Get to know your 2018 mayoral candidates for Toronto’s 2018 municipal elections
Election day is fast approaching! To help you cast your ballot for the municipal elections on October 22, here is a summary of the top mayoral candidates:
John Tory
The incumbent mayor of Toronto, John Tory is seeking a second term. Tory ran for mayor in 2003 before winning in 2014. He led the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario from 2004 to 2009 and was an MPP representing the Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey riding from 2005 to 2007. Tory has worked as a lawyer, CEO director of Rogers Media, radio talk show host, and volunteer chair of a nonprofit called CivicAction. His platform is centred around strong leadership and keeping taxes at or below the inflation rate. Tory’s plans for better transit include a new subway line linking Pape station with Queen and Osgoode stations, nine stops on the Relief Line, maintaining the King Street Pilot, adding an express line extension to Scarborough Town Centre, and moving forward with his SmartTrack plan. Other items addressed in his platform include the creation of a Community Safety Advisory body, increasing street art grants, and declaring 2020 the year of public art.
Jennifer Keesmaat
Jennifer Keesmaat was Toronto’s Chief City Planner from 2012 until 2017, when she resigned. She has since been the CEO of Creative Housing Society, a nonprofit aiming to create more affordable rental housing. She is Tory’s main challenger in this mayoral race. Keesmaat’s plans to make housing more affordable call for a luxury-housing tax on houses priced at four million dollars or more, which would fund a rent-to-own program and the building of 100,000 new affordable housing units. She proposes to transform under-utilized city-owned golf courses into public facilities and services for locals. To improve transit, Keesmaat plans to accelerate the Relief Line so that it is completed ahead of schedule while building and expanding the Jane, Waterfront, and Eglinton Light Rail Transit lines. Her community safety policies call for crime prevention programs targeting at-risk youth, as well as a ban on guns and ammunition. She also promises to reduce speed limits in residential areas, double per-capita spending on arts, and build five new cultural hubs downtown.
Saron Gebresellassi
A multilingual human rights and litigation lawyer, Saron Gebresellassi has been named to Chatelaine magazine’s “Top 80 Amazing Canadian Women to Watch.” She is an avid activist and is running for mayor with a platform dubbed “Six for the 6ix,” which addresses six rights she believes all Torontonians have. These rights are to housing, transit, fair allocation of city resources, employment outside the downtown core, mental health and accessibility, and diversity in city politics and city hiring. To ensure that nobody is left behind, she promises to introduce programs targeting youth employment, cultural programming, and reforms promoting employment equity. She also plans to develop a framework that would allow for better assessment of how city policies affect “development of positive mental health outcomes.” Her plans for improving transit have the ultimate goal of moving Toronto towards free public transportation.
Sarah Climenhaga
Sara Climenhaga is a stay-at-home mother who has advocated extensively for change at City Hall. She has worked for many nonprofits, including the World Wildlife Fund, Moving the Economy, Black Creek Transportation Management Association (now Smart Commute), TTC riders, and Cycle Toronto. Her platform focuses on solutions to three main issues: transit, housing, and street safety. She hopes to make transit more equitable and affordable. Her transit policy includes short-term improvements, such as increasing bus service where needed and the TTC budget, as well as long-term expansion plans that include improved transportation to Scarborough via a linked LRT system. Climenhaga’s platform also outlines plans to reduce homelessness, create affordable housing, and make roads safer. These plans include fixing the Toronto Community Housing repair backlog, reducing fees, reducing the speed limit on residential streets to 30 km/h, and banning right turns on red lights.
Voting will take place Monday October 22 from 10 am to 8 pm. More information about the candidates and their platforms can be found on their respective websites.
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