TORONTO – With just six days before Torontonians head to the polls to decide who will replace Rob Ford at city hall, the top three candidates are once again taking part in a debate.
John Tory, Doug Ford and Olivia Chow will be debating in the Scarborough Rotary Club debate at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
Global News will be streaming the debate live.
The questions are expected to span topics including accountability, infrastructure, transit and affordability.
Here’s a preview:
Transit
All three candidates have offered remarkably different transit plans that, they say, will be the first step to fixing Toronto’s growing gridlock problem.
And as Ipsos Reid polling has shown, transit is far and away the biggest issue in the Toronto election.
Tory’s SmartTrack plan has taken the most heat. He wants to usurp provincially-owned rails and run trains both ways across the city every 15 minutes. He said the plan will include 22 new stations, can be built in seven years and will only cost $8 billion. He said the plan can be funded through Tax Increment Financing (TIF), or borrowing from hypothetical tax revenue created by increased development in the area.
But both Chow and Ford have their doubts. Expect Ford to repeat his call for the engineering reports Tory has failed to provide and expect Chow to bring up concerns about whether TIF can in fact be counted on to fund the project.
Chow released a detailed spreadsheet prepared by former Ontario Hydro chief economist Mitchell Rothman. Rothman’s modelling concludes Tory’s TIF plan simply won’t be able to pay for the transit work. Viewers can expect Chow to bring out her trusty napkin and accuse Tory of simply scribbling lines on a map.
Tory has however – and will likely again – pull out the pseudo-endorsement of his plan written by transit expert Eric Miller.
In an opinion piece published in the Toronto Star, Miller highlighted some apparent successes of the SmartTrack plan, including relieving much of the pressure currently on the subway lines. But, he spent little time talking about his funding plan, except to say it is “based on considerable analysis.”
But with just one week left in the election and serious doubts being raised about Tory’s plan, can he defend his plan enough to keep voters on his side?
The downtown relief line?
The TTC said building the relief line is its top priority – so why aren’t any of the candidates making it theirs? The Tory campaign said his SmartTrack will do the job of a relief line and both Ford and Chow say it’s among their top priorities.
Integrity + so-called elitism
Integrity has played a large part in previous debates during the municipal election – and expect to hear a few jabs thrown at Ford about his attendance record and comments he`s made about fellow councillors being a “a pack of wolves” and “monkeys.”
But Ford has his own go-to line and will likely try to convince voters that while he is a millionaire, Tory is an “elitist” who is out of touch with normal Torontonians.
Taxes
This is Ford’s wheelhouse. Expect the mayor’s brother to claim both of his opponents want to institute new taxes and tolls to pay for services and transit. Tory has said numerous times he won’t raise property taxes to pay for his transit plan and Chow has said she will only raise the land transfer tax one per cent on homes worth more than $2 million.
What about Scarborough?
Exclusive Ipsos Reid polling done for Global News shows Scarborough residents feel the most neglected by city government. So what are the three candidates going to do about it?
Ford has long said he’s one of the few councillors in Toronto who cares about Scarborough. Whether or not that’s true, he did vote for the Scarborough subway.
But Tory too has said he won’t stop construction of the Scarborough subway extension.
Chow, however, has said she’d revert back to a fully-funded light rail transit project in the area.
Expect each candidate to try and find support in Scarborough as the region can be vital to electoral success.
Is Toronto growing too quickly?
There are currently nearly 77,000 approved condominium units in Toronto just waiting to be built – most of those in the downtown core south of Bloor Street.
But as much as politicians love to gloat about the number of cranes in the sky, can Toronto’s infrastructure – particularly transit – handle the influx?
All three candidates have released various transit plans but both Ford and Chow say the TTC’s top priority, the downtown relief line, is also among his priorities.
Affordability
A recent Ipsos Reid poll done exclusively for Global News found many Torontonians were struggling to get by: 90 per cent said life was increasingly difficult for the average person, 59 per cent said they’re not sure if they could find another job if they were to suddenly find themselves unemployed and 51 per cent said they are living pay cheque to pay cheque.
What are the candidates planning on doing to make life more affordable? All three candidates have promised to not raise property taxes above the rate of inflation.
But Ford said he will be able to find savings within the city budget to save taxpayers money.
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