Soknacki says rival’s Economic Plan “sounds strangely like a pitch for Premier’s job”
Today, Mayoral candidate David Soknacki responded to rival John Tory’s economic proposals, released earlier at the Economic Club of Canada.
“I hope this is only his first draft,” Soknacki said, noting that the document is riddled with proposals and targets that have “no hint of ‘how’ attached to any of it.” But Soknacki was surprised that Tory’s plan also seemed clearly aligned for provincial or corporate politics – not coincidentally, the only fields in which Tory has practical leadership experience.
For example:
* Tory’s push on education.
Tory is pushing for a medical school at York University, and declared a vague intention to focus on promoting education. “Make no mistake - I’ll always support a strong education system as a citizen and as a Mayor,” Soknacki said, “but there are already two levels of government that have the lead on delivering education in this province.”
* Tory’s fixation on reducing barriers to foreign investment.
“Tory may not know this as the former CEO of a protected industry, but I know from my own trade experience that the biggest barriers to foreign investment here are found in federal investment laws, not local procedures,” Soknacki said. “Once you get down to the City level, a foreign investor faces the same zoning, regulatory and community barriers as a Canadian investor. If Tory wants to spend his time lobbying to change federal laws, that’s great, but he’d have made more progress doing so if he’d stuck it out at Queen’s Park as a provincial party leader,” he said.
* Tory’s regulatory approach won’t easily fit at City Hall.
Soknacki also noted that several of Tory’s stock promises don’t fit so easily into a municipal environment. For example, it’s unclear how Tory’s plan for a “one for one” regulatory tradeoff would work in a civic setting where every zoning variance could count as a regulation. And rules that Tory supported to regulate food trucks would have counted as “additional regulation” in a one for one model, even though Tory believes they made it easier to do business.
* Tory’s plans often rely on corporate arm-twisting, uncertain contributions.
“Several times in his plan and elsewhere, Tory makes it seem as if being the Mayor is just another corporate development job,” Soknacki said. “He needs to raise roughly $50m in private cash over five years to fund his tree plan targets. He needs to recruit 40 more employers to reach his proposed target for a youth employment program. He even wants to ‘roll up his sleeves’ to find funding to make Humber River a Teaching Hospital,” he said. “How will he have time to micromanage all of these campaigns?”
But Soknacki did have one note of praise, adding that Tory has joined Soknacki’s push to accelerate open data releases at City Hall, “although Tory’s plan fails to specify enforcement measures, as I did,” Soknacki said.
“Once again, I’m proud that our platform is influencing the platforms of the purported frontrunners so directly,” he said.
