2022 Hamilton Municipal Election

Hamilton held its municipal election on October 24, 2022. Voters elected a mayor, a councillor in each of the city's 15 wards and school board trustees. The mayoralty was open: on June 20, 2022, Mayor Fred Eisenberger announced that he would not seek re-election after three terms, the last two consecutive, which made him the longest-serving mayor since amalgamation. Six of the 15 ward councillors also did not run again: Sam Merulla in Ward 4, Russ Powers in Ward 5, Brenda Johnson in Ward 11, Lloyd Ferguson in Ward 12, Terry Whitehead in Ward 14 and Judi Partridge in Ward 15.

The City Clerk certified 150 candidates on August 22: nine for mayor, 82 for council and 59 for school board trustee, compared with 158 candidates in 2018. 143,375 of the city's 405,288 eligible electors cast ballots, a turnout of 35.38%, down from 38.36% in 2018. The number of voters was nonetheless higher than in 2018 (138,549) and the highest in a City of Hamilton municipal election since 2000 (148,898).

Mayoral Race

Andrea Horwath was elected mayor with 59,216 votes, 41.68% of the 142,058 votes cast for mayor. Keanin Loomis received 57,553 (40.51%) and Bob Bratina 17,436 (12.27%). Horwath finished 1,663 votes ahead of Loomis. The other six candidates together received 7,853 votes (5.53%). The lead changed hands during the count; after all 246 polls had reported, Loomis's campaign said he respected the outcome. The City Clerk certified the results on October 26. A Mainstreet and iPolitics survey in the final week had found 36% leaning towards Horwath and 28.7% towards Loomis.

The ward results, computed from the City's poll-by-poll data, divide the city in two. Horwath carried Ward 1 through Ward 7, with her largest shares in Ward 3 (56.2%) and Ward 2 (55.3%); she took Ward 6 by 55 votes. Loomis carried Ward 8 through Ward 15, with majorities in Ward 11 (50.9%) and Ward 12 (50.3%). Bratina's best results were in Ward 10 (21.6%) and Ward 5 (20.0%). Loomis led among the votes recorded at advance polls, 13,321 to 12,980, and among mail ballots, 1,106 to 1,086; Horwath led at the 157 election-day polls, 44,062 to 42,439, and placed first at 83 of them to Loomis's 73, with one tied. The 2,435 mail votes and 325 "vote anywhere" votes are counted citywide only.

The Candidates

Andrea Horwath, who turned 60 on election day, was born and raised in Hamilton and was Ward 2 councillor from 1997 to 2004. In 2004 she won a by-election in Hamilton East, succeeding Liberal Dominic Agostino, who had died that year; she became MPP for Hamilton Centre in 2007 and was elected leader of the Ontario NDP in 2009. The party was the official opposition twice under her leadership but never won an election. She announced her candidacy on July 26, a month and a half after the June 2 provincial election, giving up her seat at Queen's Park. Her platform, released September 12, put "action on housing" first, with targets for housing starts and an overhaul of development approvals; it also promised to keep property taxes "as low as possible" and to extend transit into rural areas such as Flamborough. She opposed expanding the urban boundary.

Keanin Loomis, 47, was born in Oswego, New York, practised law in Washington, D.C., and moved to Hamilton in 2009. He was chief operating officer of the Innovation Factory business accelerator and, from 2013, president and CEO of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, which campaigned for the B-Line LRT. He announced on January 19 that he was leaving the Chamber to run, filed his nomination on May 2, the first day nominations opened, and described himself as an "unpolitician" who had never run for office. His "Homes for Hamilton" plan aimed to build 50,000 homes in 10 years while holding the urban boundary firm. The Chamber had supported expanding the boundary; Loomis said that "Sprawl as usual is no longer going to be permitted."

Bob Bratina, a broadcaster who had been a morning host on CHML for decades, was Ward 2 councillor from 2004 to 2010, defeated Eisenberger to serve as mayor from 2010 to 2014, and was Liberal MP for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek from 2015 to 2021. He broke with the Liberals over their support for the LRT and did not run federally again. Announcing his candidacy on March 28, he said council needed "veteran knowledge" and pledged to hold the line on tax increases. He proposed an independent oversight office and 30% affordable housing along the LRT corridor, and in September called for more police officers and body cameras.

Of the other candidates, Ejaz Butt, a taxi driver since 1989 and founding president of the Ontario Taxi Workers Union, had run for mayor in 2014; Paul Fromm, a self-described white nationalist, and Jim Davis had run in 2018; and Solomon Ikhuiwu was a pastor and youth soccer coach.

Campaign Issues

Affordable housing was a key issue through most of the campaign. Horwath said it was the number one topic at the door. At a forum held on October 5 by Hamilton is Home, a coalition of non-profit housing providers, the three leading candidates agreed there was a housing crisis and that council's definition of "affordable" as 125% of the average market rate was wrong; Horwath and Loomis said they would end exclusionary zoning. After a town hall on October 12, Loomis was reported to have said the city "needs to get out of housing" and that CityHousing Hamilton's $51-million budget should go to non-profit providers. The next morning he said his plan "does not involve touching CityHousing Hamilton's budget"; Bratina and Horwath issued statements opposing the proposal. In Beasley, in Ward 2, support for encampment residents and low-income renters was top of mind for nearly everyone CBC Hamilton interviewed.

Trust in City Hall was the other recurring theme. During the previous term, important information had been kept from the public about a 24-billion-litre stormwater and sewage spill into Chedoke Creek and about safety concerns on the Red Hill Valley Parkway, the subject of an inquiry still under way. Restoring accountability was the most common theme in the mayoral platforms; McMaster University political scientist Peter Graefe said the leading candidates differed more in leadership style than in policy.

On November 19, 2021, council had voted 13–3 against expanding the urban boundary by 1,310 hectares, with Ferguson, Pearson and Whitehead in the minority. Horwath and Loomis supported holding the boundary; Bratina told CBC Hamilton he did not support freezing it. In 2021 the federal and provincial governments had agreed to fund the B-Line LRT, with a budget of $3.4 billion. Horwath and Loomis supported the line; Bratina said it would "live or die on its own merits." Bratina said funding should not be shifted from the police budget to social services and that more officers were needed; Horwath said fighting crime was not all a matter of giving police services or community agencies more money. Loomis, who had said in May that the city should work to eliminate area rating, later proposed only a review of it. At a televised debate in September, Loomis criticized Horwath for leaving her provincial seat, and Horwath said Loomis had had "one constituency" as head of the Chamber.

Council

Six councillors were re-elected and three defeated; with six open seats, nine of the 15 councillors and 10 of the 16 members of council were new.

• Ward 1: Maureen Wilson, first elected in 2018, won a second term with 6,610 votes (74.96%), the largest share in any council race, after a campaign on street safety, affordable housing and climate change. Ian MacPherson received 1,386.
• Ward 2: Cameron Kroetsch, chair of council's LGBTQ advisory committee, defeated Jason Farr, a three-term councillor who had finished third as the Ontario Liberal candidate in Hamilton East—Stoney Creek in June. Kroetsch, who had lost to Farr in 2018, won 3,619 votes (49.25%) to 2,412 (32.83%).
• Ward 3: Nrinder Nann, first elected in 2018, was re-elected with 4,334 votes (50.33%) after a race that focused on policing, street safety and safe injection sites. Walter Furlan received 2,948 (34.23%).
• Ward 4: Merulla had held the seat since 2000. Of 11 candidates, Tammy Hwang, a former business development officer with the City, won with 2,101 votes (23.00%), the smallest winning share in any race. Eric Tuck, president of ATU Local 107, received 1,816 and Alex Johnstone, a former chair of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, 1,585.
• Ward 5: Chad Collins left council for federal politics in 2021, and Powers held the seat temporarily. Of 11 candidates, Matt Francis, 32, a former city employee who had co-ordinated Collins's federal campaign and promised low taxes and no overdevelopment, won with 4,239 votes (43.61%). Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton, received 1,598 (16.44%).
• Ward 6: Tom Jackson, first elected for Ward 6 in 1988 as an alderman, was re-elected with 6,326 votes (63.45%). Chris Slye received 1,539.
• Ward 7: In a two-candidate race, Esther Pauls, completing her first term, defeated Scott Duvall, a former city councillor and NDP MP for Hamilton Mountain, by 217 votes: 6,043 (50.91%) to 5,826 (49.09%).
• Ward 8: John-Paul Danko won a second term with 5,274 votes (62.18%) on a platform that included licensing absentee landlords and traffic calming. Sonia Brown received 1,936.
• Ward 9: Brad Clark, a former Progressive Conservative MPP and provincial minister who had returned to council in 2018, was re-elected with 3,622 votes (51.56%). Peter Lanza received 2,462 (35.05%).
• Ward 10: Jeff Beattie, owner of Winona Gardens, won with 4,236 votes (39.69%), ahead of Louie Milojevic (3,436) and Maria Pearson (3,000), a councillor for 19 years who had won in 2018 with 36.34%.
• Ward 11: Johnson left after 12 years. Mark Tadeson, a former Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board principal who campaigned on better roads and the existing urban boundary, won by 83 votes: 2,829 (37.99%) to 2,746 for Nick Lauwers, a social worker and psychotherapist.
• Ward 12: Of 10 candidates, Craig Cassar, a supply chain director at Maple Leaf Foods, won the open seat with 4,960 votes (38.80%), 2,359 ahead of Chuck Alkerton, a retired city facilities manager (2,601).
• Ward 13: Alex Wilson, 25, an environmental campaigner, defeated Arlene VanderBeek, who was seeking a third term, with 7,038 votes (57.94%) to 5,110 (42.06%).
• Ward 14: In the closest race, Mike Spadafora, the Progressive Conservative candidate in Hamilton Mountain in the June provincial election, won with 2,610 votes (28.48%), 79 more than Kojo Damptey, former executive director of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion (2,531). Damptey said the next day that he would ask for a recount.
• Ward 15: Partridge had represented the ward since 2010. Ted McMeekin, 74, a former mayor of Flamborough and five-term Liberal MPP, won with 3,091 votes (43.83%). Zobia Jawed, a water and wastewater management expert at McMaster University, received 2,451 (34.76%).

Voting and Turnout

Voters could vote on election day, at one advance poll per ward on October 7, 8, 14 and 15, or, for the first time, by mail: 3,186 vote-by-mail kits were requested and 2,397 (75.23%) returned. The kits were to be mailed the week of September 26 but went out on October 3, and the City later reported feedback that they arrived much later than anticipated. Special advance polls in seniors' and City Housing buildings drew 835 voters, and a pilot "ballot on demand" program, which printed a ballot for any ward at the three post-secondary institutions, the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre and shelters, drew about 325. Paper ballots were counted by optical-scan tabulators, and electronic poll books were used for the first time.

Advance voting rose to 30,893 ballots over four days, up 81.17% from 17,052 over five days in 2018; 76.15% of all ballots were cast on election day. On election day, 12 polls did not open at 10 a.m. The City Clerk declared an emergency under the Municipal Elections Act so that those polls stayed open as long as they had been delayed; the last opened at 11:20 a.m., so results could not be released until 9:20 p.m. The servers of Datafix, the election software supplier, failed across the province, slowing polls; some switched to paper voters' lists.

Turnout was 35.38%, compared with 38.36% in 2018. Computed from the City's ballots and electors by ward, it ranged from 42.69% in Ward 13 and 39.00% in Ward 11 to 29.57% in Ward 9 and 30.10% in Ward 15. The City recorded 34 declined and 68 rejected ballots.