Municipal Election Analysis 2018: Thunder Bay Mayoral Race

The results are in and former provincial Liberal Cabinet Minister Bill Mauro will be the next Mayor of Thunder Bay.  Congratulations to Mayor Mauro as well as all the hard-working candidates who chose to run for office.  Thanks also to outgoing council members who have seen years of public service.  Public service is never easy and putting your name forth as a candidate and serving as an elected official is an important act of participation in our democracy.

The new Mayor-Designate took 34 percent of the 41,108 votes cast for mayor edging out soon to be former City Councillor Frank Pullia who took 32 percent of the vote.  The choice of mayor was in many respects part of a general desire for change at the municipal level given that both of the higher profile council incumbent candidates for mayor went down to defeat.  Indeed, the new council represents a significant but not overwhelming amount of change with a number of new faces as well as new but familiar faces – as in the example of the new mayor.

Yet, the aspect of this race I found the most interesting was the collapse of the protest vote which saw Shane Judge garner only 5,155 votes (13 percent of the total) compared to his 2014 total of 9,531 which was a 26 percent share of the total.  Even more interesting was the collapse of support for Iain Angus who as a Councillor at Large in 2014 won with 15,861 votes and who as a candidate for mayor in 2018 was only able to manage about a third of that at 5,816. 

One wonders if this signals a general rightward shift in the Thunder Bay electorate given at least my perception of the generally left of center positions of Iain Angus.  Indeed, this may reflect a weakening of the labour vote in general given that Angus was endorsed by the Thunder Bay District Labour Council for Mayor and none of the five at large candidates endorsed by the Labour council won either.   Only three of the Labour Council ward endorsements won (Foulds, Ch’ng and Oliver). Or it may reflect a shift in voter priorities towards lower property taxes given that taxation was continually brought up as an issue during this campaign.The new mayor and several of the winning candidates have emphasized that taxation rates were an issue.

Figure 1 presents the ranked votes by mayoral candidates and most starkly illustrates how despite there being four high profile candidates, it was essentially a two-person race.  Indeed, one wonders what results would have been like if the provincial liberals had won the spring election and Bill Mauro had not entered the municipal race.  It is possible that in the absence of Bill Mauro’s entry, Frank Pullia might very well be the mayor today.  
 

Much is being made of the success of the new online/telephone voting system so a breakdown by type of ballot is interesting.  While voter participation is up above 50 percent this election and voter totals are up I would not venture to say that more convenient online voting options have resulted in a dramatic surge in participation.  Those who want to vote will vote no matter what the system is and the chief advantage of the new system is that it is more convenient for many people. While 41,108 ballots were cast for mayor this election, last time it was 37,123.  The result was an additional 3985 ballots cast – an increase of 13.4 percent.  This is actually a respectable increase but whether it was due to an appetite for change or the convenience of online voting will take a few more elections to see if the increase is sustained.

Of the 41,108 ballots cast for mayor, 15,249 - 37 percent- were paper ballots while 25,775 – 63 percent – were online/telephone ballots.  The preference does appear to be for the convenience of online/phone voting.  Figure 2 shows the distributions of the paper mayoral ballots. 
 

Figure 3 shows the distribution of the online/telephone ballots and Figure 4 the total distribution.  The results for the paper and the online/telephone ballots generally parallel each other but a closer examination shows that among the paper ballots, Frank Pullia had 33 percent of the vote and Bill Mauro 32 percent while in the online/telephone results it was 35 percent for Bill Mauro and 31 percent for Frank Pullia.  Overall, Bill Mauro became Mayor with 34 percent of the total vote and Frank Pullia was second with about 32 percent.

 

 

This is quite an interesting result because it raises the question as to whether the outcome might have been different if only paper ballots (which incidentally are also tabulated electronically) had been used.  It does appear that Frank Pullia had an edge with more traditional medium voters while Bill Mauro’s edge was with online voters.  This is also interesting given that the Pullia campaign was very social media intensive meaning it was fully engaged with the new technology.

This is also an interesting result because given the overall turnout – about 51 percent – and the number of candidates splitting the votes resulting in the winner only holding 34 percent of the total vote.  It means the mayor in the end was elected by about 17 percent of eligible voters.  This is not Bill Mauro’s fault by any stretch of the imagination.  People who are unhappy with small pools of voters rather than a majority deciding their leaders should make sure they get out and vote. On the other hand, perhaps recognition of this low effective support is why the incoming mayor seems relatively low key and unambitious given that his goal is to focus on one or two soft infrastructure projects - like an indoor tennis facility - rather than roads and bridges. I suspect many voters will be surprised to find out a tennis facility is going to be one of the new mayor's priorities.

In any event, these results should provide food for thought for many analyses to come. Next time, I will take a look at the At-Large results.

Pictures of a Presentation

I did my Lakehead University In Conversation presentation in the Fireside Room at the Brodie Library yesterday.  My talk was titled "Going from Chicago to Duluth of the North: Thunder Bay’s Economy in the Past, Present, and Future," and was quite well attended with about 30-35 members of the community present including old friends, new friends and even several candidates for municipal office.  Lakehead's In Conversation series is a very important venue for sharing university research and expertise with the broader community and an important form of engagement. A couple of pictures below including some shots of your Northern Economist in action.  Thanks to Peter Boyle for passing on some of the shots.



And of course, a photo with Peng You.





I will be posting the slides sometime later this week here on my LU Department web page.

Thunder Bay's Economic Evolution: A Brief History

From its origins as a fur trade company headquartered at Fort William, to the development of the grain and forest sectors, Thunder Bay’s economy has seen ebbs and flows over the course its history.  Key to its modern economic development was the federal government decision to route the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Lakehead and the arrival of the transcontinental railway in the 1880s.  Indeed, without this explicit government intervention it is unlikely Thunder Bay would have developed into a city as large as it is today.  Government action in assorted forms has been one of the pillars of Thunder Bay’s economy. 

Transportation is another pillar of Thunder Bay’s economy.  During the first decade of the twentieth century, there was a massive boom rooted in infrastructure building for the transport needs of the western Canadian grain economy that saw the twin Lakehead cities of Port Arthur and Fort William become the largest grain port in the world.  At its peak, over 30 grain terminals lined the waterfront.  Indeed, growth was so rapid that many believed the Lakehead would become the Chicago of the North.  Population quadrupled between 1901 and 1911 and the real per capita value of new construction was never higher than during this period.

Yet, as the twentieth century wore on, there was growing realization that as well as Thunder Bay was doing, it was not going to be the Chicago of the North.  The remainder of the twentieth century saw continued but slower growth and Thunder Bay’s ultimate evolution was more akin to Duluth Minnesota – the American Lakehead – rather than Chicago.  Thunder Bay’s economic growth slowed in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression and resumed during the resource boom of the 1950s and 1960s.  Indeed, natural resource extraction and processing whether forestry or mining have always been another pillar of Thunder Bay’s economy.

Port Arthur and Fort William amalgamated to form Thunder Bay in 1970 ending the urban competition that in retrospect appears correlated with better economic performance given the economic slowdown that ensured.  After 1970, labor saving technological change, aging capital stock, a shift in world grain markets and increasing international competition also eroded the competitiveness of Thunder Bay’s grain transport and forestry sectors culminating in the forest sector crisis, which saw substantial job losses in Thunder Bay and the surrounding region.  These job losses were aggravated by high energy costs with respect to electricity which were especially damaging to the energy intensive pulp and paper sector.  Total employment in Thunder Bay has never recovered from the peaks reached in the first years of the twenty first century.

In the wake of the forest sector crisis, recent years have seen a stabilization of the Thunder Bay economy and a shift in its composition towards employment in research, regional health and social services, and higher education.   This base continues to support a growing range of retail and service activities particularly in hospitality and accommodation oriented around a growing tourism scene that has drawn some international attention.  Nevertheless, economic growth has been slower compared to the rest of Canada and Ontario. While the unemployment rate in Thunder Bay is low, it is because the labor force has shrunk faster than employment as a result of an aging population and youth out-migration.  Population in Thunder Bay peaked in the 1990s and has declined slightly since.   While the First Nation’s population has been expanding, its future economic engagement hinges on the long-term success of initiatives to expand human capital via education and training.

 

As for the future, tomorrow is yesterday as Thunder Bay’s economic future will still rely on its traditional three pillars – government, transportation and natural resources.  These pillars will of course make use of new knowledge and technology and will require innovative entrepreneurial vision to recognize and implement new opportunities. Thunder Bay’s transportation infrastructure and its pivotal location on the east west transport corridor, the role of regional government services and the ongoing potential of the mining sector combined with information technology and the knowledge economy will be the economic forces propelling its future.

A version of this article was originally composed for Lake Superior News appearing there October 16^th in advance of the October 20^th Lakehead University In Conversation Talk at Brodie Library titled Going from Chicago to Duluth of the North: Thunder Bay’s Economy in the Past, Present, and Future.  

Municipal Spending Ranges by Key Categories in Northern Ontario Cities

Given the ongoing municipal election campaigns in Ontario, I have been focusing a fair amount of my blogging activity on municipal public finance issues.  In a recent post, I looked at the Net Municipal Levy Per Capita (NMLPC ) for the five major northern Ontario cities for the years 2007 and 2017. In 2007, the NMLPC was highest in Thunder Bay at $1,216 and lowest in Sudbury at $1,041.  By 2017, spending was highest in Timmins at $1,651 (with Thunder Bay second at $1,641) and lowest in Sault Ste. Marie at $1,434.  If one compares the growth rates in the per capita levy, they were actually highest in Timmins at an average of 4.6 percent annually and lowest in Thunder Bay at 3.5 percent annually.  I also compared the growth of the NMLPC to household income growth and showed that per capita municipal spending has been rising faster than average household income raising the question of sustainability.

In this post, I want to drill down a bit in the total expenditure numbers and compare spending for these five major northern Ontario cities in a number of key municipal expenditure categories.  The data is from the 2017 BMA Consulting Municipal Report and was available for key expenditure categories in terms of the levy for the category per $100,000 of municipal tax assessment.  In order to standardize comparison, I have reproduced the net levy graph (Fig 1) but per $100,000 of assessment rather than per capita as in the last post.  To this I have added graphs comparing general government (Fig 2), fire (Fig 3), police (Fig 4), paved roadway spending (Fig 5) and winter control (Fig 6).  Keep in mind that this is data for only one year and there are differences in population size and geographic spread across these five cities as well as any unique local circumstances that may affect spending.

 

 

 

Nevertheless, the results are illuminating in that there is no one size fits all pattern of spending across these five communities when it comes to these key municipal expenditure categories.  The net levy per $100,000 of assessment ranges from a high of $2,136 in Timmins to a low of $1,482 in Sudbury.  Thunder Bay spends the most on general government (i.e. administration) at $257 per $100,000 of assessment and Timmins the least at $65.  North Bay spends the most on fire services at $283 per $100,000 of assessment and Sudbury the least at $160.  In terms of policing, Thunder Bay spends the most at $503 per $100,000 of assessment and Sudbury the least at $320. 

 

 

 

When it comes to paved roadway expenditure, Sudbury spends the most at $258 per $100,000 of assessment and Sault Ste Marie the least at $101.  Finally, all five of these cities experience harsh winters and the need to plow roads and when you look at winter control spending, Timmins spends the most at $237 per $100,00 of assessment and Thunder Bay the least at $48 per $100,000 of assessment.  This last category however is the most likely to be the subject of large fluctuations from year to year given local weather conditions.  My guess is the winter of 2017 was pretty bad in Timmins. 

Overall, there are large differences in spending across these categories across these five cities.  The spending in these categories on average across these five cities in 2017 accounted for about two-thirds of the net levy – a significant proportion.  It would be interesting to know what the incidence of fires is in North Bay and Thunder Bay given the size of the expenditure in these communities compared to the others.  Given high homicide rates in Thunder Bay, it is understandable perhaps why it spends the most of police of these five cities.  Yet, given that the average proportion spent on governance in these five cities is about 8 percent of the net levy, one wonders why Thunder Bay spends 14 percent and the Sault is at 11 percent compared to say 3 percent in Timmins or 9 percent in Sudbury. 

Ratepayers in each community should be asking themselves how their community compares to the others and what may be driving the differences.  Is the best value for money being provided?

Trying to Understand Thunder Bay's 2018 Municipal Election Campaign

It is perhaps a sign of advancing age that I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand what Thunder Bay’s municipal election campaign is actually about.  I found the 2014 municipal election to simply be a wasted election as despite issues like municipal fiscal sustainability, the Kam River Bridge, and the sale of public assets, the entire election was simply fixated on the events centre.  This time around, the long-term fiscal sustainability of municipal finances is still an issue as is the Kam River Bridge to which can be added the city’s social fabric as well as Thunder Bay’s economic development and yet to date it appears to have become – and here I suppose I am dating myself again - a Seinfeld Election.  That is, despite what are acknowledged by many to be a host of issues, it appears to be an election about nothing in particular.

Aside from campaign signs dotting the landscape at strategic street corners, I have met only one candidate on my doorstep and only two have left literature.  I have yet to become aware of any scheduled public debates.  This is during the course of a campaign with a record number of candidates – 11 for the position of Mayor alone with another 26 vying for the At-Large councilor positions – which no doubt complicates the traditional debate framework.  Indeed, how can we have a meaningful discussion in which 11 candidates for Mayor can outline how they see the state of the city and offer analysis and solution?  Incumbents for the At-Large positions must be silently laughing all the way to the proverbial bank given the difficulty of numerous candidates swimming like so many salmon upstream to stake out a position and gain visibility.   

With traditional election campaigns difficult to conduct, this appears to have become Thunder Bay’s truly first complete social media election campaign which complements the debut of internet voting nicely  Many of the candidates – but not all - appear to have developed extensive web presences and have Facebook profiles full of photos and videos showing smiling candidates in assorted municipal action poses.  There are catchy slogans and mission statements that describe themselves as accountable community activists, serious leadership, concerned with the social fabric, and even showing transformative leadership.  

There are candidates claiming to be working for you, others putting Thunder Bay first or working together for a Thunder Bay that works, some posing with old family friends and seniors, and many updated profile photos showing youthful smiling vigour.  If they have received endorsements, they are highlighted along with any favorable media coverage. Indeed, if one were to judge Thunder Bay by the Facebook profiles of its municipal candidates one could only conclude that our community is definitely one big happy place full of wonderful smiling people whose major source of gainful employment is posing for pictures. 

There are even some alliances being formed between candidates as they campaign together.  There is one slate of five councilor At- Large candidates that aims to put people and the planet first under a time for change slogan.  Then there is another alliance between one incumbent and one new entry in the At-Large race that is marketing itself as political twins working for you.  I suppose this is a political variant of a two for the price of one marketing ploy.  Or perhaps, vote for one, get one free.

In the end, all of this seems to me to be mainly style over substance.  Needless to say, election campaigns have always been dominated by style over substance with serious policy discussion seen as a dangerous luxury – especially for incumbents.  In the end, polite conversation at least in the social circles I move in appear to have narrowed down the issues in this election to three: a need for major change in representation given that many on council are long in the tooth, taxation rates and cost-effective municipal services, and social issues with an emphasis on crime and public safety.  If this is not be another wasted election, we need candidates to address how they would reduce crime and improve the social fabric and how they would pay for it given what has been a steadily rising municipal tax burden that has shifted largely to the residential ratepayer. We cannot afford to waste another election.