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Toronto, Doug Ford won’t hit the campaign trail today as promised but it appears that his entrance into the race isn’t far away.
Organizers of a debate scheduled for Tuesday night at York Memorial Collegiate Institute on Eglinton Avenue have told CP24 that Ford’s campaign has confirmed his attendance for the event.
Meanwhile, Ford’s campaign has also confirmed that he will be canvassing in the Kipling Avenue area sometime Saturday afternoon.
The news comes one day after Ford told reporters that he “absolutely” would begin campaigning today.
“What makes Rob feel better is me out there campaigning,” Ford said Thursday. “He wants me to focus on this election and we our ready to go.”
Despite the assurance, Ford has no events scheduled for Friday and will instead be spending time with his brother and attending a number of meetings, according to his director of communications.
Soknacki, Stintz strategists join Tory team
While Ford has been silent on the campaign trail, it has been business as usual for fellow candidates John Tory and Olivia Chow.
Earlier on Friday, two key strategists who worked on the campaigns for Karen Stintz and David Soknacki threw their support behind Tory.
Tory welcomed Stintz’s campaign chair Paul Brown and Soknacki’s adviser Gordon Chong outside city hall Friday morning, but did not specify the exact roles they will play on his campaign.
“To me this is important evidence of the fact that we are gaining momentum and that we are gaining new people to our cause to bring the city together and to create one Toronto,” Tory said. “I am just very happy to have them show this gesture of confidence in me, our campaign and perhaps more importantly what this campaign is about.”
Chong, a former councillor, was a member of Mayor Rob Ford’s transition team when he was elected in 2010 and authored a 2012 report on how to fund transit expansion in Toronto titled “Toronto Transit: Back on Track.”
In that report, Chong advocated parking taxes or levies and a special regional sales tax to pay for new infrastructure. On Friday, however, he told reporters that he believes Tory can in fact follow through on his SmartTrack proposal using Tax Increment Financing.
Under TIF, a government borrows money to fund the cost of a project and then pays it back using additional tax revenue generated by higher property values and increased development.
Fellow mayoral candidate Olivia Chow has criticized Tory for promising to fund the entirety of the city’s $2.5 billion share of SmartTrack using TIF, calling it unrealistic.
“What I know about TIF now is that over 40 states have done it and it works,” Chong said. “There are some failures like anything, but the successes outnumber the failures and I believe it can be done.”
Chow slams planned subway extension
Elsewhere on the campaign trail Friday, Chow held a press conference in Scarborough to reiterate her proposal to scrap a planned subway extension and revert to a previously approved seven-stop LRT for the area.
“A subway is a lot more expensive to operate and requires a certain number of passengers, so you are talking about $34 million in (additional) operating costs each year. We already see that in the Sheppard subway, which we are continuing to have to subsidize because not that many people use it,” she said. “I am here today to tell you that the light rail is a better solution. It means that Scarborough residents will get the transit now and that no one will be left behind.”
Later today, both Chow and Tory will participate in a lunncheon debate hosted by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. The candidates will also participate in a ProudTOvote debate at Ryerson University at 5:30 p.m. Doug Ford is not expected to participate in either debate.
