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Where is the coverage of the Toronto Mayoral race?
August 28, 2010 - 10:50am
@dandmb50
Where is the coverage of the Toronto Mayoral race, there is a lot of interest in it, here in Toronto but I could find only one recent story (mid August) about Rob Ford.
He sure knows how to perk up our interest and the other candidates know how to shoot Ford down. His campaign is to cut taxes and the over spending at City Hall. But he doesn't explain how he will do that.
The campaign is coming to an end but it hasn't died down a bit yet in Toronto, and the mud slinging has only just begun with debates picking up in early September with the election in October.
He's (Ford) currently in the lead in the poles but that could change in the next month, with George Smitherman running in second place.
Daniel .. Toronto
Some days there is wall to to wall coverage on AM radio.
The newspapers are covering it as well........
Please post any links that you find on this sad spectacle that makes me cry if I think about it too much.
Moving to central canada, where all the Toronto municipal election threads are and will be.
I don't want to make you cry. Enjoy the beautiful sunshine. In the end you may yet have tears of joy.
It should be noted that those Ford supporters carrying signs behind him could be breaking the sign bylaw. As I was informed in no uncertain terms by the city, there should be no signs on public highways within 1.5m of the road, or within 15m of intersections. As the city acts reactively, call 311 when you see possible infractions. Just because it's being carried by a person doesn't make any less legal.
Of course it is legal. It's a public demonstration.
My understanding (gleaned at an information session on Thursday night at Metro Hall) is that signs advocating a specific candidate who has filed papers at City Hall, e.g. "Vote [Whoever]" cannot be displayed within 1.5m of the road, or within 15m of an intersection, and moreover, cannot be displayed anywhere outside of a candidate's campaign office until October 4. T-shirts, badges and stickers are fine, however.
If my understanding of the relevant bylaw is faulty, then I apologize.
You should be aware that the tendentious use of bylaws for frivilous political purposes is an underlying theme of the Ford Campaign. Obviously, the bylaw restricting use of signage is meant to prevent candidates from using market saturation through purchasing road side ads, and is meant to prevent wealthy candidates from being able to purchase public profile at the detriment to less wealthy candidates.
On the other hand, people carrying placards are not the same thing at all, and in my view, trying to go after Ford on this issue could easily be construed as a pernicious piece of political gamesmanship intended to limit the freedom of speech of individuals. Indeed I agree!
Why not argue that people must remove their "Ford" bumper stickers before they use the DVP? If you are really trying to hand more talking points to the Libertarian right, this one is perfect.
I shouldn't have used the Ford campaign as my example. I don't have much time for his ideas, but *any* campaign who does it shouldn't, and if they do, should be reported. What the City chooses to do then is up to them. They should actively go after *every* campaign that does it (and even the ones that I agree with have their halos pretty tarnished) just so one side's supporters can't cry foul. Or, rather, cry foul for a reason.
It may be an unintended consequence of the bylaw, but it is nevertheless a consequence.
And the signs I've seen supporters carry so far look exactly like campaign signs, to be put on lawns or fences or whatever. While there is a fuzzy area, I'd argue that any sign that could be placed in a window, hammered into a lawn, or stapled to a fence and used as a campaign sign is a campaign sign.
To take your example, I would never argue that. Bumper stickers are perfectly fine, according to the city.
All laws are viewed in the context of the purpose of the the law, not the "letter" of the law per se. If the bylaw prevented individuals from carrying signs and having bumper stickers on their car, it does not pass muster with the charter, which is superior law to the bylaw. I don't care if the bylaw says that "black people can't walk their dogs in public parks on Sundays" or not. Once a law is used in a manner that conflicts with basic rights, it is invalid.
Oh, it's getting serious now - the Globe and Mail has submitted the candidates' signatures to a graphologist.
We know she's incredibly accurate because she says Rob Ford likes culture.
Is Hockey and Football and beer culture? If so he likes it.
This campaign continues to get stranger by the day. At first I thought this was a joke.
Smitherman’s brother runs for council, backs FordOf course, the press is making more out of it than it is. You might as well harp over the son of a Mulroney Tory heading the federal NDP...
To be fair - it would be more comparable if Jack layton's father was a current Tory cabinet minister under Harper and Jack was leading the NDP attacking his own father during question period.
In any event, we're talking about a "rogue brother" situation here--the situation would have been no different 4 or 7 years ago. It's just that it's "reportable" now, as if it were anything but a preexisting condition...
It's pretty common knowledge that Smitherman has a toxic personality and seems to have the book "how to lose friends and alienate people" as his inspiration. I don't know the man personally, but every single person I've met who has had any personal interaction with him - either when he was Hall's Chief of Staff in the 90s to during his time in provincial politics - has told me the same thing - that he is personally abusive, nasty and vindictive. He is apparently another one of those people (like Helena Guergis) who has a revolving door in his office of people who work him for two days and then quit because they can't take the abuse.
So, it should come as no surprise that his poor interpersonal skills extend to his family.
Harping? I posted because I thought it was an interesting (side) story related to the topic at hand - the mayor's race in Toronto in 2010. Check the thread title.
dandmb50 - Nice try Rossi, that's your platform, scrap the arena (which we need desperately,) and the 5 cent bag fee? Not much of a platform.
I think things are getting worse and worser in this campaign for mayor.
Ford's been doing well in the "polls" but if he pushes this canceling streetcar strategy issue I think people will not respond well to it. I love my streetcars and now that the city has just built (over budget) streetcar ROW (right of ways) all over downtown, this may be the one issue that finishes Ford. It's "NOT" a plan to save money.
How do we "save" money if we throw away all those streetcars and ROW routes, it doesn't make sense, and what about the orders for the new streetcars, will we get our deposit back? We need a plan that works. All the kookie ideas are coming out now.
Daniel .. Toronto
I heard Ford on CFRB this morning. He is using the term "them socialists" . Is he taking lessons from Glen Beck?
People should stop talking about Ford's popularity. He isn't popular. His opposition is devided that is all. Rossi has no ideas, he is a good speaker but no platform to speak of. He is running on personality alone. He seems to have one. Thompson's claim to fame is bringing potato chips to gas stations in Toronto -- perhaps she would like it if the folks who staff the Toronto Film Permit office, had a kiosk where they could sell pop, chips and juice to location scouts while they are doing their paper work? Smitherman is running on a campaign of decreased costs and increased services -- how he is going to turn this trick has not been explained, except that he intends to spend the first year as the city budget chief, and bring the city to a halt while he does a line by line budget review and terrorizes the staff at City Hall.
Pantalone is the only one who has a platform who isn't lying to the public and telling them they can get more services and better service for less money. Panatlone should speak louder or closer to the microphone, that is about the only criticism I have of him.
In fact, the whole campaign is basically being leveraged through the negative campaigning of Ford, on the false premise that the city is broken, and this has catalyzed the vote of a comprised of whiners who can't stand the idea of things like that they might be delayed for 2 minutes behind a streetcar once a week.
Ford's posse, looks like an unpleasant group of inner city gangbangers dressed in suits.
That's the nice thing about Toronto and Canada, people can talk/support anyone they want. The only poll that counts, is on election day and the people, not, Cue will make that decision.
Daniel .. Toronto
He is polling in the mid 30's. That isn't "popular". Popular is a vote share in the 40's at least. All that say is that he has managed to catalyze one particular voter group, not plurality of support.
DP.
I wish Joe Mihevc or Shelley Carroll would have run.
I was glad to hear Pantalone on the news yesterday refuting the "Toronto is broken" meme. In light of the fact that there's no run-off voting in municipal elections, let's hope Rocco stays in the race to help split the vote.
I guess the consolation prize is that they'll likely be on the next council to give Pantalone the support he'll need.
There are right now FORTY people running for Mayor.
I am hoping to gather links infos and photos of them all here:
http://davenportdemocracy.blogspot.com/2010/09/pick-mayor.htmlThe media pummels us with coverage of the 'front-runner' five, but there are others.
Sonny Yeung withdrew, some added, nominations now closed so the final slate is a choice of 41 for Mayor.
Yet our mainstream media only pays attention to their selected top 5.
Is this right or good for civic engagement? Or is it a mockery of democracy?
No. Indeed, it was very interesting being at the all candidates debate this tuesday, since the line up basically meant that the right wing agenda got 4 times the overall speaking time than the "left" view represented by Joe Pantalone -- not the Joe is any kind of radical, or anything. Thus we see how the media and its friends at the Board of Trade effectively set the agenda by default.
I think Carroll's keeping her powder dry for 2014.
Women don't matter.
Frontrunning Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford has suddenly dropped out of a "Women Matter" candidates' debate Friday night, an organizer says.
Ford's campaign had previously confirmed that he would attend the debate on "issues of gender representation and diversity in city politics", hosted by Equal Voice Toronto, the Toronto Women's City Alliance and the YWCA, said debate spokesperson Gabby Richichi-Fried.
Somebody from the Ford camp called one of the organizers at 2 a.m. Friday to say he can't attend because "he has to go to a barbecue," Richichi-Fried said.