Modeling Journey

Toronto Star: This time, it's not about Belinda

Staff Reporter

Tim Jones, successful municipal politician, is now Tim Jones, Liberal. For some Newmarket-Aurora voters, this is a challenge.

In Aurora, Jones might be more recognizable than any local official who has never dated Tie Domi. He served on the town's council for 28 years, 12 as mayor. In one hour at Newmarket's Upper Canada Mall on Saturday, a visitor encountered two Aurora residents who claimed to be his friend.

"Tim's a great guy," said one of them, Mark Elbaum, 58. "He did a great job when he was the mayor for umpteen-hundred years."

Elbaum said he worked with Jones at North York Parks and Recreation some 30 years ago. When Jones, 60, was Aurora mayor between 1994 and 2006, Elbaum ran into him on the town's streets. He has phoned Jones, who is "always around," for help with problems.

And he is voting for Jones's primary opponent, Conservative Lois Brown.

"Tim's with the Liberals," said Elbaum, who works for a manufacturing firm. "I can't give a Liberal a vote. I don't think people are ready to have Dion. I'd like to vote for (Jones), but I'm stuck. I hope he gets in – maybe he'll get in here and the Conservatives will win the election. Maybe that's the best of both ends."

Newmarket-Aurora voters are practised in the balancing act Elbaum struggles with: the weighing of party and prime ministerial preference against personal feelings for a well-known local candidate. The riding's last two federal elections have both been, to some extent, referendums on floor-crossing star candidate Belinda Stronach, who is returning to Aurora-based auto parts giant Magna International.

Jones is no celebrity. He was defeated by 410 votes in the 2006 mayoral election, in part because of complaints that the council had become dysfunctional. But his local prominence likely exceeds that of Brown, 53, a Newmarket business owner who lost to Stronach by 4,800 votes in 2006. Even if the Conservatives form the government, Jones said last Friday, he could win Newmarket-Aurora on the strength of his name.

Jones's hopes for the success of municipal-style personal politics are buoyed by the contrarian electoral history of the riding. Newmarket-Aurora, whose population grew 15 per cent between 2001 and 2006 as upscale subdivisions sprouted, has been something of an anti-bellwether since its creation in 2004.

In the 2004 federal election, Jones noted, Stronach won Newmarket-Aurora as a Conservative, though the Liberals won a minority government. In 2006, Stronach won as a Liberal, though the Conservatives won a minority. And in the 2007 provincial election, Frank Klees, for whom Brown worked from 1995 to 2001, won as a Progressive Conservative, though the Liberals won a majority.

"People tend to look at the person as opposed to the party when it comes to elections here," Jones said. "And I'm hoping that ... might work to my advantage."

Brown owns, with her husband, a firm that advises companies on workers' compensation issues. She, like Jones, said the most important issue for riding residents is the economy. But she argued voters are more interested in comparing Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper than Jones with her.

"I can tell you I've been out knocking on doors for months, I have spoken to thousands of people in this riding, and I know that the issue of leadership has been primary for the people here," said Brown, a pianist studying for an economics degree at the University of Waterloo. "Until the issue of the economy started to become urgent leadership is the issue that people of Newmarket-Aurora are most concerned about."

Also in the riding, Mike Seaward is running for the NDP and Glenn Hubbers for the Green party.

But once again, voters must weigh party allegiance against a popular local candidate