The 1985 Hamilton municipal election was held on November 12, 1985 to elect a Mayor, sixteen members to Hamilton, Ontario City Council, fourteen members to the Hamilton Board of Education and sixteen members to the Hamilton-Wentworth Roman Catholic Separate School Board. In addition, this election was accompanied by a referendum question asking voters if they wanted to directly elect individuals to the office of Regional Chairman.
Campaign
The 1985 municipal election campaign came in the wake of the year's earlier provincial election that saw a Liberal minority government, supported by the Ontario NDP, come to power after the swift defeat of Frank Miller's Progressive Conservatives in a confidence motion in the weeks following the vote.
The change in government had impacted the city's local politics, as Premier Miller had vowed to extend GO Train commuter rail service to the city and supported the rapid transit GO-ALRT project. Following the election of the Liberals, both GO-ALRT and extended GO service to Hamilton were cancelled. Due to the fluctuating transit situation in the area, candidates ran on platforms that, in some way, addressed transit.
Prior to the 1985 vote, an advocacy group calling itself Concerned Citizens for Hamilton (CCH) formed to endorse candidates for office with a pro-business perspective. CCH solicited donations, eventually collecting approximated $25,000 to support candidates through third-party advertisements. The group's donations came under fire when the advertisements they printed in the Hamilton Spectator were investigated by the city as potentially contravening the Hamilton's election financing bylaw. Ultimately, CCH was cleared of any wrongdoing by the city. Though CCH solicited donations and campaigned on behalf of candidates, members denied they were a political party and lamented the fact they needed to organize. The organizers noted the 1985 vote was the most important in the city since the election of 1949 and one commented to the Hamilton Spectator that the organization was necessary to protect the city, adding "I hope we never have to do this again. This time was an exceptional circumstance."
Referendum
|- style="text-align:center;background:#E9E9E9;" ! rowspan="2" style="text-align:left;" | Question ! colspan="2" | Yes ! colspan="2" | No |- style="text-align:center;background:#E9E9E9;" ! Votes !! % !! Votes !! % |- | style="text-align:left;" | Are you in favour of direct-elections for the office of Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Chairman? || 77,991|| || 13,013 || 14.3 |- | style="text-align:right;background-color:#FFFFFF;" colspan="1" |Total votes | style="text-align:right;background-color:#FFFFFF;" colspan="4" style="text-align:left;"|91,005 |- | style="text-align:right;background-color:#FFFFFF;" colspan="1" |Registered voters | style="text-align:right;background-color:#FFFFFF;" colspan="4" style="text-align:left;"|229,741 |- | style="text-align:left;" colspan="13" |Sources: Estok, David. "Voters want to elected regional leadership", Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday, November 13, 1985, A6. |}
Mayoral election
The 1985 mayoral contest saw incumbent Mayor Bob Morrow, then 39, defend his three-year administration under the pressure of the lingering economic recession that had decimated the city's steel industry. By the election campaign, the city's unemployment rate had dropped to 5.8% and Morrow campaigned on his record of attracting new jobs to the region. Additionally, Morrow sought to expand GO Transit service to the city and bring more suburban services under the central administration of the municipality. Unlike during his first campaign, Morrow was endorsed by the Hamilton Spectator.
Morrow faced two challengers: former Board of Control member Jim Campbell and small business owner Marvin Sommer. Campbell, who retired from council in 1976, had sought political comebacks in 1980 and 1982, running for Ward 1 and Ward 7 councillor respectively. Campbell, then 64, was a millionaire who operated a concrete manufacturing plant on Hamilton mountain who campaigned on a small-business platform. Seeking a completion to the Red Hill Valley Expressway and a perimeter road to create a highway ring-road around Hamilton, Campbell proposed to tackle unemployment by creating a mayor's advisory panel consisting of local business and labour leaders. He additionally proposed reinstating the abolished Board of Control and reducing council's term of office to two years.