Oakville Beaver, Oct. 26, 2010

While Monday’s election night ended with Oakville Mayor Rob Burton soundly defeating his rival, former mayor Ann Mulvale, by more than 5,000 votes, the campaign remained a nail bitter for the Burton camp right up until the point the votes were tallied. ... Finally, at about 9 p.m., a beaming Burton emerged from his back room. When asked by a supporter about the numbers, Burton replied, ‘Well, uh, we won.’ At this point the gathering crowd, now about 100 strong, erupted with cheers and applause as Burton hugged his supporters, while members of the media snapped countless photos of his victorious moment. A short time later Burton, with his wife Wendy at his side, mounted a podium in front of the movie screen to address the crowd. ... “This has been the hardest campaign that we’ve ever seen. It felt as though we were up against an entire industry. Our success in the last term at controlling growth and its costs and protecting half of Halton as environmental land was a threat to that industry and they stopped at nothing in their attempt to take over.” ... “For four more years we are going to put the environment before asphalt,” he said to cheers and applause. "For four more years we are going to use what we’ve got to do what we need, and we’re not going to blame other "orders" of government.”

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