Posts Tagged ‘Toronto 2010 Municipal Election’
What a Remarkable Town Hall Meeting Last Night in Ward 43
I was humbled to have nearly one hundred and fifty Ward 43 residents come out to a community meeting I held last Thursday on Grey Abbey Trail. The meeting was intended to be held in the park overlooking the Lake, and Toronto Hydro’s anemometer to help educate the community on the impacts of the new offshore regulations.
Unfortunately someone, who the City will not confirm or deny was Councillor Ainslie or a member of his staff, felt the need to apply pressure to the Parks Department and have them call a resident who sent out an invitation to my meeting, telling them that it was against the law for more than twenty-five residents to meet in a park without a permit, permits were never issued for that park, and that no candidate was allowed to discuss an election in a park, wear a button or hand out materials. We asked for a copy of the by-law and asked if they were prepared to have citizens arrested – and they went silent.
They wanted us to shut down our meeting, and not have residents come together to discuss the biggest threat ever to face the community, and hear from the only candidate offering a viable solution.
I am so happy to have such strong support on Grey Abbey Trail that we were able to find a back yard, backing on to the park within a couple of hours to hold the meeting if necessary. Instead, we set up the sound equipment in the backyard, and I stayed about five feet back from the metre tall chain link fence, and spoke to residents from private property about the importance of the issue, thus I did not discuss politics in the park and I was sure to tell them why I had to stand where I was standing.
I promised residents last night that when I defeat Paul Ainslie on October 25th and become their Councillor, the political games will end, and I’ll continue my fight to ensure their rights are respected and their involvement in decision making restored.
Antoinette DiNovo – Paul Ainslie’s Executive Assistant showed up to record and take notes. Once again it appears taxpayers will be paying her to abuse our tax dollars and run his campaign. At least Antonette didn’t have any embarrassing outbursts like Councillor Ainslie did on June 14th and was kind enough to leave after being introduced and called out on her abuse of taxpayer funds to help inflict another four years of failed representation on our community, one neither of them live in. Ward 43 isn’t buying what they’re selling this time and last night’s meeting that had a crowd threefold of the meeting I held three weeks before is a strong sign of the change that’s coming.
Consider that on a night when the heat wave was on it’s forth day, there was a heat alert in place and we were holding a meeting outside, in July that nearly one hundred and fifty residents felt compelled to come out and speak about the issues near and dear to them and the opportunity we have together to reclaim our voice and restore local democracy. Consider that Paul Ainslie doesn’t have a single Ward 43 resident to send to take notes, and is instead either crashing my meetings himself or sending a member of his staff, we’re all paying to do it for him.
I am looking forward to continuing to earn residents trust and support over the coming weeks and months and know that together we can make our community and city a better place to live for all of us.
No Comments »Toronto’s Election Agenda Should Be Set By Torontonians
When I read that Dalton McGuinty had an opinion on what the ballot question should be in Toronto’s municipal election I was taken aback. It just seemed inappropriate that the Premier of Ontario would be advising residents what debate should determine the outcome of the race.
Watching the election unfold so far it seems clear there are going to be two camps, the folks who want to take drastic action to fundamentally alter how and what City Hall does and those who think tinkering is the way to go.
The province has used the 2010 municipal budget as an opportunity to use spending power to exert more control over the TTC. This is something Torontonians should approach with caution because it means local control will be shared with the province, likely through Metrolinx. This could create an even more unwieldy governance structure for the TTC.
The Premier’s suggestion that the Toronto Election is a good opportunity to discuss the idea of transit workers being declared an essential service was not only off base, but possibly a sign of what is to come with the permanent funding proposal from the Province, particularly in a race that sees the front runners running against City Hall, not for it.
With the significant decisions the next Council is going to have to make regarding Toronto’s future should be top of mind of all voters when they determine who to send to Council in the fall. I believe our next Mayor and members of Council need to focus the municipal/provincial relationship on building a sustainable and workable framework for Toronto to govern it’s affairs with the resources needed to meet the challenge. We need to make sure, whoever is elected doesn’t sell our city short in these negotiations and ensures the Premier understands providing adequate funding to the City of Toronto and the TTC isn’t optional, its necessary.
How about the province just fund a proportion of the TTC’s operating budget because it’s the right thing to do, and historically a role they played.
If there is to be a ballot question regarding anything to do with the Provincial government it should be, which candidate for Mayor best represents our City’s long term interests in negotiating a sustainable framework with the Ontario Government.
No Comments »A Good Race For Mayor Important For Toronto
Having solid candidates vying for Mayor, presenting differing visions for the City is an important step for Toronto to take every two or three terms. This is absolutely an open an election that sees many candidates no one would have guessed would run two years ago, and few if any candidates that could have been assumed to run.
Being Mayor of Toronto is a difficult job, and one that with years of sidestepping serious structural challenges by Council becomes that much harder with each passing day. I was hoping we’d have a race between David Miller, John Tory and George Smitherman. I felt a race like that would give the City the opportunity for a proper ‘battle of titans’ and clear choices on what kind of person and leader the City wanted.
With Smitherman, Giambrone, Rossi and Pantalone in the race, this does seem to have a lot of the characteristics of the 2003 election that saw the emergence of David Miller – the question now is simply, who is the candidate that has the staying power and ability to rise above the pack and convince enough Torontonians that they are the one to lead.
I know in my community there is one candidate who is out for many voters, but even of the other remaining options, it still isn’t clear who would be the champion of people, someone who gets it and is prepared to govern responsibly and with respect for voters. Those are the qualities I will seek in a candidate for Mayor.
No Comments »Will Paul Ainslie Run for City Council in Ward 44?
Today was the first day for municipal candidates to make it official and file their intention to seek public office as a Mayoral, Council or School Trustee candidate. So far no candidates have filed to run in my home ward, Ward 43.
Councillor Ainslie currently ‘represents’ (a term I am using lightly here based on his record) Ward 43 – a community he does not live in. He was elected with an underwhelming 39% of the vote in November 2006, meaning 61% of voters had the right idea last time around.
This isn’t the first ward Paul Ainslie has represented and not lived in. You see in January 2006 Paul Ainslie was appointed to Toronto City Council in a 5-4 vote of Scarborough Community Council (that resulted in an investigation by the integrity commissioner into his former boss and one of his five votes – David Soknacki) to represent Ward 41 – another community Paul Ainslie doesn’t live in.
When his nomination went to City Hall for approval, Paul Ainslie gave a speech. After promising to be ‘fair and honest’ he went on to say:
“In the last month I’ve made a number of different commitments if appointed to this position, I will not run in Ward 41 or any other ward in the city.”
If by different he meant ‘bald faced lie’ as Eye Weekly described it he was correct.
In true Paul Ainslie tradition he went on to lie about the lie when I called him on it through the media. He claimed he promised not to run against incumbents, or that he wouldn’t run in Ward 41 – this was after saying he didn’t say anything to this effect at all.
Here is a video showing what he says. After watching him lie repeatedly for six weeks, I went to City Hall, bought the video of that day at Council and a very talented member of the campaign team put the following together for distribution to the media. His response to the video was he was nervous and didn’t mean to say it – but he’s reading.
If you’re going to run for public office, know yourself better than your opponents – and generally speaking lying never works and is wrong, so don’t do it. In fact when Councillor Ainslie wrote provable lies to me in a private email six weeks ago, I offered him this very advice. I told him that making statements that are provably untrue hurts his credibility and therefore the ability of him to represent my community as people can’t trust him if he can’t stick to the truth.
His term as Ward 41’s representative saw him fight to have the pictures of the former Scarborough Mayors placed in the former City Council chamber, trying to get a bi-law regarding aged or tattered Canadian flags. His most bizarre vote was against a pay increase that passed 23-20, then only to change his vote in favour, making the vote 24-19, which was promptly followed by his former boss David Soknacki changing his vote in favour to against, making it 23-20 again.
Currently Paul Ainslie holds the office of Ward 43 – as I previously stated a community he does not and has not lived in at all during the 2006 election or the term. He does not represent the views of residents, or their best interest and continues to lie about his involvement or lack there of – to paper over his failings.
Paul Ainslie lives in Ward 44 – where he has for years and is raising his family. Considering he is about as attached to Ward 43 as he was to Ward 41 – it only seems reasonable that the failed ‘representative’ would once again find a new community to play City Councillor in – as nominations open.
I will tell you this much – his chances are far better where he lives, than in Ward 43 or Ward 41 as I imagine with these residents and Paul Ainslie the old saying ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’ is in full play and many residents are lined up and ready to fight to ensure this so-called Councillor, elected on a lie, and publishing lies in hopes of being re-elected doesn’t get that chance again. Maybe that’s why he flipped from Ward 41 in the first place.
He already has lawn signs that say ‘return’ a phrase he chose instead of ‘elect’ like everyone else who ran and had never been elected before and he wisely did not put a ward number on them – making them fully re-useable this time around in his home Ward.
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