Outside of the Toronto mayoral race, there were several contests for city council seats that made headlines in the leadup to Monday’s election, including four wards where an incumbent was not running.
Toronto ultimately elected 25 city councillors who will make up the next city council, including several new additions.
Here are the results from some of the more closely contested races across the city on Monday night:
Ward 19 – Beaches-East York
Former MP and cabinet minister Nate Erskine-Smith won the riding with 46.8 per cent of the vote.
Erskine-Smith was elected federally in 2015 to the same riding. The 42-year-old served briefly as housing minister before he was dropped from cabinet by Prime Minister Mark Carney in May.
He pivoted to a career in provincial politics, vying to represent the riding of Scarborough Southwest as the Liberal candidate, but lost that nomination race and challenged the result in the spring. The appeal was dismissed.
Journalist Natalie Johnson, who is on leave from CTV News, placed second with 24.4 per cent of the vote, city worker James Dann placed third with 11.9 per cent, and community organizer Jennie Worden placed fourth with 8.1 per cent.
Brad Bradford vacated his council seat in this riding to seek the mayorship.
Ward 14 – Toronto-Danforth
TDSB trustee Sarah Ehrhardt was elected over Mary Fragedakis, who represented Ward 29 Toronto-Danforth before it was dissolved in 2018, and Diane Saxe, who did not seek re-election in University-Rosedale.
Ehrhardt secured 46.3 per cent of the vote.
This council race was blown wide open after longtime city councillor Paula Fletcher changed her mind about re-election just two days after announcing she was seeking another term.
Fletcher went on to endorse Ehrhardt to fill her former seat.
Ward 11 – University-Rosedale
Mike Layton reclaimed his spot at city hall after four years away from municipal politics.
The son of late federal NDP leader Jack Layton and stepson of Olivia Chow, Mike Layton previously served as the ward’s councillor for 12 years until 2022.
Days after Layton announced his intention to run in University-Rosedale, Saxe announced she was scrapping her plan to seek re-election in that ward.
Layton came away with 46.3 per cent of the vote.
Ward 4 – Parkdale-High Park
Toronto crisis worker Diana Chan McNally is now a city councillor, claiming 42.5 per cent of the vote.
Chan McNally fills the seat left open by Gord Perks, who announced in April that he would not run in this election—just a day before candidate nominations opened up — after 20 years in office.
Ward 5 – York South-Weston
Toronto’s longest-serving councillor, Frances Nunziata, has been defeated by Chiara Padovani.
Padovani, a human rights activist and social worker, lost to Nunziata by just 94 votes in 2022. She came away with 39 per cent of the vote Monday night.
76-year-old Nunziata previously served as the mayor of York, before Toronto amalgamated. She placed third with 21.7 per cent of the vote behind Daniel Di Giorgio’s 28.6 per cent.
Ward 23 – Scarborough North
Incumbent Jamaal Myers has lost his council seat to former Liberal MP Shaun Chen.
Chen stepped down in August to deal with, what he described at the time as “significant health issues” that stemmed from a car crash during his commute to Ottawa. He announced he would run for a council seat four days later.
He finished with 35.9 per cent of the vote. Myers secured 25.3 per cent of the vote.
Han Dong, who also previously represented the Liberals in Ottawa, finished third with 13.4 per cent of the vote.
Ward 13 – Toronto Centre
Incumbent Chris Moise lost his seat to Curran Stikuts, who previously worked as the director of advocacy and strategic communications at The 519, a Toronto-based LGBTQ2S+ community centre.
Unlike the last election, Moise did not receive the endorsement of former ward councillor and current MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam. They instead backed Stikuts.
Stikuts came away with 28.6 per cent of the vote. Moise placed second with 23.3 per cent.
Daniel Tate, the executive director of the group IntegrityTO, finished third with 15.1 per cent of the vote. In March, the city’s integrity commissioner found that Moise violated the Code of Conduct when he implied that Tate was a white supremacist.
Ward 3 – Etobicoke-Lakeshore
Incumbent Amber Morley protected her seat from former Conservative MP Ted Opitz.
The youngest councillor at city hall, Morley finished with 48.3 per cent of the vote to Opitz’ 37.1 per cent.
Morley had faced criticism from some constituents over her support for a future homeless shelter and bike lanes in the ward in the leadup to the election.
She previously beat longtime Etobicoke-Lakeshore representative Mark Grimes in 2022, who held the seat for nearly 20 years and became the city’s first Black female deputy mayor in 2023.
Ward 20 – Scarborough Southwest
Incumbent Parthi Kandavel was re-elected, despite being under investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police for allegedly asking for bribes to advance two housing developments in his ward.
Kandavel finished the election with 36 per cent of the vote.
A city hall source told CTV News in August that Kandavel allegedly asked for money to move a highrise project on Kennedy Road forward. In the other matter, a developer’s representative told CTV News that Kandavel had asked for a “considerable” amount of money for another development to proceed.
