2018 Waterloo Municipal Election

Waterloo held its municipal election on Monday, October 22, 2018. Voters elected a mayor citywide and one councillor in each of the city's seven wards, along with Waterloo's two members of Region of Waterloo council, the regional chair and school board trustees. Mayor Dave Jaworsky, first elected in 2014, sought a second term against Kelly Steiss and Chris Kolednik. Three ward councillors did not seek re-election: Bob Mavin in Ward 1, Brian Bourke in Ward 2 and Melissa Durrell in Ward 7. Nominations closed on July 27; 23 candidates ran for the seven council seats and five for the two regional council seats.

Of 72,598 electors, 24,843 cast ballots, a turnout of 34.22%, down from 35.93% in 2014. Jaworsky was re-elected with 70.8% of the vote, and four of the seven ward seats went to new councillors.

Mayoral Race

Jaworsky won with 17,307 votes, 70.8% of the 24,429 votes cast for mayor. Steiss received 5,530 (22.6%) and Kolednik 1,592 (6.5%). Jaworsky finished 11,777 votes ahead of Steiss and led in every poll that recorded votes, 47 of the 48 in the City's results. His share was highest in Ward 4 (74.0%) and Ward 7 (73.9%) and lowest in Ward 3 (62.9%), where Steiss had her best result (29.8%). Kolednik's best ward was Ward 2 (11.5%).

On election night, Jaworsky said he looked forward to working with a council that would have at least three new faces. He named a new east-side library, the rejuvenation of Silver Lake and a new older adult recreation centre among the key things the city needed to do.

The Candidates

Dave Jaworsky, 54, was first elected mayor on October 27, 2014, after a career at BlackBerry. In a candidate survey published by CBC Kitchener-Waterloo, he wrote that he moved to Waterloo in 1983 to study mathematics at the University of Waterloo, that he created BlackBerry's global corporate social responsibility team, and that he worked for Capacity Canada before becoming mayor. As the number one issue he named getting around the city, which he said residents raised over and over again, with the aim that people could travel safely by any form of transportation; he called homelessness, affordable housing and the opioid crisis the most pressing issues. CTV News reported that he campaigned on building prosperity in the community, responsible growth and continued community development.

Kelly Steiss was already running against Jaworsky when CBC reported on the mayoral races in June. In the CBC survey, she wrote that she was a graduate of the University of Waterloo and Renison College and had more than 16 years of municipal government experience. Asked for the main issue facing Waterloo, she cited a 6% tax increase that she said council had floated in March and what she called poor management of tax dollars, and she proposed quarterly "Connect with Kelly" sessions for residents.

Chris Kolednik, a real estate agent, said the main issue was "the careless spending habits of council and the mayor" and pledged to cut his own salary by 10%. He also criticized intensification in residential suburbs, which he said the City's proposed comprehensive zoning bylaw would allow. CTV News described Steiss and Kolednik as political newcomers.

Campaign Issues

In October, both challengers criticized Jaworsky over closed-door budget sessions held early in his term. Steiss wrote that his term "started with secret budget meetings, illegal backroom dealings," and Kolednik that "it's time to stop the backroom dealing at city hall." André Marin, Ontario's ombudsman from 2005 to 2015, had called the sessions "amateurish and illegal" in January 2015. Jaworsky said they had been orientation sessions and that, within hours of his being told of concerns, they were replaced with public council meetings and their notes published; after the change, Marin had tweeted "Kudos to Mayor Jaworsky for fixing this quickly." Steiss also said taxes had risen 13% during Jaworsky's term and criticized traffic circles on Lake Louise Street and the new uptown bike lanes. Jaworsky replied that the tax rate "came in around the inflation rate" and that the City had found the traffic measures significantly reduced speeds.

The size of local government was also raised. In September, Kolednik suggested cutting Waterloo's representation on regional council from three members, including the mayor, to one. Steiss said "it does appear that we are over-governed," but that direction would come from the provincial government. Jaworsky said "the right lens is representation" and noted that a 2005 ward boundary review had found the proper number for Waterloo to be seven wards with one councillor each, plus a mayor.

The City's residential rental housing licensing bylaw, which requires landlords renting out low-rise residential properties to hold a licence and limits rental units to four bedrooms, was discussed at an October meeting with the Waterloo Regional Apartment Management Association. Ward 1 candidate Rainer Neufeld and Ward 6 candidate Oliver Campbell spoke against the bylaw; Ward 5 councillor Mark Whaley said residents he had spoken to felt safer because of the licensed units, and that the next council should revisit the licence fee. The Waterloo Chronicle reported that Jaworsky favoured the bylaw and that Steiss and Kolednik said it needed to be reviewed.

In Ward 2, candidates were asked about divisions left by council's decision the previous year to rezone 510 Erbsville Rd. from agricultural to institutional, allowing its use as a place of worship for the Islamic community; the Ontario Municipal Board had upheld the decision on appeal. Janice Moore said she hoped whoever was elected could "help repair this," while Royce Bodaly said the idea of a rift was "a little bit overblown" based on the doors he had knocked on.

Council

Of the four ward councillors who sought re-election, three were returned. Mark Whaley was the only incumbent defeated.

• Ward 1: Sandra Hanmer won the seat left by Bob Mavin, who had been elected unopposed in 2014, with 1,150 votes (32.3%). Robert Parent received 724 (20.3%), Xia (Leia) Lei 655, Rainer Neufeld 552 and Adam McCarthy 482. Ward 1 had the second-highest turnout in the city, 36.03%.
• Ward 2: The closest race in the city. Royce Bodaly won the seat left by Brian Bourke with 781 votes (28.3%), 19 more than John Arthur McCarthy (762, 27.6%). Janice Moore received 658 and Xin Tan 560, so all four candidates finished within 221 votes of one another.
• Ward 3: Angela Vieth was re-elected with 1,710 votes (52.3%), 150 more than Kim Eckel (1,560).
• Ward 4: Diane Freeman won a fourth term with 2,461 votes (71.2%) to 994 for Liangan Yin.
• Ward 5: Jen Vasic defeated Mark Whaley, who had held the seat for 15 years, by 2,004 votes (52.9%) to 1,785, a margin of 219.
• Ward 6: Jeff Henry won a third term with 1,989 votes (73.8%); Oliver Campbell received 574 and William Hodgins 133. Ward 6 had the lowest turnout in the city, 28.61%.
• Ward 7: Tenille Bonoguore won the seat left by Melissa Durrell with 1,750 votes (40.8%), ahead of Elizabeth Sproule (1,335, 31.1%), Carol Parsons (620), Rami Said (362) and Devon McKenzie (220). Turnout in the ward, which covers uptown Waterloo, was 47.70%, the highest in the city, up from 39% in 2014, when Durrell was acclaimed.

Regional Council

Waterloo voters elected two of the city's members of regional council at large; the mayor also sits on regional council. Jim Erb, a former Waterloo city councillor, topped the poll with 13,089 votes (32.68%) and led in every ward. Incumbent Sean Strickland took the second seat with 10,776 (26.90%), 1,304 votes ahead of incumbent Jane Mitchell (9,472, 23.65%), who lost the seat she had held for 18 years. Beisan Zubi received 5,147 (12.85%). Bob Oberholtzer, who withdrew on August 15 but as a certified candidate could not be removed from the ballot, received 1,572 (3.92%).

In statements published by the Waterloo Chronicle, Erb wrote that "the most important issue in this election is change," and cited his 30 years running a family funeral home; Mitchell and Strickland argued for experienced leadership, and Zubi, who worked at Communitech, wrote that it was "time for new ideas, fresh voices and diverse perspectives." After the election, Erb said the region should look for efficiencies in services such as parks and recreation and libraries, while honouring the 2010 plebiscite in which Waterloo voters rejected a merger with Kitchener.

Waterloo voters also helped choose the regional chair, a post Ken Seiling had held since 1985. Karen Redman, a former Liberal MP and Kitchener regional councillor, won region-wide with 62.40% of the vote and received 15,276 of the 23,959 votes cast for chair in Waterloo.

Voting and Turnout

Voting was in person on paper ballots. In November 2016, council voted to keep paper ballots for 2018 rather than adopt online voting, citing security concerns, and also decided against ranked ballots. The City held five advance polls, at which 2,540 people voted, compared with 2,371 in 2014 and 1,979 in 2010; the busiest was at the John M. Harper Branch Library, with 940 ballots. On election day, electors could vote at their assigned location or at any of six "super vote" locations, which included the University of Waterloo's Davis Centre and Wilfrid Laurier University's Concourse. The City's poll-by-poll results assign each ballot to the poll where the voter lives, not the place where it was cast.

Waterloo's results were delayed on election night. Online voting problems in Cambridge, Woolwich and Wellesley held up the results for regional chair until the next evening, and Waterloo removed its results while voting continued elsewhere in the region.

Turnout fell from 35.93% in 2014 (25,750 ballots from 71,667 electors) to 34.22% (24,843 of 72,598). City Clerk Olga Smith said the City had made a big effort to engage voters, including, for the first time, links to candidates' email addresses or websites on its election page, but that engagement remained a challenge.