Chris Alexander has pulled out of the Toronto mayoral race.
A former cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, Alexander made the announcement that he is stopping his municipal campaign on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
Alexander was third in the polling, with opponents incumbent Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford consistently the top two.
Last week, Alexander sat down with Humber Et Cetera reporter Maryan Yalda to talk about his platform.
“Toronto’s a student city, it’s one of our main functions as a big metropolis,” he said.
“The city basically exists for students because they are studying to have the skills and education we need to build the society and the economy of the future,” Alexander said.
“I think young people just need to take a beat and think about what matters for the future. Young people have the biggest interest in ensuring the success of their city,” he said
Toronto is not meeting its full potential, Alexander said.
“The whole world was hit hard by the pandemic, it was particularly disruptive for cities, but I don’t think Toronto has bounced back,” he said.
Alexander said the city needs an energetic approach from the mayor, stating basic services like the TTC, or housing and public safety can be delivered better.
“One of the opportunities that I see for Toronto is to energetically reorient its economic future towards more reliable markets,” he said.
“The U.S. isn’t gonna go away but obviously it is not as reliable as we considered five years ago, so we need to think more seriously about Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America,” Alexander said.
“That takes leadership from everyone, including business community, educational institutions, but we need a mayor that’s focused on that too,” he said.
Alexander said if Chow had paid more attention, the size of the unhoused population would be smaller.
“There’s been a lack of leadership, from the mayor’s office but also from council, we could have made the TTC safer again, so that ridership bounced back faster,” he said.
Alexander said the current mayoral team chose not to do that.
Alexander said this election is about breaking complacency and replacing it with plans to drive the city forward and deliver better basic services.
“Housing is literally out of reach because we haven’t built that affordable band of housing,” he said.
“Market values have come down, but to increase property taxes as Olivia Chow has done while not building affordable, which she promised to do, it’s really inexcusable,” Alexander said.
Other cities have done it, Alexander said.
“There’s no other city in Canada that has a 10-year waiting list for affordable housing,” he said.
Alexander said Chow walked away from the TTC and safety issues.
“Forty per cent of people take the TTC, feel that it is unsafe, a huge number that we don’t measure don’t take the TTC because they feel it’s unsafe,” he said.
“She doesn’t even talk about that issue, her only policy with regard to public transit is to reduce fares for everyone which I consider a regressive policy,” Alexander said.
Alexander said Chow is going against what the TTC recommended by lowering the fare cap.
“It takes money away from the TTC at a time when revenue is extremely lacking. The TTC itself says there’s a $390 million budget deficit to start next year,” he said.
“Olivia Chow’s proposal would make that even worse without addressing the safety issues, reliability issues that we have,” Alexander said.
Before leaving the mayoral race, Alexander said his strategy for the TTC is different, making it safer by bringing in new revenue through fare changes, and then improving the reliability by investing in repairs.
Alexander said that ridership not being attracted back to the TTC even with new infrastructure means there’s something fundamentally wrong that will only be solved by a deeper set of actions from the mayor rather than a fare cap.
“Which is really in my view a populist ploy to give people a short-term sugar rush so that they vote for Olivia Chow, it does nothing to fix the TTC,” he said.
“The abdication of responsibility for the safety issue, is a crucial issue to this campaign, it’s one of the reasons why people should not give her another mandate and should choose someone with a plan,” he said.
Alexander said it is pivotal for the city to get this vote right.
“There are some politicians that are for show, and then there are some that get things done. Toronto needs someone who will get things done; I think it’s as simple as that,” Alexander said.
