Better Late Than Never

The mainstream media did cover the all candidates for mayor debate but they didn't offer much except the highlights....."community newspapers" offer a little more insight.

First mayoralty debate levels playing field

Colourful contenders, animated discussion offered at event

DAVID NICKLE

Oct. 5, 2006

Mayoralty candidate Paul Sheldon is offering seniors free rides on the TTC. John Weingust says if he's elected he'll change parking policies at the city so motorists will no longer have to pay to leave their cars on city streets. And if anyone is listening, waste diversion activist and mayoralty candidate Rod Muir is offering a sharp critique of the city's failures to properly divert its garbage from landfill.

About 500 people were listening Wednesday night as those three mayoralty candidates and 24 others - including Councilor Jane Pitfield, Mayor David Miller and Stephen LeDrew - took to the stage at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts for the first official mayor's debate of the 2006 municipal campaign.

The debate, hosted by City Idol organizer Dave Meslin and Citytv, is notable because unlike most mayoralty debates where only perceived front-runners are invited, this time out the organizers asked all 38 candidates for the city's top job to take the stage and say their piece. Twenty-seven showed up and stayed for the night.

The result was a fast-paced two-hour debate in which candidates were given a minute or two to speak, answer questions and occasionally lob barbs at one another. To the obvious delight of the crowd, front-runners Miller, Pitfield and LeDrew had to wait their turn like everyone else.

So Rabbi Sheldon, bedecked in a deep purple suit, told voters: "Vote for me and seniors ride for free on the TTC," then promised to open more wedding chapels in the old suburban city halls. Weingust compared parking tickets and fees to road tolls and said that they ought to be abolished.

Sonic Dave DuMoulin, wearing a red First Nations battle flag and a T-shirt referencing U.S. Homeland Security, said he wanted to create "a world peace festival cyber pow-wow. … Save mother Earth. It's time to heal ourselves and heal the planet. Landfills poison our watersheds and incinerators poison our air. We need to think seven generations from now."

In the midst of it all, Muir, the founder of the activist organization Waste Diversion Toronto, launched a blistering attack on Miller's environmental policies.

"Mayor Miller can take no pride in his record on waste diversion, and it takes no vision whatsoever to buy a hole in someone's backyard and dump your waste into it," he said. "It didn't make sense in 2000 when David fought the Adam's Mine and it doesn't today."

Although he didn't have much time to do so, Muir landed some of the more effective punches of the evening. At one point he asked Miller directly why new apartment buildings in the city are being constructed with only one garbage chute, making it difficult to introduce recycling and green bin organic collection in multi-residential buildings. Miller did not answer the question.

The three leading candidates sparred amongst themselves. LeDrew, who entered the race at the last minute, defended his personal bankruptcy issues, but took aim at Miller's backing of the controversial sole-source purchase of subway cars from Bombardier, and attacked the likewise controversial decision to build a streetcar right-of-way along St. Clair Avenue.

"The decision to spend tens of millions of dollars on streetcars on St. Clair was a terrible mistake - we need to spend money on infrastructure in the suburbs. We have to spend more money on the TTC and not on foolishness," he said.

At times, the front-runners had to deal with questions more perplexing than substantial, as when Pitfield and Miller were asked what they would do about dog attacks.

Both supported off-leash areas - Pitfield making the point that the community needed to be well-consulted and pet owners should be held accountable.

The two sparred over the Portlands energy centre, which Pitfield said she supported and Miller opposed, and the city's budget.

But for most of the evening, the other candidates said their piece. Candidates like Hossain Monowar, who became so excited swinging his microphone around that his speech was inaudible, or Scott Yee, running in what he described as his seventh and last campaign, expressing his ambition for a world government and the establishment of the United Federation of Planets, or Diane De-Maxted, who showed up wearing fairy wings and a tiara, and talked about her involvement in the city's cultural milieu.

When the debate was finished, organizer Meslin defended the unusual format.

"It's important in an election that all voices are heard," he said. "If there are 38 people running for mayor and the voters are only exposed to three then people aren't making an informed choice. So our goal for the debate was to make sure there was a level playing field."

See more election coverage online, along with candidate information, ward profiles and and voters' views at www.decisiontoronto2006.com