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2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

Wong-Tam is also an Soknacki supporter I believe.

Also I noticed Soknacki actually puts his policies on his twitter feed. (or however much of a "policy" you can put in a 120 character tweet, but that's just the reality of politics/campaigning these days.... Still more substance than anything the other candidates put out.)
 
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RiverCity1 said:
John Tory is huge on improving infrastructure. He knows the billions of dollars that congestion costs the GTA in lost revenue. If he promises the DRL then he has my vote hands down. He's a great combo: a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Is Olivia Chow actually going to run? Why bother? We have our new leader.
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I agree with you RC1. I'm a supporter as well. It's time to give this man his day.
 
Can we please ban the term "fiscal conservative"??

Anyone proposing a multi-billion dollar subway project is not, by definition, a fiscal conservative. They will need to extract revenues out of the public one way or another - whether they admit it or not.

Also, a real fiscal conservative would have a plan to "reduce the size and cost of government", as Rob Ford likes to say. So far I have not seen any of the so-called fiscal conservatives come clean about what they're going to cut government (including Ford himself). Are they going to start by laying off police officers? Maybe they'll close down a few community centres. Tory cries to the media about closing down the ice rinks early, but where would he get the million dollars to keep them open?

While we're at it, let's ban "tax and spend" as well. Conservatives like to criticize Miller for being a "tax and spend" mayor, but few are willing to criticize any of the projects that he spent money on. When they do, they usually offer alternatives that are even MORE expensive (e.g. subways over LRTs, separated bike lanes over on-road bike lanes, rebuilding the Gardiner over demolishing it).

Face it, the Left is far more fiscally RESPONSIBLE when it comes to urban governance. The fiscal policies of the Right are nothing but shameless pandering.
 
StevieD said:
And yet, no one is giving Sokancki any major attention while Stintz is getting much more media coverage. Sokancki is the Rossi of this election race.
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It's so early though and an election campaign of this length will always produce a few surprises, including a potential "Soknacki" who rises to create or formidable challenge... or even win. Miller in 2003 is sort of a similar example. Actually, even Rob Ford in 2010. The first poll had him at 8% or something and look what happened.

WislaHD said:
Wong-Tam is also an Soknacki supporter I believe.
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I find this hard to believe as well. Perhaps of the "declared" candidates. Any source for this?
 
Silence&Motion said:
Can we please ban the term "fiscal conservative"??

Anyone proposing a multi-billion dollar subway project is not, by definition, a fiscal conservative. They will need to extract revenues out of the public one way or another - whether they admit it or not.

Also, a real fiscal conservative would have a plan to "reduce the size and cost of government", as Rob Ford likes to say. So far I have not seen any of the so-called fiscal conservatives come clean about what they're going to cut government (including Ford himself). Are they going to start by laying off police officers? Maybe they'll close down a few community centres. Tory cries to the media about closing down the ice rinks early, but where would he get the million dollars to keep them open?

While we're at it, let's ban "tax and spend" as well. Conservatives like to criticize Miller for being a "tax and spend" mayor, but few are willing to criticize any of the projects that he spent money on. When they do, they usually offer alternatives that are even MORE expensive (e.g. subways over LRTs, separated bike lanes over on-road bike lanes, rebuilding the Gardiner over demolishing it).

Face it, the Left is far more fiscally RESPONSIBLE when it comes to urban governance. The fiscal policies of the Right are nothing but shameless pandering.
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I think you've confused the self appointed identity and the reality of fiscal conservatives. While their base supporters truly believe in smaller govt and lower taxes, their governments always expand govt spending and the reach and scope of govt. Under Harper for example, the size of govt spending and tax revenue is as high as it was under the Liberals. Under Ford, Toronto's taxes have gone up, as has the budget. The only difference between fiscal conservatives and everycother govt is that they like to spend on different priorities, but they're all still for growing govt.

As for LEFT, was does that even mean in municipal politics? Given that all and any mayoral candidate from Chow to Ford will be increasing spending, programs and taxes, what does LEFT mean?
 
Since Rob Ford is going to the Oscars (allegedly), maybe the other mayoralty candidates should make their own (reluctantly) appearance at other award shows, cooking contests, reality shows, etc.. Just to keep up appearances with audience pans and close-ups.
 
W. K. Lis said:
Since Rob Ford is going to the Oscars (allegedly), maybe the other mayoralty candidates should make their own (reluctantly) appearance at other award shows, cooking contests, reality shows, etc.. Just to keep up appearances with audience pans and close-ups.
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The FIFA World Cup in Brazil is soon. Toronto mayoral candidates can show up in Rio or in São Paulo.
 
Admiral Beez said:
As for LEFT, was does that even mean in municipal politics? Given that all and any mayoral candidate from Chow to Ford will be increasing spending, programs and taxes, what does LEFT mean?
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What it has come to:

LEFT: Spend money raised on measures that benefit everyone, and especially the most vulnerable (i.e. improvements to transportation infrastructure that move people most efficiently, community centres, social housing, etc).

RIGHT: Spend money making it easier for the upper middle classes to amass wealth (subsidise their driving habits in like a million ways, try to reduce fees and property taxes as much as possible, etc).

This is why someone like Bloomberg, who is not particularly leftist in his ideological worldviews, came across as being a rather lefty mayor of New York.
 
RC8 said:
What it has come to:

LEFT: Spend money raised on measures that benefit everyone, and especially the most vulnerable (i.e. improvements to transportation infrastructure that move people most efficiently, community centres, social housing, etc).

RIGHT: Spend money making it easier for the upper middle classes to amass wealth (subsidise their driving habits in like a million ways, try to reduce fees and property taxes as much as possible, etc).

This is why someone like Bloomberg, who is not particularly leftist in his ideological worldviews, came across as being a rather lefty mayor of New York.
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That doesn't sound like a biased definition at all.
 
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