Torontonians will elect a new mayor, the city’s 66th, on Monday, June 26. in a byelection made necessary by the surprise resignation of John Tory in February. With 102 names on the ballot—including a pet dog—the choice for voters can be confusing, but The CJN Daily‘s political panel is here to break down the issues and evaluate the frontrunners.

In the days leading up to the vote, it’s Olivia Chow’s election to lose. The former NDP MP and city councillor has previously run unsuccessfully for mayor before, but she holds a significant lead over the man polling second in most polls, Mark Saunders, a former Toronto police chief who has run unsuccessfully for the Ontario Conservatives. Trailing those two in third-place: Anthony Furey, a former newspaper columnist; Anna Bailaõ, a former city councillor and ally of ex-mayor Tory; and Josh Matlow, a sitting councillor and member of the Jewish community.

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Stephen Adler, senior director of public affairs at National Public Relations; Sophia Hershfield, The CJN’s “Critical Kvetching” columnist; and Josh Lieblein, The CJN’s “Doorstep Postings” columnist.

Read more

• Read Lieblein’s “Doorstep Postings” columns on some of the candidates running for mayor in Toronto in The CJN, including Josh Matlow, Mark Saunders, Anna Bailaõ, Brad Bradford, Anthony Furey and Rob Davis
• Read more about Ben Carr, who won Monday’s federal byelection in his late dad Jim Carr’s riding of Winnipeg South Centre, in The CJN
• How to vote in the Toronto mayor byelection June 26, 2023

Transcript

MUSIC

Anthony Furey: I know safety is such a concern for the Jewish community. When I pledge to hire 500 more police officers that’ll create a more visible police presence, including in the Jewish community, I know that the Jewish community

Ellin Bessner:

That’s what it sounded like at the Walk For Israel parade in Toronto on Victoria Day weekend, as I interviewed some of the leading candidates who want to be Toronto’s next mayor. The byelection is this coming Monday, triggered by the surprise resignation in February of long-time leader John Tory after news of his illicit affair with a staffer became public. Olivia Chow is considered to be the front runner to replace him. And although she wasn’t there on the day, her main challengers said all the right things on Jewish issues, such as boosting security and fighting antisemitism.

Ana Bailao: I’ve been hearing concerns about affordability quite a bit. Affordable housing is still a major issue for everybody, and I think all the communities across our city are talking about that. Obviously, the rise in antisemitism is always something that concerns the community.

Brad Bradford: We always have to be vigilant. And the rise of antisemitism in the city is, of course, deeply concerning to me and the Jewish community. And as mayor, I will do everything I can to stop it.

Josh Matlow: I think we all need to understand that anti-Jewish hate and anti-Jewish incidents are not only growing at alarming rates, but the Jewish community is the top target of hate in our city.

Ellin Bessner: But whether it’s Olivia Chow or her challengers, including the leading Jewish candidate, councillor Josh Matlow, our insiders say it’ll all come down to who can get their supporters to actually go out and vote. Because ever since Mayor Rob Ford died, voter turnout for the last few municipal elections has been plummeting. And it should be a high stakes decision for Canada’s biggest city. Whoever wins will have to tackle a pile of key issues, including the soaring cost of rent, skyrocketing housing prices, forcing people to leave the city, the random crime on the transit system that’s been scaring riders away since COVID and the terrible traffic gridlock.

Josh Lieblein: The tenor and the tone of elections is getting a lot dumber, and people are not talking about the issues and not thinking about solving problems anywhere close to as much as they need to.

Ellin Bessner (B):

I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Wednesday, June the 21st, 2023. Welcome to the CJN Daily, a podcast of the Canadian Jewish news sponsored by Metropia. If the polls are right, Toronto is poised to elect its first Asian Canadian woman as mayor. Olivia Chow is a longstanding figure in Toronto and federal politics. She’s an ex city councillor, a former NDP MP, and she’s also the widow of the late federal NDP leader Jack Layton. But it’s an extremely crowded field. There are literally 102 candidates running. One is actually a pet dog, and I’m not making this up. There’s Meir Strauss, a student from the large Jewish high school, TannenbaumChat running. We also have Gordon Cohen, a real estate professional with no experience in city politics. They’re likely to get very few votes. And then there’s Jewish councillor Josh Matlow. He’s in the top five at the moment. There have been three Jewish mayors of Toronto in history Nathan Phillips, Phil Givens and Mel Lastman. Mostly, though, Toronto’s 65 mayors have been white men and Protestants. Joining me now for their insiders look at the mayoralty race are Stephen Adler, a political strategist with National Public Relations, Sophia Hirschfield, a graduate student at York University and a CJN columnist, and Josh Lieblein, The CJN’s “Doorstep Postings” columnist.

Ellin Bessner”

Well, it’s important election. It’s the biggest city in Canada with the fourth largest city in North America, and does anyone care? That was the title of one of your columns, Steven, recently for National Public Relations Toronto is having an election, but does anybody care? So, quickly, I’m going to give you each a minute or so. Stephen, you coined the phrase, so I’ll start with you. What are the numbers telling us?

Stephen Adler: So only 29% turned out to vote in November, but we had the highest advanced poll turnout that we’ve had in a couple of elections that ended last week. I think people are starting to care. I think that this whole election will be based on identifying vote and getting voters out, period, full stop. And hopefully more people will care.

Ellin Bessner: Now, you said November. We should just mention that that was the last round of municipal elections in the whole province, and that’s when John Tory came in for a third term, soon to be out. Sofia, do you want to sort of join in on “Does anybody care?” in your circles from where you’re seeing, what are people talking about?

Sophia Hershfield: I think, unfortunately, not enough people care about municipal politics in general, which is heartbreaking to me because municipal politics is so important and we have so much power to shape the future of the cities where we live. But I have noticed that in this election in general, I’ve noticed more young people kind of maybe showing some interest, excitement than before. So I’m hoping that at the very least, the young person voter turnout will be a little bit up from last time, hopefully overall voter turnout as well.

Ellin Bessner: And Josh, what are you seeing from the rural area of the province?

Josh Lieblein: Well, I mean, I’m all over been all over the province and I hear in people all over the province that are talking about the Toronto mayor election, they’re asking me about it and they’re asking me the same question, does anybody care? And if you’re interested in politics, if you care what’s going to be happening in elections going forward, I don’t think you’re going to see that big of a turnout like Steve said. And I do think agreeing with Sophie, that not a lot of people are as interested, but more people are cluing in. And this is going to mean something for bigger, higher stakes elections going forward, like the federal election, or for provincial elections going forward, like, is Brad Bradford going to be picked up as the leader of the opposition on Council? For example, what does this mean for Ana Bailao in her campaign, which has been about talking about labor and unions and putting them more on the conservative side of things? What does this mean for Josh Matlow and him galvanizing opposition to the Toronto Science Center? So I don’t think any election is a complete wash, no matter how many people are paying attention or not. I think that you look at these as data points and you look at them as trends, as what’s going forward for our country and people. For example, if you tried this particular strategy in Toronto and people just tuned you out and Anthony Furey did better than some of the other people on the ballot, what does that mean? What does that say? And what do people at the federal level take away from that?

Ellin Bessner: Okay, so on that point, you mentioned some of the names of the front runners. So let’s jump right in. Latest polling shows that none of the people you mentioned is supposed to win the election. So Stephen, back to you. Who are the main top three people that are supposed to win, and what do we know about them?

Stephen Adler: So, Olivia Chow, long time city councillor, then became a federal MP. She won the race for the support of Progress Toronto. Progress Toronto is the NDP’s municipal arm, for lack of better way of putting it. The biggest shock with Olivia getting the Progress Toronto support is that Josh Matlow did not get the support. Josh had been, for the last three terms, the anti-establishment councillor, and he did not get the support of Progress Toronto. Ana Bailao is a former Deputy Mayor of the city, three or four term councillor. She was Chair of Planning and Housing Committee. She is one of the centrist candidates who people thought would get votes from the left, the centre, and the right. Brad Bradford is in his second term at council. He is a planner by profession and he is a good councillor. The thought with Brad is he was going to run in three years, not now. Of note, Brad’s campaign is full of Liberals and Conservatives, and Brad’s mother is a Liberal MP in Ottawa, which I always find kind of interesting with regards to the funding coming fights with Ottawa. Josh Mallow: former School Trustee, current city councillor. I’m shocked that his numbers are not higher than they are. A lot of the issues he’s been talking about are issues that he’s been talking about for six, seven years. And then we have two more. Mark Saunders, well known former police chief, but was defeated less than a year ago when he ran provincially for Doug Ford’s Conservatives. And Anthony Furey. Great columnist. Great reporter from The Sun, has great ideas. But the real issue with the candidates is not just can they win the mayoral election, it’s can they find the votes around the council table. Thirteen to get a motion passed, nine to prevent the veto by the rest of council. Because remember, we all talk about these strong mayor powers, they’re limited in scope and use and what they can be used for. And even with strong mayor powers, two thirds of councillors can veto it. So when you look at Mark Saunders, Anthony Furey, Anna Bailao, Brad Bradford, Josh Matlow and Olivia Chow, who can get the 13 votes around the council table to get things done and the nine votes to prevent the veto being used.

Ellin Bessner: So who do you think? Let’s go to Sofia.

Sophia Hershfield: I mean, I can say both who I’m hoping for and who I genuinely think it will be is Olivia Chow. I do think I’ve heard just more young people being excited with this election, whereas I remember last election a lot of people felt like there was just sort of same old, same old when it came to Toronto politics. So I think because there’s no incumbent this time around, people are really excited and voting for change and I think that there is a good chance that that will reflect in terms of the results of who was elected.

Ellin Bessner: So you think she’s the one you want, plus you think she’s the one that’s going to win? I thought there was going to be a second name, but it’s one and the same.

Sophia Hershfield: Yes. I mean, maybe I’m just being optimistic, but yeah, both my own hopes, but also what I think the results will actually be.

Ellin Bessner: But Josh, we just heard about Olivia Chow. She came in third behind John Tory, Doug Ford. I mean, she’s two, three strikes and you’re out already.

Joshua Lieblein: Well, you would think so, but when you look at some of the campaigns that some of the other candidates have won, have waged. Brad Bradford has just been dunked on relentlessly all the way through this campaign. People have been making fun of his name since the jump. A week or so ago he had a new baby and people started dunking on him for using the kid as a prop. It has been painful for someone to be outside these campaigns to watch some guy like Brad Bradford, who is a good guy, a nice guy, who I like him. But whoever’s running his campaign has just basically thought that by having him show up in a bunch of parks, eat a bunch of Jamaican beef patties and swig down a bunch of beers and talk about policy when he can, that this was going to get people to like him, and it didn’t. And I’ve seen a lot of these cringey, let’s-make-the=Conservative-more- relatable type of campaigns. You might remember something like that when Erin O’Toole was running as leader.

Ellin Bessner: Yeah, he rolled up his sleeves and was in a lumberjack shirt very similar.

Josh Lieblein: And I can tell you that Ana Bailao the main choice of my Mom because she likes her, but by herself, the fact that she was looked at as one of John Tory’s allies before she stepped off of council, that really hurt her, and she wasn’t able to get around that. Mark Saunders wasn’t able to get over the idea that maybe he didn’t do as much to fight the serial killer in the Church in Wellesley Street area. And there’s a whole issue with him and the (murder of Barry and Honey) Shermans that never really got brought up on this campaign.

Ellin Bessner: Two major failures in policing, one with the gay community, one with the Jewish community and philanthropy community. There’s that whole George Floyd thing that’s still hanging over. So in the young progressive world, I don’t know how well that plays.

Josh Lieblein: And just before we go back to Sophie on that, to bring it back to Olivia Chow, she’s been off of council for all of that. She’s not attached to John Tory in any way. She ran against John Tory. She has a name recognition going forward, and she certainly has more recognition and a better outlook. She’s more respected and known than any of the people who are running. And she has the most name recognition. That’s a big help.

Ellin Bessner: And the Layton name, nobody’s mentioned the late Jack Layton name, but that is a.

Josh Lieblein: I was getting to that. And also the fact that she’s respected enough by the Left. She has the Left lane pretty much to herself. Except for Josh Matlow, who’s had, I mean, Josh, he’s always willing to talk to us, but Josh has made a lot of enemies and he’s not as well liked on council. And even he would admit that there was a vote to sort of censure him before back around when Pessach was happening, an ethics violation.

Ellin Bessner: which he beat.

Josh Lieblein: He did beat that. But his hands are not exactly clean and Olivia’s are. So that’s really played to her strengths this time around.

Ellin Bessner: Okay, so those are the main candidates, but you mentioned some of the issues that are super important. I mean, we are The Canadian Jewish News, and so I always look at things, is this good for the Jews? What are the Jewish issues? But I don’t know if this particular election has very many. In fact, I think the issues are what, Steven? Affordability. Housing, poverty, transit, traffic chaos, safety. Those are just things that everybody cares about.

Stephen Adler: I actually think the biggest issue Toronto has is how are they going to pay for things moving into the future. And we can talk about property taxes need to be raised, but Toronto is the only major jurisdiction that the majority of the funny of the transit system comes from the fare box. We get no federal money and no provincial money when ridership is down 30% of what it used to be, pre COVID the subway cars still run. And so that’s where a big deficit has come from when it comes to affordable housing. It’s not just a city of Toronto issue, it is a national issue. Toronto does have the municipal land transfer tax that other jurisdictions don’t have. But one of the biggest issues we’re having on affordability is people aren’t qualifying for mortgages. The stress test is such that those who can afford to buy the home don’t qualify for the mortgage to close the transaction. Affordable housing is something different. Affordable housing is not a 5000 being reduced to 4000, calling it affordable. Affordable housing could be a 1000 square foot dollar square foot unit based on rent geared to income. If all of the affordable housing money that the federal and the provincial governments allocate was given just Toronto, we would not solve the problem. So those are the really big issues. Whoever the next mayor is needs to find a way to increase services, keep the trains running, make the city safer, and at the same time not bankrupt the people living in it because there is not an endless supply of money.

Ellin Bessner: Go back to that question of rent and place to live. My son, I’m just going to say he is renting downtown Toronto. It’s over $2,000 a month for a basement apartment with no air conditioning, there’s no laundry facilities, he has bees that are buzzing into the house. That’s a whole other issue and he can barely afford it. And we’re helping him. My kids are not going to be able to afford an actual house. For Jewish families, their kids are moving out, they’re moving to Innisfil, they’re moving to Barrie, they’re moving all the way to smaller towns because they can’t be in the city. And therefore there’s that whole issue of where do you go for Friday night dinner, where do you go to synagogue? All the services that are already there, they’re not going to be sustained because the younger people are not there. This is an issue I’ve heard that is affecting families in the Jewish community as well as other. Do you want to talk about that?

Sophia Hershfield: Yeah, of course. I mean, definitely as someone who is also renting in Toronto at this moment and has so little hope about the possibility of actually ever owning property in this city, I absolutely believe that both affordable housing and housing affordability are two of the key issues in this election. I have a lot of friends who are in very similar positions who are paying probably 75% of their monthly income is going straight to rent, and that’s it. And they’re mostly living in not the most squalor conditions. There are worse, but definitely not worth $2,000. And it’s definitely a huge issue. I just walking and biking around the city whenever I see For Sale signs on houses, they all say perfect investment opportunity. They’re not even bothering to try and market houses to anyone who isn’t already a homeowner and someone who has real estate. And I think that’s very indicative of just how bad it is for renters these days. And I do think it is causing a lot of sprawl, specifically with the Jewish community and not being able to have those same kinds of community hubs as we used to be able to have, but just with our city in general. And I do think that’s really bad for some of the other issues that we’ve brought up. Like issues of you mentioned crazy traffic, transit issues, all of that stuff. The sprawl and the spread and the way that people are basically fleeing further and further to edges of the Greater Toronto Area just to be able to afford to live is definitely causing huge problems for the city. And I think looking just at John Tory’s last property tax hike, it was still less than inflation. I do think there is still a decent amount of wiggle room within the property taxes that hopefully will not bankrupt those homeowners that we have here in Toronto, but will make things a bit easier to provide services for the cities. But I do really think that affordability and housing is kind of one of the central issues because that also goes into crime, that also goes into issues of safety, and that’s kind of the key that spills over into everything else that’s coming up in this election.

Ellin Bessner: Public transit, of course, people were getting stabbed and killed, 16-year-old kids on the TTC, on the subway. So Josh, what about your views? What are the key things that you’re hearing?

Joshua Lieblein: I mean, you’re talking to a guy who has basically fled Toronto, got married and moved out of the city, and you see that’s why you have me coming from a different place every time you talk to me. So I’m already someone who has to commute in. And when I come in, all I hear about are, well, Bradford is trying to make transit and housing and rent an issue. And for that he gets mocked. He said he didn’t want people to go to Hamilton or Newmarket, and he got dragged for that. And then you have Mark Saunders trying to make crime an issue and getting nailed for that. So every time one of these people try to talk about one of the issues, every time we know there are problems in the city of Toronto, but every time one of the candidates tries to score a point on Olivia and try to get it to make her wear it, it’s not working. So everyone knows that there are problems with this election. For a while it was about what are we going to do about the Ontario Science Centre? And that’s what everyone was caring about. So once again, we have an election and instead of talking about solutions to problems, we are getting upset about things that are sort of beside the point. None of these discussions are going to make things better for younger people like myself. It’s not going to entice myself, my wife to come back to Toronto.

Ellin Bessner: What about the Science Centre? Let’s talk about that. People who are not in Toronto or even southern Ontario might not know. Stephen, can you quickly do the elevator 30 second thing to explain to our listeners outside of Toronto why that is an issue now?

Stephen Adler: The issue is that one of the higher order transit lines called the Ontario Line will go through what is now the Ontario Science Centre lands and through to Ontario Place. There has been talk for a long time. It is not a new discussion based on this selection whether to renovate the Science Centre property, move the Science Centre elsewhere. What to do? What we have seen in the last couple of months is a discussion turning around that if you take the facility out of its current location, it will negatively impact the community around it. I don’t know if it will or won’t.

Stephen Adler (G): With regards to Ontario Place, another hot button issue. The Ontario Place has been empty for ten years. I’m loving the fact that everybody cares about what to do with Ontario Place in 2023. We actually had a one or two Walks with Israel ended at Ontario Place because it was empty. So to put in perspective: the May long weekend, it’s warm. It is perfect time for people of Ontario to use an outdoor family venue. So those are the issues that are very important to the future of the city. But as Josh said, people are rallying around them rather than maybe talking about, and I keep coming back to this, who can get the votes on council, who can get things done? And how does Sophia buy a house in Toronto and how does Josh and his wife get back? Well, the one thing the city of Toronto could do for homeowners is get rid of the municipal land transfer tax. But then they have to come up with a billion dollars because in Toronto you pay a provincial land transfer tax and a municipal one. Most people aren’t aware of the close to a billion dollars that comes in for that.

Ellin Bessner: We have got to talk about this ballot because I don’t know any other city’s council’s ballots, what they look like, but it’s insane that you have 102 candidates for mayor. The ballot is like the size of the side of someone’s fridge. Can you discuss what this shows you? Is this a bad thing? Is this good for democracy? Is this that nobody really is going to have enough votes? Like, I don’t know, pick number 44. He has the coolest signs or whatever.

Josh Lieblein: All about Mr. Gong. I mean, I’ve interviewed a few of these candidates who are what you would call, quote unquote, fringe candidates, and they’re all well-meaning people. Their ideas are their hearts are in the right place. If you ask them what they plan to do, things go off the rails fairly quickly because we have lots of people who don’t really know what being a mayor of Toronto is all about. But they think because John Tory is not mayor anymore and because Olivia Chow, well, she didn’t do very well last time, that I have just as much as chance of as anybody else, and they are sometimes there to put forward some pet issues or just get noticed. And others like Mr. Gong or number 44, you can dig into him, his background and see what sort of things he’s been up to and you can ask where a lot of his money is coming from. So you have people who are in this election who are funded by places that you don’t even know, where you don’t even know exactly where all the money is coming from.

Ellin Bessner: Are you referring to the current inquiry that is into Chinese offshore money?

Josh Lieblein: That’s not, well, I’m trying to choose my words very carefully because not many people really know a lot of where Mr. Gong’s money is coming in. And he’s not going to get a lot of votes in the Jewish community or any votes. Regardless, I bring him up as an example of a person who’s running who might have to be spending a lot of money on his signs and his billboards and there might have to be a pretty big audit after that. But for a lot of people, it’s just a free for all.

Ellin Bessner: But it’s not going to split the votes? Like, not split, but take away votes from the main candidates that you mentioned, like Olivia?

Josh Lieblein: You have to actually have a sophisticated– Steve talked about getting out the vote– getting out the vote is a sophisticated operation. You have people across the city who are going to find your votes. You have to get your people who are voting for you to the ballot box and vote for you. That requires an army of people. And I don’t know how much money these people have left to spend on something like this, but Olivia Chow and all the main candidates are going to have people walking all around getting this done and calling people, making sure that the people who said they were going to vote are actually getting to the ballot box. You don’t have a proper GOTV operation. What are you even doing?

Ellin Bessner: GOTV Get out the vote. That’s a very important thing. But in terms of, Josh, the fringe candidates, you also interviewed one. He’s a Jewish kid from high school Meir for mayor.

You’ve got to talk to us about him for about 30 seconds for our listeners who haven’t read your amazing interview with him.

Joshua Lieblein: Okay, well, I’m going to indulge myself. I liked interviewing Meir because it was like going back two decades and because I was a CHAT kid like Meir and I have the same sense of humour as Meir. So it’s kind of like asking him what he would do with all the teams across Canada and amalgamating them into one, if he’s going to amalgamate the entire province of Ontario. This kid is just having a good time and he’s probably not going to get more than a handful of votes. I don’t even know if his own family is going to vote for him, but that’s not the point. He’s out there, he’s having a good time, and like I said, a lot of these people are just doing something to get their names out there. They may go on to something more or may or this might be a launching point for him as like the next, I don’t know, Jesse Brown or he might get himself a show on CBC or something. We don’t really know what’s going to happen. The clout that you get and the Instagram likes and all the social media buzz that you generate running for this thing, it’s yours to do whatever you want with it, and that’s really up to you.

Ellin Bessner: Okay, fair enough. One of the things we’ve not talked about is security in the Jewish community and the Al Quds Day parade, which we’ve asked a lot of the candidates what they would do about this parade, which happens every April 25 or something usually. I just want to bring that up. Let’s ask Sophie about this.

Sophie Hershfield: Yeah, for sure. I’m not going to lie, the thought of any kind of outlawing of protest and speech is very scary to me. And I know that a lot of Jewish folks have raised concern about this event, but I really am afraid of what happens when we kind of dive into the territory of preventing an event like this from happening in the first place. I think there’s a lot of very dangerous roads that we can go down where things are dangerous, just as dangerous for us in the Jewish community as they are for others when we try and kind of put municipal control on who can have what protests and marches they want to have. So that’s a bit of my concern on the Al Quds Day is just yeah, I would be very hesitant to say that this is something that should be banned, that this is something that should be outright, altogether, completely taken off. And I honestly think that would probably make the problem a lot worse in the long run in terms of Jewish safety, in terms of community relations. And so I think there are a lot of things that we can do to make this problem better. But definitely the question of outlawing is a non-starter for me personally.

Ellin: All right.

Stephen Adler: I’d like to see the current rules enforced. And so before we get into what more should be done, if you’re having a rally or a protest on streets, there are permits required to do it. If there aren’t permits available, the police should be stopping it. I have never seen mainly Liberals and Conservatives, but yes, the NDP as well, unanimously condemn something around City Hall or at Queen’s Park after the fact, not during or before. So I would just love to see, are the current rules being enforced, yes or no? And if the answer to that is the current rules are not being enforced, why aren’t they? And then we can get into the discussion of what’s next. I remember the pass-the-hot-potato discussion of, well, it’s not really Queen’s Park. You see, this area of the grounds that we call the Ontario legislature is a long-term lease from U of T. And this North Park is actually the city of Toronto. The legislature is actually just the ring of the parking lot and the main legislative building. So don’t speak to us, speak to someone else. The other thing you raised, Ellin, was about security of our synagogues, right?

Ellin Bessner: Because the Jewish community just got targeted. The Toronto police statistics came out, Josh, I’m sure you saw it, that the Jewish community is the number one target for hate crimes in the city, more than the Black community, more than LGBTQ. Again, for the second or third or

fifth year in a row.

Stephen Adler: 10th.

Josh Lieblein: With respect to Al Quds, a couple of questions I have are like, I have spoken to every major mayoral candidate except for Olivia Chow, and I’ve tried to talk to her about Al Quds and everything else. So I don’t really know where she stands with it. So that’s something I would really like to know. Second of all, with respect to the parade itself, it’s really gone down in terms of number of people coming out. And this time, CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs even really put out a statement about it this year. I missed it, I think. And as far as where it is, it’s not even on the Queen’s Park lawn anymore. It’s been moved out to one of the consulates, I think the US consulate.

Ellin Bessner: that’s on University Avenue.

Joshua Lieblein: But I will say that on the issue of Jewish security, you have candidates like Anthony Furey, who I started off talking about, and Anthony Furey has put forward that very aggressive, conservative, unapologetic, talking about how people who, if you throw a brick through a synagogue window, you will go to jail. And that has been moving the needle for him. And to bring it back to where I started to talk about what is the trend going forward if Anthony Furey does better than a lot of the acceptable conservative candidates with his crazy campaign that’s backed by Jordan Peterson and a bunch of other controversial online folks, then obviously the conservatives in this country are going to go more towards candidates like that who are going to talk tough and say to Olivia Chow, you’re too soft on crime. You’re too soft on Jewish security. And they’re going to call him out as much as you can in the Toronto mayor election and be more aggressive there. So those types of questions for Olivia Chow are not going to go away just because she’s mayor, which I do think she will be, but you can expect to see those more aggressive online attacks. They’ll see more back and forth and more culture war stuff. And that’s where I think we’re going to go after this election is over.

Stephen Adler: So I loved Anthony Furey’s comments about “If you throw a stone through a synagogue window, what the charges should be.” That’s provincial or federal jurisdiction, not municipal jurisdiction. And so that’s part of the problem right there. You’re not arrested under the City of Toronto act. You’re arrested either under the Criminal Code of Canada and at times provincial legislation with regards to keeping our institution safer. The original security infrastructure pilot project brought in by, I want to say Prime Minister Martin, continued by Prime Minister Harper after, was I think there was an error made in the pilot project. It was for hard costs, doors, alarms, cameras. It was not for soft costs, security guards, things like that. I think that has come back to be a bit of an issue.

Ellin Bessner: It is now, though, and Ontario has now this year jumped in with money for security training, security guards, and the SIP program you just mentioned under Marco Mendicino, who may or may not be in office by the time this runs. He also changed it for soft costs.

Stephen Adler: Correct. But we also have to remember, it is funding for vulnerable communities, not just for the Jewish community. And so I would like to see every synagogue, every place of worship, every community centre, every school and paid by other levels of government security to keep people safe. And I hope whoever the next mayor of Toronto is will debate that with the premier and the Prime Minister to get more funding.

Ellin Bessner: We’re going to wrap it up. It’s been really fascinating, but I’m going to let you go around one more time: is there anything that our listeners and voters in Toronto should know?

Sophie Hershfield: I guess the one thing that I would say is my kind of final thought in this, a lot of questions of safety, especially for the Jewish community. And just thinking about crime statistics in Toronto, in 2022, crime was up 18.9%, even though year after year the city council has had huge budget increases for the police in Toronto. Right now, their budget is 1.16 billion. And yet crime is still going up and up and up. So I guess my final tip going into the ballot box might just be thinking critically about what role police play in actually keeping our communities safe, especially our Jewish communities, and thinking about our city as a whole and how we can make it a better, happier place for everybody involved.

Stephen Adler: I’ll jump in. So, two thoughts. One, please vote. There’s an old saying: If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. And so I hope everybody votes. But also those who care about the election and the issues, I hope you don’t stop caring. At 12:01 in the morning on June 27, whoever’s elected mayor will be working with this council for the next three years. Three years is a long time to try to get things done. Our city has our province and our country. We have major issues we need to work on, and we need to find a way to work together. And I hope that the 101 candidates, including Molly the Dog, who may not be elected mayor the night of the 26th, continue play to play a role in our city. Because some of the ideas might be just soapboxing to get my name out there. A lot of them are really good ideas that council should look at and see what can be implemented so that in ten years from now, we’re not talking about Ellin, your son living in the basement apartment. Sophia, where you’re living. Josh, the fact that you’ve moved from west of Toronto to now maybe west of Manitoba, et cetera. We can talk about the city working.

Ellin Bessner: Josh, you can live in Sophia’s family’s house in Winnipeg. There you go. Go ahead.

Joshua Lieblein: I wish. I bet the Hershfield house is lovely, but I’m only licensed to practice in the province of Ontario, so I couldn’t make much money out in Winnipeg. As much as I’d like to. One of the things that has really upset me about this election is that it’s just become another exercise in partisanship. The next mayor is going to be elected by a tiny minority of people who believe, we’ve got to get Olivia Chow elected because she’s a progressive mayor, and we have a chance to finally get a progressive mayor and nothing else matters. Whether she’s actually going to use a strong mayor powers or not, or any of the great issues that Steve raised is not really an issue. It’s not really occurring to a lot of the people who are voting for because they just want a progressive mayor. And a lot of people on my side of the aisle, they just like, well, we got to stop Olivia Chow because she’s going to raise taxes. That’s been the tenor of it. So I don’t have a lot of realistic hope, but I hope that after this election, we are finally going to be thinking about ways to solve the problems that have been plaguing Toronto for decades now. Because unless we do, we’re just going to be back here talking about another election where whatever sort of thing will capture people’s imaginations for a couple of days. And we’re going to be going back to talking about taxes going up, taxes going down, more police officers, less police officers. We got to get more substantial.

Ellin Bessner: It’s very important what you said. Two last things to end. I’m just going to pull rank. Doug Ford said if they elect a lefty, it’ll be a disaster. And that was recently, even though he said he wasn’t going to get into partisanship or delve into giving his opinion. So it’ll be interesting to see if Olivia Chow does win, how she works with him, who is anathema to everything she stands for. And then the other thing is that I love that idea, Steve, and that you mentioned that those 102, even the dog candidates, wouldn’t that be an amazing thing if they all got appointed to a special nonpartisan committee and try to do what’s right for Toronto and point them to boards and ABCs and things like that?

I think you should coin it. It’s a great idea.

Stephen Adler: Thank you. Look, I think that the task is large. I think we will see whoever the mayor is able to work with the Premier and the Prime Minister. Remember that during COVID premier Ford and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke almost every night. Those who do not follow politics very closely would have been shocked that Chrystia Freeland and Doug Ford could find common ground. For Toronto to move forward, for Ontario to move forward, the big city mayors of Ontario need to work together with the Premier and the Prime Minister. But I’m looking forward to going on voting day and looking at the Megillat Esther in front of me and trying to figure out which one to vote for. And it’s going to be a fun night.

Ellin Bessner: All right, we got our Canadian Jewish angles in there. Listen, it was great to have you all and we’ll be in touch. Stephen Adler, Sophia Hershfield and Josh Lieblein. Thanks a lot for your comments and being on The CJN Daily. It’s been great to have you.

Sophia Hershfield: Thanks, everybody.

Stephen Adler: Thanks so much for having us.

Joshua Lieblein: Thanks, Ellin. Thanks, guys.

Ellin Bessner:

And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like. For this episode of The CJN Daily, sponsored by Metropia: Integrity, Community Quality and Customer Care.

You can find links in our show notes to Josh and Sophia’s columns to help you decide who to vote for. Today’s listener shout out goes to Adele Weinstein in Toronto. And speaking of byelections, we’ll end with a bit of what it sounded like in Winnipeg Monday night after Ben Carr won a seat for the Liberals in the House of Commons. It was his late father’s old riding. Jim Carr was a Federal Liberal cabinet minister who represented Winnipeg South Center for nearly eight years until he died of cancer in December. Thanks for listening to The CJN Daily.

Ben Carr: I’ve learned so much from the people of this riding since this journey began. To the people of Winnipeg South Centre, thank you for putting your faith in me to represent you in Ottawa. Lastly, to my Dad, I miss him every day. His smile, his voice, his energy and his optimism. I feel the void of his loss. Profoundly close.

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.