Dear God Brampton, What the Hell Were You Thinking?

Last night about 35% of eligible voters in Brampton cast ballots and elected a new mayor, council and school board. Patrick Brown defeated incumbent mayor Linda Jeffrey by around four thousand votes. Patrick Brown, as thousands of Brampton voters seem to have forgotten, was a long-time resident of Barrie, served on its city council before becoming a Conservative MP. He then became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario until credible allegations against him abusing his position of power to make advancements on young staffers became public known. He was unceremoniously kicked out as leader.

But fear not, Patrick Brown can continue to survive off the public purse because the citizens of Brampton, forty-six thousand of them had the bright idea to elect him as their mayor.

Sigh.

Nights like last night sometimes honestly make me feel like I should hang up the keyboard and quit. Too many defeats. Too many bad losses to awful candidates.

Trying to be positive, the victories of Paul Vicente, Martin Medeiros, Gurpreet Dhillon, Rowena Santos, Jeff Bowman, and Charmaine Williams are heartening.

However, the election of Doug Whillans, Pat Fortini, and Michael Palleschi does not fill me with hope.

I've left Harkirat Singh's name off either side because I don't know him well. I included Ms. Williams because she is the first black woman elected to city council, an important and growing community in this city that needs representation. It will be difficult to tell until some issues come up, but the council may be slightly more progressive than the last one. I thought some members were more progressive and then their voting record said otherwise.

Despite what some might say, I think it should be noted that by far not everyone forgives or forgets the allegations made against Patrick Brown. His election is not carte blanche forgiveness. Citizens in this city will be watching, and errors and mismanagement will be noted. Hopefully then the people will have the good sense to hold him accountable.

Now I'm going to try not think about this election for a while.