In the past 7 to 14 days, the airwaves in Ottawa have been filled with talk about how the newly elected Mayor, Larry O’Brien, and the city councilors are at odds over how to operate the city.
But herein lies the problem. Every sitting councilor who ran again, won their seat. Yet there was a change at the top in the Mayor’s seat.
What does this mean? Well not much, unless you take two points into consideration.
a) Ottawa had a record number of voters turn out in the last election to bring in a new Mayor because citizens want change.
and
b) Many citizens who do not typically vote municipally will more often than not vote in the incumbent because they do not pay enough attention to know anyone else’s name or position.
What kind of record numbers you ask? Click the image below for a larger version.
With Ottawa forming two new ridings, it is not easy to map every Ward to a new version, but many do map pretty clearly. To account for increased elector numbers, the figures below are based on voter percentage increases.
Ward 1 Orleans has ~76% increase in voter turnout
Ward 2 Innes has ~39% increase in voter turnout
Wards 3, 6 and 21 (now broken into Wards 3, 6, 21, and 22) had ~54% increase in voter turnout
Ward 4 Kanata (now broken into Wards 4 and 23) had ~52% increase in voter turnout
Ward 5 West Carleton has ~38% increase in voter turnout
Ward 7 Bay has ~50% increase in voter turnout
Ward 8 Baseline (now College) has ~84% increase in voter turnout
Ward 9 Knoxdale-Merivale has ~69% increase in voter turnout
Ward 10 Gloucester-Southgate has ~63% increase in voter turnout
Ward 11 Beacon Hill-Cyrville has ~60% increase in voter turnout
Ward 12 Rideau-Vanier has ~66% increase in voter turnout
Ward 13 Rideau-Rockcliffe has ~75% increase in voter turnout
Ward 14 Somerset has a whopping 101% increase in voter turnout
Ward 15 Kitchissippi has ~46% increase in voter turnout
Ward 16 River has ~73% increase in voter turnout
Ward 17 Capital has a whopping 94% increase in voter turnout
Ward 18 Alta Vista has ~80% increase in voter turnout
Ward 19 Cumberland has ~74% increase in voter turnout
Ward 20 Osgoode has a whopping 87% increase in voter turnout
And as a whole the city had an astounding 62% increase as the voter turnout went from 185107 voters in 2003 to 300129 in 2006.
When this many more people turnout to vote, it is clearly a sign that the city wants change and that they expect their councilors to stand behind O’Brien and make the changes necessary to hold the line on taxes (or perhaps even cut them).