[2] During the campaign he said the major issues were lack of approvals for expanding schools and rising property taxes.
[7] Later in the year, he defended the NDP's legislation called the Waste Management Act saying that it was a reasonable compromise to handle the problem of finding a place for Toronto's garbage.
The NDP were defeated in the 1995 provincial election, having lost much of their support base in the Greater Toronto Area.
He was re-elected in the 2010 municipal elections, but his 13-vote margin of victory over former mayor Terry Clayton led to a recount battle.
On October 23, O'Connor was selected as the federal New Democratic Party candidate in the resulting by-election to be held on November 26.