Why are more election races in Ontario uncontested?

Gauri Shankar, Matt Wren and Roger Haley are all being acclaimed as mayors of their eastern Ontario municipalities. (Nate Vandermeer/CTV News Ottawa)

Municipal elections in Ontario are just under 2 months away, but a large number of candidates, including mayors, have already been acclaimed, meaning no one chose to run against them. 

When Brockville councillor Matt Wren announced he was running for mayor, he was looking forward to a tight race.

"I never expected for a moment to be uncontested," Wren told CTV News on Friday. "We've been working really hard since early spring getting ready for our campaign.”

Wren was acclaimed to the mayor’s seat on Aug. 22, after the Friday deadline passed for candidates to run for office.

"It's very unique for a non-sitting mayor to be acclaimed, I appreciate that," he said. "Although I look back on the 2018 election and had very, very good results and support from the community."

Wren announced his candidacy back in March and officially filed on May 9. He recently finished his first term as councillor.  

The number of candidates running unopposed has grown over the last two municipal elections, according to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). 

Their stats reveal that 120 heads of council, including mayors and reeves, were acclaimed in 2018, up from 103 in 2014.

A total of 16 mayors have been acclaimed in 2022 in eastern Ontario alone, including Pembroke, North Glengarry and Prescott, where Gauri Shankar was also acclaimed.

"You always gear for a race and you always get ready, and I was ready right until 2 o'clock on Friday," Shankar said.

"I was pretty proud, pretty humbled. And most of all, I was honoured that the town of Prescott decided that I was best for the job," he smiled. 

Then there's Front of Yonge Township, where the mayor and all four council members were acclaimed.

"Talking with our MPP Steve Clark, he mentioned there was only six entire councils in the province that were acclaimed this time," Haley said. 

Haley has held the top seat for 16 years, going through three elections uncontested.

"We hope that this shows that people have confidence in us and that we know what we're doing," he said. "By the same token, the question arises is, are people losing interest?"

That's a sentiment held by all three men, listing some factors why they might have ran uncontested.

"Social media is cruel these days, it's just absolutely cruel," noted Shankar. "You know you have to try and avoid that as much as possible."

"The tone on social media, it's very hard on elected officials sometimes," added Wren. "I try to stay away from it, to be quite honest."

Another factor included voter apathy.

"We just went through a provincial election two months ago, through a federal election last year and a municipal election coming up again this fall," Haley said. "The turnouts have been low the last few elections, that could be a possibility."

"People are busy, they've had a rough last couple of years, so I think they don't really want another election, right, or partake in another election," Shankar said. 

"There's also the fact that these are not easy jobs," he added. "You have to be thick skinned, you have to be prepared, you have to be accessible."

"The other thing is the commitment," noted Haley. "We quite often ask why younger people aren't being more involved, and when you add in the jobs of the councillors, not only do they meet on a regular basis for council meetings, but they have committee meetings, and they have other events and functions they have to show up to."

Haley said the mayor's position also includes a commitment to the United Counties of Leeds & Grenville, which is another couple days needed a month.

"So for a young person who has a family, and are doing the things that families do, and trying to get time off work to attend those meetings, it's tough," Haley said. "Not all the meetings are at night and they can't be expected to be at night because you have staff that are involved, and you rely heavily on your staff to run the place."

"It's not an easy position to hold," added Wren. "There is a lower number of candidates for many reasons and many places and I'm sure that will be the subject of a lot of discussion and analysis."

Other municipalities do have tight races in the region, like Augusta, Merrickville-Wolford and Elizabethtown-Kitley, where multiple candidates are vying to become mayor and councillors. 

Wren, Shankar and Haley all look forward to a successful four years ahead, focusing on growing their municipalities for the future. 

"I want to see this town continue to grow, I think it's been going on the right track," said Shankar. "There's been a lot of positive trends, a lot of new development. I want to keep up that new development, commercial and real estate."

"Transparency is a key thing, having office hours, being accessible to your citizens and the town and having an ear, they need to have that ear," he added.  

"Lastly, I think we are a small town surrounded by other municipalities, collaborating with them, let's work hand in hand together," Shankar said, wishing all the best to former mayor Brett Todd, who did not run for re-election. 

"We had a good relationship, he worked hard for the town, he had good results and we thank him for everything he's done," he said. 

For Haley, residential growth is key for a rural municipality that does not have a lot of options to grow industrially. 

"That's our goal to keep that moving," he said. "There are other projects in the works, but mainly to attract families, and I mean we're not in the position to have factories, we don't have the infrastructure."

"But people are moving here, we're having a lot of new homes being built and if we can continue that trend and make some improvements in that fashion, keep the roads in good shape and try to work within our means, that's what we've been trying to do and hopefully can continue," he added. 

Meanwhile, Wren's focus is to turn over the vacant Woolworth's building on King Street that the city bought in 2020, to help revitalize the downtown core.

"There's a number of residential developments at various stages of getting started and our community needs to grow, so we all need to get behind and make sure those projects move forward. Those are important things," he said. 

Wren is also looking forward to some new blood coming into the council chambers, with 16 candidates vying for eight positions. 

"I think it's important that we have some fresh blood each time, the balance is really critical." he said. "You do need experience and it's great that some of the long standing councillors put their names forward again, their experience was very helpful to me in learning the ropes."

"In every cycle some new people join us with some new voices, some new perspectives," he added, noting the last four years had a very cohesive group of councillors, even if they didn't all see eye to eye. . 

"We've built a strong foundation to move forward from so there's a lot of work to continue," he said. "I just wish all the candidates that have put their name on the ballot, that's a very courageous thing to do, I wish them all the best in their campaign and hope we have some great dialogue over the next few weeks."