Vaughan’s mayoral race is wide open for the first time in decades, but there are few theatrics to be found

Cp24.com
Oct. 11, 2022
Joshua Freeman

Vaughan has at times been a city known for its colourful politics, but with a municipal election just two weeks away and seven people vying to become mayor, there is surprisingly little drama.

It's a race which includes a longtime city councillor and a former Ontario transportation minister, but if not for the election signs dotting the main roads and neighbourhoods of the city, ordinary citizens could be forgiven for not knowing anything was going on.

Blame might be the wrong word, but if one wanted to find the cause for the sleepy tone of the election, one could look to the outgoing mayor.

It is unusual for a mayor of Vaughan to leave the role willingly. Unprecedented in fact. Traditionally, the city’s mayors have either died in office or been ousted while vying for re-election.

Take for example Vaughan’s first mayor, Garnet A. Williams, who died in office after serving in the role for 11 years. He was succeeded by Lorna Jackson, who won an open election against three other candidates -- a contest described at the time by the Globe and Mail as “fierce” -- to become mayor in 1982. She held the post until her own death 20 years later in 2002. She was succeeded by Michael Di Biase, who was appointed interim mayor and then won election to the post in 2003.

Di Biase ran for re-election in 2006, but was beaten by just 90 votes by his predecessor’s daughter, Linda Jackson. That bitterly close race punctuated a famously tumultuous period of infighting on council.

Jackson ran for re-election in 2010, but was defeated by Maurizio Bevilacqua, a popular Liberal MP who had decided to run for local office following a career as a federal politician.

The former MP would go on to win two more terms as mayor of the city and it looked to many that he could be settling into the role in the way of his predecessors.

People lead busy lives and a full accounting of civic history is not typically at their fingertips.

So when Bevilacqua announced at the Mayor’s Gala on June 1  -- incidentally his 62nd birthday -- that he would not be seeking re-election, attendees could be forgiven for not realizing that he was in fact making history as the first mayor of Vaughan to willingly leave the role without seeking re-election.

His announcement also set up a situation not seen since Vaughan's first mayor died in office -- a truly open contest with no incumbent. If one counts the quiet and planned manner in which Bevilacqua is leaving office, one could fairly call the situation unprecedented.

But perhaps equally unprecedented is the sleepy tone of a Vaughan election with nobody running to hang on to the mayor’s seat. While the jarring nature of previous mayors’ departures have sparked bitter battles for succession, Bevilacqua's planned departure seems to have inspired a race with conspicuously less drama than usual.

Of the seven candidates running to become mayor, two are names familiar to Vaughan voters.

DECADES OF COUNCIL EXPERIENCE BEHIND ONE BID
Sandra Yeung Racco has been the Ward 4 Concord/Thornhill North councilor since 2003. With almost two decades on council, she knows city hall well and says she wants to be mayor in order to deliver value for dollar to the taxpayers and make Vaughan “a world-class city.”

“I just believe that with my experience, with my work ethic, with all the accomplishments I have done and delivered to date -- and I think I've also demonstrated to my residents, to the constituents and businesses, that I'm here for them, I'm here to listen to their concerns -- I'm here to make changes to make our city better.”

Sandra Yeung Racco

She cites her work as chair of the Spadina-York Subway Extension Committee as an example and calls it a “huge accomplishment."

“We're the only city outside of Toronto that actually has a subway into our city,” Yeung Racco says. “And with that, we were able to actually kickstart the development of our entire downtown, the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.”

If elected mayor, she says, she’ll work to increase the city’s use of smart technology to help boost efficiency, such as sensors that let garbage collectors know when receptacles are full rather than simply visiting every one on a route.

She also cites increasing crime, such as carjackings, as a “frightening” problem she wants to tackle.

“I think what we need to do is we need to actually get to the root of why are these crimes happening? Why is there an increase? And we even need to look at the social and mental wellbeing of people. I think those things are very important.”

Yeung Racco, who was a councillor during the tumultuous terms proceeding Bevilacqua, acknowledges with a laugh that council went through some "rocky times" and says she would work collaboratively as mayor and understands that the "right leadership" is important for setting the tone.

“Over the past few terms I think we have finally been able to turn that image around. We're much more collaborative, we work together and we try to move things (forward). That doesn't mean that we're always on the same wavelength, right? We don't always have to agree. But the fact of the matter is, we demonstrated that we have respect for each other and we listen to each other."

Her husband, Mario Racco, has previously run for mayor himself and is also running in this election to become a local and regional councillor. Working together at city hall would not be a problem if they are both elected, Yeung Racco says, noting that they are both "mature" people who would each only have one vote on council.

She strikes a stoic note when asked why she would risk a relatively safe council seat to take a chance running for mayor.

“I've given over 25 years of public service to the city and I'm happy with all the things I have done,” the trained pianist says. “And if I'm not elected, I'm sure there'll be many other things that I can do, because I'm one of those that will continue to do things to make our community better.”

NOT RUNNING BUT STILL A FACTOR
She’s not quite as stoic when asked about Bevilacqua’s recent glowing endorsement of her chief rival in the mayoral race, former Ontario Liberal Party Leader Steven Del Duca.

She says Vaughan voters are “smart and sophisticated” and calls the outgoing mayor’s effort to shepherd their vote “a disgrace.”

“I think it's a slap in the people's face,” she says. "I think our residents are very smart. They're educated.”

While he’s not running again, Bevilacqua recently endorsed Del Duca and released a four-page document that reads as a joint platform.

“I'm disappointed that the mayor has thrown his support behind someone who has absolutely zero municipal experience, someone who has not even been elected by the people for the past four years,” Yeung-Racco says, alluding to Del Duca’s trouble winning a seat while he was Ontario Liberal Leader.

Bevilacqua’s anointing of a successor and Yeung Raccos’ response to it are notable as perhaps the only item of contention in the race so far.

While it may have upset Yeung Racco, the endorsement didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows the two men have been close for years.

For his part, Del Duca says Bevilacqua has been a friend for a long time and his advice was instrumental in the decision to run.

“When I was thinking about running over the course of the latter half of the summer, he was the first person I called to talk about it,” Del Duca says.

He says multiple conversations followed where he sought Bevilacqua’s thoughts and the mayor challenged him to look at things from different angles.

“I think many candidates probably did similar things,” Del Duca says. “It wasn't like he said to me on Day One ‘Hey, go and run for it.’”

The trajectory of the conversation eventually turned, Del Duca says, to the legacy that Bevilacqua was leaving behind and where the city is headed and the two eventually crafted a joint plan which they dubbed the “Bevilaqua-Del Duca Accord.”

“I think back to that pre-2010 period; the chaos, the bad publicity, all of that. And he has built an exceptional legacy, like a truly exceptional legacy in the city,” Del Duca says. “I think he has a keen interest as a resident of Vaughan to make sure that it continues to move in the right direction. I certainly do and I think building on his legacy is something that I would love to have the opportunity to do.”

The joint document commits to 10 key targets, including keeping property taxes low, fighting gridlock and environmental sustainability.

FORMER LIBERAL LEADER LOOKING TO PARK PARTISANSHIP AT THE DOOR
Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic at Highway 7 and Keele Street as he speaks over the phone while on his way to an event, Del Duca says that respecting existing residents while welcoming tens of thousands of new ones will be a challenge for the city.  Getting growth right, he says, will involve anticipating future needs and developing a plan accordingly.

While current ridership on the existing bus rapid transit system is somewhat low, he says as an example, transit will be an important part of reducing gridlock in the future. It may be worth examining, he says, whether the relatively high cost of using transit in the city is preventing growth on the system.

Steven Del Duca

It’s an issue he’s familiar with, having helped bring the subway extension to Vaughan when he served as transportation minister in the Wynne government. His time in the Liberal cabinet also allowed him to advocate for the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, he says.

While Del Duca acknowledges that he will have a "learning curve" at city hall if elected, (“Should I win on Oct. 24, I don't expect I'm going to know everything on Day One,” he says), he also downplays the idea that a lack of municipal experience will hurt him. In fact, he sees it as an asset.

He points out that Bevilacqua came to city hall from federal politics and was by all accounts a success as mayor. He adds that he loves municipal politics because it unshackles one from the sort of partisan politics which exists at the provincial and federal levels.

“Just last night I was in Thornhill in a private residence -- 35, 40 people there to meet me, many for the first time and almost every single one of them card-carrying Conservatives provincially and federally,” Del Duca recounts. “They came out and they listened to me, they kicked the tires, they asked questions, and I think I came out of that room with a good chunk of support from people who never would have voted for me provincially or for Liberals federally. And again, that's the beauty of municipal politics. It's about the outcomes. It's about the progress. It's about the people, not about parties.”

Drawing support from across party lines is exactly what Del Duca will need to do in order to win. He says his stinging electoral loss to Doug Ford in the provincial election in June taught him “to make decisions going forward with great humility and to never take anything for granted.”

But he adds that it also would have been easy to give up after that defeat.

“But that's not my style. And I'm not I'm not someone who gives up easily.”

Asked whether he could get along with his former political rival Doug Ford, who will be premier for the next four years, Del Duca says that while they may not agree on many issues, it is understood that “when you're running municipally, you park the party membership and the partisanship at the door.”

‘WE’VE REALLY, REALLY MOVED ON’
If it seems like there’s less excitement than one would expect in this election, then it may well be because both of the candidates’ visions are fairly similar. Both want to keep taxes low, while fighting gridlock and planning for growth in a way that won’t upend current residents.

But the lack of fireworks is also testament to the fact that perhaps the city truly has moved on from a stormier brand of politics.

“I think we're just in a completely different environment, completely different territory these days,” Ward 5 Councillor Alan Shefman says.

He says the sort of bickering that once made headlines “really doesn't exist” anymore and that “we've really, really moved on."

The longtime councillor has high praise for Bevilacqua for having set a collaborative tone -- “he’s a tough act to follow” -- but also for his council colleagues. That includes former mayor Jackson, who is running for re-election as a local and regional councillor.

“She's one of the strongest regional councillors we have had over the last four years,” he says.

As for the two leading candidates in the mayoral race, Shefman says the city would be in good hands either way. He calls Yeung Racco a “really, really good ward councillor, very responsive to her community” and says Del Duca has “always been a very strong proponent for the City of Vaughan” and has useful executive experience as a former cabinet minister.

“Both have the wherewithal to address any of those types of issues,” he says when asked about keeping council functioning smoothly.

While some might look for excitement in an election, city hall watcher and frequent social media commentator Tracey Kent says relief might be the more satisfying sentiment when voters look at the slate of candidates this year.

“Probably more people are relieved at the candidates, that they're quality candidates, which is nice,” she says.

“Everyone in Vaughan runs once for council, it seems, and it's the same people over and over again,” she jokes. “That's why it's rather nice to have someone in a front runner like Del Duca.”

Having sat through many local meetings with him years ago, she says he "knows his stuff” and has always been involved.

Kent says she regrets the fact that well-respected former councillor and federal seniors minister Deb Schulte did not end up in the race (Schulte registered to run, but dropped out to focus on her health as she battles cancer. She has since endorsed Del Duca).

But when she looks at those in the race, Kent says, they’re talking about issues that matter.

“Traffic. Housing -- yeah, they're all talking about what's important.”

Voters head to the polls on Oct. 24. Advanced voting for Vaughan’s municipal election is open now both in-person and online. You can see the full slate of candidates and polling station information on the city’s website.