Toronto Mayor John Tory clinched his coveted second term with a record mandate, easily beating progressive challenger Jennifer Keesmaat while promising four more years of conservative “balanced” rule.Tory basked in victory Monday night, taking 63.5 per cent of the vote with most polls reporting. Barring the unforeseen, he will best David Miller’s 2006 re-election result of 57 per cent for the biggest mayoral win since amalgamation 20 years ago.After taking a Sheraton hotel podium to the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” Tory thanked “the people of Toronto for their confidence and for their support and for their inspiration and for this historic mandate that they have given me tonight.”But he’ll wake Tuesday facing tests including a drastically shrunken council, and dealing with Premier Doug Ford, who cut council midelection to 25 seats from a planned 47 and has made it clear he has more in store for Toronto. Political observers predicted the 47-ward model would have injected fresh faces and cultural diversity into a council much whiter and more male than Toronto’s population.With 25 wards Torontonians got more of the same. The new council retains the same proportion of visible minorities and women as the last. Four councillors, or 16 per cent, are visible minorities, while eight women, or 32 per cent, are women.The new council also appears to lean slightly to the political right, much like the last. Several newcomers with unknown politics — such as Jennifer McKelvie in Scarborough—Rouge Park, and Cynthia Lai in Scarborough North — could mean divisive votes won or lost by narrow margins.Colourful veteran Giorgio Mammoliti was turfed by Humber River—Black Creek voters. Newcomer Brad Bradford, a city hall bureaucrat endorsed by Tory, beat former NDP MP Matthew Kellway in Beaches—East York. Tory’s endorsement of progressive stalwart Joe Mihevc in Toronto-St. Paul’s was ...
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