A fledging municipal party just four years ago, the Toronto Party for a Better City is fielding 12 candidates for councillor in next month’s election.
And at least one — John Laforet running in Scarborough’s Ward 43 — has a good shot at knocking off the incumbent. Paul Ainslie, says president Stephen Thiele.
“He’s got an excellent chance,” he said Wednesday, noting that in three to four hours of canvassing recently they picked up 50-60 lawn sign locations in that ward.
Thiele says the party — created in the fall of 2006 — now has some 400 members.
The Toronto Party for a Better City recently made headlines over its decision to take 23 councillors to court for opting to pay the legal bills of two councillors, Giorgio Mammoliti and Adrian Heaps, while they were candidates in the 2006 election.
The court ruling — released July 19 — quashed the bylaw that made the legal payouts possible. But council decided at its last meeting to appeal the court decision, even though outside counsel, Alan Lenczner, recommended the appeal be “abandoned” because it was not likely to succeed.
Thiele said they have put together a policy platform that is “pretty basic.”
It calls for stopping the waste at City Hall, getting back to the city’s priorities and repealing both the personal vehicle and land transfer taxes.
“We think both are patently unfair,” he said.
They are not endorsing any particular candidate for mayor, he said, adding that some, however, have adopted planks of the Toronto Party’s platform such as repealing the personal vehicle tax.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/09/08/15285836.html
No comments:
Post a Comment