Should Toronto Have A Set Of Standards for Potential Mayors?

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Hipster:

Not all issues can be dealt with that way - just imagine say transportation planning using this board as an example. There is also the problem of inequity - degree of involvement one can partake in can be biased by priviledge. Best suited to small-scale neigbhourhood issues than long-range planning.

AoD

 

[toraerach]

What happens when nobody "qualified" wants the job in the first place? Then what?

The 2010 mayoral election?

 

[js97]

I think it's the voters that need to take pre-requesite courses or pass tests in Economics/Accounting, Environmental studies, and possibly social/political theologies of the left and right.

Way too many ignorant voters out there. Work at a polling station, or monitor twitter comments...


Good chunk of councillors don't have those qualifications.

 

[uptown]

Out of Ford, Smitherman, Mammoliti, Rossi, and Pantalone, I believe only Rossi and Pantalone have a post-secondary education - Smitherman doesn't even have a high school diploma.

As for ignorant voters I'd defend the right of any adult Canadian citizen to stand for election or cast a ballot for whatever candidate they feel like, be it for their policies or the colour of their hair. Choosing not to vote is just as legitimate a choice in a democracy IMO.

 

[uptown]

That would be most excellent news indeed! I was thinking of becoming a land-owner and a male in the near future but this would seal it.

You can laugh all you want but it wasn't that long ago that voting in municipal elections *WAS* restricted to land-owners, and of course only a few decades before that...

 

[adma]

Ironic considering UT has already become an equivalent ghetto of the left. It's virtually impossible to have an opposing point of view here anymore without being piled on by the young-and-angry brigade.

Funny; yeah, there may be anti-Tory/anti-Harper/anti-Hudak sentiment out there, but I've yet to come across an idealizing statement like "A candidate for mayor may not have ever been an Reform/Alliance/Conservative member".

Besides, in UT, the more typical kinds of opposing-POV pile-ons are urbanistic rather than political, i.e. directed at anyone defending McMansions or EIFS reclads...