Marianne Alto wins in Victoria, Stew Young out in Langford in eventful election day on Vancouver Island

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Marianne Alto acknowledges her win in the mayoral race in Victoria's municipal election. Oct. 15, 2022.

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Long-time councillor Marianne Alto has won Victoria’s mayoral race, beating out next-closest challenger Stephen Andrew in Saturday’s municipal election.

While votes were still being tallied Saturday, Alto had pulled ahead enough to be projected as the winner of the race, sending a sign that most voters wanted some sort of continuity from outgoing mayor Lisa Helps.

“It’s going to be an amazing four years, tremendous opportunities ahead,” Alto said moments after Andrew conceded the race.

  • Results from municipal elections on Vancouver Island can be found here

“It’s clear that people wanted someone with experience at the helm and someone who can be a bit of a mentor to those [new councillors].”

Andrew, the other frontrunner coming in to Saturday’s election, started his concession speech by congratulating Alto.

“The job of a new mayor is a tremendous honour and I wish her the best of luck, and the hope that her tenure, the citizens of Victoria will be put back at the centre of local government and decision-making,” said Andrew.

Speaking to his supporters, Andrew said: “I know you are disheartened by the outcome tonight, but don’t lose your voice. It’s needed now more than ever. This new mayor and council will have to make big promises and carry through on those promises…and we need to hold them to account.”

For many, the Victoria election was seen as a referendum on whether the city should stay the course it’s been on for the past eight years, with Helps at the helm, or take a new direction under Andrew.

“The people of Victoria think that it’s time for some new blood for sure, and I think they’ve elected some very diverse people with some incredibly good ideas and some interesting visions, but at the same time I think there’s also been an appreciation for what’s been done,” said Alto.

She added that she understand the importance of creating “a safe space, an incredibly important safe space for civil discourse, for a really reasoned but passionate debate in a place where it isn’t personal, where it’s all about ideas and solutions.”

In Victoria, voters chose from eight mayoral and 37 councillor candidates to fill the seats on council.

For the councillor positions, only one incumbent councillor – Ben Isitt – was seeking re-election, and as of 10:30 p.m. Saturday it did not appear he would be voted back in, meaning B.C.’s capital will be seeing an all-new council.

Langford shocker: Young out as Mayor

In the most shocking upset of the night, Langford Mayor Stew Young, the only mayor the city has ever known in 30 years, was defeated by challenger Scott Peter Goodmanson.

Young has been a mainstay in Langford, but voters sent a clear message they wanted change not only ousting him, but all incumbent councillors except for independent Lillian Szpak, with the Langford Now slate taking the rest of the city's six council positions.

The slate’s platform says it wants to balance densification and affordable housing while ensuring new development doesn’t outpace infrastructure and services.

At the same time, Langford Now candidates say they hope to increase the amount of purpose-built affordable rental housing.

Murdock triumphs over Haynes in Saanich

There were predictions that the Saanich mayoral race, a two-candidate contest between incumbent Fred Haynes and challenger Dean Murdock, would be one of the closer results on Vancouver Island.

Those predictions proved right as Murdock, a three-term councillor, squeaked out a victory over Haynes by only 152 votes with all votes counted.

Among the councillors re-elected in Saanich are Colin Plant, Susan Brice, Zac de Vries, Judy Brownoff, Nathalie Chambers and Karen Harper, while newcomers Mena Westhaver and Teale Phelps Bondaroff will join them.

The new council will be sworn in at an inaugural Council meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7.

Other big upsets on Vancouver Island included Teunis Westbroek, a former councillor, upsetting incumbent Brian Wiese in the mayoral contest in Qualicum Beach, and former councillor Doug Kobayashi beating out incumbent mayor Rob Martin in Colwood. In View Royal, Sid Tobias, a newcomer to council who works in environmental assessment and previously served in the Canadian Armed Forces, narrowly beat out incumbent David Screech for the mayorship.

The results in the charts above will be updated as results continue to come in.

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