Random Access

It wasn’t your imagination. That was the dirtiest campaign Mississauga has seen in a long time, according to many of the participants.
Take it from veteran campaigners like Maja Prentice, first elected in 1985, who Monday night called it “very naughty. Last time was dirty and it was dirty again this time,” the Ward 3 councillor said at her victory party.
Pat Saito had all of her large signs along Winston Churchill Blvd. pulled down by vandals just in time for election day. She’s filed a report with Peel Regional Police.
“This has definitely been one of the nastier campaigns,” she says. “It is really a shame that this type of dirty politics has come to Mississauga. I guess we have been fortunate to not have experienced it more in the past but it does make me wonder what kind of ethics some of the candidates have this time around.”
Of course, lots of the challengers have similar complaints about incumbents. The tone of this campaign was definitely uncivil, for a civic election.
By the way, Carolyn Parrish, who won in Ward 6, insists she was not responsible for the “dirty drop” that her chief rival, Ron Starr, complained about on election night. Someone photocopied old newspaper clippings about the charges brought against Starr by the Ontario Provincial Police, which were later dropped by the courts, and stuffed them in mailboxes in selected areas of the ward. It did look like an amateur job, judging by the quality of the paper and the helpful highlighting, which was obviously done by hand.
Parrish was also the subject of a couple of nasty spot-drops.
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It’s understandable if you didn’t recognize Brad MacDonald election night as he awaited election results at City Hall with his sons, 7 and 10, and his campaign manager. He didn’t look anything like his picture in The Toronto Star.
The newspaper accidentally printed a picture of the Ward 5 council candidate of the same name and spelling, in its election section. MacDonald, it turns out, was too busy campaigning to notice and missed the chance for a correction. Made no difference, as he cruised to a win.
One of his priorities is working with councillor Katie Mahoney to ensure that the branch library at Sheridan Mall, a lifeline to literacy for many of the immigrant students who live in the surrounding community, stays open.
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Nominees in the “They Must be Kicking Themselves Now” category:
Rick Williams and Rick Falco: Either one might had a good chance of knocking off Eve Adams in Ward 5 if they’d found the gumption to run. Williams, the public trustee and Falco, who finished second to Adams in 2003, both decided to pass and may have missed their chance. Falco jumped wards and ran for Ward 6 Catholic trustee, finishing second. Williams was re-elected to the public board.
It will be a long four years for them, but maybe not as long as the four years Adams will spend under the withering icy, isolating glare of the Queen of Scowl.
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What if you spent most of the campaign period in the hospital, quit the campaign half-way through and still collected more votes than five other candidates? That’s what Gordon Clarkson managed in finishing a still-very-respectable second in the Ward 1 council race.
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Finally, Monday night may have marked the last appearance covering a Mississauga event for Toronto Star reporter Mike Funston, who has been on the municipal beat here since he joined The Star in 1977. He will be working on a variety of projects for the paper’s special sections.
Mike and I spent far too many hours together at the press desk at City Hall over the years speculating on vote counts, futilely trying to pin down Hazel’s best-before-date and waiting for interminable in-camera sessions to end. The glory days of the Mississauga bureau and Mike’s experienced hand will be greatly missed.