2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

[js97]

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.

Considering 70% of Canadian family own homes and similar/more own cars, I'm not sure what imaginary ideological cool-aid you're drinking. If you take a look at the cities demographic and household incomes, you'll see that most of the 'Upper Middle Class' live in the core, those that Chow seem to appeal to, vs the working class in the burbs, those that Tory/Ford appeal to.

Chow's Ward and her voting base is probably one of the hottest upper-class yuppie neighbourhoods in the city. Between 5 dollar lattes or the barbers that charge 40 dollars for a haircut. You need to live a little and see how the immigrants of Scarborough/Etobicoke live, between entrepreneurs and hourly wage tradesmen that are trying to pay bills.

 

[js97]

Between the recession, the Harris Tories, and the Chretien Liberals, basically nothing was or could be accomplished in Toronto in the 1990s.

North York Subway got built...

 

[js97]

. But if this is indeed the kind of impression that Chow gives to even some (not too politically involved) progressives, then there's quite a bit of work to do.

She's absolutely a phony, extremely scripted and disingenuous. Did you see her interview at Real Sports after the gold medal game? Despite the fact that she's supporting a multi-billion dollar Corp that isn't even in her ward (Real Sports/MLSE), she talks about multiculturalism and diversity etc. It's the Gold Medal hockey game. It's bunch white, rural, middle class kids that made it big... Nothing diverse about it.

Most people will see the 'real Olivia Chow' when they go on live debates and she actually has to answer tough, 2 sided questions.

p.s. She's also magically went from 'thinking about running' to 'preparing over a year'

 

[evvabeing]

This is historic • The Toronto Ranked Ballot Elections Act

The provincial government is FINALLY responding to our request. This Thursday, on March 6th, politicians will vote on Bill 166: "The Toronto Ranked Ballot Elections Act"!

We can win this vote - but only with your help.

We encourage you to contact your MPP and ask them to vote in favour of the Bill. And we also invite you to attend the vote, at 3:30pm!

You can learn more about the bill, and find your MPP, here: http://www.123toronto.ca/bill_166.htm

And you can RSVP for the vote here: https://www.facebook.com/events/470034989790644/
(we already have over 200 RSVPs!)

Thank you for your support! With your help, we can bring fair and friendly elections to Toronto.

Sincerely,
The RaBIT volunteer team
_________________________
http://www.123toronto.ca/
@TorontoRaBIT

 

[Silence&Motion]

North York Subway got built...

It was actually completed in 2002 with a tiny fraction of the stations originally included in the 1980s plan. The Sheppard subway is kind of a testament to how bad the 1990s were for city building.

If you only count subways that actually opened, then the 1990s only saw the addition of one station: Downsview. That makes it the worst decade for transit expansion since the city started running subways in the 1950s.

 

[nfitz]

I look forward to seeing Chow's ambitious campaign. I'm rather disappointed by the other candidates plans, especially on the transit issue.

Is that a surprise? The 4 leading candidates are all Conservative, who traditionally have been very minimalistic and hostile to transit. And what's Stintz's claim to fame ... making the rush-hour buses more crowded so that they could delay a new bus garage and buses for years, and reducing the subsidy per ride at TTC. She personally set back transit in Toronto by years. Or perhaps it's costing taxpayers real $$$ to build a subway extension that will service less people than the fully funded LRT line.

 

[Silence&Motion]

Considering 70% of Canadian family own homes and similar/more own cars, I'm not sure what imaginary ideological cool-aid you're drinking. If you take a look at the cities demographic and household incomes, you'll see that most of the 'Upper Middle Class' live in the core, those that Chow seem to appeal to, vs the working class in the burbs, those that Tory/Ford appeal to.

Chow's Ward and her voting base is probably one of the hottest upper-class yuppie neighbourhoods in the city. Between 5 dollar lattes or the barbers that charge 40 dollars for a haircut. You need to live a little and see how the immigrants of Scarborough/Etobicoke live, between entrepreneurs and hourly wage tradesmen that are trying to pay bills.

Speaking of drinking cool-aid, you should probably do some research before making wild generalizations about Chow's ward and voting base. You can start by looking at the City of Toronto's demographic profile on Ward 6. Here's 2001 (a year when Chow still represented the ward): http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/city_planning/wards/files/pdf/wardprofiles_20.pdf

You'll notice that the ward has a lower average income and much lower median income than the city as a whole. Much more of the population are renters rather than homeowners. A higher % of the ward lives in poverty. It also has more visible minorities.

With all the new condos in the neighbourhood, Ward 6 has become richer and whiter in the past decade. However, these newcomers are not necessarily Chow-voters. In fact, I suspect these "young professionals" are exactly the voters that Ford, Stintz and Soknacki will be targeting with their "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" messages.

These generalizations about downtown being rich and the suburbs being poor are way too simplistic. Some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city are located in Old Toronto, just as some of the richest areas are in the suburbs. Furthermore, Ford's support has only ever hovered around 50% in the suburbs. John Tory lost several suburban wards to Miller in 2003.

 

[TFC]

Is that a surprise? The 4 leading candidates are all Conservative, who traditionally have been very minimalistic and hostile to transit. And what's Stintz's claim to fame ... making the rush-hour buses more crowded so that they could delay a new bus garage and buses for years, and reducing the subsidy per ride at TTC. She personally set back transit in Toronto by years. Or perhaps it's costing taxpayers real $$$ to build a subway extension that will service less people than the fully funded LRT line.

I don't think Tory should be grouped with the minimalistic, conservative, hostile to transit bunch. His support of revenue tools to fund transit and progressive advocacy for more transit while at Civic Action sets him as a pro-transit, pro-revenue tools candidate IMO.

 

[VTB]

I don't think Tory should be grouped with the minimalistic, conservative, hostile to transit bunch. His support of revenue tools to fund transit and progressive advocacy for more transit while at Civic Action sets him as a pro-transit, pro-revenue tools candidate IMO.

Although I wonder how his views would be now that he is a candidate? So far, he has said nothing in this regard. We shall see. I sure hope he doesn't take on the "transit for free" narrative.

 

[TFC]

Election day is still months away. None of the candidates have put forward their financial plans yet.

 

[betty183]

Reddit user "coc" just made a handy little election promises site. Says he/she will be updating it.

http://torontoelection2014.info/

 

[jml]

So far that just seems to be an exact copy of the Star's own election promise chart.

 

[Southcore]

Switching gears slightly, I have a question about the revenue tools for transit (apologies if this has been addressed already). Say an election is held tomorrow and the Liberals get a majority. They then increase HST by one per cent and increase a five cents on gas for the Big Move, both of which GTHA wide. Regardless of who is mayor on Oct 28, 2014 would such revenue tools still need to be approved by council for them to be put in place in Toronto?

 

[GenerationW]

Regardless of who is mayor on Oct 28, 2014 would such revenue tools still need to be approved by council for them to be put in place in Toronto?

Doubt it. I think what you might see at council is different coalitions forming trying to get their pet projects on the list right behind the obvious favourites (DRL, Yonge extension).

 

[betty183]

So far that just seems to be an exact copy of the Star's own election promise chart.

I think it is, just easier to read.