Mississauga’s Mayoral Election Rundown 2
Published October 8, 2014 at 12:30 pm
October 8, 2014
Believe it or not, the mayoral election is creeping ever closer. In fact, it’s a mere 20 days away — that means you have less than three weeks to decide who you’re going to vote for on October 27.
As we’ve said many times, this is a historic election for us. For the first time in many of your young lives, Hazel is not on the ballot. The candidates come from a swath of different backgrounds. Some candidates boast lengthy private sector backgrounds and others are long-term politicians. Some are comedian salesmen turned prospective politicians and others are young people who want to engage the tough-to-reach 18-24-year-old crowd. The two front-runners remain former city councilor, MP and MPP Steve Mahoney and city councilor Bonnie Crombie.
In fact, a recent Forum Research poll showed Mahoney edging out Crombie with a four per cent lead, holding steady at 40 per cent support to Crombie’s 36. It’s a bigger lead than what he had a month ago, but it’s certainly not decisive. The same poll showed that 15 per cent of voters are undecided and nine per cent are supporting business-minded candidate Stephen King.
As in any election, there have been robust debates. Nine candidates, including Steve Mahoney, Bonnie Crombie, Scott Chapman, Kevin Jackal Johnston, Masood Khan, Stephen King, Derek Ramkissoon, Andrew Seitz and Grant Isaac, recently attended the #SaugaSpeaks: A Mayoral Forum on Youth at UTM. The debate, which was facilitated by a 16-year-old(!) journalist named Ryan Rocca, wasn’t quite as dramatic as the arts and culture debate in September, but it generated some heated discussion and pretty good suggestions for helping the city’s youth.
Videos
During the debate, Mahoney — who rightfully said that youth homelessness is more a problem of dysfunctional families, addiction and mental illness than a simple lack of opportunity or resources — said he would aim to help curb youth unemployment by creating 1,500 municipal co-op placements. Crombie talked about offering the private sector incentives to hire more youths while also focusing on creating more internship, training and co-op programs.
Fatherly candidate Masood Khan talked about encouraging kids to pursue higher education. Equally fatherly candidate Derek Ramkissoon talked about keeping youths busy and occupied, while genuinely youthful candidate Andrew Seitz discussed the necessity of encouraging young people to build worker-run co-ops. Even more youthful candidate Scott Chapman said that in order for youths to get to work, they need to be able to get around the city — something made more challenging by the high price of public transportation.
You can see a pretty good rundown here.
Speaking of public transportation, both Crombie and Mahoney have released their transit plans. You can see Crombie’s here and Mahoney’s (along with his entire platform) here.
There has also been the reticent controversies, with Mahoney having to remove an ad that the mayor’s office thought looked like an unofficial endorsement from Hazel (Mahoney denied that he was suggesting Hazel was endorsing him).
Mahoney has also launched a counterattack against what he calls Crombie’s negative attacks by introducing the website www.therealsteve.ca. Mahoney has also managed to accumulate more endorsements, the full list of which can be seen here.
For those who want to vote early, advanced polls are open from now until Oct. 11.
Get to know the mayoral candidates.
Check out video interviews and Q&A’s of all the mayoral candidates that have chosen to do so.
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