Toronto Mayor-elect David Miller greets supporters at his victory celebration in Toronto on Monday. (Frank Gunn/CP)
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At a victory party last night at the same venue where he launched his dark-horse campaign in January, Mr. Miller told cheering supporters: "We'll open up the front doors of city hall for the people of Toronto. We'll padlock the back doors to the deal-makers and influence peddlers."
Many of the new faces are from the centre-to-left of politics, suggesting that Mr. Miller may be able to strike some early victories -- such as his pledge to stop construction of a bridge to the Toronto island airport.
Despite a combative race, voter turnout was a disappointing 39 per cent of the city's 1.6 million voters, based on unofficial results last night. In 1997, when the new megacity was created, 49 per cent of voters cast their ballots compared with only 36.1 per cent in 2000, when Mr. Lastman faced no serious competition.
With 1,883 of 1,926 polls reporting, Mr. Miller received 285,286 votes -- or 43.6 per cent of the total -- to 250,960 votes (or 38.3 per cent of the total) for Mr. Tory.
Barbara Hall was the front-runner for most of the gruelling, 10-month campaign before her support crumbled in the last month and she suffered a crushing rebuke. She received 60,423 votes -- or 9.2 per cent -- compared with John Nunziata, who had 34,359 (5.2 per cent) and Tom Jakobek, who trailed with 4,690 -- less than 1 per cent of votes cast.
Mr. Miller praised Mr. Lastman as an "irrepressible booster" for the city and then thanked his main rivals in the long mayoralty race. He said that Mr. Tory "has established himself as a major force in electoral politics."
Mr. Tory told his cheering supporters that they could be proud of a run that took him from single digits last January to within a whisker of victory last night. He praised Mr. Miller as a "man of integrity" and urged his supporters to stand behind the new mayor.
Throughout the day, city election officials reported a "brisk" voter turnout before the evening push to 8 p.m.
It was an election for the history books:
A record 345 candidates put their names forward -- 44 for the mayor's job, 199 for city council and 102 for school trustee.
In all, 11 candidates were acclaimed for council and school board seats.
Two separate police investigations during the mayoralty -- one on the legality of Ms. Hall's pre-election campaign activities in 2002 and another on Mr. Nunziata's stunning allegations that he had been offered money to drop out of the race. But the police probes ended without any charges being laid.
An improbable number of debates (close to 50) over the course of the unusually long, 10-month campaign.
It was in those debates that Mr. Miller, a west-end councillor for the past nine years, honed his "clean sweep" message. He promised to rid city hall of backroom influence, clean up the waterfront by stopping construction of the bridge to the island airport and clean up the air and streets with improved public transit and park services.
Mr. Miller, 44, a lawyer who earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, had his admirers in the media but was given little chance to replace Mr. Lastman, who leaves office Nov. 30 after 34 years in local politics.
When the race began last January, Ms. Hall enjoyed a commanding lead in the polls because, as the former mayor of the old city of Toronto, she was better known than her opponents.
In January of 2003, a poll of 500 Toronto residents suggested that 52 per cent would vote for Ms. Hall in November, compared with 15 per cent for Mr. Nunziata. Mr. Miller, to the left of Ms. Hall, had 11 per cent while Mr. Tory, on her right, had 6 per cent.
But for all her name recognition, Ms. Hall ignited little enthusiasm and she was unable to differentiate herself from her main opponents.
By last weekend, continuing an astonishing collapse seen as unprecedented in local politics, Ms. Hall had slumped to a distant third with support of only 11 per cent of decided voters.
"Obviously we made a lot of mistakes," said long-time Hall ally Tom Jakobsh.
By last weekend, Mr. Miller had surged to the front with the support of 44 per cent of decided votes, while Mr. Tory at 37 per cent was close enough to make it a riveting two-man sprint to the finish.
In the end, the two men offered distinctly different platforms that offered voters a clear voice. Mr. Tory, the former Rogers Cable chief who tends to speak in paragraphs -- and quickly, offered a manager's view of how to restore the city to its former glory.
"In the fall of 2003, the politics of fear have been replaced by the politics of hope," observed Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of political science at Ryerson University. "David Miller captures that much more effectively than John Tory."
He pledged to root out waste and inefficiency at city hall, generating a potential $300-million in savings.
By contrast, Mr. Miller tapped into the city's vague yearning for change, a mood heightened by the results of the Oct. 2 provincial election that swept the Liberals into office.
