The electoral divisions used for Metro in the 1991 election
Metro council was mostly unchanged from that elected in the 1988 election. The only incumbent defeated was Bob Sanders in Scarborough Malvern, who was ousted by Raymond Cho. New arrivals included school board trustee Olivia Chow elected downtown.
North York Humber Councillor Mario Gentile resigned on August 10, 1994, following a conviction for breach of trust. Paul Valenti was appointed to fill the vacancy on August 24.
Toronto
Mayor
In Toronto, the mayoral race was the first open contest in more than a decade as MayorArt Eggleton decided not to run for re-election after 11 years. Jack Layton, a long-time city councillor and leader of the council's left wing contested the Mayor's position as the first-ever official candidate of the Metro New Democratic Party (NDP).
The centre-right was initially divided amongst three candidates, former city councillor June Rowlands who had most recently been chair of the police commission, then-city councillor Betty Disero and former alderman, provincial cabinet minister and Red TorySusan Fish. Fearing that the 1991 election would be a repeat of 1978 where a split on the right allowed left-winger John Sewell to win, the business and development community worked behind the scenes to consolidate its support behind Rowlands. Lacking funds, Disero and Fish were forced to drop out before the close of nominations resulting in a two-way race between Rowlands and Layton with Rowlands proving victorious. Fish's name remained on the ballot, as she withdrew after the deadline for nominations had passed.
Results taken from the Toronto Star newspaper, 14 November 1991, E8. The final official results were not significantly different.
City council
Ward boundaries used in the 1991 election
As with Metro, city council was mostly stable with all incumbents who ran being reelected. The new council had six NDP affiliated members eight members on the right and two moderates who varied between the groups. New members included Kyle Rae, who won Layton's vacated downtown seat, and became the first ever openly gay man to serve on council.
In Ward 1, incumbent Councillor William Boytchuk (who has served as councillor since 1969), had no problem keeping his seat, winning with a 13% margin over David Hutcheon. Hutcheon would later be elected to City Council in 1994 and serve as Budget Chief.
Martin Silva has held the ward since winning for the first time in 1988, and won re-election over Nick Figliano and Ian Christie with almost half the vote.
Future NDP MPP Peter Tabuns won his ward by a razor-thin margin. Tabuns defeated John Roy by just over 200 votes, the narrowest in the election campaign.
After the resignation of incumbent councillor Tom Clifford, the seat was won by Steve Ellis in a three-way race over the area's School Trustee Avril Usha Velupillai and Terry Brackett.
On April 2, 1993, Johnson was elected to the provincial government in a by-election to replace Margery Ward who died in office. East York council decided to choose a new mayor amongst themselves rather than run a by-election that would have cost an estimated $500,000. Michael Prue won the contest after six rounds of balloting and he became the mayor for the rest of the term. Norm Crone was appointed to fill Prue's place on council.[5]
Matusiak, a lawyer and former deputy crown attorney with no previous political experience, did unexpectedly well[6] Sinclair would go on to be defeated by Doug Holyday in the 1994 election.
Mel Lastman was re-elected mayor of the North York for the seventh consecutive time which broke a record set 710 years ago in the 13th century. Only one incumbent councillor, Bob Bradley was defeated in Ward 13 by newcomer David Shiner. Two other newcomers joined him, John Filion and Maria Rizzo who replaced retiring councillors. All other councillors were re-elected.[7]
The race for York council was the most volatile of all the Toronto votes. During the previous term, a development scandal occurred where at least two councillors were convicted of taking bribes from a developer to sell parkland for a condominium development. In all, six of eight incumbents were defeated. Only Fergy Brown as mayor and councillors Frances Nunziata and Bill Saundercook were re-elected. Nunziata was instrumental in exposing the scandal.[4][8]
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