Ford set to steer Toronto

Yuni Kim
Assistant News Editor

Minutes after poll booths were closed and ballots counted Oct. 25, Rob Ford was declared the next mayor of Toronto.
Some Torontonians were torn between the two main mayoral candidates, Rob Ford and George Smitherman, but a number of stu- dents, like Jacob Wylde, knew exactly for whom they were voting.
“I voted for Rob Ford because he knows what’s wrong with this city,” said the third-year kinesiology student. “He knows how to fix the city’s [debt] problem. Toronto is in an amazing amount of debt, and no one else who was running talked about it.”
Some remained unsure of who should get their vote until the last minute. When asked before the election, third-year English major Janette Parucha said for her the decision would come down to either Smitherman or Pantalone.
“I’m leaning away from Rob Ford,” she said. “I’ve heard bad things about Ford, but I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for.”
While many students were torn between the three candidates, others expressed disinterest in the municipal elections.
“I don’t really have a reason for why I’m not voting,” said Em- manuelle Bakos, a first-year sociology student. “I’m just not really involved in political aspects of things, so I don’t really know much about what is going on.”
Vanessa Hunt, vice-president of campus life for the York Fed- eration of Students (YFS), said the student union did not endorse any particular candidate, instead opting to educate the student body about the mayoral candidates.
“We provided students with information about issues that we feel relate to students […] related to public transit, sustainability and housing,” she said, encouraging students to be informed about candidates before casting their ballot.
“From what I’ve seen and heard, students are very involved at the municipal level,” said Hunt. “It’s about making sure that you’re informed so that when you go to the polls to make a decision, you really know who you’re voting for instead of just voting for a candidate because you’ve heard of them.”
YFS president Krisna Saravan- amuttu was optimistic about the changes Toronto may see under Ford over the next four years.
“I hope that Rob Ford will maintain the great things about Toronto,” he said. “We hope that […] he will work towards an in- clusive environment for everyone in the city.”
With files from Lexee Hoene and Brittany Goldfield-Rodriguez