Councillor Sandra Bussin returns to her seat after handing the microphone to a fellow candidate during an all-candidates meeting ahead of an election in the Beaches Ward in Toronto.Chris Young
The Speaker has been silenced.
Voters in Beaches-East York (Ward 32) ousted four-term councillor and City Hall Speaker Sandra Bussin in a bitter ward race that typified the kick-the-bums-out fervour felt throughout the city during the campaign.
Rookie candidate Mary-Margaret McMahon pulled 65 per cent of the vote in the waterfront ward by ducking the mud that rival candidates have been slinging since summer, including bitter accusations over untendered contracts, an indignant anti-incumbent crusade, thorny campaign-financing questions and, most recently, allegations of a bizarre voting-law infraction.
"As Speaker of the council, I've tried to fly below the radar and not be controversial but there seemed to be a concerted effort to ramp up allegations against me," said Ms. Bussin. "It is the toughest campaign I've been involved with."
The left-leaning region became an unlikely beachhead in Rob Ford's war on city hall when he cited an untendered city contract in the Beaches as a prime example of the mismanagement he would purge.
That stand pitted his fiery legions against Ms. Bussin, who supported the sole-source contract to Tuggs Inc., operators of the Boardwalk Pub, but recused herself from city discussions and voting on the matter.
While Tuggs eventually slapped Mr. Ford with a $6-million defamation suit, the emotional and ideological battle lines in the ward were drawn. An anybody-but-Bussin camp grew ever larger as election day neared, seizing upon everything from her expense account to her use of public funds in launching a libel lawsuit against a local community newspaper (an action approved by the city's own legal council and three different judges).
"I didn't feel that negative campaigns win, but obviously they have an impact," Ms. Bussin said.
However dubious some of the dirt on Ms. Bussin was, she did commit some indefensible miscues.
Last fall, for example, she called a radio show hosted by former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory and refused to give her full name or position before proceeding to praise then mayor David Miller and slighting Mr. Tory as "a three-time loser." She later apologized to both Mr. Tory and city council.
Ms. McMahon was the cheery benefactor of the anti-Bussinites. A community activist and environmentalist with a short political résumé, her odds appeared long at the outset of the race. But she slowly attracted support across the political spectrum - from Mr. Tory to Mike Schreiner, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario - to the point where she blew past the incumbent by 40 percentage points on election night.
Fellow candidates Martin Gladstone, Neil Sinclair and Bruce Baker all bowed out to support Ms. McMahon. Mr. Baker withdrew on Saturday but that came after one last jolt in the roller-coaster race.
On Friday, he sent Ms. Bussin a letter asking her to abandon the race and support him. Later that day, Mr. Baker's sister-in-law phoned him to say that a crew from Ms. Bussin's campaign had arrived with a Bussin lawn sign and "tried to tell her that I had withdrawn from the race so she should put up a Sandra sign," Mr. Baker said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
Mr. Baker filed an official complaint with the city on Monday.
By the time autumn rolled around, Ms. Bussin could feel the wheels falling off her campaign, though she couldn't always tell who had loosened the lug-nuts. "Normally these are low-key grassroots types of campaigns," she said of the negative attacks that seemed to come from everywhere but her chief rival's mouth. "I do think [Ms. McMahon's]campaign was run by significant players in the Conservative party."
Her backers say those right-wingers in the shadows will now push to open the ward to a developing blitz.
Ms. McMahon denies those charges, saying her supporters include some from all political stripes. She said her first act as councillor will be to assemble the "collective genius of the community" in the form of local historians, architects, city planners and others to decide how the ward should progress.
"I'm for smart development where as long as it maintains the integrity of the Beaches," she said.
With a report from Ruane Remy
Patrick White