David Soknacki enters Toronto mayoral race

Watch the video above: David Soknacki enters Toronto mayoral race. Jackson Proskow reports. 

TORONTO – Former Toronto city councillor David Soknacki officially entered Toronto’s mayoral election Monday morning.

The business owner registered as a candidate at city hall at 10:15 a.m.

Soknacki announced a policy pledge on “mayoral ethics and transparency” as he launched his campaign.

“I’m beginning on openness and accountability,” he told reporters. “We need to have level headed and practical leadership.”

The former councillor represented Ward 43-Scarborough East from 1999 to 2006 and spent the last three of those years as Chair of the Budget Committee.

Soknacki had said last fall that he would be entering the race as a fiscal conservative and he already has the support of Councillor Paul Ainslie.

“I think he’ll bring a lot of stability to the job,” said Ainslie. “David takes advice very well. He has my support over the next 10 months.”

Potential mayoral candidate councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong wasn’t surprised Ainslie was supporting Socknacki and wished the candidate good luck.

But Minnan-Wong dodged questions about his own candidacy and suggested instead the city was looking for a mayor with a fiscally conservative agenda who is “going to have integrity and do the right thing.”

“We need imaginative ideas but we also need someone who is going to have a sense of realism in term of watching the bottom line, keeping taxes down and paying attention to what taxpayers want,” he said.

So far, 17 candidates have officially registered to run in the 2014 municipal election, including Rob Ford.

The current mayor wasted no time jumping into the ring as he was the first to sign up for the nomination process on Jan. 2.

Toronto Transit Commission Chair Karen Stintz has also declared her intention to run but she has yet to file her candidature papers.

Voters head to the polls on Oct. 27.