Tonight I had the privilege of attending the campaign party for Larry O’Brien, who just happens to be the new mayor of Ottawa.
Larry swept to an early lead taking just under 50% of the vote. The right leaning voters united behind his banner while the left leaning voters divvied themselves up between incumbent Bob Chiarelli and Alex Munter.
Funny, that’s just what I said would happen back in February. Albeit back then the right leaning candidate was to be Terry Kilrea and not Larry O’Brien.
I had the luxury of attending the event with ShamTheToryMan and Matt from A Step To The Right and below are a few pictures that I snapped with my cell phone.
Bob Chiarelli shows up to concede in a classy speech.
Larry gets the crowd going with his victory speech. Plough those furrows straight Larry. Plough ’em straight.
Provincial MPP Lisa MacLeod showed up to celebrate with Larry. I seem to run into her everywhere.
Matt (A Step To The Right) with Larry.
ShamTheToryMan and Matt (A Step To The Right)
All in all a surprising evening. We now have a straight arrow businessman in charge but we have returned a left leaning council so it is going to be interesting to see how things develop.
Phew. Hopefully, tomorrow I can stop looking at the sign farms.
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Hmmm, I look happier than Larry does….
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It must have been the shot: Larry was plenty happy tonight. But also, as so many are, relieved, tired, and glad to have this chapter closing as a promising new chapter begins. After all, he was up in the early hours today, and working hard to encourage Ottawans to vote.
Mayor Chiarelli’s speech was very gracious. And Mr. Munter was also kind to drop by and offer his congratulations in person. It could not possibly have been an easy evening for either of them, or their organizations.
Sorry I didn’t (finally) get the chance to meet you (AFAIK, anyway) tonight; see you on the 25th!
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“A left-leaning council”?
Really? I’ve seen this meme running around The Citizen (Randull Dumbley’s column, I think).
It’s interesting, but I’m having trouble seeing how it’s true (as it wasn’t with the former mayor and council).
Here’s an interesting article from The Citizen about the last council (with Chiarelli):
“Alliance can be an illusion: Councillors’ voting patterns show surprising lines of agreement”
“Known for the last four years as City Hall’s “official opposition,” Jan Harder and Rainer Bloess have a reputation for regularly taking on Mayor Bob Chiarelli and his supporters.
Just three weeks ago, after a stormy council meeting that ended with the mayor swearing at Councillor Glenn Brooks, Mr. Bloess said he and a group of like-minded councillors were determined not to “let the mayor drive the agenda.”
With comments like that, not many people would have guessed what a close inspection of his voting reveals: That during the budget Mr. Bloess was actually more likely to vote with the mayor than with either Ms. Harder or Mr. Brooks — or Doug Thompson or Gord Hunter, other conspicuous members of the conservative opposition group.”
http://www.jfclaude.ca/CitizenMay2004.htm
So, the mayor (supposedly a wild-eyed liberal, to hear it from you, T.O.M.) votes more often towards the right than the left in this study (presumably, he’d vote more or less the same way at other times).
So now we have a mayor who’s ostensibly more to the right than Chiarelli. Unless he’s so far out in right field as to offend more moderate conservatives and right-leaning libs with some ugly ideas, it’s likely he’ll have an easier time of things.
As for the council itself, there are plenty of new faces, most of which presented themselves in the election as vaccillating back and forth between right liberalism and left conservatism (if not actually doing their best to avoid showing their ideologies; I’ll reluctantly assume they’re pretty much like most Canadians: right liberals). It remains to be seen just how they’ll react, but I wouldn’t hold my breath in hope that they’ll stop every one of Lex Luthor’s plots (or go along with them either). Likely they’ll allow any ugliness to be done in small, easily digestible increments while congratulating themselves on how good people they are: it’s the Canadian Way.
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Todd (#3), that is a nice bit of comparison data. I honestly appreciate seeing it. What would be even nicer is a picture of the full three years and a comparison across every motion, including those that are not money related.
I do admit that Chiarelli was good at hammering council back into shape on the budget and that is probably why he had such high agreement with people like Harder and Bloess.
But it does behoove every councillor who brings up motions to be left leaning for their ward. And it behooves them to swing deals with other councillors in order to get motions passed for their wards benefit but that means that more money gets doled out. So it tends to be normal for the mayor, who covers the whole city, to be further right than almost every councillor, as Chiarelli was, because they would be the one to slap back the hands grabbing at the cookie jar.
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T.O.M. said:
“But it does behoove every councillor who brings up motions to be left leaning for their ward.”
“Left-leaning for their ward?” What does that mean? How can being the representative for a city ward automatically predispose one to a progressive stance? Or do you simply equate “left-leaning” with “spend money”?
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Todd, by left leaning i mean producing social programs beyond what is needed. Especially programs that are simply there to make work with minimal effort. There are 30 or more programs to aid the homeless in Ottawa. One of them, reportedly managed the care of 79 homeless people, while it maintains a brick and mortar facility that employs 85 people.
THAT is left leaning logic that not only stifles economies but stifles economic development and ingenuity in the free market system.