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2023 Toronto Mayoral by-election

Who gets your vote for Mayor of Toronto?

  • Ana Bailao

    Votes: 18 16.4%

  • Brad Bradford

    Votes: 3 2.7%

  • Olivia Chow

    Votes: 58 52.7%

  • Mitzie Hunter

    Votes: 2 1.8%

  • Josh Matlow

    Votes: 20 18.2%

  • Mark Saunders

    Votes: 4 3.6%

  • Other

    Votes: 5 4.5%
  • Total voters
    110
  • Poll closed .
picard102 said:
Ya actively seeking the Premier to further handcuff us isn't the way to go.
But the upside is that maybe they dissolve the city entirely and queens park has to run it and actually pay for the services they downloaded.
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So, what happens if Doug Ford and the conservatives get re-elected again in 2026? Just keep saying Ford is handcuffing the city and wait until the Ontario Liberals get back into power? I would like a mayor who will try to have conversations with his government instead of fighting them. If Olivia Chow wins, she will have to have conversations with Ford and his company for new deals with the city. That's a fact.
 
StevieD said:
So, what happens if Doug Ford and the conservatives get re-elected again in 2026? Just keep saying Ford is handcuffing the city and wait until the Ontario Liberals get back into power? I would like a mayor who will try to have conversations with his government instead of fighting them. If Olivia Chow wins, she will have to have conversations with Ford and his company for new deals with the city. That's a fact.
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I think you and others are far too caught up in 'theatre'.

Nominally, Trudeau and Ford are political opposites; they are certainly personality opposites; each has publicly scolded the other, Trudeau ran for re-election w/Doug as a foil; and Ford has sued the Trudeau gov't.

Yet, the two have worked virtually hand-in-glove on the Covid file; then again on $10 per day daycare; and several other items; while also agreeing on wooing electric car battery-related investments (for better or worse)

Don't be paying attention to superficial posturing.

Ford may even find Chow a useful foil; and vice versa.

Obviously, their relationship might be entirely unproductive...........but how much less productive could it be than Tory/Wynne and Tory/Ford?

There were no 'new deals' for the City under Tory as Mayor with either party in power and both premiers have stifled or over-ruled City plans (nixing tolls, nixing development charges, refusing to approve a bike path in a Toronto park without a bumped up EA) ....
 
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StevieD said:
"I am ready to tax!" That alone doesn't sit well with me, especially that the NDP are known for always looking to taxes. Ask Bob Rae how things went when the NDP oversaw the province for a term. Unless taxes are kept as low as possible or if they have to go up at all, it's very small, there is no reason to believe that she would push for more taxes across the city. And especially seeing how expensive life is right now, I don't support the possibility of taxes going up and up and up. The fact is the provincial and federal governments need to cut new deals with the city.
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Toronto's property taxes are the lowest in the region. Why is raising them wrong in that light? What evidence is there for taxes going "up and up and up" as you say? Raising them somewhat seems highly justified and even fiscally responsible after over a decade of being artificially locked down for the electoral benefit and ideology of Ford and Tory and the austerity crew that have been running things here. Starving a city's finances and letting it fall apart because right wing politicians are too focused on the political optics for their electoral benefit or too ideological to raise taxes a small amount is irresponsible IMO. Putting one's head in the sand like Tory did about financing the city and always keeping taxes locked down for political benefit no matter what is not in any way fiscally responsible.

Yes the federal gov and provincial governments need to cut new deals as well but Toronto should at least be bringing its taxes up to a more comparable level to others in the region in order to do our part and not arbitrarily locking them down as Tory and Ford did while crying poor to the other levels of government. Maybe other levels will take us more seriously if we try to pull our own weight in a way that's comparable to other regions.

Affordability is of course an issue, but we're not going to low tax our way out of the affordability crisis. This kind of approach just leads to an austerity death spiral — as we are seeing over these years of conservative austerity governance. A moderate increase on property owners who have made significant wealth through explosion in property value due to the unfair structures of our society benefiting them seems highly reasonable. Chow's proposal for a luxury home tax also seems to take this into account and targets more tax revenue from those who have significant property wealth vs. just taxing everyone the same.

But I think taxes going up somewhat across the board is totally reasonable as well to address the needs of the city. They've been artificially kept low for over a decade now. We've had over a decade of conservatives keeping taxes locked low and then when the idea of raising them a slight amount comes up to be responsible people freak out and claim it's far left TAX TAX TAX. It's not. It's moderate to raise taxes somewhat and it's reasonable and it's fiscally responsible.
 
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A land value tax would help (or at least not hurt) on the affordability front, while raising revenue. The losers would be land value speculators and people with underutilized lots, as it will tend to slow or turn negative the rate of price appreciation of land.
 
nfitz said:
The poor guy thinks that the views equal support, rather than everyone making fun of his distracted driving.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1663198070073327617
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"I will make traffic better by maintaining the status quo."

Seriously, we absolutely need to "slam it down at grade" in order to force this city to change rather then wallow in expensive mediocrity for another 65 years. Traffic is bad? We should probably invest in dedicated rail transport then. Imagine thinking making driving easier will alleviate traffic!
 
"Post apocalyptic hellscape" = 1 1/2 hours driving to visit your buddy across town. Ok Brad.

You know, I get it, traffic is frustrating, and our city has some significant design challenges in terms of how our roads are set up — which impacts efficiency of all modes. And we don't have good transit alternatives in a comprehensive way. But eking out a few more marginal gains in car infrastructure is never going to solve this problem.

Do people drive through Manhattan to go visit their buddy and except just smooth sailing open roads? The centre of Paris?

We gotta start thinking about these things differently as a society and city, because there's no way we can turn back the clock. The idea that if we optimize car infrastructure it will solve the problem is just denial of the reality of the future and the present. Even assuming you could get 20% more efficiency let's say out of our car infrastructure (or even 50% to be extremely generous!), growth in the city will eat that up in no time and then Brad's stuck in traffic going to drive to his buddy across town again.

This is one of the biggest cities in North America and will only get bigger and denser.
 
Brad is a Tory loyalist, all the while it’s a challenge for me to think what Tory might have done to ease our gridlock. Even the King transit way has been abandoned. Brad is farcical.
 
It does look like it's Chows election to lose so don't expect any new even mildly controversial comments or priorities from her. During elections where there is a clear leader they tend to say as little as possible hoping they can use cruise control to take them over the line and it usually works.

We know where she stands on transit, homelessness, affordable housing etc but I am more interested in what she is going to do with the public realm. In particular, what is she going to do with the dump of a street Yonge is and the Gardiner. Is she going to put Toronto on the road diet it desperately needs. Any info?
 
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