Toronto - All The Elections (3)!

I have to say, for someone who was interested in getting involved in politics, I picked the perfect time to move to Toronto. There are so many elections taking place that it’s getting hard to keep track. In the next 5 months people who live in my area (Trinity-Spadina) will be voting for a mayor, a Toronto councillor, a provincial representative (which will lead to a new Premier) and a federal representative. I believe that’s technically three elections (municipal, provincial and federal). Short of voting for the Prime Minister, that’s every election that you could possibly have. I’ve decided that I’m going to use this opportunity to volunteer and see what goes on when a politician ‘campaigns’. First, I want to talk about the various elections.

I’ll start with the mayoral campaign. This is often talked about in the media, with Rob Ford as the current mayor of Toronto, and the mess that has accompanied that. Although he is currently in rehab, he is indeed running for re-election, just like he promised. Even though his approval rating went up briefly after admitting that he smoked crack, the events that followed (caught on tape uttering racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks) have not been so kind to him. With all of that said, he does have some major competition in the mayoral race.

The front runner is Olivia Chow, who was previously a federal MP for Trinity-Spadina (downtown Toronto), and before that, a Toronto City Councillor. She is also Jack Layton’s widow (head of the NDP until his death in 2011) and was elected as a member of the NDP. Her platform focuses on after school programs for children, a better transit system and job creation, especially for small businesses. The third big name in this race is John Tory, former leader of the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario, former commissioner of the CFL and former CEO of Rogers Media. That’s quite the resume. His platform focuses on fixing transit (specifically the Yonge Street relief line and the Scarborough subway), making Toronto more affordable (lowering property taxes & cutting waste at City Hall), and making City Hall more accountable. There are also some candidates who are less well known, such as David Soknacki and Karen Stintz, who are former Toronto City Councillor’s and have both contributed greatly to the city (Soknacki as Toronto’s Budget Chief and Stinz as chair of the Toronto Transit Commission). And of course there are always the unknowns who run just to see what will happen, such as the leader of the neo-Nazi part of Canada; a high school student; leader of the People’s Political party of Ontario; a Juno award winning jazz saxophonist, etc. This election will take place on October 27^th, 2014.

This date also represents the municipal election, which goes hand in hand with the mayoral election. Voters go to the ballots to decide who the 44 Toronto Councillors will be, as well as the mayor. The city is broken up into wards and each ward has a couple candidates in the running. Confusingly, Ward 19 and 20 both called Trinity-Spadina, although they cover different areas. My ward is Ward 20, and the previous councillor for this ward was Adam Vaughan, who is now running for the federal electoral district of Trinity-Spadina which was vacated by Olivia Chow so she could run for mayor. But we’ll get to him in a minute.  The municipal elections (along with the mayoral elections) are non partisan, meaning that the members do not represent a specific political party, only themselves and their platforms. These races will get very little attention and coverage, especially with everything else going on.

Now we get to the provincial elections which will result in a new Premier for the province of Ontario. It was called because the NDP announced that they would vote against the Liberal’s proposed budget. Considering the Liberals had a minority government, the lack of support from the NDP would leave them unable to make much progress. The current premier is Kathleen Wynne, who was not elected but stepped in when Dalton McGuinty stepped down. She is running against the leader of the Conservatives, Tim Hudak, and the NDP leader, Andrea Horwath. There has been an extensive amount of media running for this campaign, with the majority of it being negative. I think the attack ads are terrible, pulling attention from the issues and consistently attacking the Liberals for their poor spending, even though that was not under Kathleen Wynne’s rule. While voters do not vote for the Premier directly, they do vote for the MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) in their riding. In my area, the provincial riding is also called Trinity-Spadina, and for the past 15 years has been held by Rosario Marchese, a member of the NDP. His major opponents are Han Dong (Liberal), Roberta Scott (Conservative), and Tim Grant (Green). This election is very soon, taking place on June 12^th, 2014. 

Lastly, is the special federal election being run in Trinity-Spadina to fill the empty seat. Like I mentioned earlier, this is being held because Olivia Chow left her seat to run for Mayor. This led to Adam Vaughan leaving his seat as a Toronto Councillor to run for the Liberals in this riding. Everyone is moving up in the world. Adam Vaughan is running against Joe Cressy (NDP), and Benjamin Sharma (Conservative). The seat has been held by the NDP since 2006, although before that it was Liberal for several years. This election is being held on June 30^th, 2014.

I think it has become very confusing for the public because all of these campaigns are running at the same time, and they all have volunteers assembling and large posters out. Across the elections, there are two candidates from each party running in Trinity-Spadina, as well as party advertising on TV and debates between potential mayors. To top it all off, there are a total of four voting areas that are called Trinity-Spadina!

This brings me back to my original point – getting involved. I have volunteered to help Adam Vaughan’s Federal campaign, as well as Olivia Chow’s Mayoral campaign. I think it’s time to see what it’s all about. This week I will go out and get my feet wet with each of them. I will let you know how it goes!