Mayoral candidate meets with Toronto Community News editorial board

Don’t write George Smitherman off “as a downtown guy” because he sees Maple Leaf Gardens from his apartment window.

To beat that perception and become a mayor for all parts of Toronto this fall, the former Toronto Centre MPP says he’s striving to “be out there and be seen” in the city’s suburbs, including Etobicoke, where he was raised.“My roots in Etobicoke are roots that mean a lot to me and contributed a lot to who I am,” the candidate told a meeting with the editorial board of Toronto Community News last Friday, July 23.

What he found in four days walking along Eglinton Avenue, he said, is a Toronto slowly becoming “a bedroom community” because jobs are going elsewhere and where, in the suburbs, certain places “are being left behind.”

A civic government locked in “a pattern of mediocrity” shares the blame for areas with empty storefronts or lower employment, Smitherman suggested, because it hasn’t spoken openly enough to Torontonians about the heavy tax burden on Toronto businesses.

Making its commercial property taxes more competitive is a way to create jobs and address Toronto’s social challenges, argued the candidate, who said his transit system expansion plan would bring more economic opportunities to the city by knitting together its more neglected parts.

The first half of his plan, a five-year run-up to the 2015 Pan-American Games costing the city a “relatively manageable” $465 million, would speed completion of the Spadina Subway to York University, and extend the Sheppard East Light-Rail Transit line to University of Toronto Scarborough, the Harbourfront LRT to Toronto’s Portlands and the Eglinton LRT to Weston Road.

His following five years are far more ambitious, costing billions: Smitherman would extend the Sheppard “Stubway” to Downsview station and the Finch West LRT to Highway 27, while adding new Bloor line stations at East Mall and Sherway Gardens “that have been spoken about to the people of Etobicoke at least since the 1980s.”

He also said the obsolete Scarborough RT, not expected to last much longer than 2016, should be rebuilt as a subway instead of an LRT, a “second-class transit” which would continue the need to switch lines at Kennedy Station.

Responding to the charge his campaign has lacked direction, Smitherman acknowledged he could do better “and sharpen up my messages,” but said people should look carefully at the character and commitments of his “primary opponent,” Rob Ford, who proposes a more extensive subway expansion while eliminating the city’s land-transfer and vehicle registration taxes.

“He’s getting into the tune of billions of dollars of unanswered questions,” Smitherman said.

“I’ve got 90 days to go, I don’t mind if you people want to characterize me as an underdog. I like my odds.”

Though a self-described “regionalist” from an early age when it comes to transportation, Smitherman is critical of the “one-size-fits-all solutions” a post-amalgamation Toronto has been pressing its former suburbs to adopt.

If local residents feel strongly about maintaining Etobicoke’s standards of leaf collection, or if North Yorkers want the city “to catch the snowflakes before they even land,” their community councillors should be able to make it happen, he said.

Smitherman also pledged to spend several days each month working from the civic centres in North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke or East York – one of many ways, he said, to assure people in all parts of the city “their voice has not been lost or watered-down.”

Deputy premier and a cabinet minister until he resigned to run municipally – he survived almost five years as Ontario’s health minister, “one of the hardest jobs in Canada” – Smitherman said his good relationship with Premier Dalton McGuinty won’t make him a “patsy” for the province when he’s mayor.

“I think you’d have to say that doesn’t exactly align with my MO (method of operations), with my style.”

But Smitherman said he’s grown weary with a city administration that, at budget time, projects itself “as broke or bankrupt.” A Toronto that shows its house is in order, he said, “is going to be far more effective actually in getting the respect that it warrants and resources that it would require from other levels of government.”

Dismissive of Joe Pantalone – another election rival he said has “extraordinarily low” support – Smitherman charged Toronto’s deputy mayor spreads misinformation whenever Pantalone states Toronto is forced to subsidize the TTC by $500 million a year, because he does not mention $155 million the province will give the city in gas tax revenue this year.

Still, Smitherman said the city’s next years are going to require “restraint,” especially from its public service, and he will present what is essentially a draft budget by this fall to show what that will mean.

“Either there’s going to be some sacrifice, or some jobs are going to be sacrificed,” he said.

See the video of this interview here or go the multimedia page to see videos of other mayoral candidates speak with TCN.

- Mike Adler

“John has not made up his mind,” said a Progressive Conservative who asked to remain anonymous. “But there are a number of people who want this to happen and are trying to convince him, and put together a team. So when he’s ready to go, he’s got people.”Tory has been facing increasing pressure to jump into the mayor’s race that he forswore in January of this year. Since he stepped down from the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, right-of-centre councillors and others interested in Toronto’s political scene had been counting on a Tory mayoralty campaign, to replace Mayor David Miller and return control of Toronto City Hall to Toronto’s centre-right.

When Tory stepped out of the race to head the Toronto City Summit Alliance, those supporters set about finding another candidate. According to the source, who spoke with Toronto Community News, the slate of front-runners – Rocco Rossi, George Smitherman, Rob Ford, Sarah Thomson and Joe Pantalone – wasn’t what they were looking for.

“People are concerned about the City of Toronto and the level of leadership that has been been offered by the current crop of mayoralty candidates,” said the source, who said that Tory is taking a short vacation from his hosting job at Talk Radio 1010 to consider his future.

Tory himself declined an email request for an interview. But he confirmed reports that he had spent the previous day doing work required of him as a boardmember of Rogers Telecommunications.

He did not address reports that former Premier Mike Harris was interceding in the campaign, both to encourage Tory to run and to discourage city councillor Rob Ford – who is tied for first in the mayor’s race with George Smitherman – from continuing his campaign.

Ford’s brother and campaign manager Doug Ford said such reports are “100 per cent false.”

“I spoke to Mike Harris, talked to him today, he said that is a false statement,” said Ford. “He has never talked to John Tory – never once has he told us to step out of the race. He has not come out publicly anywhere.”

Ford repeated his brother’s statement that he would not withdraw from the race – in part because “another Ford” will be running in Rob Ford’s Ward 2 seat. Doug Ford wouldn’t confirm whether or not he would be running there. But he said the announcement would be made at a get-together on Aug. 6.

“You’ll be able to find out which Ford’s running then,” he said. “We want to send a clear message to John Tory that Rob’s not backing out. We don’t care if the Prime Minister calls us.”

Ford said he wasn’t worried that Tory would bleed off support that his brother currently enjoys.

“Rob attracts a different demographic than John,” he said. “John attracts Bay Street, Rob attracts Main Street. Our polling is showing that he’ll take a few points – but also he’ll take it out of George Smitherman. Right now I bet it’s Joe Pantalone we’re running against – not George Smitherman.”

He added that he doubted that Tory will find much support should he choose to run.

“I think that people who supported John before aren’t supporting him now, because he’s indecisive â?¦ if he does announce, I’d have to question his integrity with Rob.”

Rob Ford had late last year said he wouldn’t run if Tory was running, and only got into the race when Tory assured him he wouldn’t be running.

“Rob and John had numerous conversations in January,” said Doug Ford. “This is a big undertaking for a family with a business. When somebody says they aren’t running, you take them at their word.”

Rocco Rossi said until he hears it from Tory himself, Tory’s candidacy is just a rumour. He took Tory at his word in January he’s not running.

“I declared before John Tory made up his mind the first time and nothing has changed.”

Right now he’s competing against people who are on the ballot. “I don’t know all the names on the ballot on Oct. 25, but one of them will be Rocco Rossi.”

But the pressure continues to mount. Denzil Minnan-Wong, a Tory supporter since he first ran in 2003, said he’s hearing a strong groundswell of support for Tory in his Ward 34 community.

“I think the momentum is increasing for him to be a candidate,” said Minnan-Wong. “From the people I talk to in my ward, knocking on thousands of doors, John Tory is the number one choice that they would like to see for mayor. I think he’d be a great mayor.”

George Smitherman’s campaign manager Bruce Davis was to have spoken to the rumors after The Mirror deadline Wednesday.

- David Nickle with files from Mike Adler

Feldman, who has represented the Ward 10 community for the past 18 years, made the announcement that he would not be seeking re-election in a letter to his constituents over the weekend, and told members of the media on Tuesday morning.“Thanks for the memories,” wrote Feldman, “but it is now time to move on to my next career.”

Feldman was a councillor in the former City of North York, and after amalgamation in 1998 went on to represent his community on Toronto Council. He served for three years as one of Mayor David Miller’s deputy mayors, and has been an avid supporter of social housing.

In his letter, Feldman told constituents that he “always understood that the global needs of the city affect Ward 10 as much as what happens in Ward 10 affects the city as a whole. While my passion for the people of York Centre is as strong today as ever, clearly it is now someone else’s time to represent you.”

Seven candidates are currently registered to run in Ward 10, in the Oct. 25 municipal election.

- David Nickle

Toronto’s leading mayoral candidates were split on the issue of a new technology for the TTC this week, while the commission tried to establish its move toward open-payment fare collection that has been months in the making.

Responding to a pledge by Rocco Rossi to make the reloadable Presto smart card the system’s money-taker during his term as mayor, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone said he expected to sign a contract this fall to install devices that allow passengers to pay with credit or debit cards.Though not dismissing Presto, which already has card readers in seven TTC stations, Giambrone said the new open-payment method was better and called the Presto card “last-decade technology.”

George Smitherman, a mayoral candidate who had also pledged to convert the TTC to Presto by 2014, said the announcement by Giambrone – a city councillor not running for re-election – makes him “just glad that Councillor Giambrone’s days are numbered.”

Giambrone, an early rival for the mayoralty who has since withdrawn, has been “stalling progress” for years at the TTC, which has not offered its full cooperation to a plan, backed by Toronto’s neighbours and the province, to make Presto the basis of seamless travel across the Greater Toronto Area, charged Smitherman, a former provincial cabinet minister.

“To have him scupper this at the last minute is nothing short of frustrating,” Smitherman added on Wednesday, July 21.

Rossi said his position was unchanged, and that the TTC adopting its own fare-collection system “would effectively mean we’re telling the rest of the region and the province to take a hike, right? Is that the message they want to send?”

Being on its own with open-payment also means the city will not be able to share future costs for maintaining and upgrading the system, he said.

Sarah Thomson, however, said open payment is a better choice because adopting Presto “requires setting up a unique banking system, a card processing system, and requires a huge amount of overhead to manage.”

In a statement, the candidate said most industries who need money-taking smart technology prefer to have branded credit cards assume the cost of processing, risk, and collection. That other candidates are choosing Presto, Thomson said, “is just another example of narrow political thinking.”

Rob Ford was less decisive about a payment method, though on Tuesday he said through spokesperson Adrienne Batra that Rossi sounds “like he’s done his homework” on the Presto card.

Ford added that “ramming through” a contract for open-payment readers this fall seems irresponsible and rushed.

Also asked to comment, Joe Pantalone chose neither technology but called on the backers of both to show “more transparency” in their plans for introducing it throughout the TTC.

The province’s transit agency, Metrolinx, has a responsibility “to make the case for Presto by sharing the real costs and benefits with taxpayers and TTC riders,” said Pantalone, adding the TTC has the same responsibility when it comes to open payment.

Paul Korczak, a consultant who recently retired from the New York City transit system after seeing open payment installed there, signed a $1.3 million contract with the TTC in June.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said the commission hopes to issue a request for proposals next month and to complete a second phase, determining whether to proceed with an open-payment system and examining how it could work together with the Presto card, by October, Ross said.

Ford challenged to one-on-one debate

The race to become mayor of Toronto appears to be down to two men, candidate George Smitherman said Thursday, July 22.

Hours after challenging competitor Rob Ford to a one-on-one radio debate, Smitherman said polls and residents have led him to believe he and Ford are the main contenders to lead the nation’s largest city.“That’s the sense that I get, yeah, to the greatest of extent,” Smitherman said in response to a question of whether he’s has the impression it’s a two-man mayor’s race based on his conversations with people he’s met on his walk across Toronto, which winds up Friday, July 23, in Scarborough.

“That’s not to say other candidates aren’t garnering other bits of support here and there, but I think it’s shaping up that way, yes.”

The director of communications for Ford’s mayoral campaign said the councillor hasn’t come to the same conclusion as Smitherman.

“Not at all,” said Adrienne Batra Friday morning.

“And in fact the numbers don’t tell that either. If you look at even that last CP24 poll that was done, (Rocco) Rossi’s numbers moved up, (Joe) Pantalone’s numbers moved up, (Sarah) Thomson’s numbers moved up. The only one that moved down was Smitherman. And so Mr. Ford does not in any way discount or disregard the other three (candidates).”

A Globe/CTV/CP24/Nanos Research poll released in mid-June showed Ford, city councillor for Etobicoke North, as the top choice of 17.8 per cent of respondents and the leader in the inner suburbs of Scarborough, North York and his homebase of Etobicoke.

Smitherman, the former provincial minister of both health and long term care and energy and infrastructure, garnered top spot from 15.9 per cent of respondents and was leading in the older parts of Toronto.

Pantalone was top choice for 10.1 per cent of respondents, Rossi nine per cent, Thomson 5.8 and Mammoliti 2.5 per cent. The latter dropped out of the mayor’s race soon after the poll was released. However, the poll also showed 38.9 per cent of respondents were unsure of their choices, a figure slightly higher in the inner suburbs.

The poll results (www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-W10-T426.pdf) were based on a random telephone survey of 1,000 likely Toronto municipal voters between June 7 and 11, asking them to list their first and second choices for mayor from the presumed Top 6 candidates. The results are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

On Thursday, Smitherman said he suggested the one-on-one debate between him and Ford after the radio show host Jerry Agar of Newstalk 1010 interviewed him. Agar repeatedly brought up Ford’s views in the interview, and Smitherman said it would be preferable for listeners to hear Ford respond on his own behalf.

“I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for the people of Toronto to hear from the two of us, most of the polls seem to indicate we’re the two leading contenders,” Smitherman added. “And I intend to expose the fact that (Ford) has no plan, and to the extent that he’s offered a plan, it is about expenditure increases and revenue reductions (and) that can only lead to service cuts.”

Batra didn’t discount the idea coming to fruition.

“Mr. Ford would rather have all the other candidates there,” she said. “That said, he certainly wouldn’t back down from a challenge.”

The proposal wasn’t well received by the other three candidates however, with Rossi tweeting: “Smitherman’s presumption knows no bounds.”

Smitherman defended his position, noting there will be a lot of upcoming debates between the main candidates.

“I think I’ve committed to another 40 or 50 of them or something like that,” he said. “Seems to me there’s lots of opportunities out there. But people are free, in any format they wish, to have as many debates as they can possibly organize.”

“How the others react is of less consequence to me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the chance to go head-to-head with Councillor Ford and to hold him to account to the fact that he hasn’t brought forward a platform.”

- Tim Foran

The debate will be held at Lawrence Heights Community Centre, 5 Replin Rd. in the Lawrence Avenue and Allen Road area, from 6 to 9 p.m.A community dinner will be held at 6 p.m., followed by the debate at 6:30 p.m.

Candidates Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi, George Smitherman and Sarah Thompson are expected to attend.

Toronto’s municipal election is Oct. 25.

For information email ybailey@newheightshealth.org

Advisor criticizes political inaction on creating liveable cities at Thorncliffe/Flemingdon Park town hall

A former bureaucrat famed for transforming the city of Bogota, Colombia through the construction of hundreds of kilometres of bikeways and parks as well as removing cars from almost 100 kilometres of city streets on Sundays has sharply criticized both Toronto’s inaction on developing a liveable city and the pro-car tenor of the current mayoral debate.

According to police, a pedestrian is hit every six hours in the Toronto area, Gil Penalosa, the executive director of the Toronto-based advocacy group 8-80 Cities, said during a recent presentation at Valley Park Middle School, located at the border of the Flemingdon Park and Thorncliffe Park communities.

“And nobody cares,” said Penalosa. “Has anybody heard anything from any of the candidates running for mayor about making the city safer for pedestrians?”

Penalosa added Torontonians seem not only inured to pedestrian fatalities, but many seem to justify them as the fault of pedestrians for using an iPod or a phone.

“What? Somebody can be killed because they were listening to music on the iPod?” he asked incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

During a question and answer period following his presentation, Penalosa also criticized those candidates running for office in this fall’s Toronto election who pander to the populace by suggesting the solution to traffic woes is more and bigger roads, something he said 50 years of North American experience has shown always results in more, not less, congestion.

“Look, the honest answer is the car is not an option,” said Penalosa, who as the former commissioner of parks, sport and recreation in Bogota opened 91 kilometres of car-free city roads on Sundays, an event now known as the Ciclovia and used by 1.5 million people weekly to walk, run, skate and bike.

“The only solution is public transit and walking and cycling,” he said. “The car has a role to play…but we can’t expect everybody to get everywhere by car.”

The slow implementation of active transportation options in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is neither due to technical reasons nor a lack of money, argued Penalosa. He pointed out other crowded cities manage to construct on-road separated bike paths in weeks, not years. And Toronto is not short of cash – he noted Bogota created 280 kilometres of bikeways in three years though its residents have a tenth of the per capita income as Torontonians. He also pointed out the subway extension to Vaughan, into what is now a low density area between Steeles Avenue and Highway 7, will cost $2.6 billion.

“What’s it going to solve?,” Penalosa asked rhetorically. “Nothing, nothing.”

He said governments could have created a bus rapid transit system along the same route and have money left over for protected bikeways all across Ontario.

What it needs to catch up to cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam and New York is leadership, political will, and doers in the public sector, he said.

“(Bureaucrats) need to be reminded they’re paid to get things done, not to list reasons why (something) is not possible,” he said.

He suggested both groups have a responsibility to represent all citizens, including the one-third of people – youth and seniors – who don’t drive.

“It’s almost like a human right, it’s like the right to mobility,” he said.

The name 8-80 Cities (www.8-80cities.org), formerly called Walk and Bike for Life, is a reminder to city builders to design a world that’s accessible and safe to the children and the aged, he said.

At least one indicator shows Toronto isn’t there, he said. Women, due to concerns about safety, make up only 20 per cent of the cyclists in Toronto, a city which uses paint rather than infrastructure to separate its bike lanes, said Penalosa. In comparison, cyclists in Copenhagen are 55 per cent female, a figure closer to the population norm.

The Danish city provides an apt comparison for Toronto, said Pealosa, because of its similar climate and the fear its denizens had of carving out road space for pedestrians and cyclists 40 years ago. At that time, residents argued creating pedestrian-only streets or constructing separated bike paths would be impossible and futile because the car was the dominant mode of transportation, such routes would only be used in the spring and summer, and the culture of walking and congregating in public places was part of the Italian rather than the Danish culture.

“Let me tell you, now the Danish are more Italian than the Italians,” said Penalosa. “They love their public spaces.”

Bicycling has doubled in Copenhagen, a richer and more educated city than Toronto, since 1990 and now 38 per cent of trips are made by bike with a goal of reaching 50 per cent by 2015, he said. Seventy per cent of those cyclists continue to bike in the snow, and more than 60 per cent of cyclists do it because it’s easy, fast and convenient, he said. Only one per cent cite environmental reasons.

“A politician in Toronto said, ‘Traffic is terrible because of the cyclists,’” recalled Penalosa, after which he showed a video of a bikeway in Copenhagen being used by thousands of cyclists moving without interruption.

“Can you imagine if each one of these cyclists was using one car? No, traffic is terrible because there’s not enough cyclists.”

Penalosa said such change is never easy and every community finds reasons why it’s not possible in their area.

“Every community is different, every community is unique,” he said. “Nevertheless, it’s about adapting and improving.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have 40 years, we need to develop a sense of urgency… We’re moving at the speed of a turtle.”

Thorncliffe and Flemingdon, areas of large residential towers populated by tens of thousands of new Canadians, might also face cultural challenges.

“There is no predominance of bike culture from where they’re coming from,” explained Jehad Aliweiwi, executive director of the multi-services non-profit Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, referring to the South Asian, Afghani, and Arabic-speaking newcomers.

However, whether by default or design, he said the horseshoe-shaped community of Thorncliffe allows parents to see their children walk to the junior school – North America’s largest elementary with 1,800 kids and 700 more spaces coming – and almost all people walk to the adjacent mall, the East York Town Centre.

“So people are walking and we’re encouraging them,” he said. However, his office, which invited Penalosa to speak, is also encouraging residents to take up cycling, especially in the abundant green environs of the Don River valley beside the community. So far, they’re having more luck getting the kids, first generation Canadians, to pedal.

That’s the experience of Thorncliffe resident, Elizabeth Muchogo, a Kenyan immigrant who took in Penalosa’s presentation with her six-year-old son, Eric. He cycled, she walked.

“I’ve never cycled in my life,” she said, explaining it’s dangerous to do so in Kenyan cities.

However, she is hopeful it becomes more a part of the culture in Toronto as it is in Copenhagen. Her younger sister lives in that city, and is only now herself learning to cycle.

Muchogo said her sister’s husband, a lawyer, rides his bike every day and has never learned to drive.

“You won’t find a professor or a lawyer from my country cycling,” she said.

That’s an attitude that must change, Penalosa said during his presentation.

Providing infrastructure for active transportation, including physically separated bike lanes, is a message to the world that Canada is a truly egalitarian society.

“When a person on a $40 bike is as important as someone in a $40,000 car, then things start to change.”

- Tim Foran

Councillors on the TTC board say his choice of a technology is premature, but on Tuesday, July 20 the mayoral candidate said people running the system – and the rest of the city – have chosen the status quo over change and “let us down.”“They have dragged their feet and invented excuses” rather than replacing transit tokens and tickets with refillable smart cards, as other cities have, said Rossi, who promised to convert the entire system if elected mayor Oct. 25.

At his Avenue Road headquarters, the candidate accused the TTC of being stuck in the 1970s and unwilling to cooperate with the province and neighbouring municipalities in adopting Presto, a system “simple and convenient, what everyone can and should expect in 2010.”

The card can be enhanced to Presto Plus+ to pay for services from meter parking to zoo admissions and could pay for itself in two to four years, Rossi said.

Later, however, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone called the Presto card – already in use on all 12 stations on GO Transit’s Lake Shore West rail line and in seven Toronto subway stations – a “last-decade technology.”

The TTC was prepared to adopt Presto, but found other cities, including some using smart cards, are moving to an open-payment system that also allows tap-payment by credit or bank cards, he said.

Since the makers of Presto “haven’t yet been able to demonstrate their system will work” to its satisfaction, the TTC expects to sign a contract for an open-payment system, which should be simpler and less expensive
for the city, by this fall, Giambrone said.

“We could no longer wait for Presto to actually meet the needs of the TTC.”

The transit commission in April estimated the installation cost to install Presto across the system, including street cars and buses, at $356 million.

Rossi told reporters the province would pay $140 million and the system should save the $52 million to $77 million a year in fare-collection costs – cities opting for smart cards, he said, have averaged a five-per-cent savings in this area – and another $3 million through fraud reduction.

Exploiting commercial opportunities for the smart card, as cities such as Hong Kong and London do, would net another $20 million, Rossi said.

But Giambrone and Joe Mihevc, the TTC’s vice-chair, both said Rossi’s expected savings – coming mostly from reducing the number of employees collecting fares – would be replaced or even exceeded by other costs.

“There’s no savings here that we have been able to identify,” said Mihevc, who denied the TTC is “dragging its feet” on Presto but also suggested Rossi’s schedule for installing the smart card is too optimistic. “We’re looking at a seven-year rollout and that’s a good-case scenario.”

Giambrone added removing a collector, who is often the only employee at a subway station, could pose a safety risk.

Rossi said the TTC is “trying to ride two horses at the same time” by introducing its own system, instead of integrating transit across Greater Toronto using Presto, as York Region, Mississauga and the province wish to do.

The province won’t help pay for an open-payment system solely for Toronto, he said, because it would bring no benefit to the region.

- Mike Adler

Members of Mission GTA, a cross-denominational Christian group, are praying too, and say they will make municipal candidates the focus of a city hall prayer session on Oct. 20, just days before Toronto’s election. On Sept. 8, they are inviting candidates for mayor to another meeting and will pray for each one, said chair Hany Boghossian, who said the Leslieville-based group isn’t partisan.

“We don’t have a favourite. We’re just asking for God to move the hearts (of candidates),” Boghossian said Tuesday, July 20 as group members prayed behind him in the city’s council chamber.

The group has met regularly to pray in city hall and other Greater Toronto locations for about 10 years.

Olwen Jones, its administrator, said such prayers are not meant to favour any policy or individual candidate.

“We don’t pray against anything, we just pray for peace, harmony, unity,” as well as supporting whichever candidates “the Lord wants to bring in” to serve Toronto best, she said.

Mission GTA prayed for peace in Toronto before the city hosted the G20 summit last month. Considering none of the G20 leaders were harmed, members believe their prayers worked, Jones said.

Mayoral candidate shares ideas for Etobicoke, rest of city

Mayoral candidate George Smitherman chose a familiar place to kick off his campaign walk across the city on Monday.

Smitherman led a group of supporters and journalists on a campaign walk starting from Etobicoke’s Centennial Park, heading along Eglinton Avenue West, sharing tidbits from his earlier years during the long journey to Weston Road.“This stretch today that we cover is very important in covering off at least the first 20 years of my life,” he said. “I trace my roots to this part of our great city.”

The former Hollycrest Middle School student recalled “Cloverdale Mall when it was an outdoor mall” and Eglinton Avenue West when it was Richview Sideroad. Centennial Park, a familiar spot for him, is “a remarkable asset for the people of Toronto, and an example of one of those parks that we would like to elevate to be a signature park,” he said. Stopping abruptly near a Hydro tower corridor near Martin Grove Road, he spoke of his vision for a “bicycle super highway right down to Kipling station.”

But while he shared some of his thoughts specific to Etobicoke, he stressed, “Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods … municipal government has the responsibility to find the way to properly acknowledge and nurture those neighbourhoods.”

Pushing urban farming is one way to help some neighbourhoods across the city, he added. “It’s an opportunity for Toronto to be more self-sufficient,” he said, noting there is a “correlation” with low income and diabetes due to diet.

He also said as mayor he wouldn’t spend all his time at city hall. “The mayor needs to have office days in the other parts of the city,” he said. “I would plan to spend a certain number of days in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke.

“I think we should make community councils real again by allowing them greater discretion.”

Touching on the ‘green’ issues, he noted he planned to sign a “green train pledge” focusing on using cleaner forms of transport for added transportation infrastructure in the corridor from Union Station to Pearson airport.

But he said a “core issue” is projecting Toronto as “a more powerful entity.”

“Toronto can live within its means and can eliminate this constant circumstance where Toronto projects itself as broke or bankrupt.”

While there weren’t many residences to visit along the first stretch of the journey, Smitherman stopped to greet those he passed by on the sidewalk. “Good for you,” said one man when Smitherman informed him he was walking across the city.

Smitherman and his team plan to continue their campaign walk along Eglinton Avenue and then tackle Yonge Street next week.