Poll-by-poll results from Ward 27 released Wednesday reveal new details about the squeaker that handed Kristyn Wong-Tam a seat at Toronto's city council.

Wong-Tam, a lesbian with a long history of involvement in Toronto’s gay community, won a narrow victory over gay former police officer Ken Chan, who had the endorsement of both mayoral candidate George Smitherman and outgoing councillor Kyle Rae. Wong-Tam took 28.3 percent of the votes, compared to Chan’s 26.5 percent.


A look at individual polling stations shows that her support in the heart of the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood was much stronger. In a survey of 15 gaybourhood polling stations, Wong-Tam took more than 40 percent of the vote there, compared to Chan (23 percent), Chris Tindal (12 percent), Enza Anderson (7 percent) and Joel Dick (6 percent.)





North of Bloor was another story. There, Chan won the most votes (32 percent), followed by Wong-Tam (19 percent) in a survey of 12 polling stations. Liberal Simon Wookey and University of Toronto professor Robert Meynell took in far more votes north of Bloor than in the gaybourhood (16 percent and 9 percent, respectively). Only Chris Tindal performed comparably in both neighbourhoods (13 percent north of Bloor).

Together, they paint a picture of a ward divided, with voting patterns starkly different in the ward’s diverse neighbourhoods.

At some north-of-Bloor polling stations, Wong-Tam trailed several candidates. For instance, at the Deer Park Public Library on St Clair Ave W, Wong-Tam placed fourth, behind Chan, Wookey and Tindal. By contrast, she won every polling station we surveyed in the gaybourhood area save one.



    

In an attempt to phase out anti-gay bullying in London schools, some schoolteachers are now teaching gay history, PinkNews reports. 

UPDATE

(Oct 27): In a phone interview with xtra.ca on Tuesday, CTBC program manager Thumi Siva countered claims made by Miracle Family Temple’s lead pastor.

Siva said Pastor David Loganathan is "100 percent responsible for the ad.... He's personally responsible for it,” he said. “We don't have anything against George Smitherman or Rob Ford, as we stay neutral." Since the Miracle Family Temple is a long-time customer of the station, Siva said that station staff didn't review the advertisement before airing it.

In a follow-up call to Pastor Loganathan, he said, "the Church has nothing to do with it. I have nothing to say to you," before abruptly hanging up.

Immediately following Ford's win on Monday Pastor Loganathan expressed his support for the new mayor via Twitter: "God Bless Rob Ford new Toronto mayor. He is an answer to our prayers. Many Christians have prayed and voted for this landslide victory."  

 

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With only hours until Toronto voters decide who will become their new mayor, an already heated campaign took a twisted turn this weekend as some in the Smitherman campaign accused the Rob Ford camp of backing an anti-gay ad broadcast on Tamil Radio station CTBC- Canadian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation.

Here's a translation of the ad, along with the ad itself (via vijaysappani.com):

The ad has since been pulled by the station. Since the ad had been played during a show produced by the Miracle Family Temple, a Christian-Tamil organization, some suspected the Temple itself had paid for the ad, but in an interview with xtra.ca, senior pastor David Loganatha of the Miracle Family Temple "categorically" denied any involvement with the ad. "Maybe it was played during our program, but we had nothing to do with it," said Loganatha.

Adrienne Batra, head of communications for the Rob Ford campaign, says the Ford campaign itself is not responsible for the ad. Batra says the campaign is "appalled" by it and compared the reference to Smitherman's homosexuality to disparaging comments made about Ford's weight. "We have no idea where this ad came from. They're alluding to his lifestyle choices, and no one feels ill-feelings for his choice." UPDATE: @RobFordTeam (the official Twitter account of the Rob Ford campaign) wrote: "I do not condone the recent Tamil Radio ad. I support diversity & have no issue with others' lifestyle choices. #voteTO" 

Sivakaran Gunaratnam, a queer Tamil in Toronto, calls the ads "pretty disturbing" and an "attack" on queer Tamils like himself. "It plays on preconceived notions of what being Tamil means — implying there are no queer Tamils. Regardless of who paid for the ads, it's insulting to say there are no queer Tamils." He points to the success of programs and services for queer Tamils like Snehithan and ASAAP as indications of a thriving queer Tamil community. 

At this time, calls to CTBC have gone unanswered. 

Just last week Rob Ford skipped a planned 519 mayoral debate on local and LGBT issues citing previous commitments.  

The long-awaited Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – The Musical opened last night at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre.

 

 

Performances by leads Tony Sheldon (Bernadette), Will Swenson (Tick) and Nick Adams (Felicia) are excellent. And supporting performances, notably including C David Johnson (Bob), are compelling.

But it is the wardrobe and music that make this show an absolute must-see.

This show’s closet is a drag queen’s wet dream. There are more than 300 costumes, designed by Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner. Some incredibly elaborate pieces are onstage for mere seconds, just long enough for the eye to process. The sheer pace of makeup and costume change seems supernatural at times. It’s really quite amazing.

The music is mostly a great selection of gay anthems and favourites, including a healthy dose from Madonna’s catalogue. There are a couple of unexpected but cool song choices too: Always on My Mind, the 1972 country tune that has been covered by scores of singers, from Elvis to Willie Nelson; and Thank God I’m a Country Boy, a huge 1974 hit for US folk singer John Denver. These are all songs from which most people know at least some of the words, and that’s part of the show’s charm.

I heard early on that the North American version of Priscilla might be more about Tick’s relationship with his son, and worried that it might turn out somehow sappy and too family-friendly. But thankfully, that’s not the case. It’s more musical revue than soap. But the dramatic bits, those that made audiences of gay men choke up when the film version of Priscilla came out in 1992, are intact and as potent today as ever.

“When we started this, the author and director of the film, a guy called Stephan Elliott, made me promise we wouldn’t sanitize the show,” producer Garry McQuinn told Xtra earlier this fall. “I have a personal obligation to Stephan not only to preserve the story that’s told, but to hide nothing and to be incredibly open and direct about the characters’ sexuality.”

Mission accomplished; this might be gayest thing I’ve ever seen and it’s glorious.

The opening night was a veritable who’s that of Toronto gay society. Among the honoured drag queens in the audience were Michelle DuBarry (with escort George McIntyre), Miss Conception, Michelle Ross, Heavenly Hytes and Dusty. Bruce Vilanch was there, too, but although Xtra heard producer Bette Midler was in town, we didn't see her there. Oh yeah: there was also a smattering of familiar monkey-suited captains of industry and philanthrophy hanging around. Xtra also spotted former mayoral candidates George Smitherman and Joe Pantalone, out for their first nights as free men, as well as Officer Bubbles of viral G20 YouTubia fame. 

Check out some of our recent Priscilla coverage: First Taste, Interview with Sheldon and this bit I wrote earlier.  

 For tickets and showtimes, visit mirvish.com.

 

As purple confetti fell on a half-empty Guvernment nightclub, supporters of George Smitherman were struggling to figure out what to make of the results.

“We haven't seen the last of George,” said activist and Smitherman supporter Craig Knowles.

A few Smitherman supporters even cried as the gay former health minister walked through the crowd giving hugs.

Smitherman told the crowd that he set out to change the city, but the city changed him. He too got a little teary eyed.

But in a scrum afterwards, he was less ambiguous.

"I've won and I've lost," he said. "Winning is way better."

Rob Ford will be the next mayor of Toronto.

At Ford's victory party in Etobicoke, supporters snickered audibly at the mention of Smitherman's husband. But Ford told his supporters not to boo the second-place candidate, before launching into a typical Ford-style stump speech.

"Four years from tonight, you'll look back and say Rob Ford did exactly what he said he would do," he told the crowd.

Back at the Smitherman camp, gay United Church minister Rev John Mastandrea urged voters to get in touch with their new city councillor as soon as possible. City council could be a check on Ford's slash-and-burn platform.

"Whatever riding you live in, talk to your councillor tomorrow," he said. "Let Rob Ford know we're not sleeping."

In the end, it was the gaybourhood Ward 27 race that turned out to be the nail biter. Kristyn Wong-Tam beat out Ken Chan and 13 other candidates in a tight race. At lesbian hangout Slack's, Wong-Tam supporters, including activists Tim McCaskell and Anna Willats, spent the evening glued to the TV. For over an hour, Wong-Tam and Chan traded the lead as each new set of data was reported.

Gilles Marchildon, former executive director of Egale Canada, was onhand. Wong-Tam will be a progressive champion and stand up to Ford, he said.

Chan supporters at a restaurant near Yonge and Dundas Square greeted him with chants and applause; an even more boisterous crowd greeted Wong-Tam at Slack's at about 9:30pm.

Some Ward 27 residents were apparently waiting in line until 8:30pm. Chris Tindal, Simon Wookey, Joel Dick, Robert Meynell and Enza Anderson placed 3rd-8th, respectively.

Michael Erickson, the Ward 14 candidate who proposed a gay-specific homeless shelter for Toronto, placed third. The riding will go to incumbent Millerite Gord Perks.

In hotly contested Ward 18, Ana Bailão won, pulling comfortably ahead of Kevin Beaulieu, the former aide to Adam Giambrone, early in the night.

In Ward 6, the evangelical anti-gay pastor Wendell Brereton (subject of an awkward Ford press conference last month) won just 605 votes, behind three other candidates, including Mark Grimes, who took the seat.

In Ottawa, the swing was to the left, with gay-friendly centrist Jim Watson taking the mayoralty from business conservative incumbent Larry O’Brien in a walk. Just like in Toronto, the more interesting races were for individual council seats.

“There is an enormous responsibility for me to live up to the public’s expectations for one, and secondly I have to fulfill the commitments I made in my platform. And that is certainly going to drive me over the course of the next four years. The biggest challenge we have, obviously, in the short term is the budget for 2011," Watson told Xtra after giving his victory speech.

There will be 10 new councillors in Ottawa. In Capital Ward, former Green Party muckymuck David Chernushenko beat out the owner of a Byward Market nightclub to take the seat vacated by Clive Doucet.

Gaybourhood councillor Diane Holmes was returned to office.

"I am delighted. I work closely with my community neighbourhoods; it's a real vindication of the work I have been doing," Holmes told Xtra.

Two neighbouring councillors, Georges Bedard and Christine Leadman, were ousted in the gentrifying Ottawa neighbourhoods of Parkdale and Vanier. Bedard lost to 20-something Mathieu Fleury; Leadman lost to Katherine Hobbs.

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