying nothing.

I wrote at the time that Aurora’s Mayor, Tom Mrakas, seconded Taylor’s motion. But at the end of the debate Mrakas told the meeting he thought it more appropriate for Vegh to be the seconder. The meeting agreed and Vegh became the seconder having been mute throughout.

Policy Making and Strategic Priorities

Although candidates running for Office at Newmarket make all sorts of promises during the campaign their ability to deliver is constrained. They must persuade other Council members to back them and support their campaign promises during the strategic priorities exercise that takes place after every council election.

The Town hires consultants to distil all the promises made by the newly elected (and acclaimed) councillors into a manageable set of “strategic priorities” and I expect this to happen for the 2026-2030 term of council. For council members this involves a lot of give and take and a willingness to fight your corner to get a key pledge into the list of top priorities. Over the years I’ve watched Taylor, as Captain of the ship, expertly steer the discussion taking it to where he wants it to go. Vegh never presses his case but gives up at the first whiff of grapeshot. 

Of course, during any four-year term new issues arise which must be addressed and new priorities emerge. For example, the highly consequential purchase of Mulock Farm was not on the map in 2015 when the Council was looking at its 2014-2018 priorities. The acquisition in 2017-18 was slotted into a previously agreed strategic priority framework to acquire properties along Davis Drive and Yonge Street “to create vibrant and liveable corridors”. 

Vegh’s Key Priorities 

Vegh’s campaign website tells us he is committed to working closely with residents, local businesses, community organizations, and members of Council to keep Newmarket moving forward. His priorities include:

• Keeping taxes among the lowest in York Region while delivering high-quality, efficient municipal services
• Investing in parks, trails, and recreational facilities
• Improving safety in our neighbourhoods
• Supporting responsible and sustainable growth
• Advancing affordable housing options

Nothing to frighten the horses there. All very vague. 

I'd like to see some specifics emerge during the campaign and in any election debate – should there be one. What does Vegh personally want to achieve?

You know, the kind of things that used to appear in campaign platforms.

The last thing we need is another content-free election.

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Graphic above right: From Newmarket's Comic Store on Main Street 2022.

Correction on 21 September 2026: Tom Vegh left the Inn from the Cold as Executive Director in 2016 - not 2018 as reported in the original post.