Karen Stintz wants to boost access to sports fields in Toronto

TORONTO – Karen Stintz wants to make it easier for the public to access sports fields and says it’s time for Toronto to stick to a transit plan.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday the mayoral candidate and former TTC chair laid out a series of initiatives she said she would implement if elected mayor that would give the public, and in particular kids, more places to play.

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“Whether it’s to throw a Frisbee, walk a dog, play soccer, play field hockey, play with their friends, have a picnic, they need places where they can play. And they need places where their families can come and gather,” Stintz said.

Part of Stintz’s proposal includes reaching out to the private sector to raise funds to improve fields across the city.

Stintz also said she wants to limit school boards from selling lands in communities where access to fields and green spaces are at minimum.

“The reality is, our community doesn’t care whether the TDSB owns them, whether the Catholic District School Board owns them, whether the city owns them, whether the French school owns them,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. They’re our fields.”

WATCH: Karen Stintz says it’s time to move forward on a transit plan

The TDSB is currently selling off a number of school properties in a bid to raise money for repairs and renovations at schools in the GTA. Stintz says she wants the city and the school boards “to work together to figure this problem out.”

Stintz also talked about her proposed transit plan saying she would stick to extending the Bloor-Danforth line to Sheppard, a plan which she noted is already funded.

“My transit plan includes extending the Bloor-Danforth line to Sheppard. Olivia wants to go back and revisit a transit fight that has ended. I want to move our city forward,” she said. ”The downtown relief line is a critical line for the city and I’m the only candidate that has a plan to build it. And as for John Tory’s plan it is just simply off track.”

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Mayoral candidate John Tory released his “One Toronto Transit Plan” last week, which included a proposed all-day, two-way surface subway service from around Pearson Airport in the west-end of the city to all the way northeast to Unionville in Markham.

Candidate Olivia Chow spoke to the Canadian Club today, saying if she were elected mayor she would make Social housing and the TTC her two top priorities to work with the Ontario government on.

Stintz also talked about the need for a city to follow through on a transit plan, the extension of Bloor-Danforth subway, which has a funding plan in place.

“We need it, we’re funding it, it is funded by the federal government and the provincial government. And for the city I will sayquite strongly the most important thing we can do for transit is to stick to a plan,” she said. “If we’re going to build infrastructure in this province we have to stick to a plan.”