SARAH THOMSON, Publisher of Women’s Post
Stop the spending, altogether: “I would meet with all department heads and discuss the changes we could make to the culture of spending. I believe it’s important to give people the option of change.”
Halt the city hall hiring: “Fifty per cent of our workforce will be over the age of 50 in five years. I think we have to slowly transition over from being so dependent on the public sector to being a little bit more dependent on the private.”
Toll the cars and talk transit: “We have to start implementing a funding model to get our transit construction underway. So that’s meeting with the toll road companies and getting a cost-benefit analysis done.”
ROB FORD, Ward 2 councillor
Can the car tax: “It’s just a cash grab. The car registration tax is penalizing everyone. It’s penalizing every driver in the city and it’s not necessary.”
Let the land tax lie down for good: “It’s hurting a lot of people. The land transfer tax is penalizing anyone and everyone who is buying homes in the city, and again it’s not necessary.”
Cut out some councillors: “We have 22 provincial representatives, we have 22 federal representatives, we have 22 school board representatives. Why do we need 44 municipal representatives when all we need is 22?”
GEORGE SMITHERMAN, Former MPP, Toronto Centre
Get the budget back in gear: “I would make myself a member of the city’s budget committee. The motivation here is that the city projects itself each year as broke and bankrupt. I’m not interested in that going forward.”
See subway succeed: “I’m very focused on what we can deliver by way of transportation in time for the Pan Am Games. For instance, getting the Spadina subway expansion to York University completed in time.” Put customer service in order, pronTO!: “This is about working with tens of thousands of civic employees to create a new sense of customer service delivery around a model I call PronTO. The TO is for Toronto.”
JOE PANTALONE, Deputy mayor
A transportation tête-à-tête: “I would quickly get in touch with Premier McGuinty and have a heart-to-heart discussion because transportation is the biggest problem facing not only Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, but Ontario.”
Get Toronto online and twittering: “Things like Internet voting for the coming election … also setting up a process of engaging Torontonians by using the newer information process, like social networking, etc.”
Up the employment: “Create more jobs in Toronto by using models that I have successfully led in the past. That’s the way we can guarantee a better future for Torontonians, to make sure we have job creation.”
