Two sitting councillors facing off in frosty Thornhill election battle

CP24.com
Oct. 7, 2014
By Joshua Freeman

As municipal election day approaches, an unusual showdown is brewing north of Steeles Avenue. Not one, but two incumbents are vying to keep their job in Thornhill, where two wards were recently consolidated into one.

The redrawn ward map means two-time councilor Valerie Burke (Ward 1) is facing off against first-term councillor Howard Shore (Ward 2) to become the councillor for the new Ward 1, a race where no new entrants have registered to run.

“Obviously incumbents do have a big advantage,” Burke says of her one-on-one matchup with Shore. “I don’t know why other people didn’t put their name in but I can only imagine that with two incumbents they felt it was pretty tough.”

But with Burke and Shore set to duke it out in a close contest, it appears there will be little love lost between the councillors. Speaking with CP24.com about the race, neither candidate pulled any punches.

For her part, Burke says Shore has acted more as a competitor than a colleague during the past four years.

“Howard has not respected me. I’ve asked him many times and he has not respected me on many different fronts,” Burke says.

She points to invitations distributed to residents in her ward to attend forums hosted by Shore and to an unwritten rule that councillors defer to their colleagues if someone from another ward contacts them on an issue.

“If there was an issue in another ward and I was asked to get involved I would always make sure the ward councillor was aware to give them that courtesy,” she says.

She says Shore has also smeared her by suggesting that she leaves meetings early and that her family’s plastics business - located in the Thornhill Revitalization Area - would prevent her from acting impartially on behalf of residents. Burke says she has declared a pecuniary interest whenever necessary and would only have to excuse herself from votes on zoning bylaw amendments to the area.

However Shore shrugs off much of the criticism and says residents should be able to deal with whichever councillor they like.

“If a resident prefers to contact me or her or if she gets involved in something, I don’t run off to complain,” he says.

He calls it “cute” to suggest his invitations were improper and insists he did nothing wrong.

He adds that Burke has so far refused to meet him in a one-on-one ward debate so that residents can compare them side by side.

“It wouldn’t be exactly ‘Nightline’ but I think you could have for the benefit of residents a really good opportunity to hear from two (candidates),” Shore says.

Burke has not responded to the challenge, saying that she and Shore have taken part in all-candidates meetings where they have each had a brief chance to talk and that her record speaks for itself.

Highlighting the divide, it appears the two don’t even agree on which matters voters are interested in.

Asked what she’s hearing from voters at the door, Burke points to the vote around the Markham arena and concerns that the decision making was too secretive.

“Residents were very upset with the lack of transparency so that to me seems to be the number one issue - accountability and transparency,” Burke says.

However Shore says he’s heard surprisingly little about the matter at the door.

The former school board trustee says residents are more concerned about burying power lines (the area was one of the worst hit by last winter’s ice storm) and creating a smarter city.

He also says residents are more interested in a candidate’s record than anything else, referring gently to an absolute discharge he received last year for stealing an iPhone out of a gym locker at a local community centre.

“There were some health issues that were dealt with and were part of that. I’ve been absolutely forthcoming... in taking responsibility for the mistakes I made,” Shore says. “I think there are some absolutely fabulous people in this community who expressed support beyond anything I expected.”

He points to the work he’s done since then - going door-to-door on Christmas Day to help seniors stranded in their homes by the ice storm and working on taking Markham beyond high tech and making it a smarter city in terms of transit and sustainability.

Listing her own accomplishments, Burke points out she’s successfully stood up to developers when necessary, winning a slap lawsuit brought against her by developers for trying to halt development in a proposed food belt last term.

Voters quiet on boundary change

Aside from the frosty relationship between the two Ward 1 candidates, it remains to be seen whether the boundary change itself further confuses voters.

Burke points out turnout already tends to be low at the polls in Markham elections.

If there is any confusion, residents don’t seem to be voicing it so far.

“We’ve had very little response (to the change),” says Frank Edwards, Markham’s election coordinator.

“We tried to get the word out to people that they could be voting for people who weren’t in their ward before.”

While the boundaries in the race might seem blurry, one things seems clear: No matter who wins on election night, he or she will likely start off the new term with at least one dissatisfied resident.