All 44 city councillors will be keeping their jobs for now.
They voted 25 to 13 in favour of rejecting a petition asking them to cut council in half.
Mayor Rob Ford has been very passionate about the issue, he even campaigned on it.
The petition was brought forward by the Toronto Taxpayer’s Coalition to reduce the size of council to 25. The group wanted the city’s wards to reflect provincial and federal ridings.
Mayor Rob Ford will once again have a chance to cut council in half Thursday.
Although it’s doubtful a majority of councillors would vote with Ford to cut the number of council seats, they’ll have to decide what to do with a petition from the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition that demands they reduce the number of councillors from 44 to 25 in time for next year’s election.
The city clerk recommended council either vote to cut the number of council wards to match the new 25 federal ridings in Toronto as the petition requests or to fight the coalition at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).
Toronto city councillors will have to earn their summer vacation.
The agenda for this week’s council meeting, the last until October, includes 281 separate items — 17 more than at any other meeting of Rob Ford’s tenure as mayor and more than at any other meeting since 2008.
The likely highlights:
This article discusses an all-candidates debate hosted by Toronto Taxpayers Coalition.
I was expecting a bare-knuckled, knock-em down, drag ‘em out rumble, fists flying and blood on the floor.
What I found was a courtly dance, with two neatly dressed gentlemen warily tiptoeing around each other, fearful of stepping on the other’s toes.
Councillor Peter Milczyn jogs north among the tidy lawns and two-storey homes of Lunness Road, zigzagging from one side to the next to knock on doors in this southwesterly slice of Etobicoke-Lakeshore.
Underlying his brisk, businesslike manner is a steely determination to win the Aug. 1 provincial by-election; he hands out Liberal-red campaign flyers and asks each resident in turn, “Can we put a sign on your lawn?”
Newstalk 1010′s Jerry Agar speaks to John Tory, who moderated an all candidates debate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore sponsored by Toronto Taxpayers Coalition the previous evening.
This article discusses an all-candidates debate hosted by Toronto Taxpayers Coalition.
Candidates vying to win the Etobicoke-Lakeshore byelection talked fiscal responsibility, accountability, employment and local transit in a cool and cordial debate Thursday night.
It’s the first time two Toronto councillors who are the front-runners in the race, Liberal Peter Milczyn and Progressive Conservative candidate Doug Holyday, have met in the campaign leading up to the byelection that is now less than three weeks away.
This article discusses an all-candidates debate hosted by Toronto Taxpayers Coalition.
The first all-candidates debate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore talked taxes, youth employment, health care, transit and leaves of absence from Toronto City Council.
Conservative candidate Doug Holyday is on leave from his post as deputy mayor to run in the Aug. 1 provincial byelection. Similarly, Liberal candidate Peter Milczyn is also on leave as Etobicoke-Lakeshore councillor for the duration of the summer byelection campaign. Both men have said they will forego their city pay until after the vote.
This article discusses an all-candidates debate hosted by Toronto Taxpayers Coalition.
It was part political debate, part three-ring circus.
Candidates vying to represent Etobicoke-Lakeshore in an upcoming byelection squared off for the first time Thursday night at a legion branch on Lake Shore Blvd. Newstalk 1010′s John Tory moderated the event.