WATCH: Morgan Baskin is interviewed on The Morning Show about entering the Toronto mayoral race.
TORONTO – Toronto high school student Morgan Baskin feels her voice as a youth isn’t be heard through the ranks at city hall and intends to push for common sense politics as a mayoral candidate.
“I couldn’t hear anyone saying, ‘Youth are important and we need to think about the future for them,'” said the 18-year-old during an interview on The Morning Show. “I heard, ‘taxpayers are important’ and for the most part, youth don’ t pay taxes.”
Baskin filed her nomination papers at Toronto city hall on Feb. 28 and managed to pay for the $200 registration process through her babysitting gigs.
The teen remains unintimidated with the challenge of facing heavyweight political contenders such as Rob Ford, John Tory and Karen Stintz.
Baskin believes she can compete in the race by drawing from her past experiences as a scout leader and camp counsellor.
“I’m not completely inexperienced in leadership positions but the city is also not a business. We’re not trying to make a profit here,” said Baskin. “We’re trying to have common goals and reach those goals. We need someone who’s a good leader, not someone who’s a good business man.”
One of her priorities if elected would be to fix the city’s transportation woes and push the upper the levels of government to chip in more funding.
“I think we need to tell both the Ontario and federal government that we are done with the kind of half-ass funding, honestly that we’ve been getting from them,” she said.
“We need to get real funding for public transit and we don’t get the progressive funding models.”
Ultimately, Baskin says one of her goals is to speak for the youth in the city and represent a voice that’s often ignored.
“My generation and the tail end of the generation before me kind of got the short end of the stick,” Baskin explained.
“We were given a definition of success, of kids and a family, and owning a house and a career. That just doesn’ t exist anymore. We got a roadmap on how to get there, that have landmarks on it. That just doesn’t exist.”
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