Greater Sudbury municipal election, 2003

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The Greater Sudbury municipal election, 2006 was held in the city of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada on November 10, 2003. All municipal elections in the province of Ontario are held on the same date; see Ontario municipal elections, 2003 for elections in other cities.

The election chose the mayor and city councillors who would sit on Greater Sudbury City Council from 2003 to 2006.

1 Issues
2 Mayoral race
3 Ward boundaries
4 Results
5 References

[edit] Issues

The primary issue in the 2003 elections was the municipal amalgamation of 2001. Prior to January 1, 2001, the current city of Greater Sudbury consisted of seven separate municipalities, together comprising the Regional Municipality of Sudbury. On that date, the provincial government of Ontario dissolved all seven former municipalities and the regional government, merging them all into the current city government.

Under longtime mayor Jim Gordon, the preceding city council — the first to govern the amalgamated city — had struggled to pull the new city together, with soaring costs and deterioration of public services that had not been foreseen by the provincial government when the amalgamation was legislated. Voter anger was directed primarily at the provincial government of Mike Harris rather than the city council, although the council was criticized for some of the budgeting decisions it made, such as closing many municipally-owned recreational facilities.

[edit] Mayoral race

Incumbent mayor Jim Gordon did not run for reelection in 2003. As a result of his retirement, the mayoral race attracted an unexpectedly large field of 14 candidates. This was the second largest slate of mayoral candidates of any Ontario city in this election cycle; Toronto was the only city in the province with more candidates for mayor.

Candidate	Vote	%
David Courtemanche	19,152
Paul Marleau	11,360
Colin Firth	8,096
Louise Portelance	5,645
John Caruso	4,693
Tommy Boyuk	1,930
Brian Gatien	1,280
Richard Doyon	667
Mary Fournier Pagnutti	405
David Chevrier	271
Yvonne Neison	141
Robert Maurice	102
Ed Pokonzie	67	0.2
J. David Popescu	42

David Courtemanche and Louise Portelance had previously served as city councillors.

Popescu and Pokonzie are perennial candidates in the area, who have rarely garnered more than 100 votes in any election; during the 2003 election cycle, Popescu was found guilty of assaulting his mother and sentenced to three years of probation. [1] Chevrier runs a local business, selling air and water filtration systems. [2] Caruso, Firth and Boyuk also run local businesses; Gatien is a lawyer.

[edit] Ward boundaries

When the current city of Greater Sudbury was created in 2001, the city was divided into six wards, each of which was represented by two councillors. This structure was controversial, as some voters felt that the division of responsibility among councillors was vague and ill-defined — it could, for example, be unclear which of the two ward councillors to approach in regards to a political issue.

In 2005, the city council adopted a new ward structure, in which the city would now be divided into twelve wards with a single councillor per ward. The new ward structure was implemented for the first time in the 2006 municipal election.