Raymond Kwan
Contributor
Some students at the York University Toronto mayoral debate Sept. 22 were not swayed by candidates’ campaign promises.
“I think that their policies were more like what they’ve already talked about,” said Andrew Vittas, a third- year political science major. “I don’t think there was anything new.”
Rob Ford, Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi, George Smitherman and Sarah Thomson traded arguments inside a packed Tribute Communities Recital Hall in the Accolade East building, about a week before Thomson announced she would be pulling out of the race.
In a Sept. 28 press release on her website, Thomson encouraged Torontonians to vote for Smitherman.
The debate, moderated by Steve Paikin of TV Ontario’s The Agenda, allowed candidates to sell their platforms to York community members in an attempt to win votes for the upcoming Toronto mayoral election starting Oct. 25.
When Citytv anchor Roger Petersen asked the candidates what they would do to finance and improve public transit, Ford explained his pledge to save money by not sole- sourcing subway car purchases and discontinuing free metro passes for public servants.
“We need to get down there and get the squandering of tax payers money under control,” Ford told the audience.
Thomson drew applause from the crowd when she pointed out Ford was merely describing fiscal mismanagement and did not actually answer the question. She then proposed that she would invest in transit infrastructure such as Light Rail Transit (LRT) and work with developers.
“We need to invest in subways. And I don’t just mean subway cars, I mean [LRT] for now because we don’t have the densities for now,” Thomson told the crowd.
Smitherman also pledged to build subway lines, extending current lines while fast-tracking other transit projects in time for the 2015 Pan Am Games.
Pantalone promised to continue the Transit City Plan to build LRT lines and criticized his opponents for wasting money on new initiatives.
Meanwhile, Rossi said he would improve Toronto’s partnership with Metrolinx, the provincial initiative to integrate transit across the Greater Toronto Area.
Robert Drummond, former dean of faculty of arts, said in an email to Excalibur that “most of the candidates have a lot to say about the problems of the past but little yet about how they propose to solve them.”
He said that there are questions that the Torontonians should be asking themselves, like “How will we afford the promised subways? If we elect light rail instead, will it help enough with the city’s transportation vows?”
Through the evening, the candidates butted heads over the city’s finances and good governance.
As one of his spending priorities, Smitherman promised to create jobs for the youth and students that can help them pay for their tuition.
“The level of despair amongst youth and the inability that they have to get a foothold of economic opportunity to pay their tuition, pursue post-secondary education and support their families is a serious challenge,” said Smitherman.
Rossi promised to move towards downsizing City Hall from 40 councilors to 22 and reminded the audience of his pledge to introduce recall legislation, giving voters the power to evict under-performing councilors from office. On managing Toronto’s $450-million perennial structural deficit, Pantalone and Ford suggested outsourcing city services to save money while Thomson and Rossi vowed to review and sell city assets to pay down the debt.
Drummond said he was concerned candidates are not discussing the impact their campaign promises will have on Toronto and its citizens.
“Ford speaks of the need to reduce expenditures and keep taxes low, but there is little said about what municipal services we will have to do without if cuts are made. Much of the rest of what the cost-cutters propose is simply paying workers less. How will this help build a great city?”
After the debate, Vittas said he was disappointed at the candidates for not looking at the bigger picture.
“I would have liked to hear more about their vision for Toronto,” said Vittas. “I thought in the whole context of the mayoral election, that’s just something that’s not really being discussed by all the candidates.”
