OUR FUTURE, OUR VOTE

What to watch for and what’s at stake as six leading candidates for the mayor’s chair square off tonight in debate

There is less than a month until mayoral election day, June 26, and the race still isn’t settled. In the context of Toronto municipal elections, this seems late in the process, but we could also remember that four weeks is a normal time frame for an entire federal or provincial election. There is still lots of time for things to happen, in other words.

As it stands today, what’s clear from the polls so far is that Olivia Chow leads, with consistent support in the mid-30 per cent range of decided and leaning voters. What isn’t clear is much beyond that. There are 101 other challengers, and the most popular of them so far are generally hovering in the low to mid-teens at best, no one seeming to gain significant ground as the main alternative. The number of undecided voters remains above 20 per cent in most surveys. Plenty of people are still gathering information — or just starting to gather information — to begin making up their minds.

That’s where debates are really useful. And it’s why I’m particularly happy to be moderating a debate Wednesday evening, entitled Our Future Our Vote: A Toronto for All. It’s going to be hosted by the Toronto Star in partnership with the United Way and Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Tickets for the event are all spoken for (they went fast), but everyone in the city can watch it live on CP24 starting at 7 p.m., or watch a livestream online at the Toronto Star website.

It’s a chance to see six of the top candidates head to head, outlining their visions, reacting to each other, showing us who they are as leaders and how they think about Toronto’s problems.

There are big differences between those candidates, but all of them agree, as most of us do, that Toronto has some big problems right now. A crisis in housing affordability, a billion-dollar budget hole, transit service reduced, traffic grinding along on the streets, overcrowded homeless shelters, fears about crime — the list could go on (and often does when the candidates are talking). What’s more, this election is the first in Toronto where voters going into it know the new mayor will have unprecedented “strong mayor” powers to veto council decisions or even pass bylaws with a support of a minority of councillors.

In preparing for the debate, organizers drew on the Star’s reporting and expertise, but also consulted widely with the community of vulnerable people and service providers affiliated with the United Way, and with the TMU community of students, to identify what issues are most pressing to people struggling with life in Toronto right now, and to come up with questions to the candidates about how they’d approach them.

Of course, there are a lot of candidates, too many to have on one stage if we’re going to give anyone a chance to explain themselves. To choose which candidates to invite, the organizers published criteria on May 1 outlining thresholds for polling at a specific deadline. Based on those thresholds, the top six candidates were invited, and all of them accepted: Ana Bailão, Brad Bradford, Olivia Chow, Mitzie Hunter, Josh Matlow and Mark Saunders. We all realize there are other credible candidates, some you may wish to hear more from. But we had to make choices, so we set and publicized rules to guide those choices, and we are sticking to them.

During the debate, these candidates will field questions from me, and from members of the communities of the United Way and TMU, and will also have an opportunity to ask each other questions. It should be a chance for those watching to explain who they are, how they think and how they’d lead.

Which is where I come in. Usually in my job as an opinion columnist, I offer my own commentary on how I think candidates are doing, and what I think of what they’re saying. But Wednesday night as moderator, I have a bit of different role, trying my best to ensure that each of them has a fair opportunity to explain themselves in their own words — and to try to ensure we keep things coherent, and running on time.

I’m particularly grateful for the chance to play that role in this setting, where those attending in the audience or tuning in to the broadcast will get the chance to hear directly from many of those hoping for support. My hope is that many of us will hear something from these candidates we haven’t heard before, perhaps something that will lead us closer to our own choices about who should next lead the city to address its urgent problems.

I don’t think those are easy problems to solve, and I don’t think the choice of who is best equipped to face them is easy either. It’s a big decision, and we’re gradually running out of time to make it.

I hope you’ll join us Wednesday night to gather a bit more information to guide your own choice.