Campaign Blog
GO VOTE!
That’s it. The message of the day.
The speeches have been made, the policies pitched, and the visions
articulated. These are all essential expressions of a healthy
representative democracy. But the most essential expression is the very
simple act of voting.
So go vote.
Tell your friends to vote.
Tell your neighbours as you pass them on the street, and your colleagues
as you pass them in the hallway.
Voting is easy. If you’ve not received your voter card, or you’re not
sure about your polling location, start here:
http://www.toronto.ca/vote2006/voter-faq.htm
Voting is fun. Seriously - I mean this. Yes, there are lines and ID, and
things that involve lines and ID are rarely enjoyable. But voting is fun
in just the way that Taste of the Danforth, or Caribana, or any of the
other multitude of the street festivals we so cherish are fun. It is the
city, on parade. At the risk of waxing misty-eyed, it is the shopkeeper
from the corner store and the librarian from down the street, and even the
crotchety neighbour you sometimes avoid, all together for a moment, acting
as a community.
Voting is empowering. Even if you’re sceptical, even if it feels mundane,
as soon as you step into a polling station you take part in the process of
making your representative government actually, well - representative.
And that act of participation, of acting rather than merely watching an election sail on by, is the best way of diffusing scepticism about
politics.
Thus, I say again - go vote!
Filed under: Toronto — Hamutal Dotan @ 5:48 pm
How to rescue tourism - it starts with us!
Last Saturday, Nov. 4th, the front page headline and lead story in The Toronto Star detailed how Toronto’s troubled tourism industry needs some major help.
The most well known and marketed aspects of our city are things like The CN Tower, The Ontario Science Centre, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Caribana and the hugely successful Toronto Film Festival. But how about marketing “the undiscovered Toronto?”
The list of what goes on in Toronto throughout every season seems endless. Taste of the Danforth, Winterlicious, The Calvacade of Lights, The International Fireworks Festival, Chinese Lantern Festival, Neighbourhood Walking Tours, Canadian National Exhibition, Royal Winter Fair - horse shows, dog shows, dragon boat racing and ice sculpture competitions. Every month offers enticing events which would appeal to all ages.
We have excellent, affordable theatrical productions, not in the mainstream. There are dance companies, superb musicians and street fairs. Toronto has some of the most diverse and appealing neighbourhoods of any major North American City - Chinatown, Yorkville, The Annex, Kensington Market, The Danforth, Bloor West Village, The Beach and waterfront. Each neighbourhood has its own specialized restaurants and retail outlets offering the fruits of our ethnic diversity.
In essence, how about marketing us - the heart and soul of what makes Toronto unique?
Variety is the spice of life. Marketing the extraordinary events to choose from is a win, win situation. Toronto is a kaleidoscope of activity - how can we be perceived as boring?\n
There doesn\’t seem to be too many people outside of the GTA who know\nabout these events. I can almost guarantee very few of our\ninternational neighbours, know anything about them.
\n
Mayor David Miller wants to promote Toronto, with the help of Ottawa and Queen\’s Park, as a vibrant cultural mecca that would appeal to international conventions, tourists and investors. He has proven to be a man of his word. Jane Pitfield wants to get rid of grafetti, get tough on crime and stop panhandling.\n
Hmmmmm - lead with the positive or the negative. Tough choice.
There is no doubt Toronto has its problems. We are working on them. Wouldn\’t it be great if we could send an invitation to the rest of the world to come celebrate us as we celebrate others.\n
It\’s certainly worth a shot.
Jan Goodwin
In essence, how about marketing us - the heart and soul of what makes Toronto unique?
Variety is the spice of life. Marketing the extraordinary events to choose from is a win, win situation. Toronto is a kaleidoscope of activity - how can we be perceived as boring?
There doesn’t seem to be too many people outside of the GTA who know about these events. I can almost guarantee very few of our international neighbours, know anything about them.
Mayor David Miller wants to promote Toronto, with the help of Ottawa and Queen’s Park, as a vibrant cultural mecca that would appeal to international conventions, tourists and investors. He has proven to be a man of his word. Jane Pitfield wants to get rid of grafetti, get tough on crime and stop panhandling.
Hmmmmm - lead with the positive or the negative. Tough choice.
There is no doubt Toronto has its problems. We are working on them. Wouldn’t it be great if we could send an invitation to the rest of the world to come celebrate us as we celebrate others.
It’s certainly worth a shot.
Filed under: Toronto — Jan @ 5:46 pm
Food for thought -
Are we better off?
What was our municipal governance like three years ago?
Given the level of - ahem - respect shown to Toronto by the highest level of government, how well would we be served without strong leadership?
These are three questions I suspect many will ask themselves before heading to the polls on the second Monday of November. And the answers to these questions, I think, are what’s driving the great grassroots support behind David Miller’s campaign. We are better off and municipal governance is in much better shape compared to three years ago, thanks to the Mayor. It is essential that he continue leading our city to garner the respect we deserve.
As a fundraising volunteer involved in a number of online projects connected with the campaign, I know there are thousands of individuals from all over the city who have given their time and/or their money to keep our mayor in office. Just look at the Citizen to Citizen Campaign: http://www.millerformayor.ca/citizen, where folks can set up their own website to garner support and online donations. Can the other candidates even muster a fraction of this kind of support? From a diverse and broad base? And, were they to find themselves as mayor, how seriously do you suppose they would be taken in Ottawa or Queen’s Park?
I am putting my time and energy behind David Miller as much to show that Toronto should not and will not be taken for granted. And, apparently, so are a lot of others. Given the Mayor’s popularity, one of the best things we can do to support him is simply encourage fellow citizens to get the vote out. If it’s not clear to your friends and neighbours just where they should go to vote, the City of Toronto has lots of information at http://www.toronto.ca/elections/index.htm.
Filed under: Toronto — Malcolm Jolley @ 12:58 pm
Debates for Next Week
Monday November 6
Spacing Magazine Political Party
783 College W corner of Shaw.
David Miller will speak at 9:00 PM
Tuesday November 7
Centennial College Residence and Conference CentreÂ
940 Progress Ave in Scarborough
Doors Open at 6:15 PM.
Wednesday November 8
Bloor West Village Residents’ AssociationÂ
Runnymede United ChurchÂ
474 Runnymede Rd.
8:00 PM
Filed under: Toronto — Hamutal Dotan @ 2:18 pm
Three years later…
I was privileged to be part of David Miller’s campaign team in 2003 - when his truly phenomenal darkhorse victory created such a wave of hope and enthusiasm in our city.
I’m proud to support David’s re-election bid in 2006 because as Mayor for the last 3 years he’s more than lived up to the high hopes I and so many others had for him in 2003.
The most impressive examples of that are the tremendous amount he’s accomplished modernizing government with more professional management, and - most important - the historic new deals he has accomplished for Toronto with the provincial and federal governments.
It is thanks to David’s leadership and determination that we have the new Toronto Act and such unprecedented reforms as a share of federal and provincial fuel taxes for transit and infrastructure. Many politicians talk about changing the way government works - David Miller actually made it
happen.
As the mayor who acquired these important new tools for Toronto, he’s also earned the job of being the city-builder who puts those tools to work after the next election. On the campaign trail, he’s proving that point over and over. He’s the candidate who has the strong record, who has the inspiring vision, who has the solid plan… to build on his own successes in his first term.
Toronto badly needed David Miller three years ago, when the city was in a crisis of confidence and in despair over its future, when years of not-so-benign neglect at City Hall were coming home to roost. Thanks to Mayor David Miller, Toronto has gotten its mojo back. Now we need him to finish the job … of building a great city.
Filed under: Toronto — Peter Donolo @ 2:19 pm
Debate Report
John Lorinc, over at Spacing Magazine (http://www.spacing.ca/), has an excellent rundown of Wednesday night’s Leaside Mayoral debate.
He writes, “David Miller’s organizers - sensing their guy was deep behind enemy lines - pulled out all the stops.” Thanks John. I agree, the room was about 50% David Miller supporters- even in the heart of Leaside. This speaks volumes to the wide base of support that David Miller enjoys.
Click here to read the rest of John Lorinc’s report: http://spacing.ca/votes/?p=219
Filed under: Toronto — Max Reed @ 9:58 am
Voting Rights
Who should vote in municipal elections? David Miller has come out in favour of allowing permanent residents to vote, and in a rare showing of unanimity, other candidates have lined up to agree. The rationale? These are people who are here for good, who are paying taxes, who have a vested interest in the success of the city.
This is, admittedly, a grey area. By that rationale, why wouldn’t permanent residents – who have the right to reside in Canada forever, with some very limited exceptions – be allowed to vote in provincial or federal elections as well?
Well – lots to think about — but not a debate for municipal candidates.
Some advocates suggest that opening municipal voting to permanent residents would be a good way to increase participation in municipal elections. By contrast, in his October 25th column, John Barber of the Globe and Mail discusses the possibility that such a change might actually decrease the percentage of voter turnout overall, and concludes extending the vote to permanent residents is unlikely to change the demographics of who actually bothers to put a ballot in the box. Does it matter, either way? If it’s the right thing to do – if enfranchising tax-paying non-citizens who are living in the city on a permanent, not temporary, basis makes sense – then that seems like enough of a reason to consider doing it.
Others argue that voting should be a privilege reserved for citizens in order to encourage immigrants to become citizens. Given that it takes a minimum of just three years to gain citizenship, once permanent residency has been acquired, this sounds like a reasonable idea. On the other hand, it can take a very long time, through no fault of applicants, to get permanent residency in the first place – years just to get an initial interview at embassies in China and Russia, for example — so there may be a much longer period of disenfranchisement for committed newcomers than an ideal timeline would indicate. So once permanent residents have cleared this first hurdle, maybe we could consider that they’ve shown enough interest in staying in (or getting to) Canada to participate in local issues that affect them.
Filed under: Toronto — Molly @ 9:39 am
Streets are for People!
Toronto’s second marathon of the fall running season, the Toronto Marathon, happened again just over a week ago. I cheered on some friends running –having done the half-marathon a few times myself, I know how helpful it is to have encouragement when slogging through 21, or 42 kilometres. It was great to see runners turn the corner at the end of Rosedale Valley Road, filling a beautiful street that for 364 and two-thirds of the rest of the day of the year is full of cars. Part of the fun of doing any of the runs in Toronto, many of which are for charity, is to see the city from another perspective – see streets by foot instead of in a car, and to notice buildings that are usually eclipsed by the traffic and pedestrians that surround them.
The issue of whether streets should be shut down for fundraisers and festivals has come up a few times during this campaign. The mayor’s position is clear, I think, through his participation in events such as the Run for the Cure. There’s been discussion about banning events that shut down streets such as Taste of the Danforth, or limiting them to parks and cordoned off fairgrounds. Given how many people participate in events like this, whether in their own neighbourhood, or in someone else’s, I’d have to think this approach isn’t really what the majority of Torontonians would favour. Part of living in a city is interacting with (a lot of) the rest of its residents once or twice a year, whether in a race, at a street fair, or at a music festival. It would be unfortunate to lose these opportunities to connect and to experience the city from a different perspective.
Filed under: Toronto — Molly @ 10:36 am
A comment from a reader on Leaside Debate
I thought I would highlight this comment from an audience member at the Leaside debate:
Author : Derek R. Lipman
E-mail : dereklipman@trentu.ca
Comment:
I attended the Mayoral 3 Candidates meeting held by the Leaside Property Owners Association this evening. Perhaps the most stunning part of this meeting, held at Leaside Gardens, was watching David Miller beat Jane Pitfield in her own backyard. Surprisingly, Pitfield recieved only a lukewarm response from the crowd (which was rather large) whereas Miller, who has been taunted by the press off and on, put on a commanding performance. Stephen LeDrew was entertaining as the other Miller antagonist. Pitfield has been a very good city councillor to the Leaside community, but her Conservative allegiances may hurt her even there, where Liberal MP and Miller friend John Godfrey is extremely popular. Pitfield was not very strong on her answers to questions, and has a nasty Ignatieff like habit of pointing her finger when making a point.
The questions asked by local residents and resident lunatics were for the most part decent, however a few ill people of all ages hijacked the event and digressed into schoolyard name calling which provided for some comic relief. Interestingly, Miller and Pitfield’s supporters were more subdued, and were less visible. LeDrew’s handlers and henchmen/women were abundant, and took pictures of the guy like he was a rock star. Unfortunately, he has not been around city hall long enough to speak about critical issues. He does have some chutzpah, and would make for a good civic representative someday if he’s interested in a lesser position.
The moderator did a good job in a neutral role, having to deal with the aforementioned looney’s. Overall here’s how i’d rate the performances.
Miller 8.5 out of 10
Pitfield 5 out of 10
LeDrew 6 out of 10, (his handlers and Liberal party volunteers get a 10 for effort)
D.L.
Filed under: Toronto — Max Reed @ 2:08 pm
Debate Info
Here is some information about upcoming debates that the Mayor will be participating in.
Tuesday October 24, 2006
Leaside Property Owner’s Association
Leaside Memorial Community Gardens
1073 Millwood Rd (at the corner of Laird)
7:30- 9:30 PM
Arrive at 6:45 to get a seat.
Wednesday October 25
Toronto Historical Association
The West Hall- Enoch Turner Schoolhouse
106 Trinity Street, Toronto
7:30-9:30 PM
Arrive early to get a seat
If you have any questions please call the campaign office at 416-487-2006
Filed under: Toronto — Max Reed @ 11:09 am
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