Many long-serving mayors toppled across Halton, GTA

In the 2022 municipal election, incumbents were re-elected 80 per cent of the time. While many of them continued that success last night, there were some major upsets in Halton Region — including the defeat of the longest-serving mayor in Canada.

The Town of Milton has a new mayor for the first time since 1980. Gordon Krantz has been a politician for more than six decades after he was first elected to Milton council in 1965.

“You can’t take anything away from Gord Krantz, 68-plus years of service to one community is quite something. You can’t take anything away from him,” said George Minakakis.

Minakakis ended Krantz’s 46-year run as mayor by more than 8,000 votes.

“I think this election was more about change,” Minakakis said. “The world is very different than what it was a decade ago, five years ago. Both socially, economically, technologically and environmentally we’re being challenged by different issues. The public feels it.”

Oakville saw another long-serving mayor ousted. Long-time town and regional councillor Jeff Knoll toppled incumbent Rob Burton, who had been mayor of the town for 20 years.

“I just didn’t feel that the current mayor, although he’s done a good job for the last 20 years, I didn’t think he had that level of fight left in him,” Knoll said. “I really want to lead this town to basically be what this community wants it to be, as opposed to what Queen’s Park wants it to be. And I think that’s essential.”

Knoll, who is the chair of the Halton police board, says he is the man to go toe-to-toe with Queen’s Park on Oakville’s future.

“First move is tell Queen’s Park loud and clear that, you know what, there is a new mayor in town and we’re just not going to roll over and accept them doing planning on our behalf,” Knoll said. “The community has to be involved.”

There was no change at Burlington City Hall, where Marianne Meed Ward easily dispatched of her challengers with over 44 per cent of the vote, securing her third term as mayor.

“It really is an indication that people like the work that I’ve been doing with council,” Meed Ward said. “Remember that 91 per cent of our votes have been unanimous. We have been a very cohesive council, we’ve gotten a lot done in that time and people really wanted that continuity.”

And in Mississauga, Alvin Tedjo beat incumbent Carolyn Parrish and former mayor and Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie.