The race to replace Toronto’s mayor is getting more crowded as the June byelection nears.
John Tory, who was elected to his third term last fall, ran against 30 candidates. Tory resigned in February over revelations he had an affair with a former staffer.
So far, an even dozen have confirmed their candidacy to replace him and a couple more have said they are considering a run. The city will start officially accepting candidate nominations on April 3.
Canada needs standardized data on violence on transit systems to help tackle issues ranging from a lack of mental health supports to eroding public trust, say researchers, citing the recent stabbing death of a 16-year-old boy at a Toronto station as the latest example of random attacks on commuters.
Prof. Murtaza Haider, director of research at the Urban Analytics Institute of Toronto Metropolitan University, said the public should have easy access to such information.
Homeless shelters that lack security are often violent.
In the wake of Tuesday’s tabling of the 2023 federal budget, Toronto’s interim mayor is accusing the federal government of ignoring the financial pleas of the country’s largest city.
Absent from Tuesday’s budget was any help to address the $933-million shortfall in the city’s budget — borne largely by expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic — a gaping hole municipal budget planners had hoped would be filled courtesy of the provincial and federal governments.
Nobody likes Toronto.
While Ford did not mention anyone by name, it appeared to be a veiled shot at councillors Josh Matlow and Brad Bradford — and a tacit endorsement of former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders.
“There’s a couple of candidates that are running, they’re sitting councillors that voted to defund the police,” the premier told reporters Tuesday at Pearson International Airport.
“The people that voted for defund the police, don’t vote for them. Simple as that,” he said.
Saturday’s fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old boy in a Toronto subway station, another seemingly random violent attack in the transit system, again brings fear and urgent focus to a city on edge and looking for answers.
Olivia Chow is confirming a Star report that she is pondering a run for mayor, saying Toronto can be “so much better.”
The former NDP MP and city councillor responded in a brief statement, on Sunday, to Star inquiries about her potential mayoral candidacy.
“I want to let you know I am considering running. I love this city and I know it can be so much better — for everyone,” wrote Chow, would become one of the highest profile candidates in the forming, crowded race to replace John Tory.
At least I have a headstart on campaign material from her last and thankfully unsuccessful run.
If Chowcescu gets in Toronto’s death spiral into fiscal and criminal depravity will only accelerate.
The good news as successive defeats have shown is that she no longer rides on Jack’s coattails.
The woman is a perma-class parasite, all career politicians are.
I wonder if she travels in the same circles Justin and his pals do.
In the mid-1970s I was a struggling business and economics student. I paid for my tuition and personal expenses with physically demanding summer and part-time jobs and some student debt.
I dreamed of one day working on Canada’s version of Wall Street, which was located in Toronto at the corner of King and Bay streets. That dream came true in the spring of 1980 when the Dominion Bond Rating Service hired me as a junior analyst. Four of the five big Canadian banks occupied the corners of King and Bay in their impressive skyscrapers. A block away were the golden towers of Canada’s largest financial institution, the Royal Bank of Canada. A book published in 1982 was named “Towers of Gold, Feet of Clay,” a reference to the fact the two RBC towers literally have a thin layer of gold coating their windows.
This does not bode well for Toronto.
I recall visiting Seattle with Kathy.
At the ‘Stroke of 5 PM’ the downtown was emptied and virtually abandoned.
Soon the street people made an appearance.
We headed back to our hotel.
A poll of prominent potential mayoral candidates finds former NDP MP Olivia Chow and former police chief Mark Saunders with the most support ahead of the official April 3 start of the byelection to replace John Tory.
The Forum Research survey of 1,009 Torontonians saw Chow as the choice of 24 per cent of deciding and leaning voters and Saunders with 22 per cent support — a statistical tie because the gap between them is within the poll’s margin of error.
Olivia has lost every election she has run in since the passing of her husband Jack “Velvet Touch” Layton.
When she last ran for Mayor it was to wide acclaim by all the usual suspects, that is the Star.
She was miles ahead in the polls until common sense prevailed.
You’d think she’d get the message.
Ps. Neither Chowcescu or Saunders are impressive candidates let’s hope Furey picks up steam.
HUNTER: Bullets and bail Toronto’s cocktail of choice
One kid goes to the morgue, another replaces him on the street.
Bail. Street. Repeat. That’s the deal. It’s Toronto’s favourite cocktail.
But for far too many, the morgue has become the ‘do not pass Go’ on life’s Monopoly board.
“I don’t believe that the status quo people who got us to this point are the ones that can get us out of it.”
National columnist and broadcaster Anthony Furey is promising to bring a “fresh perspective” to Toronto’s mayoral campaign.
Oh fab … Former police chief Mark Saunders to run for Toronto mayor
In a recent survey of Toronto school principals, 80 percent said they’re ill equipped to maintain school safety. About 40 percent said violent behaviour was on the rise, including physical fights and possession of weapons.
The rise in violence at the Toronto District School Board is on track to being the worst since 2000, when the board began collecting data, according to the Toronto Star.
The Toronto School Administrators’ Association (TSAA) surveyed its members and released a report detailing the post-pandemic uptick in school problems, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe and Mail.
Johnny can’t read because literacy is racist but he does know he’s really a girl.
Not a surprise given the TDSB is a woke cesspit overrun by lunatics who should never have been allowed near children in the first place.
You breed violence by pretending the enforcement of standards of acceptable behavior and academic achievement is racist.
As it stands the TDSB is just a variant of the TTC Homeless Shelter, a place to park all the little thugs.
How to stop the poison? Smash the teacher’s unions, take over the boards, wrest control of the teacher’s colleges, enforce a sane curriculum, fire the whackjobs wholesale.
Good luck.
This is another reason Toronto is turning into a shithole city.
A Toronto gym made the news this week for hosting a martial arts course designed specifically to help transit riders defend themselves if they are attacked.
“It’s no secret that people don’t feel safe on public transit. And why should they?” reads the website announcement. “Nearly every day, the headlines cover news stories of brutal and random attacks happening on buses and subways perpetrated against innocent civilians at random.”
Does anyone know who’s running for mayor?
… The days when life centred around the five-day office week appear to be gone, disrupting the foundation of downtown Toronto. Office workers no longer need to rely on the bevy of retailers that used to service their every need, from hairdressers and dry cleaners to food shops making take-home meals for their families.
As of early March, the percentage of employees in Toronto’s financial hub averaged 43 per cent of prepandemic occupancy levels, according to data from consulting firm Strategic Regional Research Alliance, which conducts in-depth interviews and surveys of downtown office tenants. That is the highest level of occupancy since the pandemic started – a dismal sign of the slow return to the office.
This is not a good sign. I have wondered for some time if Toronto even has a reason to exist any longer. There’s not much there here.
Who is this youth, lying unconscious in a bed at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, with life-threatening injuries?
Don’t know.
Why has no one come forward to put a name to the boy?
Don’t know.
How can it be that nobody is missing him?
It is a shame but I will not share blame or guilt any longer for the bad policy decisions made by people who hate me.
