Catch up on the Toronto mayoral byelection
Haven't paid any attention to the byelection to replace John Tory? Start here
There are Torontonians who have been glued to city hall politics since John Tory resigned and triggered a mayoral byelection in February — and there are Torontonians who haven't heard there's a byelection at all.
This story's for the latter group — and you should feel no shame about that because, for one thing, the sun's finally out again and life's already hectic enough in this city.
Friday is the last chance for would-be leaders to join the 79-candidate deep competition. CBC Toronto will be ramping up its coverage in the coming weeks once the final field is set.
Read on for a breakdown of the race so far and where it's going as the June 26 byelection nears.
There's an election? Why haven't I seen any lawn signs?
The City of Toronto's rules state that election signs can't go up until June 1.
Some have also asked for a full list of mayoral debates. While there's work underway to organize debates, many are on hold until the final list of candidates is in.
Here's the city website where you can find the full list of candidates and, for some, their campaign material.
What have been the dominant issues of the campaign?
CBC Toronto's municipal affairs reporter Shawn Jeffords has been filing a weekly breakdown for just over a month. Here are his files to help you catch up (although, he once used "whopping" to describe the field when it was at just 46 candidates, so shows what he knows.)
Week 1: Political scientists predicted a fiery campaign and laid out what it'll take to win.
Week 2: Candidates sparred over cell service on the TTC amid safety concerns on the transit system.
Week 3: Ontario Place and the Science Centre became the hot topic.
Week 5: Congestion, construction and how the [expletive deleted] Torontonians are supposed to get around.
Have the candidates published platforms?
Most of the highest-profile candidates in the race haven't released full platforms, and are instead releasing policies plank-by-plank.
That said, the city doesn't require candidates to produce full platforms, let alone plans with price tags attached.
This can make researching who to vote for tricky, but CBC Toronto will be releasing some tools to help compare candidates in the weeks to come.
79 candidates. Can't we have ranked ballots?
Nope. Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government passed legislation during the COVID-19 pandemic that bars municipalities from using ranked balloting in elections.
Why does that matter? Well, you can watch Dave Meslin, an advocate for such reforms, explain it in the video below.
In the context of this election, both progressive and conservative voters have multiple options to choose from. That could change, but at this point voters may wind up voting strategically — rather than for their preferred candidate — to ensure their political views are represented in the mayor's office.
What do you think the next mayor should fix?
With such a huge range of candidates, it will be near impossible to cover every issue that pops up and there are plenty that we haven't touched on yet but will in the future — climate change and food insecurity both jump to mind.
We want to hear from you.
Let us know about your top issue and whether or not you'd like to speak with CBC Toronto about it by using the form below:
If there isn't a burning issue on your mind but you still have a question about the byelection, please send us an email at [email protected]
If you have news tips related to the campaign you can reach us at [email protected].
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