2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

[adma]

Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of our mayoral "David" coordinates are still set t/w Miller...

 

[dforthandbview]

Soknacki answering questions well, if not boringly.

I can see it being tough for the general population to get excited behind him.

I would say that he's the Al Gore of this race (in terms of level of excitement) but there's already an Al Gore running. I do like him, though.

 

[jusbokeh]

Political donors outside Toronto to be partially reimbursed for contributions--$4.8 million in rebates.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...4-8m-in-rebates-to-political-donors-1.2604276

its legal

its been around since 1997 long before Ford was mayor.

 

[newearthling]

Soknacki answering questions well, if not boringly.

I can see it being tough for the general population to get excited behind him.

Yeah, I wish he could work on the Vulcan aspect of his personality.
Any recap? What questions did people ask him? (Besides his last name. )

 

[newearthling]

Olivia Chow's team has released a good graphic to illustrate the difference between the lrt and the Scarborough subway.

Here's her campaign transit info:

4 More Stops. 4 Years Sooner.
www.oliviachow.ca/transit

I know Scarborough hasn’t been treated right. It deserves more respect and I will show it. By building seven stops in Scarborough, not three. Helping 20,000 more people walk to the stop. And delivering world class transit years faster.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Ok Folks.... tjaave been reading a lot about your Mayoral race, and I can conclude that most Torontonians on this forum do not want Ford re-elected.
That's fine with me, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But what's really shocking to me is the amount of HATRED people spew on this forum against Rob Ford.

People have taken it so personal as if Rob Fords drinks to their stomach or smoke through their lungs. I do not condone some things he does like appearing on Jimmy kimmel and his public drunkings..
That said, I can assure you that if all the Mayoral Candidates had 24 Hour scrutiny, we would find lots of imperfections among them as well.

As a black person who go through constant racial profiling in my daily life, I find it tough to read all the hatred nonsense here on this forum because I can imagine what he is going through.

Just stop with the race card nonsense. Ford hasn't been discriminated upon at all. He's a royal fuck up and the hatred Torontonians feel towards the manchild are fully reasonable.

And as a black male, I find it incredibly offensive that you'd use the real struggles of other black people to defend this guy. Ford was lucky enough to be born an affluent, Caucasian male. It doesnt get any better than that. He has nothing in common with what most black people have to go through.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Also use of the term "folks" is interesting, do others ever find they hear people in Toronto use that term? Just curious about use of the term in Toronto, the Ford brothers obviously use it a lot but I rarely hear it outside of them using it in Toronto.

Kweku isn't from here. Note that he says YOUR mayoral race:

"Ok Folks.... I have been reading a lot about your Mayoral race"

 

[WislaHD]

Yeah, I wish he could work on the Vulcan aspect of his personality.
Any recap? What questions did people ask him? (Besides his last name. )

Off the top of my head, the four phone-in questions were:

What will you do as mayor to push for council reform, particularly about reducing the total # of Councillors from 44 to 22.
What would you do about wheel-trans service in the city.
How will you get council to stop fighting like little children.
What would you do differently than the incumbent mayor.

Soknacki answered the first one saying that that kind of reform is up to the province and for various reasons the province wouldn't go for it. Then went on to explain his platform of having Councilors from the various regions of the city to elect their own executive members and how currently Ford has chosen non-downtowners for the role giving downtown no representation.

I missed his answer on wheel-trans but from what I caught he turned the question to talk about accessibility in the city as a whole.

In regards to the Councilors being children, he said he is not afraid of bringing out the 'stick' and docking misbehaving Councilors a week pay, something that is written into the city-code but never actually used.

He responded to the last question by first saying that he wouldn't be in the headlines of newspapers so often and then carried on to deliver his campaign message.

-----------

I liked his answer when the interviewer brought up Rob Ford's crack scandal, saying that while the media and other candidates can focus on that if they like, that those in Ford Nation still supporting him evidently don't care about his personal issues so Soknacki and his team want the message to be clear to Ford Nation (and the rest of the city) that Rob Ford is actually an irresponsible mayor who misses important votes, does a terrible job of watching dollars and nickels, and displays incompetent leadership as a mayor.

 

[ehlow]

Kweku isn't from here. Note that he says YOUR mayoral race:

"Ok Folks.... I have been reading a lot about your Mayoral race"

It's a bit weird that the Ford's speak differently than other Torontonians. Unless it's an Etobicoke thing to say "folks" all the time or something? Actually I did hear someone use the term today. I hope it's not catching on

 

[typezed]

I don't know if that Olivia Chow graphic makes things clearer in a way that damages Ford. A person might first notice that the Underground bar is shorter than the Overground one and conclude that the subway is actually being built more efficiently. It is all further confused by engineering appearing in the yellow segment in the top bar and in the white segment in the bottom. I looked at it and wondered why the EAs (what I initially thought the yellow segments represented) were stretched out so much further for the LRT than they're predicted to be for the future subway building. If I was someone who now supported the subway this graphic wouldn't change my mind.

 

[edmundoconnor]

It's a little more than a pipedream, given how little sway he has with council and his questionable chances of re-election, but:

No streetcars, no streetcars, no streetcars:

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...resurrects_talk_of_abandoning_streetcars.html

 

[PinkLucy]

Live chat with Robyn Doolittle today at 1 pm about the mayoral race: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2014/04/09/send_us_your_questions_click_comment_now.html

And let's see, three out of the four mentioned have discussed issues of substance this week:

During last week’s livechat, discussion revolved around the first mayoral debate.
It’s been quieter on the campaign trail this week but here are some of the topics we can examine.
In a direct response to issues that surround Mayor Rob Ford, mayoral candidate John Tory promised to introduce a code of conduct. During our livechat yesterday Olivia Chow talked about banning hand guns in Toronto.
Rob Ford announced that Trailer Park Boys actor Sam Tarasco and disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson would join him at campaign events.
And Karen Stintz said she would establish a new agency that would combine the city’s transportation-related departments and agencies under one roof.

 

[BurlOak]

Olivia Chow's team has released a good graphic to illustrate the difference between the lrt and the Scarborough subway.
View attachment 24936

Ford did exactly what he should have when first elected. He cancelled the plans for Transit City, as he was allowed by the mandate given by his election. Within 4 or 5 months he instituted a new grade-separated transit plan which connected the SRT to an underground Eglinton Line. Stinz, the TTC and Metrolinx were tasked with finding cost savings to the proposal. Sadly, they did nothing for 9 months. Then proudly declared that Stintz and City Council was taking back transit planning from Ford (in early 2013).

So my question is, why does the chart not identify the delay as Stintz's delay or City Councils' delay?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Ford did exactly what he should have when first elected. He cancelled the plans for Transit City, as he was allowed by the mandate given by his election. Within 4 or 5 months he instituted a new grade-separated transit plan which connected the SRT to an underground Eglinton Line. Stinz, the TTC and Metrolinx were tasked with finding cost savings to the proposal.

Just to jog your memory a bit - the mayor claimed it can all be built with private money and wouldn't cost taxpayers a cent. Who didn't do their job again? And besides, it was a joint project between the city and the province, with the city funding pretty much nothing. His worship is not in a position to task anyone to do anything that the jurisdiction he presents didn't pay for.

AoD

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Ford did exactly what he should have when first elected. He cancelled the plans for Transit City, as he was allowed by the mandate given by his election. Within 4 or 5 months he instituted a new grade-separated transit plan which connected the SRT to an underground Eglinton Line. Stinz, the TTC and Metrolinx were tasked with finding cost savings to the proposal. Sadly, they did nothing for 9 months. Then proudly declared that Stintz and City Council was taking back transit planning from Ford (in early 2013).

So my question is, why does the chart not identify the delay as Stintz's delay or City Councils' delay?

Ford's first fatal mistake was canceling Transit City without approval City Council (aka the people who run this city). If he did that Transit City could very well be dead right now.