Newmarket-Aurora is – or rather was - a true blue riding. It is comfortably off with the average family income ($118,060) significantly above the provincial ($90,526) and national ($82,325) figures. There are more homeowners; lower unemployment and more people with degrees.

And yet the conservative vote, once strong and resilient, melted away, mirroring the collapse across the Province.

The share of the vote for PC candidate, Jane Twinney, shrank by 10% when compared with 2011 while Liberal Chris Ballard increased his Party’s share by 8.2%.

The question for Jane is whether she runs again for Newmarket Council, having withdrawn from the race earlier in anticipation of a new berth at Queen's Park.

The NDP share of the vote was down by 2.7% to 11.6% as NDP sympathisers moved across to the Liberals.

The Green, Andrew Roblin, did well to increase his Party’s share of the vote to 4.4%.

The number of valid votes cast in the Riding was also up markedly from 45,349 in 2011 to 52,359 yesterday.

Tim Hudak’s campaign was disastrous for all the reasons that have been reported so widely. In the run-up to polling day even the Globe and Mail, swallowing hard, could only bring itself to call for a minority Conservative government. Its coverage today of the election result is sour, reminding its readers of all the elephant traps ahead for Wynne. By contrast, the Star is in celebratory mood.

The NDP, too, needs to think carefully about its purpose and where it is going. Under Horwath, a shrivelled-up NDP seems to have turned itself into some kind of consumers’ association. The NDP post election is back where it started. 21 seats.

It beggars belief that Andrea Horwath thinks she can lead the NDP into a third Provincial election.

Tim Hudak has bravely fallen on his sword after two failed attempts.

That’s quite enough, thank you.


 

I couldn’t get to the second candidates debate in Aurora on Saturday afternoon (7 June) but a friend of mine who was there paints this fascinating picture and I pass it on. I post it here with permission, but without the writer’s name as requested.

“The Aurora debate was quite interesting. There were four candidates and 70+ people in attendance. Jane Twinney continues to underwhelm in staggering ways, if that even makes sense. She answered questions, particularly in the yes/no portion, in ways that completely contradict her party's platform. You could hear people gasping a little. She answered every other question with eliminate the deficit. She is making it up as she goes along. I'm not sure if she's being willfully misleading or if she's just confused and ignorant.

They got rid of the candidate-to-candidate questions without letting all of the candidates know in advance. (That, or they just forgot about it.) Almost half of the debate, 55 minutes, was given to questions from the audience. There was a question about a national pharmacare program with a couple of statistics. Twinney said "yes, healthcare for those who need it." 

An attendee asked something along the lines of "if you had to vote for someone other than yourself on June 12, who would you vote for?"

The moderator said it wasn't a fair question and that the candidates didn't have to answer. They wanted to.

Roblin said Duff and the NDP

Baxter said Ballard

Ballard said he'd split his vote three ways: social justice message of the NDP, something about the Greens, and Baxter for being Baxter. 

Twinney said she'd vote for the Libertarian candidate (who wasn't there)

One of Twinney's party platform violations was so big that Frank Klees booed her. And that happened within the context of an otherwise non-heckling audience. If only I could remember what the issue was!

I think it's worth noting that Frank stepped out as soon as the candidates were done answering the panel's questions. I guess he had no interest in hearing about what was important to those in attendance. 

The NDP candidate Angus Duff couldn't make it.


 

Key sections of Newmarket’s Secondary Plan, the blueprint that will guide development on the Yonge/Davis corridors for the next few decades, have been re-written at the 11th hour by unelected Regional officials and people from other agencies.

The Plan, over two years in gestation, goes to the Committee of the Whole next Monday for adoption (16 June). It differs markedly from the “revised draft Plan” recently agreed by Councillors.

Opening yesterday’s Council workshop, the Town’s Planning Chief, Rick Nethery, reassures weary councillors “the end is nigh”. Nethery, who always gives me the impression his bank of knowledge is wide but very shallow, tells councillors the Town had consulted outside agencies and that “some adjustments” to building heights had been made. This must be the understatement of the year. Why do I feel Nethery is never quite up to speed on things?

He says York Region Rapid Transit expressed concerns about the Plan “not achieving planned intensification”. Comments from other agencies came in late in the day but this, he says, is “not untoward”.

Maximum Heights to be increased 

Schedule 4 of the Plan shows whole swathes of Yonge and Davis where maximum permitted heights have been changed. So a string of future development sites, previously limited to 8 storeys (or 10 with bonusing), go up to 12 storeys (or 15 with bonusing). Other sites around Mulock and Yonge and around the Slessor site go from medium high density (12 storeys or 15 with bonusing) to high (17 storeys or 20 with bonusing). The lowest density is increased from a maximum of four floors to six with a seventh floor via bonusing.

The senior planner in charge of the Secondary Plan file, Marion Plaunt, tells councillors “we are not increasing densities we have just re-shuffled them”.

We are told the planners are proposing two exceptions to the plan. 39 Davis, owned by Tricap, where planning approval was given in 2009 but the site is still a patch of dirt and the Slessor site, now up for sale, which has “approval in principle” for 21 storeys.

The boundaries of two blocks at Penn Avenue and Walter Avenue are deepened, making them more attractive to developers.

Technical stuff relating to transitional and angular plane policies (preventing high buildings going up next to much lower ones) are to be changed to allow for more “flexibility”.

Polite scepticism

Our councillors, to their credit, express polite scepticism.

(Joe Sponga and Tom Vegh are absent. Jane Twinney is on the "campaign trail")

Tom Hempen, clearly exasperated, says there have been numerous changes to height and density. What happens if we don’t change anything and just submit the Plan to the Region? What would happen?

Nethery tells him the Region is the “approval authority and they could effect modifications to the Plan”.

Regional councillor John Taylor trips up Nethery by suggesting the Province has a role in that its approval powers are, in effect, delegated to the Region. It is the kind of process question Taylor likes. Nethery agrees this is so.

Maddie Di Muccio innocently asks if the Secondary Plan’s proposed building heights were (a) reduced following public consultation and (b) are now increasing again following comments from agencies. Hmmm. Yes, says Marion.

I think that counts as a bullseye.

Putting names to faces

As I am watching Marion go through her Powerpoint presentation, I find myself wondering who these influential (unnamed) people are who can re-write the Town’s Secondary Plan. Of course, it is all done in the name of “the Region” or York Region Rapid Transit or some other Agency giving the changes a spurious authority they don’t necessarily deserve. Other entities representing landowners also make their views known.

Perhaps, next Monday, we can have some photographs inserted into the Powerpoint presentation to allow us to put a face to the change. “Here is Mr Jones behind his desk in the Long Range Planning Department at York Region who changed the building heights on Yonge from medium density to high density. Here is Ms Smith, a consultant from the development industry advising local landowners, who is proposing changes to the bonusing provisions.” You get the idea. 

Now there is a long and complex discussion on transportation and transit and the future of Upper Canada Mall which I fear may have left me behind. Chris Emanuel wants to know about Mobility Hubs and why there isn’t one at Yonge/Davis. (There is one proposed for the Tannery.) John Taylor wants to know if there is any reason why the Town can’t simply press ahead and do a Mobility Hub study anyway.

We are told that Metrolinx believes the “mobility hub principle” should apply to Yonge and Davis. Marion, more Delphic than usual, tells us this is reflected in the text but “there is not going to be a circle on the map”. I am struggling to make sense of all this.

Will the GO bus terminal (which featured so prominently in the Glenway OMB Hearing) be relocated onto the Upper Canada Mall site? We learn that Metrolinx will be involved in a “fulsome analysis”.

 Open Space needed

Now Dave Kerwin moves on to parks and open space. He wants to know where the children are going to play in future, especially as the population grows. He is against the Town taking cash from developers in lieu of green space. Nethery tells him that parkland and open space issues are next in the queue to be addressed by the Town’s planners. In any event, cash in lieu says Nethery can be used to buy open space. (Question: when did that last happen?)

Now Kerwin hits his stride and is talking about the fast food industry and, with employees getting $11 an hour, he is wondering aloud how they can afford to live in Newmarket. He tells us there is not enough affordable housing to sustain the fast food industry.

Meanwhile, the Planners are telling us that the 35% affordable housing target should be scaled back to 25% in the “Regional Healthcare Character Area” on the grounds there are too few people there to make it worthwhile. The 35% target would still apply to the “Provincial Urban Growth Centre (PUGC)” (from Eagle in the south up to Slessor or thereabouts in the north). But Davis Drive and the rest of Yonge outside the PUGC would have a 25% minimum.

Now I am looking at our councillors and their faces tell me there is some unhappiness out there. The Mayor, who enjoys steering the ship but is unconcerned about its destination, decides it is time to jolly up the crew.

The Mayor is now applying his trademark soothing balm, telling councillors - and others watching on the live stream - who may be worried about the way things are going that there will be many, many other occasions to review the Secondary Plan. (Actually, once every five years.) He is, of course, talking the usual Mayoral cobblers. If there are good reasons for changing the Plan, now is the time to do it.


 

It has been a strange election campaign.

The CBC’s Matt Galloway asks the Globe and Mail’s Ontario political correspondent, Adam Radwanski, why voters seem so disengaged. Admittedly, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about what is on offer.

The Globe and Mail predictably has come out in favour of Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives but in a half-hearted way. The paper wants a minority Conservative Government.

It is no surprise the Toronto Star is backing the Liberals for all their flaws. Andrea Horwath’s NDP is the big loser.

Her “making life affordable campaign” has been truly woeful.

Like many, I figured that when she triggered the election she would have a detailed plan ready to put before us. She has had years to work out attention-grabbing policies on the big issues. Alas, there was nothing there. Just a big black void where policy should be.

In 2007, when Tony Blair was forced out of Downing Street by his long time colleague, Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, everyone assumed (me included) that Brown had a sophisticated and well thought plan for Britain. After all, he had been manoeuvering behind the scenes for years to get rid of Blair. In fact, there was no plan for Britain. Only a plan to get into Downing Street. Brown proved to be a disastrous PM and only lasted a few years before losing in 2010.

In the same way, judging by the NDP’s timid six page programme, Andrea Horwath has no plan for Ontario.  Just a plan to increase the number of NDP ridings – and even that prospect may be slipping away.  It is no surprise the NDP is trailing so badly.

Many voters, who don’t like what they are hearing from Tim Hudak, will vote tactically to keep the PC out of Government, with the NDP vote haemorrhaging to the Liberals. Whether Liberal inclined voters in NDP ridings will reciprocate is a moot point given the tension between Horwath and Wynne.

Calling someone corrupt crosses a line. The relationship is poisoned forever. Once said, it’s out there. You can’t put it back in the box.


 

A brave attempt to engage young people in the Provincial Election has foundered because of lack of interest.

Youth Worker, Tim Greenwood, commendably organised a “Youth Election Event” tonight at Valley View Alliance Church on Davis Drive but he says it has been cancelled due to low numbers.

As it happens, in today’s Toronto Star, Bob Hepburn says disengagement with politics is now so bad we could see a record low turnout. In 2011, fewer than half eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot.

Hepburn says turnout for voters under 30 could fall below 25%.

Should we be worried?

I’d say.